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."
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A cataclysmic flood leaves a cat and a few other stray animals stranded on a boat in Flow, an elegantly wordless animated fantasy from Latvia.
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Two decades after Maximus fought and died in ancient Rome's Colosseum in the first film, his son Lucius, played by Paul Mescal, finds himself in much the same situation in Gladiator II.
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In Jacques Audiard's melodrama Emilia Perez, a prosecutor gets an unusual request from the head of a Mexican cartel. He wants help transitioning out of his life of crime and his life as a man.
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The process of counting ballots has stressed out a lot of people this week. NPR's movie critic says he's been distracting himself from the election with cinematic counting.
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Broadway theaters will dim their marquee lights on Nov. 7 in honor of Dame Maggie Smith, who died in September. Smith began her acting career on stage and took theater roles well into her 80s.
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Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: The Cure's Songs of a Lost World, a lawn mowing simulator video game, and fall yard work. -
Jesse Eisenberg has written, directed and starred in a film based loosely on his own family, with a story about two cousins visiting the former home in Poland of their grandparents.
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Ralph Fiennes is tasked with the election of a new pope in director Edward Berger's lush intellectual thriller, Conclave, based on the pulpy 2016 novel by Robert Harris.
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Sean Baker's Palme d'Or-winning comedy Anora is a Cinderella story of sorts, with a standout performance by Mikey Madison as the title character.
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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.
