Kevin Smith nearly always adheres to the principle of "write what you know." That's why "Dogma," his controversial 1999 comedy, is brimming with Catholicism, skepticism, profanity, poop jokes, movie r...

Among the many crushing disappointments associated with the upcoming Marmaduke film — that it exists, that grown-ups spent money to create it, etc. — is the discovery that the MPAA has rated it PG “fo...

It’s time once again to take you behind the scenes at the sausage factory, where the “sausage” is movies, and the “factory” is a studio executive’s conference room somewhere in Los Angeles, and the “p...

Thirteen years ago, there was a big-budget summer blockbuster that did something rare: it entertained people AND made them think about important philosophical issues. Its repercussions continue to be ...

Remember how you read "Eclipse" and wished that you were a teenage girl named Bella so that a vampire named Edward would give you a beautiful engagement ring like the one described in the book? I have...

Nikke Finke, the reclusive and possibly fictional scoopmeister behind Deadline Hollywood, is reporting that Megan Fox will not be in "Transformers 3." (CNN confirms it.) Paramount has passed on its op...

When you're writing a column about how religion is portrayed in movies, "Monty Python's Life of Brian" seems like an obvious choice. It is, after all, the satiric story of an ordinary fellow who happe...

Some film festivals seek to champion low-budget independent films. Then there’s Tribeca, where this year’s opening-night feature was "Shrek Forever After." In its 9th edition, Tribeca is still find...

If Jake and Elwood Blues taught us anything -- and I think you'll agree they taught us many things -- it's that you can be religiously devout and still have a good time. Now, "The Blues Brothers" i...

Hollywood can be so confusing! Both "Furry Vengeance" and the new "Nightmare on Elm Street" are opening on the same day, April 30, and I can already see moviegoers buying tickets to one when they mean...

When you get the newspaper every morning and look at the comics page, surely one of your first stops is Marmaduke. Whoops! I beg your pardon. Let me translate that sentence for readers under the ag...

Nothing will turn a conversation awkward faster than bringing up religion. So let's do that now! Then we can talk about politics! It's no exaggeration to say that the vast majority of people worldw...

They like to kick off the South by Southwest Film Festival with a kick-ass movie, so it’s fortunate that this year, someone actually made a movie called "Kick-Ass." If ever a movie was designed for t...

Last night about 150 lucky South By Southwesterners were the first audience in the world to see "Centurion," the bloody new action flick written and directed by Neil Marshall ("The Descent," "Doomsday...

When you saw the trailer for "The Bounty Hunter," your first thought was probably, “Why did the Oscars expand the Best Picture category to 10 nominees? They’re only gonna need one next year!!” But how...

The first question you have when faced with the reality of a second "Meet the Parents" sequel, called "Little Fockers," is “Why?” But the second question is “Why now?” It’s due in theaters this Decemb...

Out of George Lucas‘ Death Star-like headquarters comes word that the "Star Wars" creator/ruiner is producing a computer-animated musical, to be directed by Kevin Munroe ("TMNT") and written by David ...

Day 1 (Thursday, Jan. 21) Let us hie to Utah's icy climes and the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, held each January in the frozen, picturesque wasteland of Park City and founded by a friend of Paul Newm...

Choosing 10 films for my list this year was easy. The hard part was deciding which film should be No. 1. Was I prepared to declare any of these fine movies unequivocally the Best Movie of 2009? But on the other hand, did I want to wuss out and do a lame alphabetical list? The answer to both questions was no.

This is a thing that I do. I keep track of all the movies, TV shows, and books I consume over the course of the year, then add them up and reflect upon them. Why would I post something like this, some...

If we’ve learned anything from watching movies, it’s that complicated robberies — of banks, casinos, millionaires’ mansions, the Library of Congress, whatever — succeed about 98 percent of the time. T...

For some reason, a German man named Marc Vorlander is apparently making a sequel to the infamous 1995 laughingstock "Showgirls." Called "Showgirls: The Story of Hope," this chapter will focus on Hope,...

If you watch the TV talk shows, you know the routine. Someone involved with an upcoming film — usually an actor, but sometimes the director — does the Letterman/Conan/Leno circuit to talk up whatever ...

We were planning to interview Rob Zombie in conjunction with the upcoming sequel-to-a-remake "Halloween II," which he wrote and directed. But then some things piled up on our desks, and we lost track ...

Make no mistake — we could have interviewed Dennis Quaid if we wanted to. He’s practically on our speed-dial. But then we got to thinking about it, and we figured he’s probably doing a lot of intervie...

