Michael Sun

Michael Sun is a critic, essayist and editor from China and Australia. His writing on film, music and literature is regularly published in The Guardian, Esquire, ABC, Sydney Review of Books and Australian Book Review, among many others. Recently, he hosted The Guardian’s online culture podcast Saved for Later.

Your outlets: The Guardian, ABC, Esquire

Instagram: @michael.pdf

Website: michaelsun.com.au

Location: Sydney

Movie location I call home: Isabelle Huppert’s painfully tasteful apartment in Things to Come.

What was the film or experience that made you want to write about the screen?
I learnt to illegally torrent at age 12. The experience was religious. Downloading movies felt like microdosing heaven. (Obviously I was raised Catholic, though the guilt hadn’t yet ossified.) The first film I downloaded was The Expendables. It was an ugly, terrible film. I was enamoured. I saw Jason Statham’s glabrous scalp each time I closed my eyes. The writing followed.

What do you think are the major issues facing contemporary film criticism?
Letterboxd users, noisy dilettantes, rusted-on hacks, podcasters writ large, funding and lack thereof, discourse enjoyers, advertorials, the porousness between arts and entertainment, people who use their phone in the cinema, people who get annoyed by cinema etiquette, moralistic generalisers and avowed cynics.

How can film criticism stay vital in 2024?
By keeping faith in its roots even as civilisation grows increasingly godless.

What’s one piece of advice that you'd give an emerging critic today? Touch grass.

Who’s a critic that has inspired you? For their obsessive, sublime prose stylings: Richard Brody, Harmony Holiday and Critics Campus alum Phoebe Chen.

Who’s a critic that everyone should be reading right now? For his pure lunacy, his freak unmatched: Paul McAdory. 

What’s the best thing you’ve seen this year so far? La Chimera.

What’s your MIFF 2024 theme music? The same as it is in life: Weezer.