The 2014 Top 10 (2014 Dec 28)

[Note: In 2014, as in 2012 and 2013, this article will be published over a span of several days, with the reveal of two or three new titles every day during the December 25-30 period. It's done that way to generate some suspense and keep the website ...

One-and-Done (Part 3): Future Gaze (2014 Dec 23)

Link to "One and Done (Part 1)"Link to "One and Done (Part 2)"For Hollywood to weather the "one-and-done" storm, it has to adapt. When television threatened movies during the 1950s, the industry moved toward color and widescreen to provide an ...

One-and-Done (Part 2): Root Causes (2014 Dec 20)

Link to "One and Done (Part 1)"Link to "One and Done (Part 3)"In Part 1 of this essay, I provided an overview of what I call the "one-and-done" phenomenon which has been responsible in part for shaping (and skewing) the 2014 box office for high ...

Hacking, Fear, and Maximizing Profits (2014 Dec 18)

Did Sony Pictures "cave in"? The question, like so many others involving terrorists and terrorism, is more complicated than it might seem. True, there's no credible evidence to support the idea of a terrorist plot being prepared against theaters. ...

One-and-Done (Part 1) (2014 Dec 16)

Link to "One and Done (Part 2)"Link to "One and Done (Part 3)"Is it an aberration? That's the question that haunts many of Hollywood's studio executives as they craft plans for the next few years. Is the box office downturn of 2014 a "blip on the ...

Marketing Recursion (2014 Dec 02)

In the days leading up to Black Friday, a huge marketing campaign swung into motion. What was being promoted? The latest gadget? A new toy? The "big thing" on sale for Christmas 2014? No… In fact, the subject of the promotional frenzy was an 88-...

Ten Turkeys for 2014 (2014 Nov 27)

I have long since moved away from calling my Bottom 10 a "Worst of..." list. Considering how many truly awful films I have given myself the latitude to skip, it's almost unfair to those remaining to be singled out as the biggest cinematic offenders. ...

Updating the Top 100 for 2014 (2014 Sep 07)

It has now been close to 13 years since I embarked upon what I called at the time my greatest challenge as a film reviewer: whittling down the nearly 6000 films I had seen (at the time) to the top 2%. I have no idea if I got it "right" or not, but ...

Fuck Off, Shitbag (2014 Jul 08)

The era of good manners is dead. I'm not sure exactly when it happened. When I was a kid, people still said "please" and "thank you." They held open doors, relinquished train and bus seats for the elderly and the infirm, and apologized if they said...

Introduction to the LAST WHISPER Stories (2014 Jun 19)

What is The Last Whisper of the Gods? It's the first book in an epic fantasy trilogy I have toiled over for the past three years. Actually, I began writing The Last Whisper of the Gods in early 2007 and had about half the book done when real life ...

The Daily Twitter Recommendation (2014 May 01)

It seems like just yesterday when there was widespread speculation which format would win the high-def home video war: Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? That was seven years ago. At the time, I engaged in speculation about how long the eventual winner would enjoy ...

Through the Eyes of a Child (2014 Apr 16)

I remember the first movie I viewed theatrically. It wasn't the first movie I had ever seen - not by a long shot. By the time my father took me to a theater, I was used to watching films (monster movies, mainly) on TV. My initial experience with a ...

A Voice from Beyond the Grave (2014 Apr 04)

For the dead, death is a permanent state, its precise composition impossible to determine by anyone able to discuss it. What lies on the other side is something no one can assert with surety. We can believe, but that's another thing. For the living, ...

Berardinelli's 2014 Oscar Picks (2014 Feb 22)

When the 2014 Oscar nominations were first announced, it looked like there would be a number of tight races. As is often the case, however, the fortunes of the nominees have waxed and waned. Some of the front-runners have become also-rans and a few ...

Beat Berardinelli - 2014 Edition (2014 Feb 17)

Time to lay out the rules for the 2014 edition of the "Beat Berardinelli" Oscar prediction contest. There are some tweaks from last year's rules, a few of which are designed to make my job easier. There has also been a change in the prize. This year...

George R.R. Martin is not Your Bitch (2014 Feb 04)

"George R.R. Martin is not your bitch." Thus wrote Neil Gaiman in his blog on May 12, 2009 in response to a growing tide of dissatisfaction from fans upset that Mr. Martin takes so long between published chapters of his Song of Ice and Fire saga. ...

Coming of Age (2014 Jan 26)

This past week's snowstorm, with its foot of snow, howling winds, and frigid temperatures, brought back memories of a similar (although bigger) storm a little more than 18 years ago. The snow totals from that epic early 1996 blizzard were more than ...