James Berardinelli (born September 25, 1967) is an American film critic and former engineer. His reviews are mainly published on his blog ''ReelViews.'' Approved as a critic by the aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, he has published two collections of reviews of movies on DVD and video. He is also a fantasy novelist, publishing a trilogy from 2015 through 2016 known as ''The Last Whisper of the Gods.''

Personal life

Berardinelli was born in

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat, seat of government of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Morristown, New Jersey Morristown () is a town and the county seat of Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. ...

. When he was nine, his family moved to the township of

Cherry Hill, New Jersey Cherry Hill is a township within Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the township had a population of 74,553, which reflected an increase of 3,508 (+4.94%) from the 71,045 counted in the 2010 census.

, where he attended

Cherry Hill High School East Cherry Hill High School East (also known as Cherry Hill East or CHE) is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades in Cherry Hill, in Camden County, New Jersey, United States, operating as p ...

. Later he moved to

Piscataway Piscataway may refer to: *Piscataway people, a Native American ethnic group native to the southern Mid-Atlantic States *Piscataway language *Piscataway, Maryland, an unincorporated community *Piscataway, New Jersey, a township *Piscataway Creek, Ma ...

. He attended the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

from 1985 to 1990, obtaining both a bachelor's and master's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

. After graduating he worked for Bellcore Company, now

Telcordia Technologies iconectiv is a supplier of network planning and network management services to telecommunications providers. Known as Bellcore after its establishment in the United States in 1983 as part of the break-up of the Bell System, the company's name ...

. He worked during the next 15 years "in a variety of fields, including

fiber optics An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

, video testing, and software systems." Berardinelli has categorized himself as an agnostic and a libertarian. He resides in

Mount Laurel, New Jersey Mount Laurel is a township in Burlington County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is a suburb of Philadelphia and part of the South Jersey region. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 41,864, reflecting an increase of 1 ...

with his wife, Sheryl, whom he met through his website.Schneider, Dan
"The Dan Schneider Interview 16: James Berardinelli"
Cosmoetica.com, December 12, 2008. Accessed July 14, 2016. "I was born in New Brunswick, lived in Old Bridge for a year, then spent my childhood in Morristown and my teenage years in Cherry Hill. I went to college at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, then returned to New Jersey to live in Bridgewater, Hillsborough, and Mount Laurel, where I currently reside." They have two children: a son born in May 2010, and a daughter born in November 2019.

Career

Starting in January 1992, Berardinelli began writing movie reviews, his first being a review of the 1991 drama ''

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

''. His first review published to the Internet was of the 1992 drama '' Scent of a Woman'', which was posted both to

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

and his Colossus Inc-hosted website, ReelViews.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

referred to Berardinelli as "the best of the Web-based critics" in 2001, and wrote a foreword for the 2003 book, ''Reelviews,'' a collection of Berardinelli's reviews. Berardinelli is a member of the

Broadcast Film Critics Association The Critics Choice Association (CCA), formerly the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA), is an association of television, radio and online critics. Their membership includes critics who review film and television. Founded in 1995, it is the ...

and is a

-approved critic. In January 2004, he began his blog ''ReelThoughts'', by which time his reviews could attract as many as 100,000 readers, up from around 1,400 weekly readers in 1997. In August 2006, the site moved to ReelViews.net, a domain Berardinelli had originally registered by late 2000. In September 2013, Berardinelli announced that he had been working on a trilogy of fantasy novels entitled ''The Last Whisper of the Gods''. The first book was published in November 2015, the second was released in January 2016, and the third in March 2016. Berardinelli appears as a guest on the pop-culture radio program ''Fictional Frontiers'' every two weeks.

Annual film rankings

Bibliography

* Berardinelli, James (2003) ''ReelViews : The Ultimate Guide to the Best 1,000 Modern Movies on DVD and Video'', * Berardinelli, James (2005) ''ReelViews 2: The Ultimate Guide to the Best 1,000 Modern Movies on DVD and Video, 2005 Edition'', * Berardinelli, James (2015) ''The Last Whisper of the Gods'', ASIN B-016IWS-UN-M * Berardinelli, James (2016) ''The Curse of the Gift'', ASIN B-019CPR-EH-K * Berardinelli, James (2016) ''The Shadow of the Otherverse'', ASIN B-01BRSW-VH-S * Berardinelli, James (2017) ''The Lingering Haze'',

References

External links

ReelViews.net
(official site) {{DEFAULTSORT:Berardinelli, James 1967 births 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American novelists American agnostics American electrical engineers American film critics American libertarians American male bloggers American bloggers American male non-fiction writers American writers of Italian descent Cherry Hill High School East alumni Engineers from New Jersey Living people Novelists from New Jersey Online Film Critics Society Patreon creators People from Cherry Hill, New Jersey People from Morristown, New Jersey People from Mount Laurel, New Jersey University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Writers from New Brunswick, New Jersey