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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Jeffrey Wright plays a frustrated author who writes an preposterously stereotypical "Black" book as a joke, only to have it become a bestseller in the comedy American Fiction.
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Usually around this time, Hollywood is talking about how to keep its box office momentum going. This year, January was so lackluster that studios had to jump-start moviegoing from scratch.
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The biopic Bob Marley: One Love stars Kingsley Ben Adir as the Jamaican singer/songwriter who became the world's most celebrated reggae musician.
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"The Teachers' Lounge", Germany's Oscar nominee for Best International Feature, looks at tensions in a middle school while implicating wider social forces.
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With nominations for the Academy Awards finally announced, NPR critics Bob Mondello and Linda Holmes discuss the frontrunners, favorites and snubs among the contenders.
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Nominations for the 96th Academy Awards will be announced Tuesday morning in Beverly Hills. Awards season has already provided some guidance about the favorites.
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With three shows running currently in NY and two more on tour, the late composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim is as present in contemporary theater as he was when he was alive.
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The late composer/lyricist was once considered an acquired taste — but with three shows running in New York and another on tour, he's a hit.
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British actress Glynis Johns has died at the age of 100. Best known as the suffragist mom in Mary Poppins, she brought wit and charm to stage and film characters for more than six decades.
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After three consecutive years of box office gains, the film industry expects revenues to be sharply down in 2024. The reason: aftereffects of the strikes by writers and actors.