You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. One of the first questions I had as I was working through my rubrics and compilations was a pretty simple one: Spielberg or Cameron? I’m a little alarmed by how conventional… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Trends
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. If your monster has a mirror in it, do not shout. This kind of situation does not call for freaking out. And do nothing that you would not like to see… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: The Monster in the Mirror
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. Like most other phrases you hate, “having it all” has its basis in marketing as opposed to someone’s actual thoughts. Helen Gurley Brown angled for that 1982 book which launched a… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Heroines of the Second Wave
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. As anyone who has ever pored over Tolkien minutiae will know—heck, as anyone who has ever stared at a Lord of the Rings Risk map will know—Frodo and Sam get reasonably… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Fragments and Hyperlinks
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. Every director you’ve ever heard of is begging you to see their movie on the biggest screen you can. Now that I’m getting old, my reaction to those Fathom Events screenings… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: The 60-Foot Face
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. I could understand why, if you were adapting Jurassic Park, you might decide to drop “Mr. DNA.” There are other ways to do this plot exposition, maybe by giving B.D. Wong… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Tech Messiah
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. The westerner is one of the most hallowed figures of American moving images, an icon for film and television alike. His virtues (toughness, persistence, wherewithal) and his faults (prejudice, temper,… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Cowboys on a New Frontier
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. It’s a well-worn bit of trivia that the Death Star trench run in Star Wars, which I think would get my vote for “the most exciting twelve minutes in movies,”… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Eschatology
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. After there was Raiders of the Lost Ark, there was Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. Made by three guys from Mississippi over the course of the 1980s, the… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: Nostalgia
You can find the full list of the top 100 blockbusters since 1972 here, as well as an index for other posts in this series. The Godfather, as I think I might be obligated to say, begins with a wedding. It’s a violent movie, occasionally even gory and lurid, and when it detours for tenderness… Read More Top 100 Blockbusters of the Multiplex Era: The Splitting of the Nuclear Family
Seeing Things Secondhand 