My red carpet report from the “Pixels” premiere in NYC.
Lights Camera Jackson (a.k.a. Jackson Murphy) began his career as a film critic in 2006 at the age of 7. To date, Jackson has written nearly 1,000 reviews of new releases and, in total, has seen more than 1,500 films. In 2010, Jackson became the youngest person to win a NY Emmy Award, for his on-air movie reviews on Time Warner TV station, Capital News 9. And in 2011, Jackson was inducted into the Broadcast Film Critics Association as their youngest member. The BFCA’s annual Critics Choice Awards is one of the industry’s most recognized and prestigious awards shows. Jackson is also a member of SAG-AFTRA and votes annually for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Currently, Jackson can be heard every Friday morning on WGNA-FM and his reviews are also posted on his website, YouTube channel and Cultjer.com. He is also a contributor to AnimationScoop.com, run by animation historian Jerry Beck. And Jackson hosts the weekly internet pop culture news show “LCJ LIVE”, along with “The LCJ Q&A Podcast”, on which he interviews celebrities and filmmakers.
Since the podcast began in 2011, Jackson has welcomed-in more than 100 entertainment industry figures. Jackson’s first guest was Tom Kenny, the iconic voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. In 2012, Jackson interviewed Lee Hirsch, the director of the documentary “Bully”, actor/director Matthew Lillard and “The Middle” star Atticus Shaffer. 2013 guests included Oscar-winning director Chris Wedge (Scrat in the “Ice Age” movies). Also on the show that year were the directors of “The Croods”, Chris Sanders and Kirk DeMicco. 2014 guests included comedian Kathy Griffin, Chaz Ebert, wife of late film critic Roger Ebert and animation historian Jerry Beck.
The following year Jackson interviewed Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody (“Juno”) and “Hotel Transylvania” trilogy director Genndy Tartakovsky. 2016 highlights included comedian Adam Pally, LAIKA founder Travis Knight and Oscar-winning “La La Land” composer Justin Hurwitz.
In 2017, the podcast featured “Fairly OddParents” creator Butch Hartman, Emmy-winning game show host Todd Newton, and comedian Gilbert Gottfried. Also, popular talk show host Jenna Wolfe and Oscar-nominated writer and star of “The Big Sick”, Kumail Nanjiani dropped in.
So far in 2018, 4-time Oscar winning “Wallace & Gromit” creator Nick Park and “People NOW” host Jeremy Parsons have joined LCJ, along with both the star and writer/director of the critically-acclaimed film “Eighth Grade” – Elsie Fisher and Bo Burnham.