James Berardinelli

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James Berardinelli (born September 1967) is a popular online film critic. Berardinelli has over 3,000 reviews listed on the movie review website Rotten Tomatoes, and he claims to review around 150 films per year. According to Berardinelli, his website ReelViews receives 70,000–80,000 hits per day. Berardinelli attended the University of Pennsylvania receiving both a B.S. and MS in electrical engineering. His website describes him as being employed by Telcordia Technologies and as having worked “in a variety of fields, including fiber optics, video testing …and software systems.”[1] In 2005, he married one of his longtime readers.[2]

Berardinelli is noted for his lengthy and learned analysis of films and has kept an open mind in viewing films in all subjects. His reviews are frequently peppered with dry humor and offer extensive explanation pertaining to background information on a film. His articles are often thoroughly researched and contain many educational tidbits. Fellow film critic Roger Ebert has written very positive comments about Berardinelli.[3]

Berardinelli also writes ReelThoughts, a blog in which he muses on issues of the day or whatever is on his mind. The entries are usually daily but are sporadic to accommodate Berardinelli's schedule. The most frequent topics of his columns include DVD technology, the film industry, film piracy, and censorship. ReelThoughts sometimes touches on politics and hot button issues. He frequently criticizes the Motion Picture Association of America's rating system, deriding them for, among other things, affixing R ratings to films in which a woman's bare breasts are shown tastefully.

Berardinelli's favorite directors include Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa and Alfred Hitchcock. His all-time favorite film is Patton.

[edit] Criticism

Berardinelli's style of writing has been criticized by the opposite spectrum of film reviewing, with opponents claiming that his engineering background is an impediment to substantial commentary on film as a legitimate art form. This argument is countered by his supporters, who in turn claim Berardinelli's logical and rational approach to movies provide a more accessible point of entry into said analysis. Berardinelli is noted for a preference for "harrowing" or thematically complex films, and mostly considers cinema to be a narrative medium akin to the foundations of literature. Roger Ebert has championed this approach; other critics find it does a disservice to the concept of visual abstraction as an art form of its own, while respecting his position as one of the net's better known reviewers.