Watching movies doesn't seem the most likely job for a blind person, but Tommy Edison is used to doing the unexpected.

Nobody would expect the traffic announcer on the radio to be blind either, but he had been doing that job on a Connecticut station for 17 years before he made his first online video as Tommy Edison, the blind film critic. Now he is in Melbourne for The Other Film Festival, a program of films concerned with people living with disability.

Living with blindness, he says, is already easier in Melbourne; the traffic lights let him know when to cross and the currency denominations are different sizes. "I'm looking for a way to stay," he laughs.

Edison has loved films since childhood. His conversion came after his mother had read him Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and he then "saw" the Gene Wilder film on TV and discovered he liked movies better.

"They're faster, for a start," he says. "I'm a slow Braille reader. But I liked how the story came to life, with sound effects and music."

Blind since birth, he wasn't concerned that he couldn't see day turn to night on screen. "That's like real life to me – and I get by with that pretty well."

Which is not to say that some films can't be very frustrating, especially if they're all about the CGI and the script sounds like an afterthought. In 2011, he was complaining about this to his friend Ben Churchill, who made online videos for a living. "He said it would be fun to do reviews from a blind person's perspective."

Edison's radio shift started at 5am, so they decided to go to midnight screening of Scream 4 and get his review up before he had to be at work. A couple of days later, a radio station in Kansas rang to interview him. His next review was picked up by the late critic Roger Ebert, who tweeted it to his hundreds of thousands of followers. Edison was suddenly famous.

Inevitably, Edison notices things most sighted people wouldn't: that trailers are shot with top-drawer surround sound but the films themselves only use mono, for example. He prefers Star Trek to Star Wars, he says, because the character grows and plenty happens. "It's cheesy to look at, maybe, but the stories are great."

Largely, however, his cinematic passions line up with those of his sighted colleagues: he is a huge fan of Martin Scorsese, for example, citing Goodfellas as his top film of all time. "I think any sighted person could enjoy it just with the audio – say on a broken television," he enthuses. Another favourite is Alexander Payne's Sideways, a small film about wine drinking. "Someone opens the fridge and you can hear them touching things inside it – that's really good."

So many comments on Blind Film Critic asked general questions about his life that he and Churchill set up a second website, the Tommy Edison XP, to answer them. "People wanted to know: how do you cross the street? How do you get dressed in the morning? How do you get breakfast? We thought the easiest way to answer was with videos." It seems intrusive – especially given that he is only recently married; his wife Alannah Uhrich works in concert promotions – but he doesn't mind. "I think it's fun. If I can help one person understand what it's like, that's good."

It has also changed his view of himself. "I couldn't say the word 'blind' when I was young – and I mean well into my 20s," he chuckles. "Now it's in my name. So it's been great for me."

Occasionally he is asked questions he has to give himself time to consider.

"People want to know how I know when to stop wiping after going to the toilet," he says. "The first person to ask that was Howard Stern. How do I know?  I just do what I do."

He has thought about that subject now, but is saving the answer for a talk show. Another frequent question, however, he says he will never be able to answer.

"Do I get a lot of weird looks from people at the ticket counters? I say I don't know! I'm the wrong person to ask."

The Blind Film Critic will appear at the Melbourne Brain Centre on Sunday December 7 at 3pm. otherfilmfestival.com

The Blind Film Critic reviews Exodus: Gods and Kings

Exodus: Gods and Kings centres on the story of Moses leading his people out of Egypt. Knowing the film was 150 minutes long, I put on my 3D glasses and started praying. Even I could see the red flags.

Being blind since birth, I rely strictly on audio. Script, music and sound effects are what convey the story to me. If these components are working, the visuals aren't necessary.

There were huge portions of this film with no dialogue at all. It was almost impossible to distinguish one character from another based on sound alone. It felt like an hour had passed before anyone even addressed Moses by name, so for me it was difficult to follow. Now if Christian Bale had just yelled at the crew, I would've known it was him.

I'm told that Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver were in this as well, although I couldn't tell you which characters they were since they barely spoke. I'm pretty sure Sigourney Weaver played one of the women (sans alien).

The sound design really gave the film some life. The music was giant with lots of emotion. The score was entirely in a minor key, which signals sadness and hardship. The theatre's surround sound is utilised fully: from goats and horses on one side to flies buzzing around your head. The farm animals and the swarm of locusts stole the show. I was sad to see them go uncredited.

I give this one out of four eyes open.

Four hundred thousand slaves were freed in this movie, and believe me, once the closing credits ran, I counted myself among them.

If you must have Exodus this holiday season, please go with Bob Marley & The Wailers' 1977 release.

Tommy Edison