Michael Adams

Not that he's a total Gen X cliché, but Michael Adams was first blown away by the power of movies when the rebel ship and its Imperial pursuer blasted over his head in 1977's Star Wars. After staging hundreds of action-figure re-enactments, Michael incorporated his love of Princess Leia, writing stories and obsessing over movies into a newfound career goal - namely, creating screenplays for Carrie Fisher that he could direct. He was, after all, seven years old at the time.

Soon after, exposed to films way beyond his pay grade, he became a keen fan of The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver, along with the likes of The Evil Dead, Basket Case, The Thing and Pink Flamingos. After briefly absconding from the parental home for a Kerouac-ian road trip at age 16, he scored a job at a film distributor - and used their facilities to publish Night Creatures, a short-lived fanzine about cult films. At which point followed a brief foray into journalism school. Other CV highlights include stints as a kitchen hand, local newspaper hack, telemarketing dude, video store clerk, nervous Third World war-zone correspondent, hardware store jockey, pool boy, schlock movie actor and ice cream scooper.

Michael eventually glommed into magazine writing, using two years at FHM as his springboard into Empire magazine. Eight years and thousands of films later he's happy to be a movie reviewer.

In addition to Empire, Michael contributes to FHM, Men's Style, Rolling Stone and websites Movieline and Rotten Tomatoes.

While having a face for radio, Michael has appeared in front of the cameras, as "Stoned Hippy" in 1991 Z-grade "classic" Bloodlust, and as co-host of TV program The Movie Show in 2007-08. He will next be glimpsed as a zombie in George A. Romero's Survival Of The Dead.

Even though he was shot in the head in that film, Michael continues to live in Sydney with Clare and their daughter Ava. They have two cats, Asta and Spencer - both named on movie whims.