The Peorian now has a movie critic

In the year-plus we've been publishing this website, we have talked about finding somebody other than myself or Kevin Kizer, our literary and culinary critic to write movie reviews.

How hard can it be, right? Go see a movie and write a story giving your opinion about it.

The thing was, we wanted to make sure it was somebody we knew; somebody who could write and be able to give a movie review without giving away the whole movie.

Well, needless to say the idea got shelved for quite a while. Starting a project like The Peorian — the website, the magazine and the television show — from scratch was not an easy endeavor. Several things, I'm sorry to say, had to be put on the back burner.

Then I was talking with some friends fairly recently about different films we'd seen. Actually, it was about films they had seen because I don't find the time to go to many movies these days. As I write this at this moment, I cannot tell you the last movie Sue and I went to because I cannot remember.

I realized I have one good friend who is a movie nut. He will see as many movies as he can, usually by himself because his wife doesn't want to go as often and because he feels he can better dissect a film when watching alone. (Now, to me, dissecting a film isn't all that entertaining. When I go to a movie I just want to watch it, be entertained. If I like it, great. If not, oh well. But I'd be hard-pressed to adequately explain why.)

So starting today, Tim Wyman is the film critic for The Peorian. His first review, which you can find here on our website on The Arts page (until we find a more permanent home for the reviews), was posted today. It is about the movie "Argo," which Wyman highly recommends.

Now Wyman is no slouch. The president of The Wyman Group in Peoria, he also knows the arts. He has directed and performed on stages at Corn Stock Theatre for years. He is a good writer and knows how to get his point across. He is honest, sometimes to a fault, but you will know what he says about a film is what he truly thinks about it and why his recommendation is important to him.

Wyman will be an occasional guest on The Peorian television show, which airs Sunday mornings at 8 a.m. on WHOI-TV as well as on this website, especially when there is a big blockbuster due out or recently released.

He and Kevin Kizer, our literary critic, will both be on the television program with me on Nov. 25. Wyman will talk about the new holiday film releases, Kizer will talk about new book releases and then together the three of us will talk about our favorite Christmas movies. It should be a fun show.

I hope you enjoy Wyman's reviews, whether you agree with him or not. And you can always respond to his reviews on our website's Community Forum. Just please, watch your language.

You can also write to Wyman in care of me (editor@thepeorian.com) and I can pass it on.

Paul Gordon is editor of The Peorian and thepeorian.com. He can be reached at 692-7880 or editor@thepeorian.com

About the Author

Paul Gordon is the editor of The Peorian after spending 29 years of indentured servitude at the Peoria Journal Star. He’s an award-winning writer, raconteur and song-and-dance man. He also went to a high school whose team name is the Alices (that’s Vincennes Lincoln High School in Indiana; you can look it up).