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 radar, such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding or The Blair Witch Project, suddenly goes supernova and makes all the money. If you work in an industry where success can’t be predicted and failure means the loss of your job, you’re probably going to get scared. Once you get scared,... Read More

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 wisdom was that it would take around a million U.S. service members to successfully invade Japan, my father being one of them. The common wisdom was that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives in the long run. It seems to have saved my father’s life. And yet. The United States, my country, is the only... Read More

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. I edge over to one and listen to two dads talk about summer jobs (should I have forced my kid to get a summer job?) their kids have and the vacations (will my kid resent me since we can’t afford two vacations per year?) they have taken. That’s the first ten minutes, and things go downhill from there.  That’s... Read More

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 too early to say it’s bombing as hard as The Flash, but those numbers ain’t good. Everyone knows about the adventures of the iconic archaeologist/grave robber/Nazi puncher. Everyone can hear the familiar Raiders march in their heads, or hear the distinctive THWACK sound... Read More

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 playing Impossible Mission Force Agent Tom Cruise. Is the problem that the character of Ethan Hunt isn’t sharply defined? Consider that Indiana Jones is a guy who’s always in over his head and getting out of situations through more than... Read More

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 few people don’t. Oftentimes, there’s a reason for that. Could you imagine if it was you? From early childhood, you always had a feeling that the gender you were assigned at birth was wrong. To deal with that, you’d take the first steps toward living the... Read More

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 solution is to hack through the metaphorical knot with a metaphorical sword. That was the big problem DC Comics was faced with in 1985. Decades of publishing had created a conundrum. Sales of comics had been declining since the 1950s.* Attracting new readership was difficult... Read More

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 you don’t! Let’s go over a few details to help you identify Anderson’s work, should you encounter it in the wild. Anderson likes to work with the same people as much as possible. He’s helped to recontextualize and launch the careers of actors like Bill Murray, Owen Wilson,... Read More

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 the case, though. Done right, sequels aren’t simply a craven cash grab. They can illuminate aspects of the original, tell a story that’s more complicated, flesh out supporting characters, and even tell an aspect of the story a different... Read More

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 fairly punishing volume. Like I said, my solitude isn’t solitude, per se. Years ago, though, the solitude was very real. I’m not so old that I don’t remember that lousy one bedroom apartment in Tacoma, Washington. There was a feeling of being the only person in the complex, despite the neighbors above, below,... Read More