Stop, Nolan, Stop (2008 Nov 06)

It's widely expected - and accepted - that Christopher Nolan will make a third Batman film. And why not? The Dark Knight was critically successful, hugely popular, and made multiplex box office cash registers happy. The film accomplished what any ...

The Hidden Contenders (2008 Nov 03)

If this was a normal year, multiplexes would be awash in potential Oscar contenders and pundits would be speculating about which of these prestige motion pictures would make the cut.2008 is not a normal year.Thus far, the slate is largely bare of ...

The Surreal Month (2008 Oct 31)

This has been a weird month, and I'm not just speaking as a film critic when I say that. It has been strange in so many ways that cataloguing them almost feels like an impossible task. But that won't stop me from trying...Perhaps first and foremost...

Interactive Cinema (2008 Oct 29)

"The movie seems like a video game brought to life on a big screen." Question: Is that comment intended as an insult or a compliment? Once upon a time, the answer would have been clear. Critics, myself included, used that language (or something ...

Halloween Through the Years (2008 Oct 27)

Return with me to 1978. 30 years ago - it doesn't seem that long. Back then, the "horror movie" of today did not exist. There were, instead, "monster movies." This broad category encompassed everything from the old Universal classics (Dracula, ...

Entitlement (2008 Oct 24)

Most cinematic horror stories come from unsuspecting movie-lovers who stumble into a Friday night or Saturday night showing of the latest teen-friendly blockbuster only to discover that half the audience is more interested in having conversations and...

Things I Won't Write About (2008 Oct 21)

I have been getting e-mails asking why I haven't written about certain topics and/or issues. So I thought I'd take this opportunity to discuss five things about which there will likely not be independent ReelThoughts entries. (The economy is not ...

Trek Re-Imagined (2008 Oct 19)

I had intended to wait to write this until it became relevant - something that happened as a result of Entertainment Weekly's cover story last week.(Side note: Has anyone noticed a marked decrease in the quality of EW articles over the past few years...

Blu Christmas? (2008 Oct 14)

Recession or not, it appears that a fair number of Blu-Ray players will be purchased between November 1 and December 31, 2008. Most of these, I suspect, will be PS3s since those units have the advantage of combining gaming with Blu-Ray capabilities...

Defanged (2008 Oct 08)

Note: Someone sent me an e-mail last week encouraging me to write more frequent ReelThoughts. His rationale was that it would be "good for business," which is hard to deny. More Reelthoughts = more pageviews = more opportunities for readers to ...

The Last Performance (2008 Oct 04)

When an actor nears the end of his (or her) career, a decision looms: to continue or retire? There are essentially three choices: accept increasingly irrelevant and/or demeaning parts to continue performing on a regular basis, appear before the ...

The Last Movie Star (2008 Sep 29)

With Paul Newman's death, they're almost all gone. By "they," I am referring to the movie stars - the legends of the silver screen whose images lit up the darkness for decades in movie palaces, drive-ins, and multiplexes across the country and around...

Looking Back Instead of Ahead (2008 Sep 26)

In general, I don't like prequels. Rarely have I truly been satisfied after reading/watching/experiencing a book/movie/TV show that falls into this category. Maybe that's because I prefer a linear progression when it comes to storytelling. Maybe ...

See No Evil (2008 Sep 23)

[Note: As promised, in-text and pop-under ads have been removed from the site. The deletion of the pop-unders represents a leap of faith since they generated approximately 10% of my income. My hope is that the goodwill resulting from their removal ...

Popping the Pop-Under Bubble (2008 Sep 18)

Lots of interesting input based on yesterday's column. Rather than responding to each of the more than 100+ e-mails, I thought a follow-up post was in order. So, issue-by-issue, here are some thoughts and responses.RSS Feed: The consensus seems to ...

The Reader Vanishes (2008 Sep 17)

Over the course of 2008, I have noticed a decline in the website's readership. There are no obvious site-related issues to explain this. Advertising has been constant since 2007 (it actually started in late 2006). The June redesign has not resulted ...

Toronto Film Festival Update #10 (2008 Sep 13)

Another ten days in September, another festival in the book. I'll offer some parting thoughts at the end of today's final update, but first there are three additional movies I want to offers comments upon.Flash of Genius is based on the real-life ...