The young-adult books of John Bellairs were, above all else, a way for the late author to indulge in his fondness for…
A few years ago, I wrote an essay bemoaning the way Hollywood explores the subject of prejudice. Too often, I argued,…
2006’s Sharp Objects announced Gillian Flynn as a major talent on the literary thriller scene. It was no surprise that…
For all the variety in summer blockbusters, the category has a few attributes that seem pretty much mandatory whether…
In the way music fans would describe themselves as Beatles people or Elvis people, for a time film buffs would…
Brian Garfield’s 1972 book Death Wish was written as a challenge to audiences. The impulse behind its premise is…
When Die Hard was released in 1988, it was a rebuke to the kind of action film Hollywood was churning out to…
Not all great horror stories are “about” something, in the sense that their monster (or monster equivalent) functions…
Shortly after the election, there was a minor debate in literary circles about which classic dystopian novel better…
When Marvel Studios announced in 2012 that it was making a movie based on the Guardians Of The Galaxy comics, the…
In 1957, Theodor Seuss Geisel was on a bit of a streak. The prolific children’s author known as Dr. Seuss had followed…
When Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby arrived on screens in 1968, it was delivered intact,…
The biggest difference between Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and its film adaptation is obvious…
Is there a point where a film adaptation, by deviating too much from its source material, ceases to be an adaptation?
Not too many straight horror stories for children are made these days, but it’s one of the most important genres for…
When I was really struggling with depression, I would lie in bed every day, and I couldn’t get up. And I would watch…
Richard Linklater makes films that are so gentle and devoid of conflict it’s easy to miss how daring they are. Movies…
Space, witches, prophesies, lasers, gigantic worms, hallucinogenics, Messiahs, gom jabbars, Kyle MacLachlan—what could…
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov’s notorious tale of the pedophile Humbert Humbert and his obsession with the “nymphet” Dolores…
Before Bridget Jones’s Diary, “chick lit” had a soggy connotation, like a Hallmark novel with an edgier cover. For this…