2012 in film: The female-driven blockbuster is no longer a surprise, no longer written off as a 'fluke'.

2012 isn't just the year where we saw one female-starring and/or female-centric blockbuster after another.  2012 was the year when such ...

I loathe the merely mediocre The Silver Linings Playbook because it's considered Oscar-worthy. Fair/Unfair?

I didn't much care for The Silver Linings Playbook .  I found it to be a painfully formulaic romantic comedy that seems to think making ...

Comic books for boys, Young-adult literature for girls: On the coming blockbuster-tentpole gender divide...

If you've been paying attention to the various trailers being unleashed in the wake of Breaking Dawn part 2 's opening last week, yo...

Despite Skyfall's regressive sexual politics, Bond Girls have been "Bond Women" since, oh... 1987.

Spoiler warning for Skyfall (non-spoiler review HERE )... As happens every time a new 007 film opens, pundits and critics are generally quic...

Having your cake and eating it too: Discussing the somewhat troubling finale of Disney's Wreck It Ralph.

Spoiler warning... this whole essay is discussing end-of-film events of Disney's Wreck It Ralph .  Like in the first sentence, so beware...

Why The Twilight Saga film franchise mattered, what it accomplished, and why its legacy is ultimately a positive one.

In just a month,  The Twilight Saga  film franchise will come to an end.  Oh sure we may see spin-offs, reboots (probably in a different med...

She has a name. Her name is Sharon Carter! On the way we discuss actresses and female characters in genre fare.

One of the big would-be stories yesterday was the announcement of five actresses apparently on the 'short list' to play Sharon Carte...

Celebrating Batman: The Animated Series 20 years later: As a parent, my least-favorite episodes became more valuable..

This week will be the 20th anniversary of the premiere of  Batman: The Animated Series . In its weird way, the show actually had three '...

In mainstream films, dead moms don't count...

I had originally planned to do a spoiler-filled discussion of the various things that vexed me about The Amazing Spider-Man , but frankly my...

Not just the crime, but the cover-up. How the Tomb Raider game producers did more damage by 'explaining' Lara Croft's attempted rape and why it's all a big mess.

I really didn't want to comment on this, both because I'm no longer what you'd call 'a gamer' and because there's on...

Unequal equivalency: Why 'girls can do anything boys can do' sends a harmful, not positive, message to girls and women.

"Why is this okay?"  It was a random thought that I had while watching the final twenty minutes of Snow White and the Huntsman . ...

Review: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) is a dull, drab, and aggressively passive chore.

Snow White and the Huntsman 2012 127 minutes rated PG-13 by Scott Mendelson Strange is a movie that immediately establishes its dramatic sta...

Without comment or emphasis: Why The Avengers may end up this summer's most progressively-feminist blockbuster.

I wasn't going to write about The Avengers again for awhile (other than box office) both because I didn't have much more to offer a...