The trailer for "The Proposal" explains the plot very clearly: Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, who hate each other, must pretend to be engaged in order to prevent her from being deported to Canada. ...

On June 26, you’ll be able to see "My Sister’s Keeper," a tearjerker about a 13-year-old girl whose parents conceived her because their other daughter has leukemia and they thought it would be handy t...

The Wayans Brothers’ spoof film "Dance Flick" finally opens this week after being pushed back from February, no doubt thrilling the 20 or so people who are looking forward to it, all of whom have the ...

The producers of this Sunday's Academy Awards telecast have been vocal about their intentions to change some things about the show. But apart from hiring a non-comedian, Hugh Jackman, as the host, the...

Day 1 (Thursday, Jan. 15) Gentlemen, start your lesbians! The 2009 Sundance Film Festival has commenced in the quaint mountain town of Park City, Utah, with 120 independent features and goodness know...

News item: Showbiz trade publication Variety lays off 30 employees. Cinematical Exclusive: The memo Variety sent to the affected writers. BIZ RAG SACKS HACKS Dear journo: While your perf a...

Look, I can suspend my disbelief as much as the next guy, but I am having a seriously hard time accepting the concept of the new DreamWorks/Nickelodeon movie "Hotel for Dogs." A hotel for dogs??! N...

As 2008 gets taken off the Current Events shelf and moved to History, let us contemplate the seismic changes the year has brought us. The United States elected its first black president. The economy t...

For the fifth consecutive year, I kept careful track of everything I watched and read. As always, this inventory may not be of interest to anyone other than me, and you are excused if you don't want t...

Dear Mother Nature: You are a filthy whore. You are a wanton, depraved trollop devoid of all virtue. Your scandalous harlotry surpasses human understanding. So utterly putrid are your offenses that decent humankind is sickened by the vile rankness that emanates therefrom.

The folks at 20th Century Fox, having abandoned all hope of ever conceiving an original idea again, are allegedly looking at making "Speed 3." After all, the 1994 original was a big hit starring two n...

I cannot back this up with actual statistics, but I believe more movies have been made about World War II than any other historical event. Dozens were made while the war was still ongoing, and hundred...

With the news that the musical score from "The Dark Knight" has been disqualified from Academy Awards consideration on the grounds that too many people were credited with composing it, outrage against...

It is time once again to open Raven-Symone's mailbag (if you know what I mean) and make fun of the simple-minded children who write to her. I would have run a new edition of this feature sooner, but the volume of mail received at Raven's fake e-mail address has slowed to a trickle in recent months. Most of what she gets now is very generic ("Hi Raven, I love you!") or consists only of her fans inviting her to join them on Facebook or MySpace or Beebo or JimJum or Froofraff or whatever.

It’s a fiendish dilemma worthy of Jigsaw himself. Next week, "Saw V" and "High School Musical 3" will hit theaters on the same day! How can a person with limited time and money possibly choose which o...

If you felt the world rocking yesterday afternoon, it's probably because of this: (If you're wondering how he has a son, it was through in vitro fertilization, and the mother is Clay's friend Jayme...

9/8/08 Film festivals have a reputation for disdaining mainstream Hollywood movies in favor of obscure, artsy stuff — a reputation that in many cases is well deserved, by the way — but the Toronto In...

The producers of a 2006 disaster called "National Lampoon’s Pledge This!" are suing the film’s star, Paris Hilton, for failing to do her part in promoting the movie when it was released. It seems to m...

Adjectives Actually Used to Describe Wine in the New Film "Bottle Shock": round woolly chewy unctuous Adjectives That Should Also Be Acceptable to Describe Wine, Then, If Those Are OK: blasphemo...

This week a creepy-looking film called "Mirrors" will hit theaters, and if it does its job, it will make audiences terrified of all reflective surfaces for months to come. You’ll see people walking ar...

“Environmentalism” has become a loaded word that divides people down political lines. Conservatives hear it and envision dirty tree-huggers who care more about plants than people, while liberals think...

Being a movie critic for the Internet is nice. Every morning, I drive down to Internet headquarters, punch the ol’ time card, and put in a solid eight hours. Then every Friday, the Internet writes me ...

A movie called "Rogue" was dumped into theaters a few weeks ago on just a handful of screens with virtually no advertising. Predictably, nobody saw it. This is a shame, because the movie was about a G...

