Valerie Ettenhofer
School
Saint Mary's College Of California
Expertise
"The Last Of Us", "Stranger Things", Streaming TV Shows
- A major "Avatar: The Last Airbender" fan since 2005, Valerie has previously ranked every episode of the series and even has a tattoo of the four element symbols.
- Valerie wrote an essay about the Nicolas Cage drama "Pig" – her favorite movie of 2021 – that appears in the 2023 Simon & Schuster anthology "Sad Happens."
- Valerie has previously served on the Critics Choice Awards TV comedy nominating committee, where she was thrilled to help highlight breakout performances from great shows like "Reservation Dogs" and "Abbott Elementary."
Experience
Valerie has been working professionally as an entertainment journalist since 2012, when she began freelance writing for her local college newspaper and quickly rose through the ranks to become editor-in-chief. After college, Valerie interned at the historic Roxie Theater in San Francisco, writing copy for their website and falling even more in love with film in the process. Since then, her work has appeared in print in the East Bay Express, as well as on websites like The Playlist, IGN, Dread Central, IndieReader, Movie Mezzanine, and more. Valerie is a voting member of the Critics Choice Association's TV and Documentary branches and the LGBTQ+ critics' circle, GALECA. For several years, she served as the head TV critic at Film School Rejects. She also publishes a weekly pop culture newsletter titled "Hey, What Are You Watching?"
Education
Valerie graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor's degree from Saint Mary's College of California, where she studied English. Her film-heavy education allowed her to study special topics in pop culture, including independent film and the works of Alfred Hitchcock.
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Stories By Valerie Ettenhofer
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Creating the iconic roar for Godzilla Minus One resulted in some noise complaints from folks nearby.
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Fallout used virtual sets for many expansive locations, but you wouldn't know it by looking at the Prime Video series. Let's break down some special effects.
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Francis Ford Coppola explains a classic cut scene from The Outsiders, and why he cut it to begin with.
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The Bob Newhart Show featured a terrific cast of talented comedians. Here are the only major actors still alive from the series.
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Gilligan's Island was set to air for a fourth season, only to be canceled to make room for the renewal of the long-running Western series Gunsmoke.
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Timothée Chalamet is older than Paul Atreides in the first Dune book, which wound up benefitting Denis Villeneuve's movie adaptations.
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Makeup artist Donald Mowat has long collaborated with Daniel Craig, but couldn't pass up the chance to work on Dune after No Time to Die was delayed.
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HBO's groundbreaking prison drama Oz is getting a sequel in the form of a short film titled Zo, about life after prison.
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These are the only major actors still alive from the classic show The Rockford Files.
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Austin Butler approached his role in Dune: Part Two differently than he did with Elvis.
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One of the wilder moments in the trailers for Guy Ritchie's The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was the result of Henry Cavill improvising.
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Watch out, Darth Maul; The Acolyte cast and crew are gunning to deliver some of the best lightsaber battles ever seen in a live-action Star Wars project.
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Time to pick up your hammer again. Park Chan-Wook is overseeing the development of an Oldboy English-language TV series inspired by his classic revenge movie.
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Martin Scorsese can't stop, won't stop. The filmmaker is now planning a Frank Sinatra biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jennifer Lawrence.
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According to Sally Field (and others), Steel Magnolias director Herb Ross treated Julia Roberts poorly on the set of the film.
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The Last of Us season 1 didn't leave a lot of room for improvisation, but Pedro Pascal made a vital contribution to one of Joel's most moving scenes.
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Here they are: all of the Trolls movies in order, in case you want to have yourself a Trolls marathon.
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Zendaya thought to improvise a moment involving bread from Spider-Man: No Way Home.
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Surviving members of The Love Boat's cast are still working in Hollywood today, while others have retired from acting and are pursuing other endeavors.
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The late Lance Reddick had the misfortune of having his role in not one but two Godzilla films heavily edited down, including Godzilla vs. Kong.
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Amazon's Fallout TV show is packed with Justified actors, and Walton Goggins has revealed he personally invited Mykelti Williamson to guest star.
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Burt Reynolds (briefly) thought speaking in an Irish accent would improve Boogie Nights, much to Mark Wahlberg and director Paul Thomas Anderson's confusion.
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We've seen footage of Barry Jenkins' new Lion King prequel Mufasa: The Lion King at CinemaCon 2024.
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Steven Spielberg had a lot of problems as director of Jaws, but one person kept him from being fired.
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Maxine Minx is ready to leave her bloody past behind her and become a movie star, but the first trailer for MaXXXine teases the horror that lurks in L.A.
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These are the only actors still alive from A Time For Killing, including Harrison Ford.
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Actor-turned-filmmaker Dev Patel wants to let the dust settle on Monkey Man before considering a sequel to his acclaimed action movie.