Back in the day, liking horror was viewed as nothing to be proud of. It was a genre that was grimy, unseemly, positively dripping with bad thoughts and worse intentions. If you were into the scary stuff, why, it must mean you’re some kind of dangerous freak! Speaking from experience, telling someone during the first date that one of your favorite movies is The Exorcist is an excellent way to ensure there’s no second date. Then Stephen King came along, and it’s possible that he, moreso than anyone else in the last 40 years, dragged horror kicking and screaming into the mainstream. As of now,... Read More

First, a warning: If you’re the parent of young children, and you consider packing them into the family truckster to see the new animated film Sausage Party, purely based on the fact that it’s animated…don’t. As a parent, your job is to check out any media your kids consume before they consume it. Animation is not strictly for kids. Do your damn job. Next, a quick anecdote: A good friend of mine worked for a major airline for many years. During a company gathering, it was decided that the employees would get a kick out of a screening of the comedy Airplane. As it turned... Read More

24 years old isn’t far from childhood. It’s far enough that you have lingering memories, but you’re anxious to be a grown-up, particularly when everyone else seems more grown-up than you. It seems like everyone else knows what they’re doing, so you maybe have to fake it a little. It’s likely that these thoughts went through the 24 year old head of Roald Dahl. World War II had begun, and he had joined the Royal Air Force to do his bit. He was assigned to fly a Gloster Gladiator, the last biplane aircraft that was used by the RAF. It must have been worrying to know... Read More

Many people tend to be risk-averse when going to the movies. Sure, people say they want something new and daring, but when movies that are blazingly original, like Snowpiercer, or Memento, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are released, audiences tend to back away slowly, making the sign of the cross. I get it. Sometimes you want comfort food, cheeseburgers, mashed potatoes, that sort of thing.* But formula doesn’t have to be bad. The enjoyment to be had is in the journey, not the destination. That’s fine, but it doesn’t mean that the formula can’t be tweaked... Read More

My wife is a great deal smarter than I am. To anyone who knows me, that’s a statement as obvious as “water is wet” and “walls hurt when you run into them.” But a while back, she made a comment to me that children’s literature has a much higher quality bar than adult literature. Kids have a natural B.S. detector, and will usually reject something of low quality, while adults make hacks like Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown rich.* We saw that last year, with the release of The Lego Movie, a “children’s movie” that’s easily in 2014’s... Read More