• A Look Back,  Inside Entertainment

    A Look Back: Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home

    If you wanted movies news in the 1980s, you had limited avenues. There was no internet. I’m sure there were magazines, but as a teenager I had no idea what they were. I – and so many others – had to rely on Entertainment Tonight (1981), a television magazine about movies and TV series. I’d watch Entertainment Tonight for three things: interviews with actors I liked stories on movies I was interested in, and any clips. Back then, there wasn’t simultaneous release of movies. Often, they would open in Australia months and months after they’d opened in the US. So Entertainment Tonight was a valuable tool for a nerd such…

  • Inside Entertainment,  Media Rants

    The Land of Dumb

    Welcome to the Land of Dumb. In The Land of Dumb, movies and television series fool people into thinking that they’re not in the Land of Dumb, but somewhere else entirely – somewhere compelling and exciting and adventurous. No matter how much you point out to these people that they’re actually in the Land of Dumb, no matter how many ways you explain how they got there, they’ll deny it, because nobody wants to admit they’re holidaying in the Land of Dumb. Nobody wants to admit they were fooled into enjoying the Land of Dumb. To make sure you don’t get duped into visiting and enjoying movies and/or television that…