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."
-
The simultaneous openings of Frozen 2 and the Mr. Rogers bio-pic A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood offer a chance to talk about the changing nature of children's entertainment.
-
Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour mob movie, "The Irishman," stars Robert De Niro as a killer for hire, and Al Pacino as Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
-
The Crawleys are back, and the big screen has them this time, in a story that picks up a few years after the TV show ended.
-
NPR's Bob Mondello and film critic Joelle Monique discuss what they liked and what's newsworthy at the still-in-progress Toronto International Film Festival.
-
China's most far-reaching social experiment — a multi-decade attempt at population control — is the subject of the documentary One Child Nation.
-
Motion pictures went to the moon long before Apollo 11 did, and they keep going back. Critic Bob Mondello reflects on the many films, from 1902 to today, that have made the journey.
-
Woody, Buzz Lightyear and the gang are back for a new adventure involving Bonnie's newest toy, Forky, a spork, in Pixar's Toy Story 4.
-
A philosophical heist comedy, The Fall of the American Empire is the latest intellectual critique from Canadian auteur Denys Arcand.
-
Hollywood's summer blockbuster season got a $2 billion head start this year from Avengers: Endgame. Now, with summer actually getting under way, how will Tinseltown keep the momentum going?
-
Ralph Fiennes steps behind the camera for a ballet biopic — not Black Swan, but The White Crow — about the early years and defection to the west of Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev.
-
With most of the Marvel superheroes turned to dust in the last Avengers movie — along with half the universe — Avengers: Endgame brings the Marvel saga to a close in an epic three-hour film.
-
The DC cinematic universe has a new superhero — a 14-year-old boy who transforms magically into a grown-up superhero when he says the name "SHAZAM!"