Midnight on December 19, 2001. Having missed the press screening due to a clerical error on the part of New Line Cinema, I was waiting impatiently for the movie to start while lounging in a seat near the back of my then-local theater. The seats weren...
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 ...
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, ...
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 ...
"James, you take movies too seriously." Those words (or ones nearly like them) were spoken to me 24 years ago by my college girlfriend, Tracie. They were true then and, if anything, they are truer today. Ironically, her theatrical experience (among ...
As Meatloaf crooned, "Two out of three ain't bad." Or, to be precise, 13 out of 21 for 62%. My gambit of thinking a pro-The King's Speech surge would carry the film to wins in a number of the lesser categories didn't pay off, but it still won the ...
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 ...
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 ...
"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 ...
Let me be clear about this: this is my personal Top 10. It does not represent an attempt to provide a "greatest" list nor is there any pretense of objectivity. This is as subjective as it gets. I'll leave it to someone else to determine the relative ...
Time to look at the dozen performances (six men, six women) that have impacted me the most forcefully while watching 2010 movies. The difference between good acting and great acting is often subtle but unmistakable. Good acting allows the viewer to ...
The word "autopsy" conjures up unpleasant images, but its usage seems appropriate when gazing back through the mists at the cinematic year of 2010. No matter how one chooses to spin things, the results aren't pretty. I'm fortunate that Michael was ...
I'm not calling this my "Worst Movies of 2010" list. There are two reasons for that. First, the term "worst" implies a level of objectivity of which I'm not capable. I equally avoid the term "greatest" unless discussing Mohammed Ali. Also, ...
Recently, circumstances caused me to muse how much the advances in technology have impacted every aspect of my life over the course of the last three decades. When you think about it, it's amazing how things have changed, and all in the most subtle ...
It has been six months since I returned from a screening of Ridley Scott's Robin Hood to be greeted by the news that my wife had gone into labor. ("I think I'm having contractions," she calmly announced.) This was something of a surprise since she ...
I don't think I was aware of the existence of Halloween until I was three or four years old. All I can remember about that first night was dressing up in a costume and being escorted into the night by my father. It was all rather bewildering and I ...
Hopefully, this entire column won't be about sports (or, rather, one sport in particular). There is a larger message in here somewhere; I only hope I'm able to bring it out.I started watching baseball on television in 1973 during the summer between ...