John J. Puccio (Staff)
Review Editor
My favorite movie releases
About me
John is a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the following profile may be found at the Society's Web site (www.ofcs.org) and at the Rotten Tomatoes Web site (www.rottentomatoes.com).
BIOGRAPHY: JOHN J. PUCCIO
Teacher, English and Film Studies, retired. Classical Music Editor, $ensible Sound magazine. Review Editor, DVDTOWN.com. Bright, quiet, loyal, dependable. Easily trained. Will fetch. Make offer.
Contact: Readers with cordial, polite, helpful, or constructive comments may use the Personal Message services of DVDTOWN, Rotten Tomatoes, or the OFCS. Readers with moans, groans, grievances, or generally negative comments may use the Dead-end Office of DVDTOWN, Rotten Tomatoes, or the OFCS. If you can't find the Dead-end Office, just keep looking until you calm down.
MY MOST MEMORABLE FILM EXPERIENCE:
My earliest recollection of motion pictures having a profound and moving impact on me was in about 1951 or 1952 when my dad took me to see ";All Quiet on the Western Front,"; the 1930 film in rerelease. I remember the lobby was filled with display memorabilia--World War I uniforms, rifles, a small cannon of some sort--fascinating stuff to an eight-year-old kid. I loved the movie, I loved the action, I loved the main character, and I was totally shocked and shaken when at the end he was killed! This was the hero. Heroes didn't die. Not in the movies. Not anywhere.
It wasn't for another day or two that the second revelation sunk in. The hero was a German. Understand, I saw this film only seven or eight years after the Second World War, and the Germans had been our enemies. When my friends and I played army men, the bad guys were always Germans or Japanese. (Never mind that I was Italian the Italians, as far as I was concerned, had never even been in WWII, let alone fought against us.) Anyway, the hero of ";All Quiet,"; Paul Baumer, was a German, yet I was totally sympathetic toward him.
It wouldn't be for another few years that I would recognize the significance in my life of books and literature in quite the same way as I had by then learned the value of movies. And they were lessons I would never forget. I tend to wonder sometimes if I'd be teaching English and Film today if it weren't for that hand reaching out to the butterfly. Sweet, touching, funny, exciting, romantic, unforgettable, and ofttimes monumentally poignant images make good films what they are, different and precious for everyone who watches them.
HOW I CAME TO JOIN DVDTOWN:
For about twenty-five years previous to the introduction of DVDs, I had been (and still am) doing reviews of classical music, mostly for the $ensible Sound magazine, so the idea when it came up of reviewing movies on DVD was kind of a natural, combining my experience writing critiques with my lifelong love and study of movies.
I came to DVD Town a few months after the site opened in 1997, at the beginning of the DVD era and at a time when there were really only a small handful of DVD sites on the entire Web. I submitted my first review to Editor Henning Molbaek because his site looked like the best one of the bunch. I wasn't wrong. Before long, I was doing most of the reviews for the site, desperately trying to maintain a normal married life, teach school, and write for two publication outlets. It worked out a lot better when help arrived, for which I will be eternally grateful to my present colleagues.
BIOGRAPHY: JOHN J. PUCCIO
Teacher, English and Film Studies, retired. Classical Music Editor, $ensible Sound magazine. Review Editor, DVDTOWN.com. Bright, quiet, loyal, dependable. Easily trained. Will fetch. Make offer.
Contact: Readers with cordial, polite, helpful, or constructive comments may use the Personal Message services of DVDTOWN, Rotten Tomatoes, or the OFCS. Readers with moans, groans, grievances, or generally negative comments may use the Dead-end Office of DVDTOWN, Rotten Tomatoes, or the OFCS. If you can't find the Dead-end Office, just keep looking until you calm down.
MY MOST MEMORABLE FILM EXPERIENCE:
My earliest recollection of motion pictures having a profound and moving impact on me was in about 1951 or 1952 when my dad took me to see ";All Quiet on the Western Front,"; the 1930 film in rerelease. I remember the lobby was filled with display memorabilia--World War I uniforms, rifles, a small cannon of some sort--fascinating stuff to an eight-year-old kid. I loved the movie, I loved the action, I loved the main character, and I was totally shocked and shaken when at the end he was killed! This was the hero. Heroes didn't die. Not in the movies. Not anywhere.
It wasn't for another day or two that the second revelation sunk in. The hero was a German. Understand, I saw this film only seven or eight years after the Second World War, and the Germans had been our enemies. When my friends and I played army men, the bad guys were always Germans or Japanese. (Never mind that I was Italian the Italians, as far as I was concerned, had never even been in WWII, let alone fought against us.) Anyway, the hero of ";All Quiet,"; Paul Baumer, was a German, yet I was totally sympathetic toward him.
It wouldn't be for another few years that I would recognize the significance in my life of books and literature in quite the same way as I had by then learned the value of movies. And they were lessons I would never forget. I tend to wonder sometimes if I'd be teaching English and Film today if it weren't for that hand reaching out to the butterfly. Sweet, touching, funny, exciting, romantic, unforgettable, and ofttimes monumentally poignant images make good films what they are, different and precious for everyone who watches them.
HOW I CAME TO JOIN DVDTOWN:
For about twenty-five years previous to the introduction of DVDs, I had been (and still am) doing reviews of classical music, mostly for the $ensible Sound magazine, so the idea when it came up of reviewing movies on DVD was kind of a natural, combining my experience writing critiques with my lifelong love and study of movies.
I came to DVD Town a few months after the site opened in 1997, at the beginning of the DVD era and at a time when there were really only a small handful of DVD sites on the entire Web. I submitted my first review to Editor Henning Molbaek because his site looked like the best one of the bunch. I wasn't wrong. Before long, I was doing most of the reviews for the site, desperately trying to maintain a normal married life, teach school, and write for two publication outlets. It worked out a lot better when help arrived, for which I will be eternally grateful to my present colleagues.
My gear and gadgets
Sony KDL-XBR6 television, Toshiba HD-A35 HD-DVD player, Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player, Onkyo TX-SR705 A/V receiver, 7.1 Boston Acoustics Reference Series speakers with Energy e:XL subwoofer, Harmony One universal remote, Monster Cable speaker wire and interconnects. Primary target: The ICBM missile complex at Lapuda.
