About TC Candler

He graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1997 with a bachelors degree in English, with a strong emphasis in Film, Poetry & Fiction Writing.

From there, TC Candler went on to create one of the more successful movie review websites of the late 1990's. At it's peak, Critical Mass Movie Reviews was receiving a quarter of a million visitors a month.  Eventually, he teamed up with two other critics to form IndependentCritics.com -- a website devoted to movie reviews, celebrity interviews and opinionated columns.  It was also a huge success for over three years -- ranking as one of the most popular movie sites on the net between 2005 and 2007.

TC Candler was also the lead writer and editor of Coming Soon Magazine -- a London based monthly publication under the banner of The Independent Newspaper.  At its peak, Coming Soon was drawing well over 100,000 readers on a regular basis.

He currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he divides his time reviewing all the latest movies for his acclaimed personal site, www.tccandler.com, and traveling to elite poker events such as the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker.

"For me, the most important qualities a film can possess are: Originality, Focus, Passion, Heart, Intelligence & Wit... all framed by magnificent acting, sure- handed directing, gorgeous cinematography & a beautiful score or soundtrack.

I am a big fan of French and Italian films, and I much prefer the independent film scene to the mind-numbing repetition of most Hollywood blockbusters.

I prefer to believe that films should be more than just mere entertainment. Nothing but pure entertainment tends to bore the hell out of me... which seems to be paradoxical. To merit a recommendation, I have to care.. I have to be moved... I have to know why a film exists!"

- TC Candler

TC Candler's Favorite Photos

The Five Photos You See at the Bottom of Each Page and...

TC Candler's Favorite Quotes

"Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around." - Cameron Crowe

"Happiness is only real when shared." - Sean Penn's "Into the Wild"

"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." - Aesop

"If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain." - Emily Dickinson

"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?" - Thomas Jefferson

"We are put on this planet only once, and to limit ourselves to the familiar is a crime against our minds." - Roger Ebert

"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." - Thomas Mann

"Maybe there I can tell her all those things they don't have words for here." - Billy Bob Thornton in "The Man Who Wasn't There"

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life." - Muhammad Ali

"By words the mind is winged." - Aristophanes

"Get busy living or get busy dying. That's what my friend Andy said. I hope Andy is down there. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams... I hope!" - The Shawshank Redemption

"Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls." - Ingmar Bergman

"Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding." - Ambrose Bierce

"I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it." - Ashleigh Brilliant

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city." - George Burns

"As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it." - Dick Cavett

"To have another language is to possess a second soul." - Charlemagne

"I believe that sex is one of the most beautiful, natural, wholesome things that money can buy." - Tom Clancy

"Real religion should be something that liberates men. But churches don't want free men who can think for themselves and find their own divinity within. When a religion becomes organized it is no longer a religious experience but only superstition and estrangement." - Federico Fellini

"How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!" - Anne Frank

"Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you." - Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Don't tell your problems to people: eighty percent don't care; and the other twenty percent are glad you have them." - Lou Holtz

"A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it." - Bob Hope

"A child needs your presence more than your presents." - Jesse Jackson

"Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments." - Rose F. Kennedy

"My religion is very simple, my religion is kindness." - Dalai Lama

"The most popular toy of 1996: 'Tickle Me Elmo'. And the least popular toy of 1996, you guessed it: 'Tickle Me Frank Stallone'." - Norm MacDonald

"When did I realize I was God? Well, I was praying and I suddenly realized I was talking to myself." - Peter O'Toole

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night." - Edgar Allan Poe

"If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten." - Anthony Robbins

"Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence." - Spanish proverb

"It is better to be quotable than to be honest." - Tom Stoppard

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." - Lily Tomlin

"A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons." - Desmond Tutu

"Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache." - Mae West

"A long, long time ago... there was a magic rose that made whoever plucked it immortal. But no one would dare go near it because its thorns were full of mortal poison. So, amongst the men, tales of pain and death were told in hushed voices. But there was no talk of eternal life... because men fear pain more than they want immortality. So, every day, the rose wilted, unable to bequeath its gift to anyone. Alone and forgotten at the top of that mountain. Forgotten until the end of time." - Ivana Baquero as Ofelia in "Pan's Labyrinth"

"Star Wars movies are for little boys, bi-curious frat guys who haven't grown up, and 40-year-old virgins who are nostalgic for a time when they still had a little hope." - TC Candler

Dude, no. This is serious. I just sharted. I tried to fart and a little shit came out. I just sharted. Now let's go." - Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Along Came Polly"

