About

Meet the Mikes of MediaMikes.com

Mike Gencarelli has always been a fan of movies growing up from cutting out the newspaper movie ads and posting them all over his wall to running the website, BoxOfficeWizard.com. Mike was also was a contributor to both MyVideoStore.com and DarkHorizons.com in the past. Mike was even an extra in the Troma film, called “Terror Firmer” back in 1998 .. He grew up in Long Island, NY and recently moved to Orlando, FL area. Besides MediaMikes.com, He is currently working at SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment in the IT division.
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Mike A. Smith has been the film critic for the Leavenworth (Kansas) Times since 2002. He has also been the film critic and a featured writer (“Mike’s Rant”) for Nolan’s Pop Culture Review (www.crazedfanboy.com) for more then a decade. He is a weekly contributor to the RottenTomatoes web site and has recently had his reviews featured at www.moviehole.net. He currently serves as Vice President of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, the second oldest professional film critics’ association in the United States. Smith resides in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.

The Mikes both cite “JAWS” as their favorite film and in fact first met at JAWSFest in 2005. They both are featured in the critically acclaimed documentary, “The Shark Is Still Working.”

Media Mikes’ Staff and honorary “Mikes”:

Adam Lawton came on board in the fall of 2010 conducting interviews with celebs and writing movie reviews featured on the site. Since the change from MovieMikes.com to MediaMikes.com, Adam has become the sites Music Editor conducting interviews with musicians and reviewing albums/concerts. When he’s not making the rounds at the NY/NJ movie conventions and attending concerts, he’s playing in his own band Aim Nine or he’s home in Upstate NY enjoying a classic 70/80’s horror movie.
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Angelo Casciorizzo Jr is a fan of movies and video games. He has been playing games since Magnavox Odyssey 300. Angelo enjoys playing MMO’s and is a fan of the Final Fantasy/Castelvania/Zelda series. He currently works at Florida Virtual Schools as an Application Specialist. Angelo grew up in Brooklyn NY and moved to Florida in 1986. This is his first website that he has been a part of and is very excited.
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Dave Picton owes his lifelong obsession and passion for music to his dad’s turntable that never stopped playing the Stones and Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells” when he was but a wee lad. One of the first phrases to leave his mouth was “gash-gash-gash” which either meant he had his sights on becoming a world-infamous serial killer or frequently enjoyed singing a snippet of the chorus to “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”. As of this writing, it is still unclear as to which it was. Regardless, Dave has a BFA in Graphic Design and has worked on design projects for numerous musicians and music festivals. When not interviewing some of his most-admired musicians for Media Mikes, Dave works at a Connecticut-based defibrillator company where he makes sure that user manuals and instructions tell users that the devices are to be used to save lives and are not for pressing paninis. When quittin’ time rolls around, he can be found at various local-area karaoke bars belting out a rendition of “In the Air Tonight” that totally kicks Phil Collins’ buh-buh-booty-o.

Desiree Yates was born and raised in Southern California and moved to Orlando Florida in the fall of 2007 after becoming a victim of the Mortgage industry. Now working as a Customer Care Specialist to pay the bills, she studies for her certifications to move into the IT industry while aspiring to become a published writer. In her free time she loves watching all kinds of movies, reading books and especially playing video games on her Xbox 360 or computer games on per personally built computer, code name G.O.D. Always one to share her opinion on a new movie, book or game, there is nothing more that she likes than talk your head off about how great or how horrible one or the other was. Having met one of the Mikes from MediaMikes.com through a mutual friend, she jumped right in head first, eager to help!

Jon Donahue ( DAH-nuh-hyoo) has been working in the entertainment industry since the age of 16. Over the years, Jon has lived in Orlando, FL, where he battled a great white shark every day on the JAWS attraction at Universal Studios and proudly made GAK & Slime for Nickelodeon. Jon now lives in Los Angeles, where, among other things, he has been working for two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks as his stand-in & photo-double for the past eight years. Jon is also a trained actor/comedian and can currently be seen as high school guidance counselor, Mike Dokich, in season two of TNT’s Peabody Award winning series, “Men of a Certain Age”, opposite Ray Romano. Jon is also the voice of ‘Antonio’, the hard (wet?)-nosed K-9 German Shepherd in Disney’s “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2”. Jon shares a love of all things JAWS with “the Mike’s”, but his all-time favorite flick is “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. He also is an avid movie poster collector, & has several hundred from the 1980′s alone!
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Lauren Damon, honorary New York “Mike”, has a BFA in Film & Animation from the Rochester Institute of Technology with a concentration on Literary & Cultural Studies. She is originally from Long Island where she got her healthy fix of films growing up across the street from two movie theatres and a video store (which she misses terribly). Lauren is now a freelance illustrator/web designer based in New York City, where she loves the variety of entertainment the city has to offer. Her favorite films include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jurassic Park and Monty Python’s Life of Brian. She also enjoys British comedy, a good montage and the 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon game.
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Mike Schneider is an artist/ animator who drags the anti-art traditions of the incoherent, dada and fluxus movements into mass media. Raised by the TV, Mike feels at home with media. With morals of the Twilight Zone and humor of the Cryptkeeper, the artist is both storyteller and presenter. With video projects, such as ‘Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated’, book illustrations, gallery shows, and a constant stream of comics, Schneider approaches every project as the chance to converse about the visual culture and find our place within it.

Click Here to read our PressRelease from August 30, 2011, announcing the expansion of MovieMikes.com to MediaMikes.com.

Click Here to read Change Places! An Interview with Mike Gencarelli of MediaMikes.com by Mike Schneider (January 11, 2011)

Click Here to read our Press Release from February 23, 2010, that announced the start of our site.

Click Here to read our Press Release from October 7, 2010, that announced our 250,000 hit.