A numbers-based look at the decline in box office clout of the summer tent-poles, especially over the last two years (2016 & 2017).
It was the summer of 1977 when everything changed. I can't claim to recall much about that year - bits and pieces, to be sure, but a fragmentation of memory is expected when gazing back more than 30 years to age nine. But I remember Star Wars. Not...
Based on reports that I have heard, today is the day when the latest computer virus will expire (or maybe not). This will be a great relief to my e-mail "in" box, which has been overflowing for the better part of two weeks. (If you sent an e-mail to...
"It's not too hard to figure out, you see it everyday. And those that were the farthest out have gone the other way... But don't you try to fight it; 'An idea whose time has come.'" - Huey Lewis and the News, "Hip to Be Square"My first encounter with...
For many years, I have read the writings of Philadelphia Daily News baseball columnist Bill Conlin. For as long as I have followed the Phillies, Conlin has been there, first as a beat writer then as a featured columnist. He wrote about sports in ...
In the near future, I will be moving into a new house. This is the perfect time to upgrade my home theater. My speakers are high end, so they don't need replacement, but I'll trade in my current TV for something sharper and spiffier, swap out my ...
Time is a strange thing, as many have remarked. Days (especially those spent on trans-Pacific flights) can seem to take forever, while ten years can pass in the blink of an eye. These days, the average American may have about eight decades of life...
In 1971, George C. Scott refused the Oscar for "Patton." Would any actor today take such a dramatic stance to support, for example, the #metoo movement?
Robert Iger is my hero. (Well, one of them.) The guy is unstoppable. Here's a man with some clout in the industry who believes that the release paradigm has to change - that the DVD release date needs to be rolled forward until it coincides (or ...
This is the newest feature offered by this website, and it has a couple of purposes. First of all, it will allow me to have a more open and immediate dialogue with readers. It will also permit me to address any issues that pop to mind without ...
It has taken several years away from the Sundance Film Festival to give me a perspective that I didn't have when I was attending annually. After four consecutive, frustrating Januarys spent in Park City, I stopped going after air travel became ...
You get asked that question a lot as a kid. When I was little - by that, I mean four or five years old - I wanted to be a construction worker. At the time, the town was doing some major work on the dead-end street where my family lived and I spent ...
For those in the United States who (a) don't live near the Canadian border, (b) don't have a region-free DVD player, or (c) don't play around in the land of bittorrents, tonight may represent a first exposure to a unique television show. At 9:00 EST...
This entry, which is part narrative and part rumination, will likely come across as indulgent. So be it. Michael Robert Berardinelli was born on May 12, 2010. The evening before he emerged from the cramped but safe confines of his mother's womb, I ...
Regular readers of ReelThoughts know that, for about a year, I have struggled with the concept of somehow making ReelViews interactive. Reader opinion was split: about half of the e-mails I received encouraged me to go in this direction. The other ...
Once upon a time, the TV show Doctor Who was a cult phenomenon in the United States. Shown at strange hours mostly on PBS stations, the British sci-fi/fantasy show infamous for its (occasional) over-the-top acting and (frequent) bad special effects, ...
With stormy winter weather threatening the northeast, now seems as good a time as any to re-iterate why the word "expected" accompanies projected post dates for new reviews. That date assumes all goes well and that snow, sleet, or ice skating rinks ...