Bob Mondello
Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.
For more than three decades, Mondello has reviewed movies and covered the arts for NPR, seeing at least 300 films annually, then sharing critiques and commentaries about the most intriguing on NPR's award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered. In 2005, he conceived and co-produced NPR's eight-part series "American Stages," exploring the history, reach, and accomplishments of the regional theater movement.
Mondello has also written about the arts for USA Today, The Washington Post, Preservation Magazine, and other publications, and has appeared as an arts commentator on commercial and public television stations. He spent 25 years reviewing live theater for Washington City Paper, DC's leading alternative weekly, and to this day, he remains enamored of the stage.
Before becoming a professional critic, Mondello learned the ins and outs of the film industry by heading the public relations department for a chain of movie theaters, and he reveled in film history as advertising director for an independent repertory theater.
Asked what NPR pieces he's proudest of, he points to an April Fool's prank in which he invented a remake of Citizen Kane, commentaries on silent films — a bit of a trick on radio — and cultural features he's produced from Argentina, where he and his husband have a second home.
An avid traveler, Mondello even spends his vacations watching movies and plays in other countries. "I see as many movies in a year," he says, "as most people see in a lifetime."
-
Joker: Folie A Deux is a musical follow-up to Joaquin Phoenix's turn as DC Comics villain Joker, this time with Lady Gaga; and Saturday Night dramatizes the very first show of what would become SNL.
-
A shipwrecked robot named Roz is accidentally activated by the wild animals on an otherwise uninhabited island in The Wild Robot, an animated adventure from the makers of How to Train Your Dragon.
-
Oscar, Emmy and Tony winning actress Maggie Smith, who played everything from ingenues in Shakespeare to Harry Potter's Prof. McGonagall and the dowager countess in Downton Abbey, has died at 89.
-
Oscar, Emmy, and Tony-winning actress Maggie Smith played everything from wistful ingenues in Shakespeare to Harry Potter's Prof. McGonagall and the Dowager Countess in Downton Abbey.
-
A teen meets her wisecracking, advice-dispensing 39-year-old self on a mushroom trip in Megan Park's coming-of-age rom-com My Old Ass.
-
Ian McKellen plays a brutal theater critic in a new film. That sent our own film critic back into the archives, musing about portrayals of critics on screen.
-
Michael Keaton, Catherine O'Hara, and Winona Ryder return in a Beetlejuice sequel 34 years in the making. It's called Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Don't say it a third time.
-
Here are the new releases coming your way between now and Thanksgiving — we've got award contenders, goofy comedies, a smattering of romance, plenty of anti-heroes, and a musical documentary in LEGOs.
-
Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal, is arguably among the world's most beautiful bookstores, and visitors line up each day to catch a glimpse inside.
-
A selective look at the would-be blockbusters, awards contenders and specialty films Hollywood has in store as the weather gets cooler.