Through the popular Moviefone service, mainstream broadcast media - and now Six Second Reviews - Russ (a.k.a. "Mr. Moviefone") reaches millions of moviegoers each week. His unique take on movie reviews can be seen and heard on CNN, Headline News, ABC-TV, The CBS Early Show, The CW, MSNBC, and hundreds of top radio stations nationwide from Z-100 FM in New York, to The Loop in Chicago, to K-EARTH in Los Angeles.
Russ has appeared on dozens of national talk and entertainment shows such as Late Show with David Letterman, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Howard Stern Show, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Saturday Night Live, The King of Queens, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the Academy Awards, VH1's I Love the 90s, The MTV Movie Awards, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra and many others - and, as you probably remember, was even the subject of a classic Seinfeld episode. He has also been profiled in the pages of Time Magazine, People, Entertainment Weekly, Life, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Entrepreneur, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and many more. His inimitable "Hellooo and welcome to Moviefone!" greeting has been affectionately parodied on hundreds of other programs.
Though he is widely recognized as the voice of the moviegoing public, Russ does not consider himself a movie "critic" in the traditional sense of the word: "The fact is that everyone is a critic...your wife, your neighbor, your friends. They may not get quoted in radio or newspaper ads like the shills who are willing to say anything to see themselves in print do, but they are the ones whose opinions you know and trust." That's why you'll never see or hear Russ' quotes in movie ads. He believes that you can't suck-up to the stars or be part of the studios ad campaign and maintain any credibility as a reviewer. In a world where thousands of people post reviews, Russ considers himself your "last line of defense," the guy whose information and opinions you have come to trust over the years and who you can turn to when you want the final word on whether or not you should spend $10 bucks to see a movie.
Russ co-founded Moviefone in 1989 and, along with his partners, established the overall management of the company. Through its 777-FILM telephone service and Moviefone.com Web site, Moviefone is the most popular movie information guide in the country, serving approximately 20 million moviegoers each month. Russ continues to be the "voice" of Moviefone while at the same time developing new innovations for moviegoers like Six Second Reviews.