Dante Rivera

In Their Own Words

I've been called a professional couch potato and I've never once been offended by that. I've seen everything. Every prestige drama, every reality show people call a guilty pleasure, every weird indie film with 200 reviews on Letterboxd that deserves way more attention than that. I don't believe in guilty pleasures. If something entertains you it has value. Full stop. I will defend a well-crafted slasher with the same energy I'd bring to a Scorsese epic and I won't apologize for it.

The way I review, I'm a fan first, critic second. I mean I'm not trying to sound smart. I'm trying to help you figure out what's worth your time tonight. That's the whole job. I'll tell you if something is a slow burn that pays off or if it completely falls apart in the third act, because I respect your time enough to be straight with you. You ever start a show everyone swears is incredible and then six episodes in you realize you've been lied to? Yeah. I'm trying to keep that from happening.

I cover new releases, streaming stuff I think is worth your time, series reviews, awards season breakdowns, and retrospectives where I dig up something great that flew under the radar. Those are probably my favorite pieces. There's something about finding a film that got overlooked and just going wait, no, come back, you need to see this...

But if something's bad I'll tell you that too. Gently. I'm never mean about it because life's too short for mean reviews.

What I Cover

Connections

• Works alongside Jess Wingo in Entertainment