Rants and raves about burning topics that have caught my attention midweek, be it greedy corporate shenanigans, frustration or joy in regards to the Philly sports teams, a movie or DVD that has fired up my imagination, an intriguing personality, or my on-going battle to lose weight in our fast food world. — Lori Hoffman, Associate Editor, Atlantic City Weekly

My passion for movies began as a pre-teen and has been a driving force in my life ever since. Getting paid to see movies for free is a pretty sweet gig. For the past 30-plus years, I’ve been the film critic at AC Weekly, a.k.a. Whoot Newspaper in its formative years. I have been expressing that passion for the best movies that come along and also expressing my displeasure when movies didn’t cut it. Years ago I would get occasional feedback from fans via letters loving my work, and also complaints from those who didn’t agree with me. Fair enough: I put my opinions out there unvarnished. I’m a critic so I can take criticism.
I signed up to have my reviews posted on Rotten Tomatoes.com about five years ago.
I loved this terrific movie Web site and wanted to be a part of it. My life on RT was as a small fish in a very big pond featuring big paper superstar critics like Roger Ebert.
However, last year I did what I always do, say what I thought about the summer hit Iron Man. I didn’t like it and said so. This is when I became a target of the RT cyber stalkers. These stalkers fish the RT Web site looking for critics who disagree with the majority opinion. They then leave what I’m sure they think are witty, savage comments. The most popular one is “you suck!” No big deal; I was called a lot worse when I was a softball umpire.
However, one Iron Man fan boy decided to email me directly at AC Weekly and say he was going to kill my family and me. Even though I knew it was an idol threat, it was still disturbing. I’m passionate about movies so I understand the passion, but I don’t understand the need to be moronic.
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