You’re right, though! Rowling has been very open about the fact that she cut her teeth on Agatha Christie and that she conceived of the Potter books as a series of mystery. The fantasy elements are almost a red herring in that respect, misdirecting us away from the fact that this is a fundamentally an…

Funnily enough, when Spielberg was offered the role of director for the first film one of his conditions was that the movie be animated, which Rowling was not happy about.

The second Spider-Man film is a perfect coming-of-age movie but I find the original slightly more entertaining, because of its campy tone and the visceral glee that Willem Defoe seems to take in playing the Green Goblin. That first fight scene - with Macy Gray being there randomly and the Goblin spitefully yelling…

Capaldi is possibly my favorite modern Doctor. Heaven Sent might be the single best episode of the show since the revival.

I felt the same way! I’ve been looking forward to seeing the end of this book onscreen for over a decade and the CAT was the only thing that got me even a little excited.

I was going to picket A. V. Club headquarters if Punisher wasn’t on here, so I’m happy; that and the number-one spot were well-deserved.

okay but The Crown just had its best ever season

this is how I feel about Doctor Who, modern and classic!

I was overjoyed recently to learn (via Emily VanderWerff) that Neil has been putting out dank albums of remixed songs. His version of Folsom Prison Blues and his mashup of All-Star with John Lennon’s Imagine are small masterpieces.

I’ve long had a suspicion that Columbus got the directing gig because of his script for Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), from which Rowling seems to have cribbed heavily when writing Harry Potter. Watching it now, it plays like a Columbus-helmed Potter film set in late Victorian England with a dash of Indiana Jones…

She was the weak link in Little Women, though in fairness Meg March was sort of bland and forgettable even in the original novel and Emma nails that.

Outside the Harry Potter films I think Swiss Army Man might be Radcliffe’s best movie. I was tickled when it showed up on several best-of-the-decade lists.

It’s weird to think that Fellowship’s twentieth anniversary is coming up, because that movie came out when I was in high school and I became utterly obsessed with…

Noel Murray wrote an essay a few years back ranking all the Harry Potter movies: https://film.avclub.com/raise-a-butterbeer-to-harry-potter-the-most-underrated-1798254653

Prisoner of Azkaban is doubtless the best movie in the series but I’m with Noel in finding Goblet of Fire to be my favorite. It absolutely nails the…

The end of Bojack Horseman was THIS year?!

Doctor Who is the only reason I even have HBO Max.

My sister and I enjoy hate-watching things and we went to see the movie because it looked like garbage. When Wade yelled at the villain, “YOU KILLED MY MOTHER’S SISTER” we both burst out laughing.

There’s a movie called Lennon Naked starring Christopher Eccleston as John Lennon (who is frequently naked throughout the movie). It’s an amazing thing to watch because at no point do you believe that Eccleston is under forty. The other Beatles are all in their early to mid-twenties hanging out with the…

I often wonder how things might have gone if he had been cast in Titanic instead of Leo.

My best friend always points to How the Grinch Stole Christmas as an example of just how bad mainstream film had gotten before Lord of the Rings came along to rescue it.

The Phantom Menace isn’t great filmmaking but it’s wildly entertaining, like a bad episode of Doctor Who. Attack of the Clones is arguably worse - it lacks even the joyous whimsy of the first movie - but Revenge of the Sith frequently brushes greatness.