This weekend, The Simpsons airs its 600th episode. an achievement that’s downright mind-boggling. Currently on its twenty-eighth season, it’s the longest-running scripted primetime series in U.S. television history, outpacing Gunsmoke by eight years and counting. (The dramatic shift in typical … Continue reading From the Archive: The Simpsons Movie
As was the case the last time I devoted a “From the Archive” entry to one of the newscast portions of our late radio show The Reel Thing, I need to credit a different writer. While I occasionally found a story for inclusion on the station’s AP wire, the show-opening news rundown was almost entirely the province of my esteemed, gifted colleague on the program. This group of stories led the episode that roughly corresponded with the current weekend, twenty-six years ago. He took the picture above, too. The Birmingham, Alabama News says it won’t run ads for Henry & … Continue reading From the Archive: “And we begin, as always, with the latest in movie news….”
I suppose I should hold this in reserve until the Saturday that Ben Affleck’s directorial effort with the character arrives, but we’ll use this to draw a contrast between a time that I was actively excited at the prospect of a Tim Burton film rather than the current sad state that finds my preemptive exhausted at the thought of sitting through his latest exercise in whimsical gloom. And, hey, there’s a Donald Trump reference in here, too. So, you know, timely. This was written during the summer that my on-air colleague and I decided we would take a break from the weekly … Continue reading From the Archive: Batman Returns
The review was written for my college student-run newspaper. I’d watched the 1988 Dutch original, so I’m not precisely sure why I neglected to note that the inferior remake was directed by the exact same person: George Sluizer. That seems like a pertinent detail for a film critic to share. The Vanishing is a prime example of how Hollywood can take a great idea and completely muck it up. Based on an intriguing and unsettling 1991 Dutch film of the same name, The Vanishing involves a man’s obsession with his girlfriend’s mysterious disappearance while on vacation. Kiefer Sutherland gives a strong … Continue reading From the Archive: The Vanishing
Betraying my bias, the very idea of sitting through Oliver Stone weighing in on a recent affront to the sanctity of the American ideals leaves me preemptively exhausted. Stone has two Academy Awards for directing — one more than Martin Scorsese, … Continue reading From the Archive: W
When I started reviewing films on the radio, in 1990, Clint Eastwood was still larger considered a movie star who occasionally directing movies, almost as a hobby. That consensus view was understandable, but also needlessly dismissive. Within the first few … Continue reading From the Archive: Changeling
Lest anyone think horrendously bad spoof movies was a result of the trailblazing of the Wayans clan, there was an ugly little flare-up of them in the early nineteen-nineties, largely responding to the surprising success of the Naked Gun films. Yes, friends, there are times when being a film critic is pure misery. This review was written for The Pointer, the student-run newspaper at my undergraduate institution. One of the difficulties in creating a Naked Gun style parody film is throwing jokes at the audience as if fired from a machine gun, so there’s not much room for flat, unsuccessful … Continue reading From the Archive: Loaded Weapon 1
This was written for The Pointer, the student newspaper at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. When I look back at my clippings from that publication, I’m reminded of the remarkable number of times I penned reviews on films that the … Continue reading From the Archive: Consenting Adults
We’re taking advantage of the weekend’s gloomy weather to stage a little in-house film festival. The DVR needs clearing, you understand. That got me to thinking about multiple feature nights over the years that have, deliberately, been a little more … Continue reading From the Archive: The Shadow and I Know Who Killed Me
In the interest of prolonging the weeklong indulgence of nostalgia for college radio days, I’ll use the weekly dip into the archives to focus on an artist that I suspect a few folks well-versed in the arcana of me were … Continue reading From the Archive: Flashback Friday – 1991
Coffee for Two 