HITCHCOCK DAY: A TALE OF TWO PSYCHOS

The grand finale of Hitchcock Day got derailed by a headache from out the bowels of Hell last night. Let's pretend it's still Friday...

TIGER, TIGER

I should not speak ill of Yann Martel's humongously popular 2001 novel Life of Pi , because I couldn't bring myself to finish it. Go...

TOLKIEN ON FILM: YOU ARE ONLY QUITE A LITTLE FELLOW IN A WIDE WORLD AFTER ALL

The road that led to the first successful adaptation of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien was a long and tormented one: attempts started as early ...

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS

If I may steal from Tolstoy: competently-made movies are all alike, ambitiously messy movies are all ambitiously messy in their own way. Whi...

HORROR BY LEWTON: GRAVE MATTERS

The Body Snatcher , which premiered early in the summer of 1945, and was the last of producer Val Lewton's movies to find release during...

THE TEXAS FRIED CHICKEN MASSACRE

Cruising , from 1980, is a rather terrible movie, but we learned from it important things about director William Friedkin, chiefly that he i...

BATMANIMATION HISTORY

Batman, the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight of Gotham City, true identity of the callow playboy and son of privilege Bruce Wayne, has been a...

SPARKS NOTES: BECAUSE THE NIGHTS

Nights in Rodanthe , the novel, is a holy terror, and possibly the worst book of Nicholas Sparks's "early" period, though I re...

SPARKS NOTES: AH YES, I REMEMBER IT WELL

The Notebook is by most any objective standard the pinnacle of Nicholas Sparks adaptations. It made the most money, for one, which is almos...