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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After years of #OscarsSoWhite and #OscarsSoMale, industry observers are crowing over the 2021 nominations. This expanded diversity comes along with increased social consciousness in the year's films.
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Most awards seasons find film fans seeking out Best Picture nominees in the runup to the telecast, with the eventual winner reaping millions of additional dollars. But this year's bounce is a thud.
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With the closing of 300 screens, Hollywood laments the loss of the iconic Cinerama Dome; it opened in 1963 with the premiere of Stanley Kramer's wide-screen comedy It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.
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A young writer gets a clerical job with the book agent representing J.D. Salinger in My Salinger Year, a movie based on the memoir by Joanna Rakoff.
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Tom Cole, senior editor on NPR's Arts Desk, is retiring after 33 years of shepherding thousands of arts pieces to broadcast. NPR bids him farewell.
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NPR's Bob Mondello is back from his vaccination appointment and feeling safer.
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This year was quite bad for most movie theaters — but not bad at all for movies. NPR discusses what 2020 was like for the movie industry.
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Regina King's directorial film debut, One Night in Miami, envisions a 1964 gathering of boxer Cassius Clay, activist Malcolm X, fullback Jim Brown and singer Sam Cooke.
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NPR offers an expanded holiday film preview to cover the movies that have had their releases delayed into January and February 2021.
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The process of counting ballots has stressed out a lot of people this week. NPR's movie critic says he's been distracting himself from the election with cinematic counting.