Generally speaking, no one talks about Top 10 lists until the November/December timeframe. While that makes sense for annual (January-December) lists, there's no reason not to take a snapshot of an evolving Top 10 list any time during the year, and ...
It has become fashionable over the last five years to bash all things related to George Lucas in general, and The Phantom Menace in particular. Let me be the first to say that Lucas deserves a fair amount of criticism. He's not what one might call ...
Since I posted my review of The Terminal, I have received numerous e-mails taking exception to the following comment: "The premise - that a man could live months of his life in an airport terminal - holds a certain fascination (especially for those ...
I have received a number of e-mails inquiring whether I have given up on ReelThoughts. The answer is "no," but, in terms of priorities, this column doesn't occupy a high space. With respect to the site, it's in third place, behind reviews of new ...
So the real question is: Is Michael Moore being censored? Is Disney's refusal to allow Miramax to distribute his Farenheit 9/11 a business decision or a politically motivated attempt to stamp out criticism of the Bush administration? The real ...
I briefly considered writing a "formal" review of Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures, but decided that I didn't want to officially branch out into book criticism. I'd rather be able to read things without thinking about how I'm going to present...
When it comes to studio greed, Kill Bill isn't the only example, but it's the most egregious one. Not only did Miramax have the effortery to break the movie into two pieces in an obvious attempt to collect twice as much money, but one look at their ...
There's a reason I don't review television shows - because I don't watch much TV. Part of it has to do with time constraints. I spend enough time sitting in movie theaters, traveling to and fro, and writing reviews that taking an hour off here and ...
For me, April is one of the busiest months of the year. In addition to the usual early spring rush of movies, there are the opening of baseball season (when even followers of perennial losers try to watch as many games as possible) and a local film ...
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 ...
A few weeks ago, after seeing both Welcome to Mooseport and Eurotrip during the same week, I came to a conclusion: it is time to change the philosophy I use in determining which movies to review. I wasn't particularly interested in either film, yet...
Live and learn, I suppose. Relying on a quote from the book Down and Dirty Pictures proved to be a bad idea. The quote in question, found on page 204 and attributed to Kevin Smith, is as follows: "[The Brothers McMullen] had as much edge as vanilla...
When it comes to The Passion of the Christ's box office performance, I was right and I was wrong. I correctly predicted that it would capture at least $100 million in its first 5 days, but missed when I said that repeat business was unlikely (too ...
Sadly, I was too tired at the end of last night's Oscar ceremony to launch into a full-scale tirade, disappointing a few readers who found my comments to be too kind. "Berardinelli has poured too much sugar on his sour grapes." (A Best Actress win ...
Initially, I had planned for this series to be three parts (plus the introduction). However, the volume of e-mails received about it, some of which raised interesting points, led me to append this final piece. Since this is essentially a response ...
"We're losing money!" That's the battle cry of the studios, recognizing (although perhaps not understanding) that movie piracy is somehow impacting the bottom line. So how do they react? A clumsy frontal assault that would be laughable if it wasn'...
When it comes to Asian piracy, the biggest sellers are DVD titles. In a way, these can be the hardest to crack down on, because all the pirates are doing is taking a legitimate title and making illegal copies. And, because the DVD covers are done ...