James F. Monaco (November 15, 1942 – November 25, 2019) was an American

film critic Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films and the film medium. In general, film criticism can be divided into two categories: Academic criticism by film scholars, who study the composition of film theory and publish their findin ...

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

, and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

Life and work

Monaco founded Baseline in 1982, an early online database about the entertainment industry, and a forerunner of the

IMDb IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

. It was taken over by

The New York Times Company The New York Times Company is an American mass media corporation that publishes ''The New York Times'' and its associated publications such as ''The New York Times International Edition'' and other media properties. The New York Times Company's ...

in 2006. In 2011 the Times sold the company to Project Hollywood LLC, which is majority owned by entrepreneurs Laurie Silvers and Mitchell Rubenstein, who sold it to

Gracenote Gracenote, Inc. is a company and service that provides music, video, and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies worldwide. Formerly CDDB ("Compact Disc Data Base"), Gracenote ...

in 2014 for a reported $50 million. He has taught at

The New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR), previously known as The University in Exile and The New School University, is a graduate-level educational division of The New School in New York City, United States. NSSR enrolls more than 1,000 stud ...

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, and the

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

. He was a media commentator for

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 a ...

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

in the 1980s, and has written for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first Alternative newspaper, alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf (publisher), Dan Wolf, ...

'', and ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in Electronic publishing, electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 ...

''. He wrote several books, including ''The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette'' (1976), ''How To Read A Film'' (1977, 1981, 1999, 2009)Google Books
/ref> and ''American Film Now'' (1979). Monaco was also a contributing editor and writer to the Canadian film magazine, Take One, for many years. He was the founder and president of UNET 2 Corporation, and he ran Harbor Electronic Publishing in New York and Sag Harbor. In 2012 he co-founded the Long Island Nature Organization, Inc., sponsors of the annual Long Island Natural History Conference. Since 2001 In Germany a reputable student film award is named after James F. Monaco, "Der Goldene Monaco" or The Golden Monaco

https://www.dergoldenemonaco.de/] Every year the student award is handed over to the winners in a large Oscar like show in front of up to 1,600 students in th

a large venue in the city of University of Siegen, the University of Siegen, where the award was born. James Monaco died of vascular disease on November 25, 2019.

Published works

*''The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette''. Oxford University Press, 1976 *''How to Read A Film: Movies, Media, and Beyond''. Oxford University Press, 1977, 1981, 2000, 2009 *''Celebrity''. Dell, 1978 *''Media Culture''. Dell, 1978 *''Alain Resnais: The Role of Imagination''. Oxford University Press, 1978 *''American Film Now: The People, The Power, The Money, The Movies''. Oxford University Press, 1979. New York Zoetrope, updated edition 1984 *''Who's Who in American Film Now''. New York Zoetrope, 1981, updated edition 1987 *''The French Revolutionary Calendar''. New York Zoetrope, 1982. *''The Connoisseur's Guide to the Movies''. Facts on File Publications, 1985 *''The International Encyclopedia of Film''. Putnam and Virgin, 1991 *''The Movie Guide. Putnam and Virgin'', 1992, 1994 *''Cinemania: Interactive Movie Guide'' - DVD-ROM. (Contributor) Microsoft, 1992 *''The Dictionary of New Media''. Harbor Electronic Publishing, 1999 *''How To Read a Film: Multimedia Edition''. Harbor Electronic Publishing, 2000

References

External links

About James Monaco - readfilm.comBackground and Links
1942 births American educators Living people American publishers (people) 20th-century American non-fiction writers People from Flushing, Queens {{US-film-critic-stub