Cranky Eric© sez ... Hey, people who make movies: Stop putting scenes after the closing credits. If you want me to watch it, put it IN THE MOVIE, not after it. It has been well established that...

(For complete background on this feature, read the introduction here. But here's the gist: I registered a fake e-mail address for actress/singer Raven-Symone and announced it here, with the disclaimer...

Day 1 (Friday, March 7): Yee-haw, dude! I am once again in Austin, capital city of Texas and hipster capital of the South, for the South By Southwest Film Festival. This is only my third time at SXSW...

Thank you. Oh wow. I am continuing to express my disbelief as the applause dies down. Now that the applause has ceased, I begin my speech outright. First, let me make a transparently false claim of...

By now you’ve heard the news, the dreadful news, that Vanity Fair has canceled its traditional Oscar-night party due to fears that the writers’ strike would ruin the Academy Awards ceremony. Many Holl...

(For complete background on this feature, read the introduction here. But here's the gist: I registered a fake e-mail address for actress/singer Raven-Symone and announced it here, with the disclaimer...

Day 1 (Thursday, January 17): Have 12 months really elapsed since the last time we cavorted in Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival? A look at the calendar confirms it. And here we are aga...

Robert Reed was a classically trained actor whose most famous role was that of the dad on "The Brady Bunch." He was evidently a prickly fellow and constantly harassed the show's producers about its lo...

The MPAA rating system is totally screwed up, as everyone other than the MPAA itself knows. Savvy moviegoers have figured out the bizarre system of morality employed by the MPAA and have learned to di...

You probably visit Michael Bay’s website a lot. I know I do. How else will I know what Michael Bay is thinking? But I have to say I was disappointed in his New Year’s Eve entry. He wrote: “For the ...

Think how sad you would be if you were Jessica Simpson. You’d have the failed marriage, the jacked-up teeth, and the fact that you’re kind of dumb all staring you in the face every day. And now you’d ...

Like most sentient beings, I loved the "Lord of the Rings" films. I didn’t convert my parents’ basement into the Shire or shave hair off the dog and glue it to my feet or write my diary in an elfin la...

When 2007 began, some feared it would be a terrible year for movies, mostly because of the slew of "threequels" that threatened to dominate the summer. But as it turns out, 2007 was a fantastic movie ...

Whoever thought of measuring time in "years" is awesome! If time just continued endlessly, without starting over every 12 months or so, we'd be deprived of end-of-the-year features like this one. And ...

All across America, daily newspapers are feeling the pinch as more and more readers turn to the Internet for their news, weather, and dangerously uninformed opinions. Circulation is down. Staff member...

Jason Lee is a funny guy. He makes millions of people laugh every Thursday night on "My Name Is Earl." He has talent. So why did he provide the voice of the title character in this summer’s awful "Und...

It was announced a few weeks ago that a Justice League movie was in the works, and the response within the nerd community was overwhelming: “We like Wonder Woman’s breasts!” Also, there has been so...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a lot of rules for the Oscars. For example, a film isn’t eligible if it was shown on TV before it appeared in theaters. Also, a film cannot be nomin...

Historical epics have been popular in Hollywood ever since the early days of film. Why, one of very the first experimental films was a 30-second mini-scene of Thomas Edison dancing around dressed up a...

(For complete background on this feature, read the introduction here. But here's the gist: I registered a fake e-mail address for actress/singer Raven-Symone and announced it here, with the disclaimer...

Watching a movie is — or should be — a solitary experience. A good movie can draw you into its world and immerse you completely in the story. That’s why the screens are so big and the sound systems ar...

Dear Eugene Levy, First of all, understand that we love you. Ever since your days on "SCTV," you’ve made us laugh with your nerdy, larger-than-life characters. Your performances in the Christopher ...

The Associated Press reported last week that a couple of Philadelphia TV hosts had apologized for a promotion that involved giving away a bullet-riddled jacket in conjunction with the movie "Shoot ‘Em...

Editor’s Note: I hope you’ll enjoy a column from our newest writer, Eric D. Snider. Eric comes to us from a site cleverly named ericdsnider.com, but he’s been published in a number of venues including...

(For background on this feature, read the opening paragraphs of the previous entry. But here's the gist: I registered a fake e-mail address for actress/singer Raven-Symone and announced it here, with ...

Some kids don't understand the Internet. They see their favorite celebrity's name mentioned in a movie review, and they think whoever wrote the review knows that celebrity personally. So they write to...

