Young Frankenstein (1974) Review
May 15, 2026
Young Frankenstein is one of the great American comedies and the highest achievement in Mel Brooks's filmography. Mel Brooks directed and cowrote the screenplay with Gene Wilder.
Tag: Satire (Page 5)
ComedyThe Shrek Franchise (2001-2022) Review
May 15, 2026
The Shrek franchise consists of six feature productions across approximately twenty-one years of continuous DreamWorks production. The 2001 original is one of the great American animated films of the early twenty-first century and the production that established DreamWorks Animation as…
1970sMonty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) Review
May 15, 2026
The Monty Python troupe consisted of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. Brian's mother Mandy reveals that his father was actually a Roman soldier instead of the family's claimed Jewish parentage.
1970sMonty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Review
May 15, 2026
The statement is defensible. The musicians needed tax shelters.
ComedyBedazzled (1967 / 2000), Contrast Review
May 15, 2026
The Bedazzled property exists in two substantial film adaptations across approximately thirty-three years. The 1967 British production directed by Stanley.
1980sAirplane! (1980) Review
May 15, 2026
is one of the great American comedies of all time and one of the most substantial parody films in commercial cinema history. The Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker collaborative team had been working substantially in comedy production before Airplane!.
1990sStriptease (1996) Review
May 14, 2026
Andrew Bergman comedy based on Carl Hiaasen Florida political satire. Marketing compromised the substantive material.
Fiction WritingFilms That Couldn’t Be Made Today
March 22, 2026
Twenty-five films that couldn't survive contemporary Hollywood development — and an honest verdict on each one. Thirteen are genuine losses. Two are genuine gains. Ten are complicated. The ratio tells you everything about what's actually happening to cinema.
1980sRoboCop (1987) Review
March 20, 2026
RoboCop is a better film than its premise suggests and a more subversive one than its marketing implied. Paul Verhoeven made a corporate satire inside a violent action film, and the two registers enhance each other instead of competing.
1980sThe Running Man (1987) Review
March 20, 2026
The Running Man is a better idea than film. The concept, a death sport television show operating as the primary mechanism of social control in a dystopia.
Book ReviewsAnimal Farm
February 16, 2026
The animals overthrow their human master, declare all animals equal, and within a few years are ruled by pigs who walk on two legs. Orwell's short, savage fable of a revolution betrayed is one of the most perfectly built political…
Comedy20 Comedy and Satire Writing Exercises with Craft Mechanics
January 22, 2026
20 exercises in incongruity, escalation, timing, status reversal, and the structural mechanics that make prose genuinely funny. Genres: Comedy, Satire, Humor