A belated link to my final contribution to the Childhood Films countdown at Wonders in the Dark–at number four, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time, adapted from one of my favorite books, 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird: I don’t think it’s too far off the mark to label To Kill a Mockingbird one…
As the Childhood Films countdown at Wonders in the Dark winds down to a close in the next couple of weeks, there are a number of beloved, brilliant films comprising the top twenty of the list. Among them is a longtime favorite of mine–at #17, it’s Steven Spielberg’s 1982 masterpiece E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: To say that E.T. had…
When I was ten years old, my parents gave me a long-awaited Christmas gift: a small television for my bedroom. A TV of my very own? I was thrilled. I could finally watch what I wanted without having to fight with my younger brothers for control of the remote. For a budding pop-culture junkie, there…
This week, I bring you an animal edition of Maudlin Monday. I can be deeply moved by films about wars or tragic romances, but few things disturb me greater than stories about innocent, loving animals that lose their lives. Animals have brought me so much joy in life, whether I’m running in the yard with…
It’s become a somewhat tragic cliché in the past few decades–the young, hopeful Hollywood star, making a big splash on screens big and small before the pains of growing up on camera manifest themselves in drug addiction and wasted talent. The list seems endless, from Danny Bonaduce to the Coreys (both Feldman and Haim) to…
True Classics 