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Yours, Mine and Ours: Emotional Custody of Films

14, May 2012
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I previously raised the issue of how we become emotionally connected to specific movies in “Yours, Mine and Ours: Our Emotional Ties to Films.” Now, I want to explore the unfortunate side of forming those attachments. What happens to our relationships with those films when our relationships change?

For instance, I am getting divorced. Before I met my wife, I had no interest in horror movies at all. That was her favorite genre, however. For the first few years we were together, I just sort of indulged her each October as she waited for the sun to go down each night to properly set the mood for some of her favorites. In my world, October was meant for the baseball playoffs. Eventually, though, I began to explore the horror genre in earnest and found myself less devoted to the divisional series games early in the month. I discovered along the way that I love the old Universal Monsters movies. My wife wasn’t particularly big on those, though, so those are “mine.”

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30 Years of Reese’s Pieces: The Cinematic Summer of 1982

8, May 2012
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“This is the worst summer for movies ever.”

I’ve made that statement a number of times over the last four or five years, and every summer seems worse than the one that preceded it. Two years ago, I declared 2010 to be a total waste, but then 2011 rolled around and I found myself thinking, “Man, 2010 was great: Inception, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World… so many good movies!”. I have higher hopes going into 2012, if only because a summer that features Batman and Wes Anderson can’t be all bad (then again, Dark Shadows). Still, it seems like the summer movie season isn’t what it was when I was younger. Yes, summer is generally synonymous with the loudest, dumbest movies the studios have to offer, but that doesn’t mean they all have to be disposable junk. Consider some of the great movies of summers past: Jaws (the original summer blockbuster), Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghostbusters, and Back to the Future are all crowd-pleasing entertainments that have stood the test of time and become bona fide classics.

For many moviegoers of a certain age, there is one summer three decades ago that stands apart from all the rest: the summer of 1982. It may well be ground zero for an entire generation of movie lovers: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Blade Runner, The Thing, and even Tron were all released within a few weeks of each other, collectively blowing the minds of BMX-riding kids with feathered hair across the country. I was only seven years old that summer, which means I didn’t see all of the movies on that list until later in life, but several of them (sorry, Tron) hold a spot on my all-time favorites list, and are titles I return to again and again for entertainment and inspiration. I’m not alone; in fact, many of the films released that summer are considered groundbreaking, even epochal, and they’ve influenced countless others (even you, Tron) in the ensuing decades. Read the rest of this entry »

Is What You Like, Good? Anthony O. Scott, Samuel L. Jackson, & The Debate Over Quality

4, May 2012
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Film critic Anthony O. Scott recently incurred the wrath of actor Samuel L. Jackson over his weary review of The Avengers. The following remark is a solid microcosm of Scott’s feelings about the film:

The secret of “The Avengers” is that it is a snappy little dialogue comedy dressed up as something else, that something else being a giant A.T.M. for Marvel and its new studio overlords, the Walt Disney Company.

It’s a backhanded compliment, certainly, but Scott’s thesis is that The Avengers is not a work of art (even commercial art) so much as it is the horse to which Marvel and Disney have both hitched a lot of merchandising carts. Some films just feel that way, like when Elvis made movies that weren’t there to touch our souls but because Col. Parker knew The King’s career would benefit from the publicity. Read the rest of this entry »

Short and Sweet: Why You Should Watch & Rank Short Films

25, Apr 2012
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Truly one of the more unloved inclusions of Flickchart are short films. So unloved, that many people refuse to include them on their lists. It’s not too hard to see why, as they often aren’t that extraordinary and can be much harder to remember in the long-term. With significantly less content, they are often much tougher to rank against features, and many people will debate on whether they should actually be considered movies or not. Despite having my own problems with trying to rank them properly, I include them in my list, mostly for vain reasons. Read the rest of this entry »

All Dressed Up with C2E2 to Go

18, Apr 2012
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In Flickchart terms, “Marvel vs. DC” is the ultimate match-up, made very clear by the fact that the Big Two occupied the two largest booths at the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo this year. Marvel’s booth was dominated by a stage with a backdrop of The Avengers release poster, in front of which guests were invited to be photographed with props of Captain America’s shield and Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir.

Across the floor, DC Comics was surprisingly light on movie content; The Dark Knight Rises was represented almost entirely by a single, modest placard with the current poster and a TV loop of promo clips and ads that included the movie’s trailer. Where Marvel wants to emphasize the synergy between the printed page and the screen, DC is clearly trying to reassert itself as a comic book publisher and not an idea farm for Hollywood. It was with this dichotomy in mind that I set about exploring the relationship between the comic book industry and film. Read the rest of this entry »


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