I apologize — I have run out of time to answer many of questions you’ve sent me via the Ask Karina thread. So, here is another batch of quick answers. Feel free to follow up in the comments on this post; you can also contact me directly through my personal website.

First, a whole bunch from Mike Maguire:

1) Do you find yourself living an adequate/satisfied lifestyle with film criticism as your sole career (if it is) and source of income? A bit of a sore question at the moment, of course, but I’m confident you’ll find a new outlet.

I should have specified that I wouldn’t answer questions about money, but I didn’t, so I will: I did, and it was. I don’t know if it will be again.

3) Who is your favorite working female filmmaker?

I think answering that question would be a backhanded compliment to the filmmaker I chose. I mean, I don’t want to be anyone’s “favorite female critic” — I don’t want “critic” to have to be qualified. I want to be good, not good for a girl. Maybe that makes me a dick?

4) Why the fuck are certain people drooling over Bright Star?

I don’t know, I thought it was okay for a chick flick. (Okay, now I’m being a dick. I’m sorry.)

Look, people love a return to form, and Bright Star is the best Jane Campion film Jane Campion has made in a long while. It’s also, essentially, Twilight for lit majors (and, apparently, Quentin Tarantino).

And to sort of combine this into your query about Confessions of a Shopaholic, which I haven’t seen, I thought Coco Before Chanel did a better job at presenting a life-defining romance than Bright Star, and was more satisfying as a “fashion=sex –– and vice versa!” guilty pleasure than the Sex and the City movie. I am not every woman — it is not all in me — but I am certainly ready and willing to admit when escapism targeted right at me works (see my Coco review here). I don’t know how I could prove to your mom that I’m not manly … maybe have her contact me directly and I’ll give her my measurements?

WIll writes:

Did you ever get a DVD of The Walking Dead? It’s on the new Karloff-Lugosi collection from Warner.

I know! I haven’t bought the set yet, but it’s on my wishlist.

Karl Leschinsky asks:

I only now just discovered your awesome blogs after Jim Emerson (at Scanners) posted to your blog about a change of heart in regards to “IB” and how critics are real people that do change… One of the best articles I’ve read.I’m hoping if nothing else you’ll get a blog at blogger/blogspot but I’m sure you have some other plans lined up… I hope? Anyway, wish ya the best! Ps. Will your work here be archived on the site?

I do have a personal blog, and I will continue to freelance while I figure out my long term plans (I always post freelance pieces on Twitter and/or my personal blog; my most recent outlets include TimeOut NY, indieWIRE, and Slate’s DoubleX blog). You can also hear me on the radio almost every Friday morning. As far as I know, the SpoutBlog archive will stay up for the time being, but you can also buy a “greatest hits” of my posts (including that Basterds piece) in book form. More on that tomorrow.

Erin writes:

Personally, I’d like to Karina to talk about sentimental favorites from childhood–you know, the type of movie you liked when you were a kid, but you wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole NOW. We all have them…

Related: daveed asks,

I’d be interested to know about your guilty film pleasures — those less-than artful creations that you love to watch over and over.

Honestly, most of the films I loved as a child hold up pretty well: Mary Poppins, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, the original Hairspray, Edward Scissorhands… I mean, I guess I could pretend I feel guilty about stuff like Fried Green Tomatoes or The Cutting Edge (my then-favorites of 1991 and 1992, respectively), but if either popped up on Lifetime right now, it’s not like I’d be able to change the channel. What’s crazy to me is that just a year and a half after my dad accompanied me to a matinee of The Cutting Edge, I was reading Entertainment Weekly obsessively and going alone to see movies like Dazed and Confused and Ruby in Paradise.

Really, if we’re going to talk about guilty pleasures — as in, films that I do actually feel guilty enjoying as much as I do — we can only talk about Adrian Lyne. I can’t even be critical about movies like Indecent Proposal and Flashdance — they just sink their claws into my ovaries and the rest of me is helpless to fight it.

Chris writes:

I was recently listening back to old episodes of FilmCouch, when i heard you discuss your love for Michael Mann’s Miami Vice on Episode 30. In particular, you expressed your joy at the way that the film gets derailed in order for Li Gong and Colin Farrell to jump on a speed boat (after Farrell’s smooth chat-up line worked a treat) and zoom away for their steamy affair…lf you have a chance to discuss this hugely misunderstood classic, I’d be interested to hear it.

Alas, I don’t have space enough or time right now, but if I do any sort of Best of the 00s end-of-decade roundup Miami Vice will definitely be part of it.

Kamera88 asks:

I’ve just recently started a film podcast and I’m writing for a blog. And things are not starting off so well. Do you have any advice for making an interesting podcast?

It’s difficult. I think the most important thing is to make if feel like a conversation. You have to either imagine that you’re talking to a friend, or … actually talk to a friend. And definitely don’t try to interview strangers before you’re comfortable enough with your own voice and confident enough to be direct about what you’re trying to get them to say.

Schuyler Bestkind writes:

Let all sensible persons uncork the champagne and dance a jig with Armond White on Karina Longworth’s grave!!! (Hey, maybe she can get a lucrative position as handmaiden to David Hudson, and the online film nerd incest fest of suck-ups can continue unabated forevermore?)

Now, now … in this climate, a lucrative position of any kind is nothing to look down on. Even if it does require incest.