It's "Star Trek week." Once upon a time, that meant something. For a Trekkie, it was a more special occasion than Christmas. After all, Christmas comes every 365 days - the usual break between Star Trek weeks was 2.5 years. I don't sense the same ...
It's always this way for me during the closing days of March - I'm filled with an unfounded sense of optimism. You see, I'm a warm-weather person. My ideal weather is a cloudless, 85-degree day with high humidity. A summer with dozens of 90-plus ...
There is a certain kind of movie viewer who wants to know the entire plot of a film before it opens. Such a person delights in uncovering clues and finding out things first. For him or her, movie-going is the culmination of a long treasure hunt. ...
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 ...
The biggest theatrical movie being released on DVD this week is National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Within a week or two, it should be at the top of both the sales and rental charts. However, as is the case with all action-oriented would-be ...
Let me begin this look back/gaze ahead by remarking on the webmaster's equivalent of "sticker shock." I'm referring to January ad revenue. Historically, it has always been low at the time of the calendar change, but in 2010, it's positively putrid...
Normally, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. In fact, I'm a card-carrying unbeliever. While I don't accept that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, I don't subscribe to the theory that Lyndon Johnson was behind the assassination. I'm not a "UFO person" (...
As of a couple of weeks ago, every Star Wars fan had the opportunity to add the final chapter to his or her six-volume DVD set. And, judging by the crowds at Best Buy, that's what everyone was doing. Shopping that day was an odd experience. ...
For me, the year in movies 2005 is over. I have seen everything I'm going to see. (The exception is Wolf Creek, about which I'm on the fence. Roger Ebert and I don't always agree, but zero stars?) So I'm now in a position where I can look back on...
I hadn't planned to write anything about the Golden Globes (sounds like it should be the name of a porn awards ceremony), since I have such a low opinion of awards shows in general, and this one in particular. (It's a small step up from the People's ...
I don't hate turtles. When I was a kid, I can remember wandering around my backyard or in the adjacent woods looking for them. I'd catch them, put them in a topless shoebox overnight (usually with a dish of water and a few lettuce leaves), then let...
Note: Numbers in this piece refer to domestic gross, not world-wide gross. While the latter total is widely available for films released in the last 20 years, estimates of international grosses become increasingly unreliable the older a title is.The...
The following quote has been widely attributed to Good Morning America movie critic Joel Siegel: "Time to go! First movie I've walked out of in 30 fucking years!" The movie that so distrubed Siegel is Kevin Smith's Clerks II, a mildly raunchy but ...
By now, everyone is probably aware that an "unauthorized" copy of Michael Moore's Sicko has appeared on-line. But is this a case of brazen piracy or is it an incident of savvy marketing? If it is the latter, Moore will never admit it (nor will his ...
Those who are familiar with my reviews know that the average length of one is about 700 words. There are times, however, when I display a tendency to ramble. Often, especially for films in the ** to **1/2 range, I don't have a lot to say. Mediocrity...
This is a new regular (or semi-regular) feature for ReelThoughts that's intended to provide some weekend content as well as more interaction with readers. The idea behind "Short Clips" is for me to reply and react (in general) terms to e-mails from ...
Has the writer's strike actually ended, or are those just rumors flying around Hollywood? Tentative agreements are such fragile things; let's get an actual settlement before rejoicing, if that's what we're supposed to do. Actually, I was hoping the...