Meet the Critics

– Donald Brackett is a Vancouver-based popular culture journalist and curator who writes about music, art and films. He has been the Executive Director of both the Professional Art Dealers Association of Canada and The Ontario Association of Art Galleries. He is the author of the recent book Back to Black: Amy Winehouse’s Only Masterpiece (Backbeat Books, 2016). In addition to numerous essays, articles and radio broadcasts, he is also the author of two books on creative collaboration in pop music: Fleetwood Mac: 40 Years of Creative Chaos, 2007, and Dark Mirror: The Pathology of the Singer-Songwriter, 2008, as well as the biographies Long Slow Train: The Soul Music of Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, 2018, and Tumult!: The Incredible Life and Music of Tina Turner, 2020, and a book on the life and art of the enigmatic Yoko Ono, Yoko Ono: An Artful Life, released in April 2022. His latest work in progress is a new book on family relative Charles Brackett's films made with his partner Billy Wilder, Double Solitaire: The Films of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder.

–  Mark Clamen is a writer, critic, film programmer and lifelong television enthusiast. He lives in Toronto, where he often lectures on television, film, and popular culture. Mark is Chair of Film Programming for the Toronto Jewish Film Society. 

– John Corcelli was born and raised in Toronto. He’s a musician, actor, radio producer and writer. He graduated from Ryerson University in 1984 with a Radio & Television Arts degree. Corcelli made his stage debut in 1998 with the Scarborough Theatre Guild. He developed his craft as an actor with Amicus Productions of Toronto and Neil Muscott, who nurtured his abilities in the art of comic improvisation. He’s also studied with Sears & Switzer and made his directorial debut in 2010 with the Village Players production of The Price by Arthur Miller. John plays clarinet, guitar and occasionally sings. He’s currently a member of the Festival Winds Orchestra.

– Kevin Courrier is a freelance writer/broadcaster, film critic and author (Dangerous Kitchen: The Subversive World of Zappa, Randy Newman's American Dreams, 33 1/3 Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica, Artificial Paradise: The Dark Side of The Beatles Utopian Dream). Courrier teaches part-time film courses to seniors through the LIFE Institute at Ryerson University in Toronto and other venues. His forthcoming book is Reflections in the Hall of Mirrors: American Movies and the Politics of Idealism.                                             .

– Nick Coccoma is a writer and culture critic. His newsletter, The Similitude, is available on Substack and you can follow him on Twitter @NickCoccoma. His essays on movies, religion, and politics have been featured in Full-Stop Magazine, New Politics, and The Washington Examiner. A native of Cooperstown, NY, he studied theatre, philosophy, and theology at the College of the Holy Cross and Boston College. He lives in Boston, where he's worked as a teacher, hatter, and chaplain.

– Justin Cummings is a narrative designer at Ubisoft Toronto, and has worked as a writer, blogger, and playwright since 2005. He has been a lifelong student of film, gaming, and literature, commenting on industry and culture since his childhood cinema first installed an arcade.









- Bob Douglas is a teacher and author. His second volume to That Line of Darkness: The Shadow of Dracula and the Great War (Encompass Editions, 2011) is titled That Line of Darkness: Vol. II The Gothic from Lenin to bin Laden. You can find more at his website http://www.thatlineofdarkness.com.

                                 

– Phil Dyess-Nugent is a freelance writer living in Texas. He regularly writes about TV and books for The A. V. Club                                                                            

– Deirdre Kelly is a journalist, author and internationally recognized dance critic. She has written for Dance Magazine in New York and the Dance Gazette in London (official magazine of the Royal Academy of Dance) and is a contributor to the International Dictionary of Ballet (St. James Press). She was the award-winning dance critic for Canada's The Globe and Mail and is currently the newspaper's Style reporter. She is the author of the national best-seller, Paris Times Eight (Greystone Books/Douglas & McIntyre), a Paris-inspired memoir with a chapter featuring Rudolph Nureyev. Deirdre's second book, Ballerina: Sex, Scandal and Suffering Behind the Symbol of Perfection, has just been published (Greystone Books). Married with two children, she lives in Toronto.

– David Kidney has reviewed for Green Man Review and Sleeping Hedgehog. He published the Rylander Quarterly (a Ry Cooder-based newsletter) for 8 years before turning it into a blog, at

http://rylander-rylander.blogspot.com/. He works at McMaster University as Director of Learning Space Development, and lives in Dundas with his wife.

– Jack Kirchhoff is a recently retired arts journalist from Toronto. In the past 35 years at The Globe and Mail, he has been publishing reporter, theatre critic and book review editor, among several other things.

– Michael Lueger teaches theatre classes at Northeastern University and Emerson College. He's written for HowlRound and WBUR's Cognoscentipage. He also tweets about theatre history at@theaterhistory.

– Devin McKinney is the author of Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History (2003); The Man Who Saw a Ghost: The Life and Work of Henry Fonda (2012); and Jesusmania! The Bootleg Superstar of Gettysburg College (2016). He is an archivist at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His website is devinmckinney.com.

– Danny McMurray has a B.A. in English Language and Literature with a minor in Anthropology from the University of Western Ontario. She is particularly enthusiastic about science fiction, horror movies, feminism, video games, books, opera, and good espresso – all of which she can find in spades in her home base of Toronto, Ontario.

– Ellen Perry eats, cooks, and keeps bees in central Massachusetts. She teaches classical archaeology at the College of the Holy Cross and is the author of The Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome, the co-editor of Roman Artists, Patrons, and Public Consumption, and has written a number of articles on Roman art and architectural space.

– Jessica L. Radin is a graduate student living and working in Toronto, where she teaches, works on her dissertation, and reads everything she can get her hands on. 

 

– Shlomo Schwartzberg is a film critic, arts journalist, film programmer and instructor who teaches film courses through the LIFE Institute at Ryerson University.

– CJ Sheu has a PhD in contemporary American fiction from National Taiwan Normal University, in Taipei. He also writes about films and film reviews on the side, and has been published in Bright Wall/Dark Room and Funscreen (Taiwan). Check out his blog reviewfilmreview.wordpress.com/about, or hit him up on Twitter @cj_sheu.

– Amanda Shubert writes about film, books and the visual arts. A founding editor of Full Stop, the online magazine of literature and culture, she is also a contributor to the forthcoming anthology Talking About Pauline Kael (Scarecrow Press, 2014). Most recently, she interviewed the actress and folk singer Ronee Blakley for The Rumpus.

– Steve Vineberg is Distinguished Professor of the Arts and Humanities at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he teaches theatre and film.  He also writes for The Threepenny Review, The Boston Phoenix and is the author of three books:  Method Actors: Three Generations of an American Acting Style; No Surprises, Please: Movies in the Reagan Decade; and High Comedy in American Movies.

 

Emeritus Critics 

 

– David Churchill (1959 – 2013) was a film critic and novelist. Seemingly born with a pen in his hand, he was a freelance writer for over 25 years. Most recently, he worked in the publications department of Vintages, the fine wine and spirits division of the LCBO, where he wrote about beverage alcohol. His first novel, entitled The Empire of Death, is available for order at http://www.wordplaysalon.com. The Eye of the Storm, his second novel, will be released posthumously. 

– Andrew Dupuis is a devoted cinephile and graduate of Brock University's Film Studies program with an extensive background in Canadian and popular cinema. He is currently working on his first book.

 

 

 

 

 

– Susan Green was a film critic and arts journalist from Burlington, Vermont. She was the co-author, with Randee Dawn, of Law & Order Special Victims Unit: The Unofficial Companion.