We don’t see too many elegant movies any longer. Why is that, I ask you? Perhaps part of the problem is that the modern cinematic landscape is separated by a vast gulf. On one side are blockbusters. They’re designed to be big, loud, and appeal to anyone with a pulse and some without. On the […]

“You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go according to plan. Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it’s all part of the plan.” That’s dialogue delivered by […]

I usually have my review schedule booked out a few weeks. A number of factors come into play with what I write about. If possible, I don’t want to review too many blockbusters, too many horror movies, too many of the same thing. That sucks for you and it sucks for me. The vast majority […]

Rocky is one of the greatest films ever made by anyone. It’s not hard to understand why. You’ve got a lived-in, realistic performance by Sylvester Stallone, a supporting cast of actors rather than movie stars, and direction that knows when to ease back and when to go hard. Top to bottom, it’s made by people […]

I came across a fascinating op-ed in The Washington Post recently* that dove into the wilderness that many men exist in these days. They don’t quite know how to act. They don’t quite know how to be. They don’t understand what a man is in the year 2023. The question is, do you care?  When […]

The best I can figure, the first movie about Dracula was the Hungarian production The Death of Dracula released in 1921. From there, the bloody floodgates opened. As of this writing, there are over eighty movies about Dracula. Some are good. Others, not so much!* All of them, to one degree or another, were spawned […]

What would you do with a time machine? Go back to make sure you have winning lottery numbers? Jump forward to see how your children turned out? Discover the identity of Jack the Ripper? Take a stroll through prehistory and try to avoid being eaten by a pack of velociraptors? I get it. When the […]

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. […]