CRITICS AND FILM SCHOLARS

Popcorn Reals was born out of two college friends, Dion Metzger and Lauren Morton reconnecting in 2014.  After over a decade since their graduation from Emory University in 2002, they soon discovered each other’s love for film. Dion and Lauren began going to the movies almost weekly and instantly realized their contrasting reviews. This gathered interests from friends and family who wanted to hear their thoughts on the new releases. Popcorn Reals was created to give a very “real” take on films from the lens of two very different moviegoers. When their candid reviews became a guide for what film people would see, Popcorn Reals created the recommendation grading system of seeing it in the theaters, streaming it at home or leaving it all together. Lauren and Dion have also worked to curate a film festival, based on the podcast “This Movie Changed Me.” You can still find them in the theaters for the earliest matinees on an Atlanta Saturday. 

Dion Metzger, MD

 

Dion is a board-certified psychiatrist, bestselling author and film critic. Her expertise has been featured on ABC, CBS, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and in The New York Times. Dion’s motto of “better mind, better life” encourages audiences to prioritize their mental health in life’s balance. She is the co-author of the book “The Modern Trophy Wife: How to Achieve Your Goals While Thriving at Home”. In interviews and her book, she is vocal about film’s captivating ability to provide a therapeutic escape. When away from her therapist chair, you can find Dion enjoying a weekly matinee.

Lauren Morton

 

After graduating from Emory University and earning her master’s from The George Washington University, Lauren always found time to check out the independent movie theater in every city she resided in. Lauren has a deep appreciation for the arts. She is a cinephile and a true believer in the power of film to move and inspire. Lauren supports her movie watching habit as the Education Outreach Manager for Clark Scholar and Dean’s Scholar Program at Georgia Tech in the College of Engineering and has used her role to introduce students to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s “ASO Movies in Concert”. Lauren’s favorite genres are independent films and documentaries. 

Brenda Butler

Brenda Butler’s professional journalism career spans from the historic Johnson Publishing's Jet Magazine to the Chicago Tribune, holding positions as a reporter, copy editor, section editor, newsroom manager and senior features editor.

As a witness to and participant in the sectionalizing of American newspapers in the 1990s, she held numerous editing positions at the Tribune, becoming the first African American at the paper to hold the position of associate managing editor where she was involved in the conception and development of award-winning newspaper sections and magazines, and co-managed a staff of more than 100 reporters, editors and support staff.

While at the Tribune, she gained experience in TV broadcasting when she wrote, produced and moderated a 13-week series for Chicago cable TV titled “Playback: Views from an African American Perspective.”

As an educator, she was the executive director of Columbia Links, a journalism, news literacy and leadership development program for underserved youth in Chicago public high schools, then housed at Columbia College Chicago.

Her program, thanks to a three-year grant from the Ebert Foundation, graduated the first set of high school Ebert Fellows who learned how to see and critique films. The stellar work of these teens was subsequently published on rogerebert.com.

Butler served for many years as a board member for the National Association of Black Journalists-Chicago Chapter, including a three-term presidency. Under her leadership, the organization was named the national NABJ Chapter of the Year, another first. 

Butler earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature and creative writing from Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., and graduated from the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education management program at Kellogg’s Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill. 

She is an avid and lifelong film lover, Oscar night party host, bicyclist, world traveler and theater and museumgoer.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico, the Editor of RogerEbert.com, has covered television, film, video games, Blu-ray/DVD, interviews, and entertainment news for two decades online, on radio, and in print.

In addition, he is a TV writer for Vulture.com, a contributor at Rolling Stone, and freelancer for multiple outlets, including The New York Times, The Playlist, and Rotten Tomatoes. He also serves as President of the Chicago Film Critics Association, co-produces the Chicago Critics Film Festival every May, and is a regular guest on radio stations and podcasts. 

You can follow him on Twitter @Brian_Tallerico. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here.

Eric Pierson

 

ERIC PIERSON is a Professor of Communication and the director of the Film Studies minor at the University of San Diego. He has been on the faculty of the USD for over 25 years and during that time he has developed a number of courses on cinema. Among the courses he has developed are Film and Cultural Politics, Documentary Film and American Independent Film, which is taught on-site during the Sundance film Festival.