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain

"Did you hear the one about the Zen master who ordered a hot dog? He said he wanted 'one with everything'." - Nicolas Cage in "Next"

"Time is a film snob's best friend." - TC Candler

"You can't help yourself because your self sucks!" - Billy Bob Thornton in "School for Scoundrels"

"It's sad to fall asleep. It separates people. Even when you're sleeping together, you're all alone." - Jean Seberg in "Breathless" (1960)

"What's another word for Thesaurus?" - Steven Wright

"Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday. " - Kevin Spacey in "American Beauty"

"If James Bond movies are beautiful high-priced call girls, then Vin Diesel's "XXX" is a dirty crack whore with syphilis." - TC Candler

"Common sense is not too common." - Voltaire

"A film is never really any good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet." - Orson Welles

"It is often better to wonder what a character is thinking than to know." - Roger Ebert

"I love you, you pay my Rent." - Neil Tennant

"The simple folk among us often accuse the deepest thinkers and most brilliant minds of pretentiousness. It is their best way to derail an argument that they know they are losing." - Anonymous

"To be or not to be. That's not really a question." - Jean-Luc Godard

"I suppose some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers." - T.S. Eliot

"Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever." - Aristophanes

"Mr. Madison. What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response was there anything that could even remotely be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul. ----- OK. A simple 'no' would've done just fine." - "Billy Madison"

"You’re like a big bear, with claws and fangs... fangs man. Big fuckin teeth, yeah man with fuckin teeth on ya. She’s just like this little bunny who’s just kinda cowering in the corner... shivering. Yeah man just kinda... And you got these claws, and you’re staring at these claws, and your thinking to yourself, with these claws, you’re thinkin'... now how am I supposed to kill this bunny, how am I supposed to kill this bunny, and your poking at it. Yeah you’re not hurting it, you’re just kinda gently batting the bunny around, you know what I mean? And the bunny's scared mike, the bunny's scared of you. And you got these fucking claws man and these fangs man, and you’re looking at your claws and your looking at your fangs and you’re thinking to yourself... I don’t know what to do man, I don’t know how to kill the bunny... with this you don’t know how to kill the bunny. Do you know what I mean? You’re like a big bear man." - VINCE VAUGHN as Trent in "Swingers" (1996)

"And that's how it came to pass that on the second-to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate factory roof in the spring of forty-nine wound up sitting in a row at ten o'clock in the morning drinking icy cold, Bohemia-style beer, courtesy of the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank State Prison." - MORGAN FREEMAN as Red in "The Shawshank Redemption" (1994)

"I'll never let go." - Kate Winslet as Rose in "Titanic"

"I am quietly judging you." - TOM CRUISE as Frank T.J. Mackey in "Magnolia" (1999)

"I'm still here you bastards!" - Steve McQueen in "Papillon"

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives." - Mel Gibson in "Braveheart"

"Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind, as that becomes more developed, as more discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the changing circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him as a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regiment of their barbarous ancestors." - Thomas Jefferson

"Time destroys everything!" - Monica Bellucci in "Irreversible"

"Fool me once, shame on... uh... me. Ya fool me, I can't get fooled again." - George Dubya Bush in "F911"

"Hey, are those lizard? -- No, they're Italian." - Mark Wahlberg in "Boogie Nights"

"I have a love in my life. It makes me stronger than anything you can imagine." - Adam Sandler in "Punch-Drunk Love"

"The book says, we might be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us." - Philip Baker Hall in "Magnolia"

"What's the soup du jour? -- That's the soup of the day. -- Mmm... that's sounds good. I'll have that!" - Jim Carrey in "Dumb and Dumber"

"That's Money Baby!" - Vince Vaughn in "Swingers"

"Good father? Fuck you! Go home and play with your kids!" - Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross"

"Coffee is for closers!" - Alec Baldwin in "Glengarry Glen Ross"

"Supermodels are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack & Coke all morning. She can make you feel high, full of the single greatest commodity known to man... promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl... In her smile, in her soul, in the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are... Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels. A beautiful girl is all-powerful and that's as good as love... That's as good as love!" - Michael Rappaport in "Beautiful Girls"

"Meet me in Montauk!" - Kate Winslet in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"

"I guess the saying's true. In the poker game of life, women are the rake man. They are the fuckin' rake." - Ed Norton in "Rounders"

"And the sea will bring each man new hope... his sleep brings dream of home." - Capt. Marco Ramius to Jack Ryan in "The Hunt for Red October"

"How do you think the hike is going so far?" - Casey Affleck in "Gerry"

 

