Michael Scott is a strange kind of case for the Couch, because almost nobody who has ever watched The Office would call him well adjusted. He interrupts, overshares, makes his employees' lives harder in pursuit of making them love him, and occasionally says something so inappropriate that even his most patient staff members visibly flinch. … Continue reading The Character Couch – Michael Scott
Pop Culture Analysis
How The Lord of the Rings Rewired Fantasy for Film and TV
There was a stretch of time, not even that long ago in the grand scheme of things, when "unfilmable" was the word permanently welded to J.R.R. Tolkien's name. Too much internal monologue. Too much walking. Too many appendices. Hollywood had already taken a swing and mostly whiffed, and the conventional wisdom held that fantasy simply … Continue reading How The Lord of the Rings Rewired Fantasy for Film and TV
Happily Never After: How Disney Rewrote the Fairy Tales We Grew Up On
Back in July, Disney's live-action Moana opened in theaters, a full decade after the animated original and just two years after Moana 2 made over a billion dollars worldwide. Early reviews were not kind. One critic called it the most pointless of Disney's live-action remakes. That's saying something, considering last year's live-action Snow White lost … Continue reading Happily Never After: How Disney Rewrote the Fairy Tales We Grew Up On
The Character Couch – Worf
Pull up a chair. Today's guest arrived early, sat down without being asked, and has already informed me twice that this entire exercise is beneath a warrior's dignity. He's still here. That tells you almost everything you need to know about him before he says another word. Worf is a strange case for the Couch, … Continue reading The Character Couch – Worf
The Character Couch – Anakin Skywalker
Pull up a chair. Today's guest arrives in a full-body respirator, which is going to make the active listening portion of this session a little difficult, but we'll manage. Anakin Skywalker is one of the strangest cases the Couch has ever taken on, because he's not really one patient. He's two. There's the nine-year-old slave … Continue reading The Character Couch – Anakin Skywalker
The Question I Couldn’t Stop Asking (And the Book It Became)
I was five years old the first time I saw Back to the Future, sitting in the back of my family's car at a drive-in theater. I didn't understand half of what was happening on screen. I definitely didn't understand the science, or the lack of it, behind a souped-up DeLorean hitting 88 miles per … Continue reading The Question I Couldn’t Stop Asking (And the Book It Became)
