Hm… Sean Means says that Premiere magazine’s final issue will be in April. Supposedly, it will live on somewhere on the InterWeb, but I have a hunch that won’t ever amount to much.

Back in my usher-and-projectionist days at the multiplex, Premiere was one of a number of movie magazines the manager received every month. The back issues usually found their way into the booth, and not a few of them subsequently found their way into the Bennion Archive. Back then — this would be in the 1989/90/91 timeframe — it was a great mag for the “serious amateur” who was a bit more interested in the nuts and bolts of the industry than the average moviegoer, but not really obsessed enough to read Variety and the other hard-core trade journals. It featured behind-the-scenes stories that provided plenty of detail without getting too technical; criticism that intelligently explained why a given flick did or did not work, without the ivory-tower navel-gazing of academic criticism or the snark of the pop critics; and just enough photographic eye candy to keep you turning the pages.

I actually subscribed for a couple of years, but at some point, Premiere started changing, becoming glossier and more gossipy. It seemed to be on its way to becoming another Entertainment Weekly, which was (and still is) too superficial for my tastes, so I dropped it. I haven’t looked at Premiere in years… but I feel bad that it’s going away. I lost most of my back issues in the basement flood a year ago. And so another aspect of my younger days passes into the West…