Indiana Film Journalists Association Members
Bob Bloom recently retired from being the longtime movie critic/Blu-ray-DVD reviewer for the Journal & Courier in Lafayette, Ind. Bob has been reviewing movies at the J&C since January 1993, and before that worked at newspapers in Springfield, Ohio, and Columbus, Ohio. In Springfield, Bob also wrote movie reviews and, in Columbus, was basically the second-string, fill-in movie reviewer. Bob has been reviewing Blu-rays/DVDs at the J&C for about 5-6 years now.
OUTLETS: ReelBob, The Film Yap, Lafayette Journal & Courier
Like most film critics, Logan's fascination with cinema began at an early age, practically living in front of the TV screen. This passion for film took him to Indiana University where he studied Telecommunications and led him to start his own website after graduating. He reviews multiple movies every week and annually shares a comprehensive Top 50 film guide for readers. As a lifelong resident of Fort Wayne, he has proudly served as a judge for the city's Hobnobben Film Festival, and when he's not at the local art house or one of the big theaters in town, Logan can typically be found in his home theater surrounded by an ever-growing film collection.
Outlets: LoganBushey.com, LivingFortWayne.com
Andy's love for film stems from his broader passion for all forms of visual communication, as shown in his background in graphic design and photography. He has spent several years as a writer, designer, and/or photographer for different publications, including Indianapolis Business Journal and UIndy's The Reflector newspaper, even serving as Entertainment Editor for the latter. While he credits graphic design as his primary trade, film is absolutely the most influential art form in his life and worldview.
Outlets: The Film Yap, the Odd Trilogies podcast
Aly Caviness is a lifelong film obsessive and co-owner/administrator of Midwest Film Journal. She blames Jack Sparrow for her master's degree in colonial Atlantic history and Guy Pearce for her marriage. Currently, she works at the Indiana Historical Society in the Archives & Library, where finds particular joy in perusing various artifacts from Hoosier film history. She has previously written for the Film Yap.
Outlets: Midwest Film Journal
Craig J. Clark watches a lot of movies. He started watching them in New Jersey, where he was born and raised, and has continued to watch them in Bloomington, Indiana, where he moved in 2007. His film writing has appeared at The Dissolve, The A.V. Club, Oscilloscope's Musings, and Crooked Marquee, where he is a regular contributor. He also writes the monthly Full Moon Features column for Werewolf News He is not a werewolf himself (or so he says).
Outlets: Crooked Marquee, Werewolf News, The Dissolve, A.V. Club, Oscilloscope's Musings
Evan Dossey's first film review was for the Clay Junior High newspaper in 2003; he hasn't stopped since. He graduated from Ball State University in 2012 with a degree in Anthropology. His primary outlet since 2012 has been TheFilmYap.com, where he writes a semi-weekly column, “Movie Jibber Jabber,” as well as other reviews and commentary. In 2017, Dossey and his wife, Aly, started their own web outlet, Midwest Film Journal.
Outlets: Midwest Film Journal
Caine Gardner’s first memory was watching the opening crawl of Star Wars: A New Hopedisappear into the night sky at the Meadowbrook Drive-In on U.S. 36 when he was four-years old. From that moment, he was hooked.
In addition to the Holy Trilogy, Caine grew up enjoying the fruits of ’70s and ’80s cinema such as Jaws, Rain Man and The Deer Hunter. Guilty pleasures also occupied much of his time, including Howard the Duck, Creepshow and Mannequin (Kim Cattrall was so hot).
Caine became the film reviewer extraordinaire for the Greencastle Banner Graphic in April 2008. In addition to writing film reviews, he is also the Banner Graphic’s sports editor.
Trivia: Caine received and viewed a reel-to-reel version of the original Star Wars in his youth over 200 times. He watched the film in a large closet with no sound.
Caine lives in Greencastle, IN, is married, has two beautiful daughters, and a psycho Jack Russell Terrier named Padmé.
OUTLETS: TheFilmYap.com
Eric Harris is a reporter for the Perry County News with his responsibilities including covering the latest and greatest in movie reviews. Eric also contributes his annual Top 10 for the Southern Indiana newspaper.
