Michael Wilmington, 1946-2022

Michael Wilmington was a singularity.

I’ve knew him for roughly 25 years. But I don’t know how well I ever really knew him. I saw him. I talked to him about movies and his beloved mom, Edna, and his vision of the future, for all of us. We talked a lot about his frustrations.

Michael’s tribute to his mother on her passing was, I think, the thing he wrote on MCN that he most cherished. He brought it up many, many times over the years.

Michael had a lot of things go right in his life. And a lot of things go terribly wrong. He required, in real life, enormous patience and a deep well of love. He had some of those people in his life - most notably Jackie, in my time - but for those of us who were rushing through life - for me - the inability to offer this man of thoughts and words more time and more love is our loss.

Others will chart Michael’s life history better than I. When I first really met him, it was in his Chicago era. He was famously quirky, but he had taken over the real lead crit…