Scott Tobias Leaves A.V. Club, Site Looking For a New Film Editor

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After fifteen years at the publication, Film Editor Scott Tobias is leaving The A.V. Club. His last day will be a week from Friday. Tobias announced the news earlier today on Twitter; here was his tweet:

"After 15 great years @theavclub, I step down as Film Editor next Friday. In related news, there's a job opening."

Tobias, whose departure follows longtime A.V. Club editor Keith Phipps' in December, also tweeted that he wasn't fired and that he'll "be fine." I reached out to him for a comment on the news; here's what he sent me back:

"There's just no way to count all the blessings my time at The A.V. Club has bestowed upon me, and the writing part only accounts for some of them. Without Stephen Thompson and Keith Phipps, I don't meet my wife. I don't have my precious girls. I don't have a life full of riches that have little to do with my vocation -- and are not, thank goodness, subject to the vicissitudes of the field. All that said, I love movies, I love writing about movies, and I have no intention of walking off into the sunset. It's simply time for me to move on and try new things, and I thank everyone at The Onion and The A.V. Club for allowing me to express myself with extraordinarily few limits all these years and providing me with lifelong friendships."

Tobias also told me how he came to join the The A.V. Club. He met Phipps in 1997 at a junket for "Good Will Hunting," where, he said, the pair "bonded over being seemingly the only two people in the room who didn't care for [the film]." At the time, Tobias was working on his Master's in Cinema Studies at the University of Miami while filing reviews for the school's student newspaper, but he soon began freelancing for The A.V. Club. He was promoted to a staff writer position in 1999 and became the Film Editor in 2005.

Everything I said about The A.V. Club when Phipps left in December goes double (okay, maybe not double -- but at least equal) for Tobias. For a very long time, the A.V. Club's model of film coverage --  smart but accessible, comprehensive but quirky -- has been exactly what I've strived to achieve (achieve, steal, whatever) in my own work. The site certainly won't be the same without him.

Follow Scott Tobias on Twitter.