OUTLETS: Perry County News
Lou Harry, Society of Professional Journalists
Lou Harry is the author of more than 30 books including Creative Block, the novelization of the film "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians," and the novel "The High-Impact Infidelity Diet," which was optioned by Warner Bros. He has served as Arts & Entertainment Editor for the Indianapolis Business Journal before his current position as editor of Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists. Lou has written for more than 50 publications including Variety and TheatreWeek and is a frequent contributor to Indianapolis Monthly and Midwest Film Journal while also feeding his website, www.louharry.com. He has served as jurist for the Nashville, Indy, and Heartland Film Festivals and runs trivia nights (both online and in person) at conventions and other gatherings. He is the recipient of a Creative Renewal Grant from the Arts Council of Indianapolis and was selected to attend the 2011 NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Theatre and Musical Theatre. His plays, including "Popular Monsters," have been produced in five states.
Follow him on Twitter @louharry
OUTLETS: Quill, Indianapolis Monthly, Midwest Film Journal and more.
Jim Hunter is the film critic for WEHT/WTVW, the ABC/CW affiliate, which serves Evansville, IN and parts of Kentucky and Illinois. A lifelong film fan, Jim began his broadcast career in 2015. Since then, his weekly segment informs the tristate area with reviews, previews, and commentary on all the new releases in addition to his regular appearances on Lifestyles and In-Depth with Brad Byrd's coverage of the Oscars. He was educated at Miami (OH) University and Virginia Tech where he earned a Masters degree in English, and in addition to his work as a film critic, he has worked as an actor, writer, cook, accountant, paramedic, and college-level English instructor.
"Matt Hurt's love of movies can be traced back to when he watched Scream at far too young an age. Seeing the characters speak in movie references made him want to know everything he could about movies. In the early 2000s, he would post reviews on IMDb and browse their message boards. He wrote for the Speedway High School newspaper his senior year and, after graduating in 2005, briefly attended the University of Southern Indiana for journalism.
Years later, Matt created ObsessiveViewer.com as a blog to share his love of movies and TV with the world. Soon after, he and a friend created The Obsessive Viewer Podcast, which has become one of his biggest passions. Over the years, Matt has covered film festivals, obsessively tracked all of his movie watching, and grown The Obsessive Viewer brand into a multi-faceted beast of podcasts and live event coverage and hosting.
Outlets: ObsessiveViewer.com, The Obsessive Viewer Podcast"
Seeing Goodfellas in 1990 gave Anne the urge to play in the sandbox of film criticism. From 1997 to 2001, she wrote a weekly film review for NUVO Newsweekly as Ed Johnson-Ott’s associate/second chair critic.
Anne earned an MA in English from IUPUI with a concentration in film studies (and a thesis on the two film adaptations of the novel Lolita).
While directing the programs department at IMA/Newfields (2003-2012), Anne curated film series, hosted local film festivals, and organized public programs featuring the likes of editor Thelma Schoonmaker, director Charles Burnett, and film historian/director Peter Bogdanovich.
In 2018, Anne was invited to host a film-related show for Big Car’s WQRT 99.1 FM community radio station in Indianapolis. She launched Flick Fix with a dialogue format, recruiting a guest to discuss each film and its artistic/cultural impacts. Shows are archived at https://www.mixcloud.com/anne-c-laker/.
Anne is a published poet, daily diarist, and writes grants and other types of content through her company, LakerVerbal.com. She’s married to Joe, an attorney and gamer/comics fan.
Outlet: Flick Fix on WQRT 99.1 FM
Brent Leuthold is a longtime film enthusiast whose earliest memory is watching a pay-per-view trailer for 1992's Single White Female. He started writing officially about cinema in 2014 on his personal website Awake in the Dark. Since that time, he has created a bi-weekly podcast, also called Awake in the Dark, in which he discusses recent releases with friends and family members. He also writes film reviews on a weekly basis for the Fort Wayne-based newspaper Whatzup. Brent currently resides in Fort Wayne with his wife Aubree along with their dog Ebert and their kitten Siskel.
Outlets: Awake in the Dark, Whatzup
Movies have always played an essential role in James’ life. Busy parents who worked opposite schedules resulted in family time often involving a VHS or three. Some movies were in heavy rotation, but his family rented hundreds of films every year and saw a movie in the theater for each person’s birthday. Film and science have always been James’ two major passions and led him to a degree in biology from Indiana University. Things began to change when film criticism, mainly in the form of podcasting, served as an escape for James while grieving the passing of his father. Then in 2015, after commenting mostly in jest on Twitter, James jumped into the world of criticism by covering the animated series Supermansion. Now seven years, a few books, dozens of TV shows, and nearly 1,000 films later, James is still going strong. He is always looking to improve his writing and is currently planning the release of not one but two podcasts in 2023. James hopes his writing will help people find the best projects to enjoy alone or, more importantly, with friends and family.
