Another year, another Top 10. A few notes/curiosities… First, 2012 was one of the best movie years of the young century, although I might not have held that opinion on November 1. This year was incredibly back-loaded, far more so than usual. It's ...
In the summer of 1977, there was only Star Wars. No "Episode IV." No "A New Hope." Just Star Wars. That talk started when the greatly anticipated sequel was released as Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. This provoked discussion in fan ...
In the United States, it's a ritual: the fourth Thursday of November is a holiday devoted to the admirable pursuit of gluttony. Somewhere in there, turkey is typically consumed, but not nearly as much as was prepared. This leads to a weekend of ...
Part One can be found here.After Roger Moore's departure, there was a great deal of media speculation about his replacement. The front-runner, Pierce Brosnan, was selected to step into Moore's shoes. However, between the "unofficial" announcement and...
The first time I saw him was on television. It was a Sunday night in the autumn of 1977. The ABC Sunday Night Movie. Live and Let Die. Probably not the network TV premiere; that was likely a year or two earlier. (In the '70s, movies typically reached...
"It's not too hard to figure out, you see it everyday. And those that were the farthest out have gone the other way... But don't you try to fight it; 'An idea whose time has come.'" - Huey Lewis and the News, "Hip to Be Square"My first encounter with...
Have I have written a FAQ? Yes. If you dig around in the site's attic, you can probably find it. I'm not going to publicize the location since much of the information in it is hopelessly outdated. FAQs used to be common ways of conveying information...
Don't worry - NO SPOILERS!!![The following was originally written for intended publication by CNN on July 20, 2012. Following the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado at a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises, CNN understandably elected ...
"Having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true. " - Spock, "Amok Time"When I was a kid, my favorite day of the year was December 24. Not Christmas Day, but the day before. For me, that was the ...
When did I start compiling "half-year" Top 10 lists? Looking through my records, this looks like the ninth consecutive year I have engaged in this exercise. I'm sure I'm not the only one who does this, but it's not as prevalent an activity as the one...
"Dear Mr. B, Pardon me if it sounds like I should be writing to a Lonely Hearts Advisor, but I have a question I thought you could answer. This Friday, I'm going out on a first date with a girl I have had a crush on since junior high. We both just ...
When I was a kid, I knew a middle-aged man who owned a cabin in the woods by a lake. Based on the way he described it, it hadn't been upgraded since it was built in the mid-1800s. It didn't have a telephone, electricity, or running water. The ...
When it arrived in theaters the weekend before Christmas in 1997, no one knew what to expect from James Cameron's mammoth Titanic. The media was prepared to liken the movie - the most expensive ever to-date - to the ship. The iceberg, some thought, ...
John Carter is going to lose $200 million for Disney. The Hunger Games may have the biggest all-time March opening. The Dark Knight Rises/ may pose a threat to Avatar's position as the all-time domestic box office king, if Titanic hasn't re-taken the...
There was a time when I used this space for occasional rants against the MPAA. It was all repetitive venting, of course, since what I wrote carried no more weight than the angry words of anyone not directly associated with the secretive group of men ...
This year, I tried to remain upbeat about the Oscars, abandoning at least some of my natural cynicism. Many of my contentions have not changed, however. The Oscar-cast remains too long. My attention span for an awards show of this nature is about 2 1...
There's a dual purpose to this post: to provide my Oscar picks and to introduce a contest that will allow someone to win a fabulous prize for doing a better job than me. I don't consider myself an expert Oscar prognosticator; I average around 67% ...