Where the Links Are (2009 Jul 10)

How the Web has changed in just a few years…I have noticed that e-mail is fast becoming passé. It takes some remembering to recall when it was the newest, hottest thing in communication. Now, it's often viewed as a step up from the telegraph. ...

The Halftime Top 10 (2009 Jul 07)

Recently, a friend asked me if I was going to provide a mid-year Top 10 list as has been my habit in recent years. "After all," he remarked, "Can you even find ten films worth being on the list?" A good point, although anyone who has seen ten or ...

1987 (2009 Jul 03)

If I was going to choose a year in which I became more than a casual movie-goer, it would be 1987. My total that year, when combining theatrical and home video titles, came in around 100 - far more than in any previous year. In the past, my bread-...

Berardinelli's Top 100 (2009 Jun 25)

From time-to-time, I receive e-mail requests about where to find the Top 100, so I thought this was as good a time as any to create a special page devoted to the list, which I originally generated in late 2001 and posted over 100 weeks during 2002 ...

Let's Get Digital (2009 Jun 20)

Analog television is now dead, gone the way of the sabertooth tiger and the dodo. From a purely practical perspective, this doesn't impact me. The two television sets I use for watching TV programming are connected to cable; I haven't used an ...

Say "Cheese!" (2009 Jun 15)

Paparazzi are almost universally despised, and with good reason. The most aggressive of them tend to be an arrogant, opportunistic bunch who enjoy squashing the right to privacy of others by hiding beneath the cloak of "freedom of the press." There...

1986 (2009 Jun 09)

My memories of 1986 are not much about movies, although it can't be said that I avoided multiplexes during the course of the year. Rather, when I gaze back through the mists of time, other things dominate my thoughts about the year when I ...

The Porn Star Experience (2009 May 29)

The average, mainstream Hollywood actress can create a stir when she takes her clothes off. Sasha Grey has done it by putting them on.By now, anyone who cares is aware that Grey is director Steven Soderbergh's leading lady for The Girlfriend ...

1985 (2009 May 20)

On a global scale, not a lot happened in 1985; this allowed trivia to dominate the news cycle. Ronald Reagan officially began his second term but no one really noticed. It had long been assumed that the Great Communicator would be in office for ...

Remaking Star Wars? (2009 May 17)

Re-making Star Wars?Everything old is new again, and there are no sacred cows. Those are precepts upon which the current film industry is built. If it has been made, it's fair game for a re-make. It's not hard to explain Hollywood's fetish for re-...

The Great IMAX Scam (2009 May 13)

It has been noted that Star Trek set a new first-weekend record for gross receipts in IMAX theaters. This should come as no surprise, since the number of "IMAX" venues has increased dramatically during the past year. This is the result of ...

Hollywood Economics 101 (2009 May 07)

A couple of months ago, I wrote a column providing a superficial analysis of the rhythm of the 2009 box office. More than one reader questioned why the revenue accrued by any motion picture should be of interest to movie-goers. After all, there is ...

1984 (2009 May 03)

Hardly a day passed in 1984 without someone mentioning George Orwell's novel. For me, the year was less about whether we were inching nearer to a society monitored by Big Brother than of the freedoms afforded by turning 17. Beginning September 25, ...

Confessions of a Lapsed Trekkie (Part Three) (2009 Apr 30)

June 9, 1989 should have been a special day, or at least a more special one than it was. My life was in flux at the time. I had just completed four years of undergraduate study and had entered the working force (my new place of employment would be ...

Confessions of a Lapsed Trekkie (Part Two) (2009 Apr 27)

"Beyond the darkness, beyond the human evolution, is Khan - a genetically superior tyrant. Exiled to a barren planet, banished by a starship commander he is destined to destroy, left for dead, he has survived."With those words, Star Trek II: The ...

Confessions of a Lapsed Trekkie (Part One) (2009 Apr 22)

Backslider (n): One who slides back or falls away; one who abandons gradually the faith and practice of a religion that has been professed.When it comes to Star Trek, I must admit to being a backslider. Some might think the use of a term normally ...

Critic or Webmaster? (2009 Apr 20)

Note: This should not be misconstrued as a plea for help. I'm far too anal to cede control of any part of my main website to someone else. These are merely reflections about how much more is involved in the management side of running the site than ...