Don Simpson

Senior Editor
Location: Austin, TX
Email: simpsondon@gmail.com
Facebook: Don Simpson

The first films that Don remembers seeing were Star Wars IV: A New Hope, The Black Hole, and Moonraker. He also recalls watching The Elephant Man at way too early an age, having a demented effect on his psyche for several years.

During his high school and college years, Don randomly selected directors and rented every VHS tape he could find. His discovery of the amazing TLA Video stores (Philadelphia, PA) thrust this obsession into overdrive – this is how he discovered the cinematic worlds of Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, Jean-Luc Godard, Charlie Chaplin, Luis Bunuel, Wim Wenders, Terry Gilliam, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Akira Kurosawa; and rediscovered, albeit hesitantly (thanks to his premature experience with The Elephant Man), David Lynch.

Like Dylan in the movies, Don never looked back…Upon graduating college as an accountant, he dove with eyes wide open into a Master’s program in Cinema Studies at Temple University. Don studied a semester in London, England where for the first time in his life he found himself seated in a cinema at least once per day (a daily cinematic vitamin supplement of sorts). Soon after returning stateside, he found himself covering film festivals for Aint It Cool News – which didn’t last long…but it got him started on the path he finds himself on today. Besides writing for Smells Like Screen Spirit, Don is also a regular contributor for Jesther Entertainment. Other highlights of Don's writing career include: Devil in the Woods magazine, Pop Culture Press and the Los Angeles Journal.

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Don Simpson