A tip o’ the bowler to this column. As I’m not much of a rom-com fan I didn’t pay it much attention at first but I clicked on a couple of them and it’s given me new appreciation for the genre. As with A History of Violence and Popcorn Champs, I like this long-form journalism approach to these flicks. 

Adam Sandler stars as Rob Schneider, who’s been hired to star in a movie biopic of David Spade. But Sandler’s Schneider has a different vision of the Spade character than director Dennis Dugan, a frequent Adam Sandler director but a man whom Schneider does not see eye to eye with. Dugan, played by Kevin James, will…

You’d be surprised, I’ve seen several instances of celebs sharing troll posts and then it turns out that it’s like some 13 year old that’s now getting death threats from grown men.

There’s one moment in this that sticks with me - Connery’s “oh yeah?” reaction when he hears that Ryan O’Neals character broke his back in the landing, after disparaging him as a lightweight. Sean is so good - you can just see the wheels turning behind his eyes in that look.

Along with the great visual fx, lighting, costumes, etc., the impact of the amazing sound design of Star Wars cannot be overstated. It sounded like nothing else, like it came from outer space. The hum of the lightsabers, that tie-fighter screech, the vibration of the blasters, the languages of the aliens and droids—it…

Ford had spent years as an unnoticed background actor, and he’d left the studio system to work as a carpenter. He was 34 when he was cast in Star Wars, and it’s amazing to consider that someone with that much laconic presence could go that long without catching a break. How did every room not stop when Harrison…

I’m surprised Ralph McQuarrie didn’t come up in this article at all. His concept art is part of what earned Lucas his studio funding for A New Hope, and he designed what would become iconic characters (including Vader, who appears pretty much as he appeared in McQuarrie’s concepts), ships, and locations for the entire…

“Beyond Mark Hamill’s floppy Tiger Beat hair, nothing about Star Wars even looks ’70s.”

Weirdly I like the show better, but it took me a few episodes to really get there. I didn’t like it as much, then it met expectations and then it got better as the characters and world got built up.

Gwen! I watched 63Up too! So great! I’ve seen them all since 35Up and look forward to them. This one was especially moving.

I watched Little Women, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Having never seen a previous adaptation or read the book, the story still felt remarkably fresh to me. I loved the ending and, now having read up more on Alcott and previous adaptations, seems all the more genius to me. I get why some may have problems with it—which…

Stallone, who had no previous screenwriting experience, wrote Rocky over a few days in 1975. He’d just watched the journeyman boxer Chuck Wepner last 15 rounds against Muhammad Ali. (Later on, Wepner would sue Stallone, and Stallone would settle.)

Having grown up in the Philly area on the 70s and 80s, I love the way the city, in all of its general era-appropriate crumminess, almost serves as a character itself in Rocky. It serves as a contrast to the contemporary films set in NY, where it seems like the city could collapse into violent anarchy at any second.…

I’d argue that Creed isn’t quite Ali, as he is still presented as a family-friendly jingoist who cares quite a bit about his image and marketability and only tells Rocky about his rough upbringing after they get to know each other. I can’t imagine Creed having much to say about Vietnam. Ali had an angle to play, but…

I love that scene where Rocky is being interviewed on TV while he’s working out in a slaughthouse, pummeling the hanging sides of beef. Apollo Creed is in his office, wheeling and dealing and making telephone calls, while his manager watches Rocky on TV and sees how hard he can hit and the hunger in his eyes, and a…

“Rocky isn’t really a movie about Rocky Balboa fighting Apollo Creed”

I love this movie to the point where I quoted it in my wedding vows (“together we fill gaps”). It’s really underrated, especially given how iconic it has become. The sequels, admittedly, get very silly very quickly (but they’re still fun), but the attention to character detail here is really strong; this is a truly…

Love, love, love this movie. I used to watch Rocky marathons when I was a severely bullied teen. And even if he became cartoonishly shredded in the sequels, watching a good guy like Rocky working his ass off and going the distance was really inspiring for me. And yes, I hate Rocky V. I loved the 2007 movie, and Creed…

I don’t think people started to get a great handle on crowd noise until Hill Street Blues where IIRC, they had a troupe of people in the squad room scenes to provide background convo and murmur.