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

Are we entering an action movie Rennaissance? Maybe, because God knows we need it. Whether we like it or not, things have changed. As much as I’m a shill for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s a fact that superhero movies have largely taken the place of action movies. They’re still around, but these days theaters are filled with spandex, Avengers, and surly mutants. We’ll still see the occasional Mission Impossible, but those tend to be the exception more than the rule. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe the relative drought forces us to appreciate it when a particularly... Read More

When I was in high school and college, I fancied myself a bit of an actor. During that time, I learned two things. The truly great actors have impeccable timing, a precise understanding of their character and how it fits into the larger piece, and are compelling to watch. I was blessed with none of that. Shakespeare is Mount Everest for actors. If you can scale those heights and make the Bard’s prose sound natural, energetic, and real, you can say you’ve done it justice. As Old Seward in Macbeth, I didn’t do his words justice. As crimes against the arts go, it was more of... Read More

In 1995, I saw The Usual Suspects in Denver. I was 20, a callow young punk, not even old enough to drink legally. Like most people that age, I was dumb as hell, not even smart enough to know how little I knew. However, walking out of The Usual Suspects, there were two things I knew for sure. It was an instantly iconic film and the guy who made it was one to watch. That guy was Bryan Singer, and for a while there, he made some genuinely interesting stuff. The Nazi-in-suburbia thriller Apt Pupil. Tom Cruise as a heroic German in Valkyrie. The Man of Steel as a creepy stalker in Superman... Read More