Steven Rea (also known as Steven X. Rea) is an American journalist, film critic,
["Columnists: Steven Rea"](_blank)
Philly.com. Retrieved December 13, 2013.["Critics » Steven Rea"](_blank)
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 ...
. Retrieved December 13, 2013. web producer, and writer. He was a film critic for ''
The Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...
'' from 1992 through late 2016.
Early life
Rea was born in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, and raised in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
["Steven X Rea"](_blank)
Rock's Backpages Library. Retrieved December 13, 2013. He is a graduate of
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School (pronounced ), commonly referred to among its students as Stuy (pronounced ), is a State school, public university-preparatory school, college-preparatory, Specialized high schools in New York City, specialized high school ...
in New York. Rea went to the West Coast for college, earning an undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing from
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
. He attended the Writers Workshop graduate program at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
.
Career
Rea has written for multiple publications since 1975, as well as working for major record labels such as
Island Records
Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
.
In 1982, he joined ''
The Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...
'', where he covered
pop culture
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* Pop (Gas al ...
topics including movies, pop music and books.
He became one of its film critics in 1992 and left that post in late 2016.
Other periodicals for which he has written include: ''
Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'', ''
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
'', ''Family Fun'',
''
Crawdaddy!
''Crawdaddy'' was an American rock music magazine launched in 1966. It was created by Paul Williams, a Swarthmore College student at the time, in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music. The magazine ...
'', ''Music World'', ''Phonograph Record Magazine'', ''
High Fidelity'', ''Folk Scene'', ''
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
'', ''New West'', ''
Trouser Press
''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to ...
'', ''
Oui'', ''
Chic
Chic (; ), meaning "stylish" or "smart", is an element of fashion. It was originally a French word. Pronounced Chick.
Etymology
''Chic'' is a French word, established in English since at least the 1870s. Early references in English dictiona ...
'', ''
Record World
''Record World'' magazine was one of the three main music industry trade magazines in the United States, along with '' Billboard'' and '' Cashbox''. It was founded in 1946 under the name ''Music Vendor'', but in 1964 it was changed to ''Record Wo ...
'', and the ''
Los Angeles Herald Examiner
The ''Los Angeles Herald Examiner'' was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published in the afternoon from Monday to Friday and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. It was formed when the afternoon ' ...
''.
His film reviews and movie columns have been
syndicated.
Rea was an adjunct professor in the Cinema and Television program at the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design at
Drexel University
Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, S ...
. He host
Talk Cinemaevents. He served on the Narrative Features jury of the 2012
Florida Film Festival
The Florida Film Festival, produced by Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida, is an annual international film festival.
Overview
The Festival includes narrative and documentary features and shorts, animation, midnight movies, and educational forum ...
["2012 Special Guests & Jurors"]
Florida Film Festival
The Florida Film Festival, produced by Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida, is an annual international film festival.
Overview
The Festival includes narrative and documentary features and shorts, animation, midnight movies, and educational forum ...
Retrieved December 13, 2013. and the FIPRESCI jury at the 2014
Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival (sometimes stylized shortly as PSIFF) is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. Originally promoted by Mayor Sonny Bono and then sponsored by Nortel,here for Table of Contents it started in 1989 ...
. He is a member of the
National Society of Film Critics
The National Society of Film Critics (NSFC) is an American film critic organization. The organization is known for its highbrow tastes, and its annual awards are one of the most prestigious film critics awards in the United States. In January 2014, ...
(NSFC).
Rea is the author of ''Hollywood Rides a Bike: Cycling with the Stars'' (2012), an expansion on his blog featuring photos of stars riding bikes, in which Rea explores his obsession with the details of these images and stARS. It received good reviews from ''The Telegraph'' (UK) and the ''San Francisco Chronicle''. He later published ''Hollywood Cafe: Coffee With The Stars'' (2016), which was favorably covered in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...
'', ''Metro US,'' and numerous other publications and websites. He is the curator of the
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
, ''Rides a Bike'' . His essay on the
British New Wave
The British New Wave is a style of films released in Great Britain between 1959 and 1963. The label is a translation of '' Nouvelle Vague'', the French term first applied to the films of François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard among others.
Styli ...
is published in the book ''European Cinema'' (2012).
Additionally, Rea has worked as an editor and written fiction.
His poetry has been published in ''
The Paris Review
''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'' and ''
The New York Quarterly''.
Personal life
Rea lived in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
at the start of his career,
but he and his wife have long resided in
Center City, Philadelphia
Center City includes the central business district and central neighborhoods of Philadelphia. It comprises the area that made up the City of Philadelphia prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854, which extended the city borders to be coterminous wi ...
.
Notes
External links
''On Movies''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rea, Steven
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American poets
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American bloggers
American columnists
American essayists
American film critics
National Society of Film Critics Members
American male bloggers
Drexel University faculty
Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
Living people
San Francisco State University alumni
The Philadelphia Inquirer people
Writers from New York City
Year of birth missing (living people)