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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Stranger Things is set in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, but it's shot elsewhere. Here are the Netflix show's real filming locations.
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When Stephen King isn't writing his next hit book, he's taking to social media to praise TV shows and movies. Here's what he recommended in 2024.
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Seinfeld's beloved screw-up George Costanza bungled (or faked) his way through several jobs over the course of the sitcom. Here are our five favorites.
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Frankie Muniz was a big star after Malcolm in the Middle, and he even had his own franchise in Agent Cody Banks. So why did he disappear from Hollywood?
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Stephen King has given his stamp of approval to a trippy British sci-fi horror miniseries that you most likely didn't know about until now.
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Star Trek: Lower Decks may be over, but we'll never forget these five episodes, which showcase everything the series did so brilliantly.
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A Sonic the Hedgehog 3 post-credits scene sets things up for yet another sequel, but it also implies the series will go in a new direction.
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James Gunn's Superman has its own unique solution to what's probably the most common complaint about the Man of Steel as a character.
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The Royal Tenenbaums director Wes Anderson was asked what his favorite Christmas movie is, and he went for a classic 1940s Technicolor musical.
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The opening of Gilligan's Island indicates an eighth passenger on the dreaded three-hour tour, but only seven cast members were shown. Did someone drown?!
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Jude Law has been a tad more forthcoming about his Star Wars: Skeleton Crew character than Disney and Lucasfilm might've preferred.
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Perhaps the most controversial movie of 2024 flopped pretty badly at the box office, which came as a real shock to its director.
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HBO is desperate to recapture the magic of Game of Thrones, but is missing what made the show special in the first place.
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Boy Meets World was one of the best coming-of-age comedy shows throughout the '90s, and plenty of now notable actors had guest spots you might have missed.
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Actor Wolé Parks has revealed the Steel costume for John Henry Irons that was cut from Superman & Lois due to budget constraints.
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Sidney Lumet's Serpico is one of the greatest films of all time, but here's what the major cast members did after this Academy Award-nominated crime drama.
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No soup for you! Here's the context for Jerry Seinfeld's feud with the real life "Soup Nazi" from that popular Seinfeld episode.
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Despite playing a member of the titular 'Eleven,' Don Cheadle (and his questionable accent) didn't receive credit for Ocean's Eleven. Here's what happened.
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From comedy delights like Elf to heartwarming seasonal classics like It's a Wonderful Life, here are the most rewatchable Christmas movies, ranked.
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Are you a fan of the long-running procedural TV show Bones? Then here are 10 more shows you should binge-watch right now.
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Historical fantasy romance My Lady Jane was canceled by Prime Video after just one season, and looks unlikely to return any time soon.
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Actor Morgan Freeman is a particular fan of Westerns, but his favorite movies of all time include a jukebox musical and a film about a sailing tiger.
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The Deadpool & Wolverine script is now officially available, seemingly revealing the (very NSFW) joke Disney asked Ryan Reynolds to cut from the film.
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The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks season 5, 'Fully Dilated,' features a very special guest star ... or, rather, their head.
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Before it became a film franchise starring Tom Cruise, Mission: Impossible was a long-running TV series. Here are the show's surviving cast members.
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FX's Shōgun brings feudal Japan to visually breathtaking life, but how much of it was actually shot in Japan? Here's every major filming location for the show.
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Alan Hale Jr. was working on a film when he was due to audition for Gilligan's Island, which forced him to take extreme measures to make his appointment.