Mike Canning saw his first movie at four at the Grand
Theater in Fargo, North Dakota, and has never lost his
childlike fascination for the “flickers.” He has been the
regular movie reviewer for the Hill Rag newspaper on
Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. since August 1993. He is
also a freelance writer on film, politics, and public
affairs. For ten years, beginning in September 1999, he
was involved as a programmer and commentator for the
series of classic movies entitled “Films on the Hill”
shown at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop.
Combining his interests in film and national politics,
Canning has researched, written, and lectured on the
depiction of Washington, D.C. and the U.S. Congress in
American feature films. He presented a formal paper—“The
Hill on Film”—on the latter subject at the annual meeting
of the American Political Science Association in 1997. He
has also contributed film articles and literary pieces to
Films in Review, The Hill, The Washington Review, and the
Foreign Service Journal. He has also lectured on American
film for students at the Foreign Service Institute.
Mike also has a particular interest in independent and
foreign-language films, on which he has written regularly,
including a study of the presence of such films on U.S.
screens. This bent nicely matches his core reading
audience of aware, literate adults who hardly need
Canning’s opinion on something like Spiderman 7.
Prior to his reviewing gig (which he realizes is the “Best
Job in the World”), Mike served for 28 years as a press
and cultural officer with United States Information Agency
(USIA) overseas, serving in eight countries on four
continents before retiring in 1993. In several of those
countries he organized thematic programs based on American
classic motion pictures. From his service overseas, he
developed a particular interest in the cinema of Germany,
Italy, Iran, and Latin America.
His reviewing tenets favor literate, believable scripts
fashioned into coherent, compelling stories, peopled by
competent, credible actors who are directed with pace and
weight appropriate to the material. The other accoutrement
of filmmaking—cinematography, production design, lighting,
music, effects, etc.—all are finally secondary to good
scripts, acting, and direction. Period.
Mike is also very proud of having been a film mentor for
his two daughters, who—from early ages—went with Dad to
witness some of filmdom’s greatest, like Laurel and Hardy,
John Ford, the Marx Brothers, Disney, and Fred Astaire,
perform on the big screen. He hopes to eventually do the
same for his several grandchildren.