**This is a continuation of the story that begins here.  I’d highly recommend reading that first to be caught up. It won’t take that long, I promise. So… The lead actress and the director arrived at last.  She wasn’t really speaking because she’d lost her voice that morning and was going to have to croak, […]

When I was a teenager, there was the massive tome Roger Ebert’s Movie Home Companion.  It made me want to see Taxi Driver, and Casablanca, and The Godfather, and It Happened One Night; not because it seemed like you had to if you wanted to claim to like “great” movies, but because he made them […]

This is the Spoiler Space for today’s examination of 3 films made better if they take place in the minds of the protagonists.  If you’ve come here first, you might want to read the original discussion first. And, as should be painfully obvious at this point, these addenda will give away the endings of the […]

(This page will overview only the general plots, but not reveal key events. Be sure to visit the Spoiler Space page if you’ve seen one or more of the films – or don’t care about having the ending revealed – and want to discuss specific, key elements of the films) The Grey (2012) – Liam […]

The whims of pop-culture taste can be cruel and impulsive.  Fashion, music, television… nothing is guaranteed to last for any length of time.  Today’s “Gangnam Style” is tomorrow’s “Macarena” (literally – I mean, they’re basically the same song).  But sometimes the victims of culture shift seem to come out of nowhere.  In response, I present […]

Here at the Byronic Man, we’re all about safety.  So, just in time to be prepared for Halloween, see how many of the movie monsters below you can identify!  (We’re looking for characters, not actors or movie titles).  Good luck, and no cheating!  You know what they say about cheaters:  “Winners never cheat, and cheaters […]

This new series, “For Your (Re)Consideration,” is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, in order to take a look at older pieces – books, music, movies – that either have been maligned, or have become classic to the point of ignoring.  What I mean is, there are works that everyone hates because […]

So, listen, we all have different feelings about the Oscars…often not great, sure, but there’s something unmistakably alluring about whole thing.  Maybe it’s just trying to identify the “best” movie, maybe it’s trying to identify what will win through examining the odds, maybe it’s just waiting for it to be over so you can huff […]

Dear Hollywood, Look, I know we’ve had our differences over the years.  I know I make fun of you, and mock you sometimes for selling to the lowest denominator and even trying to lower the denominator.  But I like to think our differences have been professional, respectful.  I recognize that you have billions of dollars […]

Movie theaters have, as everyone knows, grown more and more desperate to lure people back to theaters in recent years.  Attendance has particularly dropped as home theaters have grown more sophisticated and less full of awful people who won’t shut up and oh my god seriously you’re going to answer your phone?  During the finale? […]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… right around the end of The Empire Strikes Back… Luke: Leia, Chewie, C3P0, R2D2, Lando, thanks for meeting.  Okay, it’s been a rough couple months, I know we’re all pretty shaken.  C3P0 got blown to bits, Han’s frozen in carbonite— Chebacca:  Graawwnk! Luke: I know, […]