Manny Farber, 1917-2008: One of the liveliest, stroppiest and most influential film critics the medium ever knew, Manny Farber died in his sleep Sunday night at the age of 91. Before giving up criticism and teaching for an equally (if not more) accomplished painting career, Farber elevated popular conceptions of B-movies and other forsaken cinema in seminal contributions to The New Republic, Time, The Nation and ArtForum. His prose read almost three-dimensionally — decades' worth of proper nouns and principles, infinitely folding over and burrowing into each other, mimicking those subjects chronicled in his 1962 essay "Termite Art vs. White Elephant Art" (and later gathered in his classic anthology Negative Space): "Good work usually arises when the creators... seem to have no ambitions towards gilt culture but are involved in a kind of squandering-beaverish endeavor that isn’t anywhere or anything... It goes always forward eating its own boundaries, and, likely as not, leaves nothing in its path other than the signs of eager, industrious, unkempt activity." Ray Pride's lovingly assembled obit is a must-read today, as is Franklin Bruno's own Farber study from 2004 — no thumbs up or down around here, we're afraid, and no stars, Tomatometers or numbers. Just words, virtually all worth giving thanks for. [GreenCine Daily]