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."
-
Thanks to movies, novels and TV, Bob Mondello knows what a contested convention would be like: raucous crowd, oppressive din and (if movies are any guide) Angela Lansbury scheming in the corner. -
New installments in the X-Men, Ghostbusters, Star Trek and Captain America franchises are hitting the big screen this summer. NPR film critic Bob Mondello talks about what to see.
-
Swiss Army Manis an absurdist movie comedy in which a shipwrecked Paul Dano befriends a surprisingly talkative corpse, played by Daniel Radcliffe.
-
The Lobster is a comedy in which single people are given 45 days to fall in love before being turned into an animal of their choice. -
The CEO of AMC Entertainment says he is considering allowing texting during some movie showings at AMC Theaters. A good thing? Our pop culture blogger and movie critic weigh in. -
Actress Patty Duke, who played an adolescent Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, and starred in her own TV sitcom — The Patty Duke Show — while still in her teens, has died. She was 69.
-
A scrap of a play written in part by Shakespeare answers contemporaries who were angry that England was admitting religious refugees. -
NPR's Audie Cornish talks with NPR's pop culture blogger Linda Holmes and movie critic Bob Mondello about Sunday's Oscar awards.
-
NPR film critic Bob Mondello says Deadpoolgoes in deep on its R rating — and has plenty of fun doing it. -
Gummi and Kiddi are two sheep-herding brothers who've spent a lifetime butting heads near the top of the world. When a disease threatens their flocks, they must overcome decades of estrangement.
