Nathan Rabin's Bad Ideas

1 week ago | nathanrabin.substack.com | Nathan Rabin

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1 week ago | nathanrabin.substack.com | Nathan Rabin

In The Fractured Mirror, my upcoming book about American movies about the film industry, I write about several weird little niches/sub-sub-genres. One of them is Location Horror, a surprisingly voluminous series of fright flicks about films made on sets that seem spooky because they are genuinely haunted. This overlaps with another sub-genre about tortured screenwriters who lock themselves in a seemingly haunted abode in a misguided attempt at verisimilitude.

1 week ago | nathanrabin.substack.com | Nathan Rabin

George Miller’s transcendently bleak 1998 sequel, Babe: Pig in the City, wastes no time turning Babe’s victory as Australia’s most beloved sheep-pig into a loss. Everybody wants a piece of Arthur Hoggett’s (James Cromwell) prize pig after his climactic triumph at the end of Babe. Even the queen requests a meeting. But fame and fortune mean nothing to a simple man like James Cromwell’s gentle farmer Arthur.

1 week ago | nathanrabin.substack.com | Nathan Rabin

Making Avengers: Endgame the Big Bang of the MCU, the magnum opus that everything had been building toward, ensured that it would be one of the most commercially successful movies ever. Unfortunately for Kevin Feige and company, it also ensured that everything that followed would feel anticlimactic. Endgame was the second-highest-grossing movie of all time and the only film in the top four not directed by James Cameron.

1 week ago | nathanrabin.substack.com | Nathan Rabin

At Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place, my other site, I have a feature where patrons can pay me a modest sum to watch and write about a movie of their choice. One of the most popular options involves children’s movies from the 1980s that are too dark, perverse, and morbid to be suitable for younger viewers. Nathan Rabin's Bad Ideas is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.