By Laurie Morrissey

In the last five years in Los Angeles, Larry Carroll hasn't worked a day. That is, he hasn’t cashed a paycheck for doing anything he wouldn’t have wanted to do anyway. As a freelance film reviewer, he saw three or four movies a week; attended screenings, press junkets and Oscar ceremonies; interviewed famous actors and directors; and wrote critiques.

“I have a passionate love for the movies, as anyone who knows me can attest,” says the Lowell, Mass., native. He was the guy with movie posters all over his dorm room; the one working at Blockbuster Video; and the one always telling people what movies they just had to see.

As a student, Carroll’s other love was writing. (Jack Kerouac, a fellow native son of Lowell, is one of his favorite authors.) He majored in English and was on the Crier staff, serving as entertainment editor and penning a column called “A Random Thought” that addressed everything from politics to the use of bacon bits in Davison Hall. In order to combine his two interests, he knew he had to move to Los Angeles. Before heading west on what he felt was a bit of a risky proposition, he honed his skills and saved up some cash as a reporter for the Lowell Sun .

In L.A., Carroll quickly began submitting reviews to Web sites and magazines. He soon became a regular freelancer for Countingdown.com, Rottentomatoes.com and Filmstew.com. He published in national print magazines like Tiger Beat and Bop! and several local L.A. magazines, and was a correspondent for E!, the Los Angeles-based entertainment network and Web site. In February 2005, he began a full-time job writing features and scripts for MTV News in Los Angeles.

Carroll does not have a favorite film. “You have to love every kind of movie,” he says. “The main thing is to understand what each film is trying to achieve and judge how well it does that. The latest Adam Sandler movie is trying to achieve different things than a movie by Michael Moore.” Carroll’s 600–700 published reviews include comedies, documentaries, family films, sci-fi, martial arts, animation, you name it. He has a predilection for good science fiction films, but thinks far too few of them are made well. Romantic films have the lowest batting average: “Only about one in 30 is any good.” Two of the best, in his opinion, are “Before Sunrise” (1995) and its 2004 sequel, “Before Sunset.”

Not surprisingly, this movie fan would love to see his name after the words “Screenplay written by...” He has written several screenplays and hopes to sell one. “It’s a huge amount of work, but it’s so much fun,” he says. “Many of my ideas hearken back to my days at Saint Anselm. Some come from the odd jobs I’ve had, like working at the 7–11 and Blockbuster. It would be nice to see one of my screenplays made. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

Carroll’s advice: “Find out what you love. You can either suppress it and go with something safe, or go with it and hope it works out. If you do something you love, you’ll never have to work a day.”