Doug Elfman

Doug Elfman is an entertainment columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Previously, he was the television critic for the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper and the music critic at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He writes a syndicated column Trademarked The Game Dork about video games that runs in newspapers nationally.

Career

Elfman has earned three first-place awards for feature writing and criticism from The American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors. In 2003, he took first place in the A&E and commentary categories. In 2001, he won for commentary.

He gained notice as a rock critic for interviewing Prince, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Luciano Pavarotti and hundreds of other celebrities, and for criticizing various popular musicians. It was to Elfman that McCartney may have first publicly described his last moments with George Harrison: "... when I last saw him, we held hands for a couple of hours. And you know, guys from Liverpool don't hold hands. So I just look at that and think, 'Of course, it was mightily sad saying goodbye to George, but I got to hold his hand.' And I concentrate on that aspect of it, which makes me feel better."

In 2004, Elfman wrote of Britney Spears in concert, "B.S. didn't just suck, she suckity-suck sucked"; and of her tour, "It's not even so bad it's good. It's so bad it's bad." In 2002, he compared rapper Eminem to Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl.

In May 2006, he was one of the only mainstream journalists to criticize the White House press corps for not writing about Stephen Colbert's key speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner: "It was perhaps the first time in Bush's tenure that the president was forced to sit and listen to any American cite the litany of criminal and corruption allegations that have piled up against his administration."

In September 2006, Elfman chimed in on a controversial TV movie produced for ABC titled, "The Path to 9/11," a movie derided by liberal (and some conservative) pundits and progressive blogs for its inaccuracies surrounding 9/11. Elfman gave the movie zero out of four stars, ridiculing its dialogue, tone, pacing, storytelling and camera work: "It could not be more amateurish or poorly constructed unless someone had forgotten to light the sets."

In July 2007, Elfman was one of the first journalists to heavily criticize CBS's reality show, "Kid Nation," calling on CBS to allow independent child psychology experts to review raw footage of the show, and interview children who appeared on it. In August 2007, he told "Good Morning America" that the trailer for "Kid Nation" made him physically sick, because it reminded him of a real-life "Lord of the Flies".

In his Aug. 31, 2007, Game Dork column, Elfman coined the term, "video game vision" ("when gamers see games as realer than reality") after interviewing "High School Musical" star Zac Efron about the subject. Efron told Elfman, "Dude, I was in London for Wimbledon, and I wanted to go see all my favorite players that I play in ‘Top Spin.’ … And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, the character should have automatically dove!’ I find myself phantom-tapping a controller, like: ‘I hit R1 not R2!’”

Adult readership for his Game Dork column is in the millions.

In 2006, Elfman's Game Dork newspapers printed his exclusive interview with football coach and announcer John Madden, who told of how his John Madden video games came about, starting as a simulation game meant as an educational tool.

Personal life & early career

Elfman was born in San Francisco, but his family moved to New Orleans when he was 2. He was raised in New Orleans and in Athens, Ga. He attended the University of Georgia with a partial violin scholarship, but dropped violin and transferred to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La., where he earned a degree in journalism, with a minor in history. He served as managing editor and reporter of LSU's award-winning The Daily Reveille, alongside many other future journalists of stature, including Rod Dreher, under the mentorship of esteemed professor Jay Perkins.

He interned for the New Orleans Times-Picayune then covered hard news for Southern newspapers. He covered massive floods in north Louisiana; politics and crime in eastern Tennessee, where he won an award for investigative journalism; acted as Features Editor for the Panama City (Fla.) News-Herald; covered pop music for The Daytona Beach News-Journal; worked at Atlanta's Creative Loafing; was music columnist at The Las Vegas Review-Journal; a TV critic at The Chicago Sun-Times. He is currently back in Las Vegas.

External links

* [http://www.suntimes.com/index/elfman.html An index of Elfman's articles for the Chicago Sun-Times]
* [http://dougelfman.com/ Doug Elfman's blog]
* [http://www.reviewjournal.com/columnists/elfman.html An index of Elfman's articles for the Las Vegas Review-Journal]
* [http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Mar-08-Mon-2004/news/23382830.html 'THE ONYX HOTEL TOUR': Spears' stripper act an unfocused bore]
* [http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2002/Apr-05-Fri-2002/weekly/18392012.html Paul McCartney talks about the Beatles, Linda and his impressive body of work]
* [http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/May-28-Fri-2004/weekly/23963434.html Prince Charming]
* [http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-elfman07.html Did media miss real Colbert story?]
* [http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-elf08.html Accuracy aside, ABC's '9/11' deserves to bomb]
* [http://www.thegamedork.com/page/page/2810852.htm The Game Dork]
* [http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Jul-10-Thu-2003/living/21682958.html Return to Winner's Circle; R-J music critic Elfman earns top awards in commentary, specialty reporting from Sunday and feature editors' group]
* [http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Sep-08-Fri-2006/weekly/9417962.html GAME DORK: Madden on 'Madden']
* [http://www.usaweekend.com/06_issues/060917/060917falltv.html TV critics announce picks on 2006 TV season for USA Weekend]