Outlet: RedCarpetCrash.com
Christopher Lloyd is co-founder of TheFilmYap.com, and his work also appears in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, The Gainesville Sun, Ocala Star-Banner, The Current in Noblesville and his blog, Captain Critic. His work has also appeared in The Indianapolis Star, where he was a staff writer, movie critic and entertainment editor. Lloyd is also the film critic for WISH-TV, appearing weekly on Indy Style. Lloyd has been thinking and writing professionally about movies for nearly two decades, and has won numerous state and national journalism awards for his film criticism. He has a bachelor’s degree in cinema studies from New York University and a master’s from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
OUTLETS: TheFilmYap.com, Indy Style, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, Gainesville Sun, Ocala Star-Banner, and his own blog, CaptainCritic.com
Awards Daily feature writer since April of 2018. I created (with Ryan Adams) the Reframe feature dedicated to contextualizing films of historical note through a modern lens. I also serve as a critic, interviewer, and podcast participant for the site. A proud member of GALECA since October of 2020. I also write on boxing at NY Fights.
My essay "My Black Grandpa" was shortlisted as "Best of Folklore" by The Bitter Southerner in 2018. In the summer of 2020, my first work of fiction, "Eat 'Em Up, Tigers!" was published in Detroit Stories Quarterly.
Outlets: Awards Daily
Richard Propes is the founder/publisher of TheIndependentCritic.com, an Indianapolis-based film website with a focus on independent film. A freelance arts critic since his college days, Richard is also a nationally recognized child rights activist and popular inspirational speaker who has traveled over 6,000 miles by wheelchair on his annual “Tenderness Tour” events and has been recognized with the highest awards for community service in Indiana, Kentucky and from numerous non-profit organizations. Richard is the author of "The Hallelujah Life," “Imaginary Crimes,” The Secret Heart” and has had four plays produced in Central Indiana. He also served as Executive Producer on “Give a Girl a Chance,” a 2009 benefit compilation featuring local and national music artists. Richard has a strong commitment to using film to improve people’s lives and in 2017 produced the short film "Edmund Evans is a Rapist," following it up in 2019 by producing "Straight Outta Cowan," a live comedy performance by Central Indiana comics Rick Garrett and Jeremy Brown. Richard is widowed and a lifelong resident of Central Indiana. While the majority of Richard's work is exclusive to The Independent Critic, Richard has freelanced extensively for print and web-based media.
OUTLETS: The Independent Critic
Andy Ray’s interest in film began at an early age, but was solidified in college when he saw a midnight showing of Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange.” He minored in film history & film criticism at DePauw University, and was president of the DePauw Classic Film Society his senior year. During the 1980s, Andy reviewed films on various radio stations in Central Indiana and for the local Edinburgh newspaper. After taking a long break to raise three wonderful children, Andy began reviewing for the Current In Carmel in 2005. He is now the film critic for Current Publishing, Arts Channel Indy, and the radio film critic for Indy Boomer Radio.
Andy and his wife, Catherine, have hosted a total of five foreign exchange students through Foreign Links Around The Globe (FLAG), and through the Rotary Youth Exchange. Andy has worked as a local coordinator for FLAG, and he & Catherine have chaperoned 51 Rotary students on a West Coast trip. In his spare time, Andy sings in the St. Luke’s United Methodist Chancel Choir, and he is secretary of the Central Time Coalition, an independent group whose goal is to restore Central Time to all of Indiana.
Outlets: Arts Channel Indy, Current Night & Day
Mitch Ringenberg has written about film since his days at his high school newspaper, and is a staff writer for the Midwest Film Journal, where he regularly reviews new releases and participates in various columns, including his own "Schlock Art." He has a particular love for horror trash and downright bizarre cinema. Currently, Mitch lives in Carmel, IN and is employed as an English teacher.
Outlet: Midwest Film Journal
An Illinois native and award-winner both for film criticism and feature writing, Nick Rogers has been writing about film for professional news outlets since he was 16.
Before moving to Indiana in 2008, Rogers reviewed films for The Journal Standard and The State Journal-Register (daily newspapers in Illinois). His work was nationally syndicated through Copley News Service and, later, GateHouse News Service, and his film reviews from that time are archived at Rotten Tomatoes. Rogers has also written for PlayboySFW, Playboy’s safe-for-work online hub of arts & culture, as well as The Film Yap. He also has appeared as a radio critic on WFYI-FM 90.1 and WIBC-FM 93.1 in Indianapolis and WTAX-AM 1240 in Springfield, Ill.
