New York — Richard Corliss, the longtime film critic for Time magazine, has died after suffering a major stroke last week, the magazine said Friday. He was 71.
"He conveyed nothing so much as the sheer joy of watching movies — and writing about them," Time theatre critic Richard Zoglin said in an online tribute to Corliss. "He was a perceptive, invaluable guide through three and a half decades of Hollywood films, stars and trends."
In his 35 years as the magazine's film critic, Corliss wrote more than 2 500 reviews and other articles.
Time Editor Nancy Gibbs called Corliss a master of the written word. Words "were his tools, his toys, to the point that it felt sometimes as though he had to write, like the rest of us breathe and eat and sleep," she said.
"His prose was zestful and sparkling — it simply jumped off the page," Zoglin said.