Rewinding 2006: The Top 10 (2006 Dec 30)

Like all lists, Top 10s are extremely personal. I would be surprised if anyone else (critic or otherwise) has an identical Top 10 list to mine. But therein lies the enjoyment of examining individual Top 10 lists: they provide insight into the ...

Rewinding 2006: The Bottom 10 (2006 Dec 28)

One can't toss out a Bottom 10 list without putting it in context. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what constitutes "one of the worst films of the year," and some of these lists become heavily politicized. There are list-makers who ...

Rewinding 2006: Performances (2006 Dec 26)

Rather than go through the pointless exercise of splitting performances into different categories, this year I have elected simply to take the ten most memorable performances and give them equal weight. They are arranged alphabetically; no ranking ...

Looking Ahead (2006 Dec 22)

The expected pattern goes like this: after the euphoria created by the great movies of November and December, the critic must gird his/her loins for the dreary months of January through March. That's the way it usually works. 2006, however, has ...

The Golden Boobs (2006 Dec 15)

Some people think I should care, but I really don't. To what do I refer? The Golden Globes, of course. Around noon yesterday, I saw a list of nominations. I didn't commit it to memory, but it seemed like it contained the usual suspects. Judi ...

Studio of the Year (2006 Dec 12)

Three years ago, New Line Cinema was the toast of Hollywood. They were an unstoppable force, destroying the competition at the box office and rolling to an Oscar blitz. 2003 was, of course, the year when the climax of Peter Jackson's The Lord of ...

Superman's Holy Grail (2006 Dec 05)

In 1977, when director Richard Donner began filming Superman, he started work on what was intended to be a four hour epic that would be released in two parts. The goal was for Superman to enter the marketplace during the Christmas movie season of ...

The Ad Man Cometh (2006 Nov 30)

The time has come for full disclosure. I feel as if I owe my readers an explanation about why ReelViews has, in less than one year, gone from being "The Largest Non-Commercial Movie-Related Site on the Net" to a site where it's tough to find a ...

A Few of My Least Favorite Things (2006 Nov 29)

This is the time of year when those of us living in the United States pause to take a few minutes to express our thanks for things. Being contrarian by nature, I have decided to take a few moments to express my lack of thanks for a few of my least ...

Network Programmer: Home Edition (2006 Nov 26)

When I was a child, the concept of "television" was a simple one. Certain programs were linked to certain nights, and that was it. If you liked a show, you tried to see it. If you loved a show, you made sure you were available. There were no second...

Sequel Turkeys (2006 Nov 23)

Once question that has always aroused my curiosity is whether a bad sequel can damage an entire franchise. Or, to put it another way, can a single mediocre movie in a series of otherwise enjoyable films change a viewer's impression of the series as ...

Upgrade Part #2 (2006 Nov 19)

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has written.After reading tons of e-mail, some of which have extolled the virtues of the new site and some of which have condemned them, I have done quite a bit of tweaking. The version of movies.html (the main ...

Stealth Upgrade (2006 Nov 18)

The site doesn't quite look the same as it did yesterday. I have been threatening for a while to do some kind of upgrade; I didn't expect it to come so soon. Sometimes I do things impulsively, and this is one of them. The new design is not ...

THE PRICE OF TERROR: Final Thoughts (2006 Nov 16)

This column is written for the small but loyal group of readers who have forged their way through the recently serialized The Price of the Terror. Those who haven't read it or don't know what it is are welcome to continue reading, but I'm not sure ...

A Familiar Refrain (2006 Nov 12)

Piracy is one of those topics I return to frequently. Although I believe it is a serious problem on some levels, I also believe the MPAA and its cronies have turned this into a witch-hunt, seeking to punish fanboys and movie-lovers with the same ...

The Best Medicine (2006 Nov 09)

It has always fascinated me how one person's work of comic genius can be another's bat guano. What impulses are there that tell our brains something is worth laughing at, and why are there dramatic differences in what intelligent people find funny? ...

Attributions (2006 Nov 04)

For a writer, a proper attribution is everything. There are few things more irritating than to see something you have spent hours putting together attributed to someone else. I'm not referring to plagiarism, however. That's blatant and illegal, ...