In 2007, 4,703 children between the ages of 1 and 4 and 6,147 children aged 5 to 14 died in America. I feel like that’s actually less than I would have expected, but it’s still an almost unfathomable toll in terms of grief. And I think it’s unsurprising that even within the oft-filmed subsection of affluent white women who lose their children (God forbid we venture into the realm... 

I think one of the reasons I liked Morning Glory so much is that it was delightful to see Harrison Ford on screen in a role that didn’t feel like an unfortunate retreat. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was so aggressively stupid in so many ways that it was hard to focus on his performance as a stand-alone. But I caught bits and pieces of the original Indiana Jones trilogy... 

As I imagine many of you can tell, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about how to construct narrative, story and character over the last three or four months. So I quite enjoyed this essay by Chris Braak that io9 republished over the weekend on how to understand evil characters, and providing a taxonomy of kinds of evil and how they affect the appropriate responses in the fiction in which... 

Last week, I got perhaps the best email I’ve received since I started writing this blog. A very nice young man named Justin told me that back when he was in the 5th grade, around the time Star Wars: Episode I came out, he’d met a girl named Alyssa in a Star Wars-Star Trek discussion chat room, and they’d become pen pals. Was I her? Well, I’m not, but as it turns out, I... 

Taylor Swift’s at an interesting inflection point in her career. She’s won critical acclaim and a lot of awards, and made an enormous amount of money by giving articulate voice to the rather universal experience of teenage girls discovering love, attraction, and sex for the first time. But she’s also old enough, rich, and experienced enough that some of the music she’s making... 

Back in August, BabylonSista said she thought Burlesque might enter the so-bad-it’s-good canon. I just love how much money Stanley Tucci and Cher must be making from this: One of the reasons I like Tucci so much is that I think he enjoys being paired with strong actresses. His sexual chemistry with Meryl Streep in full Julia Child mode was one of the best things about Julie & Julia: they... 

Long-time readers will know that I find Leonardo DiCaprio considerably ponderous. That said, I would totally buy him as Jay Gatsby. The character is completely humorless but that’s because his perspective is so limited, and his focus so intensely directed, that he lacks self-awareness or a capacity for irony or even funny bitterness. DiCaprio’s also grown into the kind of rough physicality... 

That B.R. Myers, who writes a scathing (and for all I know, I’ve been reading genre fiction lately, deserved) review of Freedom in this month’s Atlantic has never seen The Wire. Take this paragraph, on language: Granted, nonentities are people too, and a good storyteller can interest us in just about anybody, as Madame Bovary demonstrates. But although the narrator of Freedom tells... 

I imagine most people who are excited about Kyle Chandler’s casting in J.J. Abrams’ new project with Steven Spielberg are excited because they love Friday Night Lights. Me? I’m excited that he’s getting back in to science fiction. I think I’ve alluded a couple of times to my love for Ian Abrams’ Early Edition, but it really was a tremendously formative show... 

This time, getting sliced and diced by Paul Bettany in yet another one of his inexplicably dumb and ugly-looking action roles, accompanied by Maggie Q, Stephen Moyer, and other worthies: From Crackle: Priest The only thing that I think is kind of promising about this is that with his Mysterious Man With A Hat role here Karl Urban seems to be spending some time expanding the part of his skill set...