Photo by James Kegley

Jane Horwitz has been reviewing films for Washington-area publications including The Washington Post since 1989. “The Family Filmgoer” started in the Post in August 1993 and quickly drew the attention of readers.

Horwitz reviews films and theater on “Around Town” (WETA-TV/PBS) in Washington. She was co-creator and participating critic on WETA-FM’s (NPR) weekly film segment, “Talking Pictures.” In 1989 and 1990 she was co-host and co-writer of “The Moviegoing Family,” The Learning Channel’s national film review program. She was executive producer and host of pilot programs for D.C. public television, “Chicks on Flicks,” which aired in 1990 and 1991. For four years through 1988 she was Theater and Film Critic on Washington’s “Ten O’Clock News” (WTTG/Fox Television). From 1975 to 1983 she was Film/Theater Critic and Reporter at WFAA-TV (ABC) in Dallas. In September 1997, she began writing the “Backstage” column--about all aspects of Washington area theater--for The Washington Post.

In 1981, she won a Matrix Award (Dallas Chapter of Women in Communications) and an Angel Award (Religion in Media) for an in-depth series titled “God and Man in The Eighties.” In 1979, she received the Texas Society of Architects John G. Flowers Award for stories on the restoration of historic buildings. The Dallas Press Club awarded her a Katie for the “Best Spot News Story” in 1977 for coverage of a riot in a public park.

Horwitz is a former judge for the Helen Hayes Awards, honoring professional theater in and around Washington. She has a B.A. from Stanford, and a Master’s in Journalism with honors from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. She lives in suburban Washington with her husband and often spends time with her 11 nieces and nephews, and four great nieces and nephews.

On the subject of violence in movies, Horwitz says “I am as cowardly a moviegoer as you’ll find when it comes to graphic violence. I’ve perfected a method of staring at my knees, or, as a last desperate measure, shielding my eyes so that I only see the bottom of the screen. By the time the dead bodies enter my line of vision, the damage has already been done.”

But, she adds that “all movie violence does not turn me off.” In some youth-oriented action pictures, “the mayhem is loud and fast-paced but not graphic or bloody. ... The question that troubles parents and all of society is whether such stunt-oriented, cartoonish violence has a negative effect on our children; whether it inures them to the realities of street-violence; to the fact that bullets kill, and punches hurt, and verbal abuse demeans.”

Horwitz says that negative stereotyping of racial and ethnic minorities continues to crop up in many films. And “I feel obliged to call attention to it whenever I see it ... The last thing parents need is a movie--a bit of entertainment--making their children feel diminished because of who they are and where they’re from, and how that is portrayed on-screen.”