Thanks to his almost prodigious writing speed (averaging almost two novels a year since first publishing Carrie in 1974), and his generally generous attitude towards letting filmmakers adapt his work (save for one glaring exception), Stephen King represents something of a gold mine for Hollywood. For four years running I have spent some part of October catching …
Continue reading Bargain Basement Vol. 3: Stephen King Edition
Thanks to the increasing respectability of the horror genre in academic circles, horror movies that previously were destined for the bargain bins or packaged in cheap 50-film packs are being rescued and given the kind of fully restored Blu-ray releases usually reserved for much more prestigious and respectable fare. Now there may be some who wonder …
Continue reading Adventures in Criterion Vol. 3: Horror Movies
As has been the case with all my previous retrospective lists (1997, 2007, 2008), looking back at the world in film twenty years ago has been a very rewarding experience. Perspective is something that is painfully missing every awards season as most awards contenders are declared great barely months after they have first been seen. …
As I intimated in my last post, I was still nothing but a cinephile infant in 1998 with barely enough knowledge to know what my personal tastes were let alone the ability to know what a good film looked like. My entire knowledge of the movies came from big blockbusters and I had hardly any …
The 20 year gap seems the most painfully embarassing for me to revisit now. 1998 was in many ways representative of a point in my life where I started developing my own personal tastes apart from my family and friends, where I started choosing the kind of movies I wanted to see. I started reading …
Continue reading 20 Years Later: Does It Hold Up? (1998 Edition)
And here we are finally, with the first edition of the Best of 2018. Readers will do well to remember three things before we dive into the list: Like in 2017, there will be three editions of this list. The first here, is to be treated like a half-time report at a game – there's …
You know the drill by now. If you want here are the previous parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Let's dive in. JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM dir. J. A. Bayona By this point in the Jurassic Park series, expecting the next installment to have some sort of fealty to the vision set forth by …
It's time for me to confess something: For the last few months whenever I just need to zone out I've found myself lulled into the genteel murder mysteries of Midsomer Murders, of which every episode is currently on Netflix. After two dozen episodes (each about 100 minutes long) I've got the formula down pat: there …
Continue reading Big Screen Double-Feature: Searching & The Little Stranger
Regular readers know the drill by now: I'm releasing my first stab at the Best Movies of 2018 (the "So Far" edition) and given my full-time gig as a stay-at-home parent, I'm a little late to catching up. But make no mistake: This week's edition has some unquestionable heavy-hitters who will probably make it all …
"Hard science fiction" distinguishes itself from its "soft science fiction" counterpart in a simlar way that the "hard" sciences and "soft" sciences differ. Where soft science fiction takes scientific and futuristic concepts but bends it to its own narrative purposes (Star Wars being the most famous example of "soft science fiction") hard science fiction instead bends …
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