Consider, too, what this piece says about the place each character calls home. For Superman, Krypton's where he came from, and Metropolis is where he lives, but Smallville is home. For Wonder Woman, Man's World is an alien place very different from where she calls home, Themiscyra or Paradise Island or whatever you…

I will admit, it was better than I thought it would be. But that's not saying much. Yes, I laughed in a few places. But I'd gladly take those ninety minutes of life back if I could.

And, personally, I like Clooney as Batman way more than Bale. When you think about it, Clooney should have been the best Batman ever—he can play a smarmy Bruce Wayne AND he can play obsessive Batman. If the script had been a bit better—okay, a LOT better—the casting and production values could have made this the…

George Perez certainly drew sexy women. But what's fascinating is that he drew them with a recognition that there was no one way to be sexy. Yes, Starfire is a pin-up from a calendar. But Raven and Wonder Girl both, initially, had a different kind of sexiness. And, as Marv Wolfman wrote them, they were rounded…

Consider, for example, Ghost. That's all heart, all story, (all cheese)...and absolutely dependent on the visual effects to tell the story.

It was a pretty awesome thing to see. And the George Perez art...wow!

I was ten years old. I read it. I cried. I read it again. I cried again.

A shout-out, too, to the photographers. Yes, these are amazing costumes. But the photographers have done a good job with framing and posing and depth of field and all those other things I don't understand to make the pictures really look good. Nice work.

It's important to keep in mind that one doesn't have to live near the ocean to experience storm surge. The 1928 hurricane that swept over Lake Okeechobee was the second deadliest hurricane to strike the U.S. (not quite Galveston 1900, but still estimated to be more deadly than Katrina), and most of those deaths were…

Exactly: we care about the fate of the world insofar as the world is boiled down to a few characters we care about. The disaster movies of the 70s—though far from great writing—understood that really well.

I would say that we don't even have to LIKE the character as long as we WANT him to get to the meeting on time. (It's even trickier to write an unlikeable character and want him or her to succeed, but it's not impossible). But you're absolutely right that a well-told story (involving a rounded character) is the key…

But I think the point is that superhero movies and the like could be more interesting if they focused on personal drama. To be honest, the best part of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies was the final scene where Peter says goodbye to Mary Jane. Being a hero should cost something, or there's no sacrifice. I think that…

I think David Gerrold, in his book "The World of Star Trek," made a really insightful point about screenwriting. The best episodes of Star Trek—just like Casablanca, that you mentioned, or really any truly effective drama—come from having the protagonist make a CHOICE. Ideally, it's a choice between two fundamental…

Let's make it a little bigger:

Since April is National Poetry Month, I thought I'd try this:

Yes. This was EXACTLY what went through my head when I saw the prompt.

Here are ten shows, ostensibly for kids, that I watched for the first time as an adult (with kids) which transcend the label "kid shows":

I see no reason why it couldn't have been intentional. Herrick's poetry has a lot of the verbal wit so common to poets of the time. He wasn't above using typography to make his point, either: Consider his poem " Pillar of Fame, " which uses an architectural shape to make his point.

McCoy: Its "new matrix"? Do you have any idea what you're saying?

The nanobots don't need me anymore...