BREED isn't a really creepy kid story. The book hums along for a while, then goes completely off the rails. Loved THE INVITATION, tho.

Your kids were freaked out by BRAVE?

Chayefsky swore that he wasn't influenced by this. But then, he also swore his screenplay for The Goddess was not based on Marilyn Monroe, so…there's that.

The art of the great film score died with Jerry Goldsmith.

Couple of years older, they had Marla Gibbs, Nell Carter, Bea Arthur, Alfonso Ribero, and Charlotte Rae singing the praises of NBC.

God, this has been a shite year for movies.
Does MANCHESTER BY THE SEA even have a release date or is it stuck in distributor hell?

I have very fond memories of music in 1996. Just turn on the Alternative Music Station and listen to the music industry have a collective nervous breakdown. Personal fave from 1996: Imperial Teen's criminally underrated Seasick.

The Blob, baby!!

Clerks II is seriously underrated. One of my favorite movies of that year.

Shawnee Smith with a machine gun again, please.

I'm imagining Takei feels queasy that his personal life is being used as fodder for a lazy and extraneous call-back.

Nobody talks about American Splendor anymore. And that's too damn bad.

What a great "controversy" to generate interest in one of those tent pole franchises that Hollywood used to make money off of. Your move, GHOSTBUSTERS.

Great article, except for the Michael Reidel comments. Why even include him in this??

No "Be Black Baby"?

I'll take second rate Solondz over most filmmakers personal best.

I'm going to stick with it, but it definitely lacks focus. Relationships seem arbitrary and unexplored. And just what is at stake here, exactly? Dominic Cooper is fantastic, but I'm beginning to understand why the Weinstein's were sort of baffled by the character's motivations when they turned this down as a film…

I was sort of feeling this up until that shot of the Innocent Child getting the boo-hoos and leaking meticulously framed, timed, and shot tears. Spielberg will never change.

I think one of the reasons this didn't get more attention is that it came out right around the same time as Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, which dealt with similar themes on a bigger canvas.  This movie is a gem, however.  For those of you who only know Martha Plimpton as brash and smartassed, her vulnerable…