What It Takes   

PEOPLE INVARIABLY WANT to know one thing when they meet a movie critic, says Tampa Tribune film writer Bob Ross. What makes you qualified?
Like most movie reviewers, Ross has never made a motion picture, although he did spend a day recently as an extra on the set of Steven Soderbergh¨ks remake of "Ocean's Eleven."
"The answer is a., I got the job, and b., I can do it," Ross responds with a chuckle.
As most film critics would tell you, that's not far from the truth. While some movie reviewers studied film in college, where a few made amateur movies, the main qualifications seem to be writing ability and an intense interest in cinema. Having a director credit on a Hollywood smash is not required r¨¦sum¨¦ material.
Equally important: the perseverance to wait for a rare, rare job opening, and the willingness to write reviews part-time for smaller publications in the interim.
Mike Clark, senior film critic for USA Today since 1985, did all that and then some in a circuitous route to his prestigious post. Clark says he had the notion of becoming a movie critic since he was 6 years old, back in 1953. He wrote reviews in college, studied film at New York University and worked as programmer and then director of the American Film Institute Theater in Washington, D.C.
In between, in 1979, he worked briefly as the movie critic for the Detroit Free Press but left to take the AFI post.
In his jobs at the AFI, Clark saw hundreds of old films, broadening his knowledge and establishing his credibility while learning the tastes of audiences. When a position opened up at USA Today, he jumped at it. "It took me so long to get here that when I did I got down on my knees and said thanks," says Clark.
He didn't veer from his path, he says, because he liked movies and newspapers, too. "I always wrote," he says. "It seemed natural to me."
Ross also took a somewhat unusual detour en route to his job. But, in retrospect, that, too, makes sense.
He ran a video store.
"I got to see a lot of older movies," he explains, "and I got an idea of what people really like."