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 working at the peak of their powers. What makes it endure, though? I think that would be Stallone’s screenplay. The legend is that he wrote it in three days and change. Say what you will about Stallone as a writer, but the end result of his script was kind of the creation of the inspirational... Read More

Director Zack Snyder has thoughts. During a charity event screening of his films Dawn of the Dead, Watchmen, and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, he was asked about the depiction of Batman. Specifically, the depiction that the Caped Crusader was awfully, well…homicidal. During the film, Ben Affleck’s Dark Knight straight-up mows down crooks with cunningly hidden machine guns in the Batmobile and decimates goons in a brutal warehouse battle. It’s all a bit much. Snyder responded with the immortal quote, “Someone says to me: Batman killed a guy. I’m like, ‘F**k, really? Wake the... Read More

One of the most valuable things in life is honesty; particularly, the honesty of someone calling out your bad ideas. When someone cares about you on a personal or professional level, they’ll do their level best to pull you back from the brink. I cannot emphasize how important that is, but let me explain with my own idiotic example. I do screenwriting on the side. Years ago, I was batting about script ideas with my writing partners. As we kicked around ideas, I was struck by the Bad Idea Fairy. “Guys, guys, so there were gold reserves in the sub-basements of the Twin Towers. What if, in the... Read More

We live in a time of great uncertainty. Our President may have committed illegal acts prior to and during his time in office. Our country is more divided than possibly ever before. The prestige of our nation rests on a knife edge. But there’s one question, above all others, that occupies the minds of virtually everyone in the Republic and beyond. Is it really that hard to make a good King Arthur movie? Apparently so, since the last time the Arthurian legend appeared in theaters and it wasn’t some form of a mattress fire was way back in 1981 with the enjoyably bananas Excalibur. Since... Read More