Expanding media literacy is the philosophical glue that holds together Professor Pierson’s multiple strands of scholarly and creative work. His work on black images and audiences has appeared in Beyond Blaxploitation: Documenting the Black Experience, Screening Noir, the Journal of Mass Media Ethics and Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences. He strives to create work that reflect academic rigor while also being accessible to those outside of the university setting. Professor Pierson’s work can be found in a wide variety of venues as he strives to reach diverse audiences, some of the venues where you find his work are academic journals, edited book collections, film festival panels, and museum exhibits.

Eric holds two degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a BFA in Fine Arts and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Communications Research.

Michael Phillips

Photo courtesy of Sally Blood

Michael Phillips is the film critic of the Chicago Tribune, appointed in 2006 after serving as the Tribune theater critic since 2002. Previously he worked as theater critic for the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Dallas Times-Herald. He started out as arts editor and film critic for the Twin Cities weekly City Pages, while serving as film critic for Minnesota Public Radio. Since 2015 Phillips has been the advisor/mentor for the U of I College of Media Roger Ebert Fellowship, and had the honor to co-host the nationally syndicated TV series "At the Movies" first opposite Richard Roeper and, later, A.O. Scott. He also introduced 100+ films, from "Citizen Kane" to "Total Recall," on the universal goodwill machine known as Turner Classic Movies.

Nell Minow

Nell Minow is honored to be the Contributing Editor at rogerebert.com. She also writes reviews at Moviemom.com and appears on the radio each week to talk about new releases. Her books include The Movie Mom’s Guide to Family Movies and 101 Must-See Movie Moments. Her husband lets her have 20 movies on her all-time top 10 list and in her spare time she is a lawyer.

Richard Roeper

Richard Roeper is a nationally syndicated columnist and film and television critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, the film critic for ABC-TV in Chicago and the author of nine books on popular culture. His globally popular podcast has reached the top 100 in the United States, Croatia, Poland, Costa Rica, Hong Kong and Great Britain.

Roeper is the recipient of the National Headliner Award as the best columnist in the country and has won three Emmys. It was the greatest honor of Richard’s career to co-host “Ebert & Roeper.”

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com. He is also the TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, the author of numerous books on film and television, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. Seitz’s writing on popular culture has appeared in The New York Times, Salon.com, The New Republic, The Star-Ledger, and Sight and Sound. Seitz is the founder and original editor of the influential film blog The House Next Door, now a part of Slant Magazine, and the co-founder and original editor of Press Play, an IndieWire blog of film and TV criticism and video essays. As a filmmaker, Seitz has written, narrated, edited or produced feature films and shorts, including his feature debut Home (2005), the dramatic short The Bed Thing (2009) and Steve Loff’s Desert Rain (2011), plus video essays about cinema history and style for The Museum of the Moving Image, Salon.com and Vulture, among other outlets.

Seitz’s five-part 2009 video essay Wes Anderson: The Substance of Style was spun off into The Wes Anderson Collection. It became one of the bestselling film books ever published, changed how pictorial criticism books were conceived and designed, and has been widely imitated. Richard Brody, film critic of The New Yorker, wrote “Seitz’s book, with its full investigation of Anderson’s art, unfolds the densely compressed layers of thought and experience, impulse and intention, that go into the making of Anderson’s films.”

The Wes Anderson Collection and its follow-up, The Wes Anderson Collection: Grand Budapest Hotel were New York Times bestsellers, as were Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion,  TV (The Book) and The Sopranos Sessions. Seitz’s other work includes The Oliver Stone Experience, Guillermo Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone, The Press Gang: Writings on Cinema from New York Press, 1991-2011, The Wes Anderson Collection: The French Dispatch, The Wes Anderson Collection: Asteroid City. The Deadwood Bible: A Lie Agreed Upon, and Dreams of Deadwood.

Seitz is also a programmer who has curated and presented programs of film and TV at venues throughout the United States and abroad, including IFC Center in Manhattan, The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, The Texas Theatre in Dallas, The Roxie Cinema in San Francisco, and International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Omer Mozaffar

Omer Mozaffar is a Lecturer in Islamic Studies and the Muslim Chaplain at Loyola University Chicago. He was handpicked by Roger Ebert as one of his Far Flung Correspondents. He has been a Hollywood consultant regarding depictions of Muslims, South Asians, and Arabs on such productions as Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. He has appeared as a talking head in numerous documentaries, including HBO's "Homegrown."