Click Here to Visit TC Candler's YouTube Channel to See His Video Reviews

Movies

See My Top 10 Lists

Directors

Alfred Hitchcock
Stanley Kubrick
P.T. Anderson
Quentin Tarantino
Martin Scorsese
Luis Bunuel
Akira Kurosawa
Tom Tykwer
James Cameron
Steven Spielberg

Actresses

Julianne Moore
Hedy Lamarr
Ingrid Bergman
Marion Cotillard
Jennifer Connelly
Natalie Portman
Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Paz Vega
Catherine Deneuve
Rita Hayworth
Rose Byrne
Monica Bellucci
Rachel Weisz
Grace Kelly
Kate Winslet
Kate Beckinsale
Natalie Wood
Juliette Binoche
Keira Knightley

Actors

Anthony Hopkins
Steve McQueen
Sean Connery
Humphrey Bogart
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Billy Bob Thornton
Tom Cruise
William H. Macy
Gene Hackman
Christopher Walken
John C. Reilly
Sean Penn

Music

Eric Clapton
Sting
t.A.T.u.
U2
Garbage
Morrissey
Alizee
Coldplay
The Corrs
JoJo
Andrea Corr
OneRepublic
The Killers
Counting Crows
Pet Shop Boys
Jackson Browne
Movie Soundtracks
Plummet
DJ Tiesto
Female Vocal Trance
Oi Va Voi
Dixie Chicks
Chris Cornell
ABBA
Faithless
Beck
David Gray
Norah Jones

Song

U2 - One

Sports

Soccer
Football
Boxing
College Hoops
Baseball
Really, I Love Them All

Sports Teams

Everton F.C.
Miami Dolphins
New York Yankees
Oklahoma State Cowboys
Miami Hurricanes
Internazionale
Utah Jazz

Color

Blue

Countries

France & Italy

City

Paris & Pamplona

Painter

Rubens
Monet
My Grandad

Authors / Writers

Jane Austen
Albert Camus
Cormac McCarthy
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Wallace Stevens
Sylvia Plath
Paul Thomas Anderson
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Tom Clancy
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Jean-Paul Sartre
Alexandre Dumas
Albert Camus
Roger Ebert

Month

October

Day of the Week

Saturdays

Time of Day

Very Late at Night

Random Things That I Love

The Moments after watching a Great Movie.
Crying at Classic Sports Moments.
High Resolution Photos of Beautiful Women.
The Look and Sound of 1987 Ferrari Testarossas.
1955 Thunderbirds Cruising Down the Highway.
Being Surrounded by a Sea of Everton Blue.
Remembering her Auburn Red Hair.
Drinking a Great Wine for the First Time.
Walking around Paris, France.
Italian Women Talking.
The Fjords in Norway.
The Miami Dolphins Driving in the Fourth Quarter.
New York Yankees Winning in the Ninth.
Everton Scoring Late.
Oklahoma State University Beating OU.
Dan Marino Creating Art with a Football.
Kirsty Gallacher Talking About Anything.
Bill Clinton Dominating a Debate.
Supermodels Prancing Down Catwalks.
Wolves Prowling in the Snow.
Dolphins Leaping From the Ocean.
Cheetahs Running.
The Eiffel Tower at Night.
The Statue of Liberty in the Rain.
Pocket Tens and Hitting the Flop.
Very Cold Snowy Weather.
Old Black and White Photos.
The First Sip of an Ice Cold Coca Cola.
Opening Up a Can of Fresca.
The Opening Credits and Song of "Survivor".
Having "24" Get Me Out of My Seat with Excitement.
Seinfeld Reruns.
The Morning Episode of SportsCenter.
Kissing a Girl Who Knows How to Kiss.
Using Q-Tips.
That Shower Fresh Feeling.
A Good Cry for No Particular Reason.
The First Hour of a Road-Trip.
Finding a New Favorite Song.
Baby animals.
 

Actor's Studio Questions

What is your favorite word?
Hope

What is your least favorite word?
Bored

What sound or noise do you love?
Submarine Pings

What sound or noise do you hate?
My Stomach Rumbling

What turns you on?
Excellence or Greatness

What turns you off?
Lying

What profession would you most
like to participate in?
Professional Athlete

What profession would you least
like to participate in?
Accounting or Sales

What is your favorite curse word?
I love them all like children

What would you like to hear God say
as you arrive at the pearly gates?
"Here she is...
And I was always listening."

Random Facts About TC

I regret virtually everything I have ever done.

I've been in love twice.

I believe in destiny, soul mates & love at first sight.