Elvis Mitchell

Elvis Mitchell (born December 6, 1958) is an American

In the 1990s, Mitchell was part of a short-lived PBS show called Edge.^[4] On the series, he provided film commentary and general criticism. In one segment, Mitchell offered a quick run-down of all of director Oliver Stone's tropes, including "always keep that camera moving," which he said while moving a camcorder over a model of a Vietnam jungle and prison camp set up on a table. He was also the host of the Independent Film Channel's Independent Focus, a one-on-one interview show in front of a live audience from 1998 to 2001.

In March 2005 Mitchell was announced as the co-head (along with producer Deborah Schindler) of a New York City office for Sony's Columbia Pictures. Mitchell's role would be to help scout new minority talent and make movies for minority audiences. Yet Mitchell simply disappeared, leaving Schindler to run the office alone and to this day refuses to discuss his odd behavior.^[5]

From 2008 to 2010, Mitchell co-produced The Black List, a three-part series of documentaries about African Americans in the entertainment industry, with director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. The first film, The Black List (2008), includes Toni Morrison, Chris Rock and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar among others. The Black List: Volume 2 (2009) features Angela Davis, Tyler Perry and RZA, among others. The Black List: Volume 3 (2010) includes interviews with John Legend, Lee Daniels and Whoopi Goldberg, among others.

Since 1996, Mitchell has been the host of Santa Monica, California, public radio station KCRW's pop culture and film interview program The Treatment, which is nationally distributed and podcast. He served for a number of years as a pop culture commentator for Weekend Edition on NPR. In 2008, Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence began airing on Turner Classic Movies. On the program, Mitchell interviews actors and directors about their favorite classic films.

Mitchell is featured in the 2009 documentary film For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism discussing how he was championed as a young writer by Pauline Kael, and the impact on him as an adolescent of the Herschell Gordon Lewis film, Two Thousand Maniacs!.^[6]

On September 10, 2010, film critic Roger Ebert announced that he would be returning to television on a movie review show that he was producing for public television. He also announced that Mitchell, along with film critic Christy Lemire of the Associated Press, would be featured on the new program reviewing the new films released.^[7] On December 14, 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Mitchell would not be appearing on the new show.^[8]

In January 2011 it was announced that Mitchell had joined the Movieline as chief film critic, along with Stephanie Zacharek.^[9] Penske Media Corp terminated him after more than three months as Movieline.com's chief film critic.^[10]

Mitchell has been hired by the

In October 2022, Mitchell's documentary film Is That Black Enough for You?!? premiered at the New York Film Festival.^[12]

In popular culture

In 2007, Mitchell appeared in an episode of the

In 2014, Mitchell was mentioned as "the bad boy of public radio" during the FOX TV series Bob's Burgers episode "Friends With Burger-Fits."

References

External links

• KCRW's The Treatment
• Movies reviewed for The New York Times
• New York Magazine article on Mitchell's departure from The New York Times
• TCM's Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence Dead link
• Elvis Mitchell, B.A. | University of Nevada, Las Vegas