Jim Schembri

Jim Schembri has been a professional film critic since 1980, chiefly for Cinema Papers magazine, The Age newspaper and radio station 3AW. He now operates independently at jimschembri.com. Jim fell in love with the power of film as a young child after seeing The Lord of the Flies on TV, which he thought was real, and The Love Bug at the cinema, which he saw three times. He was six. Jim’s personal film collection contains more than 30,000 titles, including rare VHS tapes of such lost classics as Android (1982) and Weekend at Bernie's II (1993). He also owns many Beta tapes and two working Beta machines, which he refuses to sell on eBay. His second favourite movie quote is from the 1967 classic The Graduate: “Plastics”. His favourite movie quote comes from Steve Martin in the 1991 film Grand Canyon: “All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.” For Jim this is more than just a great line; it is a philosophy of life.