A Brief History

Thumbs Up in Star

A life-long film buff and natural born critic, I have been logging my movie ratings (evaluations) since 1987. From September 1988 to January 1990, I was the co-host of “Film Close-Ups,” a weekly 30-minute program on KALX-FM, the U.C. Berkeley radio station. During my tenure on the show, I reviewed one to two movies a week and had the opportunity to interview several filmmakers. From December 1989 to July 1990, I wrote movie reviews for the arts section of The Daily Californian, U.C. Berkeley’s independent daily newspaper, serving the campus and community. Since January 1990, I have been involved on and off with “Movie Magazine International” (the successor to “Film Close-Ups”)—for which I occasionally reviewed movies in 1991-92 and for which I built a website in 1995.

Recent Ratings

Below are my ratings for the last 10+ movies I watched — on a scale of one to five stars.

TitleYearRatingVerdict
God’s Country2022★★½Skip It
Bama Rush2023★Skip It
Saloum2021★★Skip It
Air2023★★★★See It
To Leslie2022★★★½See It
The Fabelmans2022★★★See It
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves2023★★★½See It
Vesper2022★★★See It
The Banshees of Inisherin2022★★½Skip It
Cam2018★★★See It
I Am Mother2019★★★★See It
Bodies Bodies Bodies2022★★½Skip It
Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming with Dave Letterman2023★★★★½See It

All Ratings

View all of my Movie Ratings (over 2,900 movies).

Below are links to all my movie reviews.

Note: The star rating you will see on each review is on a scale of 0-4 stars (following the convention popularized by Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin). By contrast, on my Movie Ratings list, I have recalibrated my ratings to use the more conventional 1-5 stars.

Below are the question and answer transcripts of seven interviews I conducted for KALX “Film Close-Ups”.

Below is everything else: my top 10 lists and special reports I wrote for KALX “Film Close-Ups”.

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