Some kids don't understand the Internet. They see their favorite celebrity's name mentioned in a movie review, and they think whoever wrote the review knows that celebrity personally. So they write to...

For those of you just joining us, a while back I got annoyed with dumb people thinking that because I had reviewed someone's movie, that must mean I had contact information for that person. In particu...

See the previous entries in this category (there's a list in the right-hand column of this page) for details. Basically, these are people writing to an e-mail address that they mistakenly believe belo...

Day 1: Friday, March 9 Yee-haw! Throw a saddle on your cousin and paint a fence post! It's time for Austin's South by Southwest, the rootin'-est, tootin'-est film festival this side of the Mississipp...

This is it, kids: The last edition of "Bad 9/11 Poetry." I thought there would be another one, but I realized the other two poems I have were written by fourth-graders, and I'm not going to mock the p...

Click the "Children's Letters to Raven-Symone" category at the right for previous entries, which give a fuller background. The basics: Kids and stupid adults think that if a Web site mentions a famous...

Day 1 (Thursday, Jan. 18): Do not be alarmed! The powerful smell coming from the mountains of Park City, Utah, is not biochemical or toxic in nature. It is merely the vigorous scent of independent fi...

I love the end of the year! I love lists and best-ofs and recaps. So in that spirit, in 2004 I started keeping a daily log of what I watched and read, the better to facilitate a late-December summary ...

This article was written on assignment for Irreantum, a literary journal published by the Association for Mormon Letters. It was never published, however, due to some managerial chaos that ensued afte...

America has been the world's film capital for nearly as long as there have been movies, definitely in terms of popularity and arguably in terms of quality, too. (Countries with smaller film industries...

As regular readers will recall, this feature began after I was inexplicably pestered by Raven-Symone fans who wanted her e-mail address, despite there being no earthly reason to think I would have it....

Two more poems written by Utahns in the days after 9/11, submitted (unsolicited) to the newspaper I was working for at the time. By the way, we only have two more editions of this feature before th...

Perfectly Harmless Instant Messenger Statements That Will Get You in Trouble If the Government Is Spying on You i thought my jokes about congress would kill, but they totally bombed my dad's gonna...

A couple more poems written by Utahns in the days after 9/11, submitted to the newspaper I was working for at the time. Freedom Flight 93 by Crystal Ann Pett Just like a normal day, I felt the sun...

I know you've been jonesin' for more Children's Letters to Raven-Symone, so here's another batch of them. I'll try to post them more often so we can get caught up. Basic background: I registered sy...

Here are some more e-mails sent to symone.raven@gmail.com, an address that does NOT belong to Raven-Symone, but because Raven's fans are dumb (i.e., they are children), they think it does. So they wri...

Some more Bad 9/11 Poetry for you to enjoy. The basic background is that average citizens wrote poems and submitted them to the Utah newspaper I worked for after Sept. 11, 2001, evidently hoping we wo...

Wow, we have a lot to catch up on here. These are e-mails sent to symone.raven@gmail.com, an address that does NOT belong to singer/actress/chubster Raven-Symone. Only stupid people think it does. Stu...

While combing through the digital catacombs of my computer files, I found something I'd forgotten about: BAD 9/11 POETRY. You see, after the 9/11 attacks five years ago, people who had theretofore ...

Here's another batch of e-mails sent to symone.raven@gmail.com, an address that does NOT go to singer/actress Raven-Symone, but that a lot of people seem to think does. (For background, read this prev...

The story so far: In July 2005, I wrote a blog entry about an exchange I had with someone who wanted actress/singer Raven-Symone's e-mail address. There was no reason I would have that information,...

Day 1 (Friday, March 10): Austin! Capital city of Texas, and one of the least Texas-y cities in the state, from what I'm told. You don't hear as many Texas accents as you'd expect, nor see as many co...

Day 1 (Thursday, Jan. 19): For some people, Sundance begins on a Thursday. Those people are called suckas. Day 1's activities are limited to one (1) screening of a specially selected "opening night" ...

Possible Names for Rock Bands, as Suggested by News Stories in 2005 Schiavo & the Feeding Tubes Papal Deathwatch The Filibusters Interregnum & the Congress of Cardinals TomKat Box Office...

This is the seventh year I've done a Top 10 list, and I've never had such difficulty choosing a No. 1. There were many good films this year, but nothing that stands out as the clear-cut winner. So whi...

For the second year in a row, I kept a "media diary" in 2005: a list of every TV show and movie I watched, every play I attended, and every book I read. This enables me to look back on my media diet a...