He’s currently an editor and writer at Midwest Film Journal, a site co-founded with fellow IFJA members Evan Dossey, Aly Caviness and Sam Watermeier, and is a regular contributor to the Society of Professional Journalists’ ongoing journalism movies project.
Outlets: Midwest Film Journal
Tony Schaab has many passions in life, but one that manifests itself routinely is a love of pop-culture and media - specifically writing, music, and movies. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Russell Media, an online marketing firm. He has also worked as a private-event Master of Ceremonies since 1999, having performed MC/DJ work for the NFL, MTV, NBA, IndyCar, PGA, Wizard World Comic Con, and over 500 weddings. He is an award-winning freelance author/review critic and the creator of TheGOREScore.com along with its accompanying book series, the first volume of which is an 8-time #1 best seller on Amazon's Pop Culture chart (Kindle, 2012-2016). Tony lives in Indianapolis with his wife, daughter, and two rambunctious dogs. Stay connected with Tony and learn more at TonySchaab.com.
Outlets: TheGoreScore.com, TonySchaab.com, Screenrant.com
Though Ben Sears has only recently become invested in writing about film, he’s always had an insatiable appetite to watch, discuss, and learn about it. Ben loves finding something worth recommending in every film, even in something that doesn’t resonate with him overall, and he’s always a sucker for concert documentaries and a good closing credits sequence. In his spare time, Ben also enjoys photography and running marathons, but never at the same time. That would be difficult.
Outlets: Co-Host of "Obsessive Viewer" podcast, ObsessiveViewer.com, MidwestFilmJournal.com
A film geek at heart, Joe Shearer ‘s love of cinema began in the drive-ins of Ft. Bragg, N.C., in the early 1980s, then Indianapolis theaters in the mid-to-late 80s, cutting his teeth on films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellhole, and Chopping Mall, Brewster’s Millions, Red Sonja, and D.A.R.Y.L. and was cemented in 1989 at the age of 11 when he saw Tim Burton’s Batman on opening night, kicking off a weekend-long marathon of film where he and his dad watched a total of 15 movies between Friday evening and Monday evening.
Joe began reviewing movies for INtake Magazine in April 2004 and wrote weekly reviews tirelessly as the magazine shifted to Indy.com the Magazine, until November 2008.
In March 2009 Joe and Christopher Lloyd created The Film Yap, looking to create a permanent, high-quality movie review presence for Central Indiana. Also, if you could use the attached picture, I'd be most appreciative. Thanks!
An avid freelance writer, Joe has also written for MovieMaker Magazine, Trap & Field, Servo, North, and College Bound Teen Magazine, maintained a parenting blog at Indy Parent Source and a parenting column for the weekly Current in Noblesville.
In the real world, Joe is a resident of Noblesville, Ind., has three children, all of whom he has immersed in moviedom.
OUTLETS: Frequent Co-Host of Medium Cool: A Movie Podcast and Contributor to Midwest Film Journal
Matt Socey is the host of WFYI’s Film Soceyology, on WFYI’s HD2 The Point and WFYI.org. In addition to hosting Film Soceyology, Matt serves as the host of WFYI’s Blues House Party and is a regular director of theatrical productions around Central Indiana. Matt for years was also featured in Nuvo Newsweekly.
OUTLETS: WFYI
Sam Watermeier has been a film critic since practically before he was born, as he almost popped out of his mother's womb in a movie theater during the drawn-out conclusion of The Godfather Part III.
Sam got his professional start in 2009 at NUVO Newsweekly, where he now writes a weekly column called Indy Film Talk in which he explores the efforts of those in the Indiana film community — especially the horror directors holding funhouse mirrors up to our everyday fears. Sam also writes for The Film Yap, contributing reviews and commentaries, such as The Burton Binge, in which he wrote about each of Tim Burton's films leading up to his return to roots, Frankenweenie.
OUTLETS: The Film Yap, Midwest Film Journal
An obsessive need to understand details combined with a love of film led Alex Wheeler into film criticism. Alex started as a contributor and became the Writer's Coordinator for Film Inquiry, where you can find their reviews, articles, and yearly top ten list.
Outlets: Film Inquiry
INDIANA FILM JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIP
Are you actively working in Indiana as a film journalist for a print, broadcast or web-based media outlet? We’d love to consider you for membership. Visit our Membership Page, download the membership application and return it to Brent Leuthold.