I am unnaturally obsessed with the filmmaking family of producer Judd Apatow. Probably because the producer as selling point is such a rare occurrence, all things considered; my immediate sense is that it hasn’t happened since the reign of David O. Selznick (there are other classic examples, like Val Lewton’s horror film unit at RKO […]

It’s semi-common knowledge that I didn’t “attend” “high school” in the usually meaningful sense of those words. It is true that I come from home-schooling,* but I cannot help it. Because of this particular quirk, I’m not any sort of target audience member for high school movies, be they comedies or dramas or even (ick) […]

I’m going to get the unpleasant bit out of the way first: There’s something colossally worrying about the way that Knocked Up, a film in which a young Los Angeles woman is saddled with an unexpected and (at first) unwanted pregnancy, is absolutely terrified of the word “abortion.” Specifically terrified, mind; there’s a scene in […]

Yesterday, probably because of the shift in the weather, I had a fairly harsh headache all day. By the time I left work at 4:45, I’d already taken six aspirins since waking up, and they just really weren’t helping much. I arrived at the theater at 5:02 for a 5:10 movie. The only ticket-seller on […]

August is supposed to suck at the cinema – not quite like February, the dumping grounds of Movie Hell, but still, around now, we’re supposed to be getting the dregs of the season, the post-blockbusters that are thrown out only to fill seats while audiences try to flee the heat. And yet, here it is, […]