My kid Liam is around six months into his thirteenth year. He’s kind, smart, funny, and I can already see that he’ll go much further in life than I ever will. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Also, since he’s taking his first coltish steps in being a teenager, he has Opinions. Many, many opinions about many, many subjects. Which is also how it’s supposed to be. For example, here’s me camped out in my chair, watching George Clooney’s newest film, The Midnight Sky. Maybe 45 minutes into it, Liam comes in and announces he’s done with school. He asks what I’m watching and what I... Read More

“That was better than it had any right to be.” A friend of mine said that after we departed the theater, having just seen the new film Overlord. He was quite right, but you might be reasonably asking yourself, “What’s up with the smug condescension? Aren’t you supposed to give each movie its day in court and approach it as a cinematic tabula rasa?”    Yeah, I know. You’re supposed to, but let’s be honest here. We all have our biases, especially when it comes to movies. Some people want to immediately take a suicide pill when they see a trailer for the latest Marvel movie. Others... Read More

A great film doesn’t have to be subtle. Sometimes it shouldn’t be, depending on what the story is about and how it is told. Oliver Stone is genetically incapable of subtlety, but JFK and Platoon are a couple of the greatest movies ever made. Along similar lines, one of the big myths in filmmaking is that a great film is birthed out of a difficult production. Francis Ford Coppola nearly went insane making Apocalypse Now. Werner Herzog almost murdered his leading man and forced laborers to drag a steamship through the jungle during the filming of Fitzcarraldo. Uncooperative puppets... Read More