I am only a lowly film buff and amateur movie historian so now and then I am going to highlight actual film critics that I respect and trust.
Dan Murrel
Dan Murrel is an American film critic and movie business commentator on YouTube.
Dan was born on the 4th of January 1983 in Arkansas, Like so many of he fell in love with cinema from an early age sighting E.T. as the catalyst for his movie obsession and Dan is an outspoken fan of Speilberg to this day listing Jaws as his favourite film of all time.
Dan studied Media Production at Florida State University where he graduated with a B.A. in 2005.
Dan relocated to Los Angeles in 2008 and worked as a Production Assistant, Production Manager, freelance video technician and editor.
He went on to become an editor as well as a presenter on the once-popular YouTube channel “Screen Junkies” and was one of the guys who started the Emmy nominated YouTube channel “Honest Trailers”.
When “Screen Junkies” collapsed in 2017 Dan moved away from L.A. and started his own YouTube channel,
@DanMurrellMovies where he has 160k subscribers and has posted 632 videos.
I think Dan’s channel is great. Not only is his film criticism inciteful Dan does not engage in any culture wars his views are fair and balanced and free of any of the ridiculous preconceived biases that so many white, male, American, early millennials have on YouTube within the film sphere.
When Dan gets to see movies he reviews them and the review videos appear ad-hoc throughout the week. He also has weekly programs.
My favourite is “Movie Charts with Dan” which normally drops on a Tuesday and is a deep dive look into the Box Office performance of the current slate of movies that are in theatres. He looks at “The Domestic” (USA & Canada) numbers as well as the international performance of films and the global box office. He also tracks how the Theatrical business is doing as a whole and displays data around cinema performance pre and post covid.
One of his best items is he sometimes highlights an Independent cinema and shows pictures and tells you all about it. Warms my cold dead heart to see indie cinemas celebrated like that.
He also does a streaming chart show and tries to expose the mystery locked inside an enigma that is the streaming business.
Dan has been changing things up recently and he has started a movie news show which I am all for.
Another new addition is thanks to his sponsorship from the mobile phone network “MintMobile” he now has a number you can call and leave him a question voicemail and he answers viewers questions as part of his shows which has been an interesting addition.
Check out Dan’s Channel it is great for reviews of new movies and loads of lovely geeky stats.
