Elvis Mitchell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Elvis Mitchell (born 1958 in Detroit, Michigan) is an African-American public intellectual and a former film critic for The New York Times. Previously, he was a film critic for the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner and The Detroit Free Press. He graduated from Wayne State University, where he majored in English.
In his reviews, he takes on a freewheeling, some might say stream of consciousness style, and works a lot of intertextuality into his work by referencing other films. As one of the most well-known African-American critics in the United States, Mitchell also incorporates various cultural issues into his reviews and essays.
He has recently been asked to be a visiting lecturer in film and African American Studies at Harvard University.
Elvis Mitchell was also part of a short-lived PBS show in the late 80s called The Edge. In it he did film commentary and criticism. On one episode he did a quick run-down of all of director Oliver Stone's tropes, including "always keep that camera moving," which he said while moving a camcorder over a small model of a Vietnamese jungle and prison camp set up on a table.
Mitchell is currently the host of KCRW's pop culture and film interview program The Treatment.
In 2006, he was nominated as the Hottest Gay Journalist in New York (which was printed in the Village Voice), although it's not clear that he is actually gay.[1]
