Peter Joseph Travers (born 1943or1944) [1] [2] is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for People and Rolling Stone . Travers also hosts the film interview program Popcorn with Peter Travers for ABC News.
Travers grew up in Yonkers, New York, the only child of Howard and Ruth Travers. [3] [4] He received a BA degree from Manhattan College in 1965 before graduating from New York University with an MA in English. [5] [6]
According to eFilmCritic.com, Travers is the nation's most "blurbed" film critic. [7] Travers' blurbs were being printed in newspapers as early as 1970, when he was a writer for Reader's Digest . [8] By the mid-1970s, he was a film critic for The Herald Statesman , a Yonkers newspaper. [9] In the 1980s, he wrote for People for four years before joining Rolling Stone in 1989. [10] In 2020, he departed Rolling Stone and became the film critic for ABC News. [11]
Travers hosts the New York Film Critics Series, a company that hosts live-streamed screening events and discussions, [12] as well as the ABC News show Popcorn with Peter Travers , where he interviews actors and directors about the latest projects and their lives. [13]
Travers married Diane Harris of White Plains, New York in 1967; the marriage ended in divorce. [2] [14] In 1980, Travers married Robyn Lee Reeves, an actress and graduate of Vassar College, in an Episcopalian ceremony. [2] He has three children: Jennifer, David and Alex. [15]
In 2010, When asked to rank the best films of the 2000s decade, Travers named: [16]
Since his career as a film critic from People to Rolling Stone , Travers marked these films the best of the year:
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. Known for her leading roles in films encompassing a variety of genres, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. The films in which she has starred have collectively grossed over $3.9 billion globally, making her one of Hollywood's most bankable stars. After an early breakthrough with appearances in Mystic Pizza (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989), Roberts established herself as a leading actress when she headlined the top-grossing romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990).
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a 2001 epic high fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson from a screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Jackson, based on 1954's The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. The film is the first installment in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It features an ensemble cast including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Sean Bean, Ian Holm, and Andy Serkis.
Sexy Beast is a 2000 black comedy crime film directed by Jonathan Glazer and written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto. It stars Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane. It follows Gary "Gal" Dove (Winstone), a retired criminal visited by a sociopathic gangster (Kingsley) who demands that he take part in a bank robbery in London.
Patricia Arquette is an American actress. She made her feature film debut as Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and has starred in many film and television productions. She has received several awards, including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards.
Miranda Otto is an Australian actress. She is the daughter of actors Barry and Lindsay Otto and the paternal half-sister of actress Gracie Otto. Otto began her acting career in 1986 at age 18 and appeared in a variety of independent and major studio films in Australia. She made her major film debut in Emma's War in 1987 in which she played a teenager who moves to Australia's bush country during World War II.
Mystic River is a 2003 American neo-noir mystery drama film, directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, and starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, and Laura Linney. The screenplay, written by Brian Helgeland, was based on the 2001 novel by Dennis Lehane. It is the first film in which Eastwood was credited as composer of the score.
Melanie Richards Griffith is an American actress. Born in Manhattan to actress Tippi Hedren, she was raised mainly in Los Angeles, where she graduated from the Hollywood Professional School at age 16. In 1975, 17-year-old Griffith appeared opposite Gene Hackman in Arthur Penn's neo-noir film Night Moves. She later rose to prominence as an actor in films such as Brian De Palma's Body Double (1984), which earned her a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress. Griffith's subsequent performance in the comedy Something Wild (1986) attracted critical acclaim before she was cast in 1988's Working Girl, which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won her a Golden Globe.
A blurb is a short promotional piece accompanying a piece of creative work. It may be written by the author or publisher or quote praise from others. Blurbs were originally printed on the back or rear dust jacket of a book. With the development of the mass-market paperback, they were placed on both covers by most publishers. Now they are also found on web portals and news websites. A blurb may introduce a newspaper or a book.
George Washington is a 2000 American drama film written and directed by David Gordon Green in his directorial debut. Its story centers on a group of children in a depressed small town in North Carolina who band together to cover up a tragic mistake.
William J. Monahan is an American screenwriter and novelist. His second produced screenplay was The Departed, a film that earned him a Writers Guild of America Award and Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Syriana is a 2005 American political thriller film written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, loosely based on Robert Baer's 2003 memoir See No Evil. The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of George Clooney, Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Cooper, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson, Amanda Peet, Christopher Plummer, Alexander Siddig, and Mazhar Munir.
Peter Mullan is a Scottish actor and filmmaker. His credits include Riff-Raff (1991), Shallow Grave (1994), Braveheart (1995), Trainspotting (1996), My Name Is Joe (1998), The Claim (2000), Neds (2010), War Horse (2011), The Fixer (2008), Top of the Lake (2013), Mum (2016-2019), Ozark (2017-2018), Westworld (2018-2020), Cursed (2020), The North Water (2021), The Underground Railroad (2022), The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022–2024), After the Party (2023), and Baghead (2023).
The Florida Film Critics Circle (FFCC) is a film critic organization founded in 1996. The FFCC comprises 30 film critics from Florida-based print and online publications. At the end of each year, the FFCC members vote on the Florida Film Critics Circle Awards for incredible achievements in films released that year. The organization also awards the Pauline Kael Breakout Award, named after film critic Pauline Kael, and the Golden Orange Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film. The FFCC membership includes film critics from Miami Herald, Miami New Times, Sun-Sentinel, Folio Weekly, Bloody Disgusting, WJNO Radio, WTVT, The Daytona Beach News-Journal, FlickDirect, and Tampa Bay Times.
Bill Barretta is an American puppeteer, producer, writer, director and actor, best known for performing The Muppets characters Pepe the King Prawn, Bobo the Bear and Johnny Fiama. He originated the role of Louie, Elmo's dad, on Sesame Street. Barretta additionally inherited the roles of Rowlf the Dog, The Swedish Chef, and Dr. Teeth after the death of Jim Henson.
Paul Capsis is an Australian actor, singer and playwright who mainly works in cabaret and musical theatre. He has also released four albums, Paul Capsis Live (2004), Boulevard Delirium, Everybody Wants to Touch Me (2008) and Make Me a King (2010). His film work includes roles in Head On (1998) and The Boy Castaways (2013). Capsis appeared in the telemovie Carlotta (2014). At the Helpmann Awards he has won five accolades: Best Live Music Presentation for Capsis vs Capsis (2002), Best Performance in an Australian Contemporary Concert for Boulevard Delirium (2006), Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role in a Play for Diana in The Lost Echo (2007), Best Male Actor in a Play and Best New Australian Work for Angela's Kitchen (2012).
Lost in Yonkers is a 1993 American film adaptation of Neil Simon's 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, directed by Martha Coolidge. It stars Irene Worth, Mercedes Ruehl, and Richard Dreyfuss. It was the first theatrical feature film to be edited on Avid Media Composer. It was the last film to use the 1981–1993 Columbia Pictures logo.
The Tillman Story is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Amir Bar-Lev and narrated by Josh Brolin. It is about the death of professional-football-player-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman in the War in Afghanistan, the coverup of the circumstances of his death, and his family's struggle to unearth the truth. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, and it was named the Best Documentary of 2010 by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle, the St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association, and the Florida Film Critics Circle, as well as one of the Top Five Documentaries of the year by the National Board of Review.
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Peter Travers, 43, agrees: 'I couldn't stand it.'