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Kevin Murphy

Kevin Murphy has cultivated the act of talking back to the movies into an art form and a career. For ten years on the Peabody Award-winning series “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” Kevin wrote, directed, and starred as the plucky red robot Tom Servo. Classic episodes of MST3K, as its legion of fans call it, continue to be one of Rhino Home Video’s top-selling DVD series. He can be heard riffing with Mike Nelson and Bill Corbett at RiffTrax.com.

Kevin created the ultimate movie-lover’s marathon by going to movie theaters around the globe every single day for a year, chronicling the event in the bestselling book A Year at the Movies: One Man’s Filmgoing Odyssey. Covering Kevin’s movie-watching adventures in over a hundred cities in ten countries on three continents, the book became a top 100 seller on Amazon and won national critical praise. Time’s Richard Corliss called the book “brimful of intelligent passion about films and filmgoing” while The Onion described it as “Lively, entertaining, diverse, sometimes fascinating, and deeply telling.” Publishers Weekly declared Kevin “a highbrow man of the people.”

No armchair critic he, Kevin has worked in nearly every aspect of television and film production. Among his adventures, Kevin co-wrote a medieval time-travel comedy screenplay for Sam Raimi; he fought rain and mosquitoes while working as a key grip on a low-budget horror film; line-produced a stylish indie noir thriller; and experienced all the horrors of pitching and producing a feature film for Universal Studios. While serving as a coffee-running grunt on the set of the movie “Mrs. Soffel,” Kevin had the unique privilege to watch a hung-over Mel Gibson vomit on the caboose of an antique train.

Kevin’s movie commentaries have been a regular feature on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday, and his eye for bad film earned him the “Bottom Shelf” column for Total Movie Magazine. Currently he’s writing a new book about the state of the American movie culture tentatively titled “Why Hollywood Sucks.” Kevin lives and works in Minnesota with his partner Jane and their ancient Cocker Spaniel, Humphrey, but continues to travel the world, watching movies everywhere he goes.