Meet an Invader: Eric Ambler, Film Critic

A day late, but this one is worth the wait! This week, lucky readers get to know one of our most consistent and hard-worker film critics. When he started his movie review blog, Ambler Amblog, I became a dedicated reader. I’ve known Eric since our days at USC, talking everything film in the halls of the college apartments so when Screen Invasion was just a dream in mine and Jim’s head, there was one reviewer I knew I wanted to be a part of the team from the get-go.

Now, here’s your peek in to Ambler’s brain:

 

1. What drew you to the Screen Invasion team, over other bigger and older entertainment websites?

Simply put, I fit in here. Screen Invasion has so many eclectic, energetic writers with a passion for entertainment – they’re my kind of people! And the challenge of building something from the ground up is way more fun and satisfying.

 

2. Briefly describe what you write about for the site for our readers.

I mostly write movie reviews and contribute the occasional news item or blurbs for our fabulous group features. I don’t have a specific beat because I will honestly watch anything, but I tend to review three general types of movies for Screen Invasion:  indie films, documentaries, and the overripe fruits of the multiplex that nobody else was motivated to see.

 

3. What’s one pop culture goal you want to accomplish before the world ends? (Mayan calendar predicts the apocalypse will be 12/21/2012)

Let’s assume the Mayans fudged some of the math and the world’s going to end next year, because I’d love to attend one of the “big four” foreign film festivals – Berlin, Cannes, Venice, or Toronto (Canada’s a foreign country, eh?).

 

4. What’s your desert island movie and why?

If I wound up on a desert island, I probably made some huge mistakes and suffered some incredibly bad fortune. So I’d choose The Jerk, which is basically a string of lucky highs and capricious lows, just to keep everything in perspective. Plus I’ll probably need a laugh or two hundred, and that Steve Martin-Bernadette Peters ukelele duet would make a wonderful lullaby after a long day of bashing coconuts against rocks. Just watch it for yourself:

[springboard type="youtube" id="AI8NuFAETMQ" player="scin001" width="560" height="315" ]

 

5. What’s your background in writing?

I’ve been blogging ever since a blog was called an “online journal.” For a long time I mostly wrote humorous anecdotal and biographical pieces, then tried blogging about various sundry topics before launching Ambler Amblog in June 2011. I also used to write really bad poetry and short fiction in high school.

 

6. What’s your guilty pleasure flick or TV show?

I don’t feel guilty about any of my pleasures, per se, but I do get quizzical looks when I say that TruTV’s reality series Hardcore Pawn sometimes approaches the level of great art. (Grating, profane, and incredibly depressing art, but still…) I will also defend most of Roland Emmerich’s oeuvre – especially his 1998 version of Godzilla (size does matter!) – well beyond the point where others will start to question my taste.

 

7. When you aren’t writing and watching movies – what do you do for fun?

Whatever Brian Rudloff is doing.

 

8. If you could have dinner with 3 fictional characters – who would it be and why? What would you want to talk about?

A trio of time travelers: Dr. Emmett Brown from  Back to the Future, the Doctor from Doctor Who, and Mr. Peabody from The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show.  Oh the secrets they could tell! I’d also try to convince one of them to alter the space-time continuum in my favor. Can you say “Pulitzer Prize-winning astronaut and world karate champion Eric Ambler”?

For more Eric, be sure you follow him on Twitter: Follow @ambleramblog

back to the future, Doctor Who, featured, Godzilla, Steve Martin, The Jerk, The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show