Manohla Dargis is the co-chief film critic for the New York Times. Prior to working for the New York Times, she was a chief film critic for the Los Angeles Times; previously, she was the film editor and a film critic for the LA Weekly. She was born in Rapid City, S. D., but grew up on St. Marks Place in New York’s East Village, where she worked in the old family business, the St. Marks Bookshop. She started writing professionally in 1987, covering avant-garde cinema for the Village Voice. She is the author of a short book on the film L.A. Confidential, and her writing has been collected in assorted volumes, including American Movie Critics: An Anthology from the Silents Until Now. She is a current PhD student and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the restaurateur and natural-wine advocate Lou Amdur.