When James Cameron's Titanic opened on December 19, 1997, there were a lot of nervous executives at 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures, the two studios that had co-funded the hugely expensive, special effects-laden extravaganza. While most who ...
With the release of Wall-E, Blu-Ray may have finally come into its own. So far, for the most part, Blu-Ray had been touted as the "format of the future," but the future hadn't arrived. Sure, there have been some movies that have looked great in Blu-...
Once, the concept of a "midnight screening" was reserved for the specialist of special blockbuster movies - films for which fans would stand in line for days or even weeks just so they could be among the first to see it on the big screen. (Remember ...
Note: Over the next week (or so), there will be fewer than usual ReelThoughts entries. I'm in the middle of a stretch during which I'm making five speaking engagements in seven days, so my time for writing has been curtailed, and I want to ...
It's widely expected - and accepted - that Christopher Nolan will make a third Batman film. And why not? The Dark Knight was critically successful, hugely popular, and made multiplex box office cash registers happy. The film accomplished what any ...
If this was a normal year, multiplexes would be awash in potential Oscar contenders and pundits would be speculating about which of these prestige motion pictures would make the cut.2008 is not a normal year.Thus far, the slate is largely bare of ...
This has been a weird month, and I'm not just speaking as a film critic when I say that. It has been strange in so many ways that cataloguing them almost feels like an impossible task. But that won't stop me from trying...Perhaps first and foremost...
"The movie seems like a video game brought to life on a big screen." Question: Is that comment intended as an insult or a compliment? Once upon a time, the answer would have been clear. Critics, myself included, used that language (or something ...
Return with me to 1978. 30 years ago - it doesn't seem that long. Back then, the "horror movie" of today did not exist. There were, instead, "monster movies." This broad category encompassed everything from the old Universal classics (Dracula, ...
Most cinematic horror stories come from unsuspecting movie-lovers who stumble into a Friday night or Saturday night showing of the latest teen-friendly blockbuster only to discover that half the audience is more interested in having conversations and...
I have been getting e-mails asking why I haven't written about certain topics and/or issues. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to discuss five things about which there will likely not be independent ReelThoughts entries. (The economy is not ...
I had intended to wait to write this until it became relevant - something that happened as a result of Entertainment Weekly's cover story last week.(Side note: Has anyone noticed a marked decrease in the quality of EW articles over the past few years...
Recession or not, it appears that a fair number of Blu-Ray players will be purchased between November 1 and December 31, 2008. Most of these, I suspect, will be PS3s since those units have the advantage of combining gaming with Blu-Ray capabilities...
Note: Someone sent me an e-mail last week encouraging me to write more frequent ReelThoughts. His rationale was that it would be "good for business," which is hard to deny. More Reelthoughts = more pageviews = more opportunities for readers to ...
When an actor nears the end of his (or her) career, a decision looms: to continue or retire? There are essentially three choices: accept increasingly irrelevant and/or demeaning parts to continue performing on a regular basis, appear before the ...
With Paul Newman's death, they're almost all gone. By "they," I am referring to the movie stars - the legends of the silver screen whose images lit up the darkness for decades in movie palaces, drive-ins, and multiplexes across the country and around...
In general, I don't like prequels. Rarely have I truly been satisfied after reading/watching/experiencing a book/movie/TV show that falls into this category. Maybe that's because I prefer a linear progression when it comes to storytelling. Maybe ...