I saw Battleship. It sucked, yadda yadda, but I had a choice between that and the pregnancy movie. I still think I chose correctly.

I liked them both. Not sure why I Killed My Mother isn't on DVD in the U.S.

I liked them both. Not sure why I Killed My Mother isn't on DVD in the U.S.

Just saw it, and I agree. Or maybe I'm just refusing to contemplate any other possibility.

There's plenty of YA contemporary out there; it's thriving. But I read YA because I get something there I can't find in adult fiction: crazy-ass, high-concept dystopias with obvious applications to the world we live in. I often feel like "literary" writers would do anything to deny that technology has changed the…

That always annoyed me, too, especially when The Parent Trap (Haley Mills version) came on Wide World of Disney or whatever they called that thing. For a kid in the '70s who was convinced of their worldly maturity, those pandering fantasies were on par with being forced to order from the kids' menu.

Agreed. I watched season 1 on its original airing in 1997, starting with the second episode, which I tuned in to expecting another shitty WB show with amusing fashion. The ridiculous fashion was there, but the dialogue and the tone were like nothing else on TV at that time. I kept watching, but it wasn't until Buffy…

I haven't read them, but I almost fell asleep during the movie version of Dear John. There was a serious dearth of things happening. I gather there is more happening in The Notebook, but how do these books keep your attention?

I heard a lot of laughter in the theater, but it was far from a full theater. Maybe the audience had already self-selected.

When Marty decided he was on a reality show, my mind went to My Little Eye. Not sure that was an intentional reference, as it's hardly an iconic horror movie, but it does share some elements of this one's premise.

Thanks for doing this. I read YA without shame, and it's nice to have reviews of these books from a straight-on adult perspective.

I almost stopped reading The Hunger Games in the first few pages because Katniss' explanation of the reaping was so clumsily done. But after that I enjoyed it.

I thought there was wasted potential in Mockingjay.

"Sallesmen"? "Kaputt"? "Rohpnol"? I know it's a small press, and I support the little guy, but c'mon, hire a copyeditor or a proofreader.

Writing a book-length assemblage of prose is not hard. I realized this when I started receiving 500 self-published books per year. Maybe it was hard in the age of manual typewriters. But the time is fast approaching when those Americans who haven't written a book (or five) are the minority.

I get review pitches from self-published authors, so I have seen unbelievable quantities of bad books. The only ones that deserve the title "so bad it's good" are trashy bestsellers, preferably from bygone eras, like the Garson Kanin novel "Smash" is based on (judging by the excerpts in Noel's reviews).

Thank god for Wikipedia when you need to review the eighth film in a franchise of which you have chosen to know nothing hitherto.

Hair was my favorite movie for a month or so after it came out. It convinced me that hippies weren't scary or annoying, after all! They just liked to sing and dance while burning draft cards! But when I picked up a used copy of the book from the musical version, I was surprised to discover how much darker and druggier…

I was 11 in 1979, and the gigantic ads for both these movies all over the NYC subway system shaped my aspirational notion of what it meant to be a teen, though I couldn't see either of them.

They are not great YA novels, which can be much better. They are great raw material for better-than-average popcorn movies. I read them less than a year ago, and knowing that they were being adapted for the screen made me more charitable toward them, I think. The barebones writing and other flaws worked in something I…