The Lead Globes (2005 Dec 15)

Every year, I receive a few e-mails asking why I don't provide coverage of The Golden Globes. This year, the nominees answer that question. How is it possible to take seriously an awards show that fails to nominate Munich, while acknowledging both ...

The Last Whisper of the Gods (2013 Sep 15)

Recently, I have been repeatedly asked two questions regarding my website. (1) Have you stopped writing ReelThoughts? (2) Are you ever going to review older movies again? Both are fair questions and deserve answers. So here goes: (1) no. (2) yes. Not...

The Last Performance (2008 Oct 04)

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 ...

The Last Movie Star (2008 Sep 29)

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...

The Last Month (2004 Nov 24)

Gripe time again... I like writing these downbeat little pieces - they help to get something off my chest.It appears that 2004 is about to conclude with more of a whimper than a bang. I have never been so unenthused about a December release ...

The Joke's Up (2005 Apr 02)

One reason I no longer do April Fools' pranks is that they rarely work. I ran into a bunch of them yesterday while perusing on-line and was uniformly unimpressed. None of them were clever, and almost all of them called immediate attention to ...

The January Thaw (2006 Jan 16)

Once upon a time, during my mis-spent years in high school, I was an avid television watcher. These days (not counting news and sports), I stay awake for about three to four hours of television per week. (I have a habit of lying down on the sofa to...

The Ignored and Forgotten (2014 Jan 12)

The nominations won't be announced for another four days but I thought I'd get a jump start on my gripes. When it comes to actual nominations, there's a pool and the Academy will draw about 95% from that pool. Let me hasten to add that there's ...

The Horror of It All (2006 Oct 16)

Not surprisingly, this is the time of the year when horror movies are the most popular. It would be an understatement to say today's crop aren't what they used to be. Without being overly judgmental, let me state that 2000-era horror isn't as ...

The Hobbyist (2008 May 19)

As many of my regular readers are aware, I have been analyzing the revenue potential of this site during the last year, attempting to see whether I can make enough via a bigger, better ReelViews to pay the bills. My conclusion can be summed up in ...

The Hidden Contenders (2008 Nov 03)

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 ...

The Heat Is On (2007 Jul 04)

For many in the northern hemisphere, July represents the start of summer - outdoor barbecues, days on the beach, nights lying out under the stars. For Hollywood, July is the beginning of the end of the blockbuster season. With movies being so ...

The Hate Mail File (2007 Jan 18)

I promised a while ago to share some of the hate mail I have gotten. I often save these missives, although most of the recent ones haven't been as creative as some of the older classics. Generally, I don't respond to hate mail, since a response is ...

The Halftime Top 10, 2011 Edition (2011 Jul 12)

I started compiling mid-year Top 10 lists a number of years ago, in large part to argue that there are oases in the vast desert of the early-year movie release schedule. Since that first list was posted in July 2004, the landscape hasn't changed much...

The Halftime Top 10 View (2005 Jul 01)

The "accepted" time of the year for Top 10 lists is the end of December, but the half-way mark is as good a point as any to give a snapshot of where things stand with most of the summer's big movies already on screens. As I list my mid-year Top 10, ...

The Halftime Top 10 (2009 Jul 07)

Recently, a friend asked me if I was going to provide a mid-year Top 10 list as has been my habit in recent years. "After all," he remarked, "Can you even find ten films worth being on the list?" A good point, although anyone who has seen ten or ...

The Halftime Top 10 (2007 Jul 29)

Slightly belated, but better late than never (as they say), this year's "halftime" Top 10 will represent January through July, rather than January through June, as has been the case in the past. Historically, about the top two or three titles on ...