The movie industry is generally an unforgiving one for filmmakers, and it demands that each film made either be profitable or critically acclaimed.* As a result, incompetents, nepotists, and erratic people are usually weeded out sooner or later. The ones left standing decades later are the modern masters of the art form, and it’s important to check out their work. It’s also important to be honest with yourself on how you feel about those modern masters. Maybe Scorsese’s Raging Bull is too brutal for you. Totally cool! Maybe Kubrick leaves you cold. A valid perspective! The way you feel is... 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

Prequels are terrible. That is, until they aren’t. It used to be that the idea of checking out the earlier adventures of beloved characters was nothing more than a craven cash grab. You had the tomfoolery of Butch and Sundance: The Early Years, the nonsense of Hannibal Rising, and the blatant idiocy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Done well, a prequel can add texture and character to a franchise. It can fill in the blanks and even recontextualize the original work. Despite the clunky execution, mostly poor acting, and thunderingly obvious storytelling, George Lucas deserves credit. His Prequel trilogy... Read More

There are two incontrovertible facts: the first is that Louisa May Alcott was a fascinating human being. Her parents were Transcendentalists. She took lessons from Henry David Thoreau. She wrote a play for the Boston Theater and subsequently burned it due to infighting between her actors. Alcott briefly served as a nurse during the Civil War, survived typhoid fever, was a feminist, and was active in the abolitionist movement. To put it plainly, she was a baller. Oh, also? She wrote Little Women. That brings us to the second incontrovertible fact, which is that up until very recently, I was almost... Read More

Like comedy, horror is all about provoking a reaction. It’s the setup and the punchline, only horror traffics in chills rather than chortles. If a skilled filmmaker causes a viewer to react the way they want, that means the director knows their job. If the same filmmaker can play an audience like a violin, you know you have a major talent on your hands. That’s why I love seeing horror movies with a crowd. It’s the wide variety of reactions. Some people yelp, others shrink down in their seats with hands covering eyes, and still others mask their fear with bravado. Some horror movies, like... Read More