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, ...
I thought it was about time to write a new blog entry, given that it has been more than a month since my last one. The joys of fatherhood and keeping up with an increasingly less-inspired batch of new theatrical releases... At some point, I may even ...
You could consider this a product review of Apple's iPad. Kind of.I received an iPad as a Christmas gift, so I have had more than a month to put it through its paces and, while I won't claim to have truly plumbed its depths, I have used it for a ...
Initially, this ReelThought was going to be about the insane, must-be-first mindset that is driving film critics' groups to announce their end-of-the-year awards before they have seen the entire roster of 2011 films. It's the same mentality that is ...
I'm about to make a connection between porn and film criticism... and it has nothing to do with the boobs, pussies, and asses in both areas.When I started reviewing movies in 1992, making money was the farthest thing from my mind. Calling it an ...
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...
When it comes to Netflix's streaming service, the promise is in the premise, not in the execution. My ideal future movie service would be something that allowed me to box up all my DVDs and not buy another one. I also don't want to have to worry ...
I have amassed what I consider to be a respectable DVD & Blu-Ray collection: about 1300 movie titles and a fair number of TV shows (although not nearly as many). A few years ago, when I moved into my current house, I thought that by the end of 2011, ...
NOTE: As I was writing this, it occurred to me that so much is being written about 9/11 on its tenth anniversary that there's little (if anything) I can add to the discussion. But, having penned an essay on each anniversary of the day since then (...
My first encounter with the Internet occurred in September 1985. When I started in the University of Pennsylvania's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, I was given something called an "e-mail address." Despite being a card-carrying geek, I ...
Every year, I feel less confident about calling my roster of the worst movies, a "Bottom 10" list. The reason is simple - there are a lot of terrible films I intentionally miss. By all accounts, two of 2011's most abysmal are Bucky Larson: Born to ...
It's not that there isn't nudity in films any more. Quite the contrary; approximately 50% of R-rated movies on average have toplessness, bottomlessness, or something in between. What's different in the '10s is that it's rare for one of the leads to ...
The first time I watched an Oscar telecast was during the mid-1970s. I don't remember much about it since it started around my bedtime and finished long after I had drifted off. 35 years ago, the Academy Awards were a different sort of program. To ...
Why does someone like me, an avowed list-hater, go through the process of developing a Top 10 list every year? (Not to mention a Personal Top 100, mid-year Top 10s, and Bottom 10s?) This is the 20th consecutive year I have engaged in the exercise ...
Many times when writing a year-end summary, it's easy to spot the "big" story of the year. On the surface, that's not the case with 2011. By all accounts, at least based on the movies that made it to the screens, this was a very ordinary year, made ...
What constitutes a great performance? It's an interesting question that should be addressed when one considers best/favorite performances of any year (or other period). For me, a good performance is when an actor/actress does his/her job with aplomb...
"Dear Mr. Berardinelli, I have been reading your site for many years now and enjoy your reviews and reelthoughts. Actually, I like the reelthoughts better so that's what I'm writing about. I noticed you aren't writing them as often as you used to. I ...