The legendary screenwriter William Goldman wrote that, “Nobody knows anything.” He meant that common sense, as it is understood by us, doesn’t exist and can’t exist in the film industry. A film that should be a massive hit, such as John Carter or the dearly departed The Flash, isn’t. A film that flies under the […]

If not for the atomic bomb, I might not be here. My father came of age during World War II. He trained to be a pilot in 1945, and even after Hitler shot himself in his Berlin bunker, the common wisdom was that a war was still on, that Japan would never surrender. The common […]

You’d think that a cookout would be relaxing. You’d think that, but not so much. As we arrive, I shake hands (are my palms sweaty?) with my friends (are these people really my friends? they like my wife better.) and relax for a moment when I nab a lemonade. Everyone is clustered in small groups. […]

Is Indiana Jones relevant any longer? I ask because the fifth installment of the series, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was released last week. As of an article in Variety published July 2, it’s made $71 million domestically. That’s a problem since the estimated budget of the film was around $294 million. It’s […]

Quick, without consulting the internet, what kind of a personality does Ethan Hunt have? *crickets* Maybe you’re wondering, “Who, exactly, is that?” That’s the name of Tom Cruise’s character in the Mission: Impossible franchise. Though…”character” is perhaps not quite the right word, as the running joke for many years has been that Tom Cruise is […]

A friend who’s far smarter than I mentioned recently that around ten percent of the population lives their lives somewhere on the LGBTQIA spectrum. Then, according to Pew Research, approximately 1.6% of people think of themselves as either trans or non-binary. More and more people know someone in their lives that’s trans. But quite a […]

Comics are a lot like life. Sometimes you feel like you’re on cloud nine, swinging through the world without a care in the world. Kinda like Spider-Man. Sometimes you feel like you’re the Good Lord’s personal cat toy. Also kinda like Spider-Man! And sometimes? Sometimes things are so screwy and tangled up that the only […]

Is Wes Anderson a good filmmaker? Does he make good films? The thing is, those are two separate and different questions. He’s got such a distinctive visual style and way of storytelling that even if you’ve never seen one of his movies, you probably have a pretty good idea of what they’re like. Or…hell, maybe […]

Sequels are hard, but you knew that already. Moviegoers have been pummeled by horror franchises, walloped by action franchises, and thrashed by sci-fi franchises. Through years of substandard crap, we’ve been trained that anything with a title that includes a Part Two/The Spawning/The Quickening or some usage of a colon probably sucks.  That’s not always […]

I’m alone as I type this. My solitude isn’t quite solitude, though. Here in my office with me are two dogs. One cat just walked out of the room, while the other cat is upstairs. She’s with my wife, who mostly works from home. Our son is in his bathroom, listening to music at a […]