Lou Lumenick


Louis J. "Lou" Lumenick is an American film critic. He was the chief film critic and film editor for the New York Post where he reviewed films from 1999 until his retirement in 2016. He is currently researching the history of theatrical motion pictures on television.

Life and career

Lumenick was born and raised in Astoria, Queens. He attended City College of New York and took filmmaking courses at The New School. He previously worked at The Hartford Times, a defunct newspaper in Connecticut, and The Record in New Jersey, reviewing films over a nine-year span for the latter. He was metropolitan editor at the Post before taking the film reviewer position.
In 2007 he was inducted into the CCNY Communications Hall of Fame. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle. Lumenick and Farran Smith Nehme conceived and created "Shadows of Russia," a 20-film series that aired in January, 2010, on Turner Classic Movies. He also appeared as an on-air TCM guest programmer on October 2010 as part of the Critic's Choice film series, introducing The Last Flight and All Through the Night with Robert Osborne. His essay on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is included in The Criterion Collection's January 2014 release of the film. Lumenick has introduced films at the United Palace in Washington Heights, Manhattan, as well as at the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, Loews Jersey and at the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. He has also recorded introductions for DVD releases of several classic films for the Troma Team's Roan Group label.

Controversy

Film critic Roger Ebert said that at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, an audience member sitting in front of him "whacked me with a rolled-up program or festival binder or something" during a screening of Slumdog Millionaire after Ebert repeatedly tapped the person on the shoulder despite being asked to stop. Ebert wrote he persisted because he could not see the subtitles due to a medical condition that limited his head movement. Ebert did not name the audience member, who Ebert said "had no idea who I was" or his problem because Ebert could not speak, and said the incident "has been blown out of proportion. It is of little interest." The New York Daily News quoted an unnamed source identifying the audience member as Lumenick, who has never spoken publicly about the incident.