• A Look Back,  Inside Entertainment

    A Look Back: Ghost

    I love most of Ghost (199). Sam Wheat (Patrick Swayze) and Molly Jensen (Demi Moore) are a young couple who move into and renovate a Manhattan apartment. One night when they’re out, a mugger, Willy Lopez (Rick Aviles), attacks them. Sam tries to fight back and is killed. He suddenly finds himself out of his body, watching Molly cry over his corpse. Confused, Sam (now a ghost) stays near Molly but can’t speak to her – until he meets medium, Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg), a charlatan psychic who is shocked to learn she can communicate with the dead. Sam convinces her to pass on his messages to Molly. Molly…

  • Inside Entertainment,  Old vs New

    Willy Wonka vs Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

    When I was growing up in the 1970s, it seemed that three movies were replayed annually: The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Great Race (1965), and Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). This was before pay-tv, streaming, digital channels, the internet, rentals, and, well, everything. We had four channels and that was it. Regardless of how often I’d seen these movies, I’d always tune in again, finding something magical in each. They all, in their own way, dealt with the fantastic, and two of them featured children as protagonists. As a kid, who didn’t want to believe in magic, wonder, and boundless possibilities? These are the sort of stories…