John Beifuss wanted to be a zookeeper. As Memphis’ last full-time film critic, he sort of got his wish.
After a 45-year career Memphis reporter and film critic John Beifuss is hanging up his notepad. (Patrick Lantrip/The Daily Memphian)
This past Monday was a Monday unlike any other for John Beifuss. He was being interviewed, not doing the interviewing. And when it was over, Beifuss wasn’t the one headed off to write.
On Oct. 19, 1981, only a few months after graduating from Chicago’s Northwestern University, Beifuss walked into the offices of his hometown newspaper — or one of them — to begin a reporting job. On Oct. 1, 2026, very close to exactly 45 years later, he walked out of the different offices of a different hometown newspaper for the last time.
By that point, Beifuss had been the longest-tenured writer at The Commercial Appeal for so long, he couldn’t remember whose mantle he’d taken.
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Chris Herrington
Chris Herrington has covered the Memphis Grizzlies, in one way or another, since the franchise’s second season in Memphis, while also writing about music, movies, food and civic life. As far as he knows, he’s the only member of the Professional Basketball Writers Association who is also a member of a film critics group and has also voted in national music critic polls for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice (RIP). He now splits his time between Minneapolis-St. Paul, where his wife works, and Memphis.
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