Tell me good things don’t emerge from big-budget studio franchises. On the one hand, a good friend of mine has nothing but contempt for cinematic tentpoles. She sneers at the MCU, rolls her eyes at Star Wars, thinks the Jurassic Park/World films are a fool’s errand, and believes the Mission: Impossible franchise is little more […]

Everything ends. Sometimes it’s unplanned. Look at Terry Pratchett, the prolific English author. He wrote dozens of novels and gained a worldwide following due to his piercing intellect and cutting wit. He should have lived longer, written more, but on March 12, 2015, Alzheimer’s disease snuffed out his mighty brain at age 66.* Other times endings […]