There is a National Death Index (NDI) that has information on more than 100 million Americans who died. It includes name, date of death, state where a person died, and the cause of death as listed on the death certificate. The database is not open to the public. However, it is available for research projects. […]

What has happened to the ‘Ghostbusters’ movie franchise? For over a quarter-century, Hollywood resisted the temptation to spoil the one-two punch of the 1984 comedy classic and its decent enough 1989 sequel. Then there came the 2016 reboot, which was controversial for its female cast, and the controversy is all anyone remembers. The 2021 legacy […]

There is a scene in the 1938 movie, “Vivacious Lady”, in which two women are arguing. One of them punctuates her feelings by slapping the other. There is a pause and the slapped woman says, quite deliberately, “Now what did you do that for? I’m only going to have to hit you right back.” And […]

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: this was not a good week for new releases. The battle for the top spot at the domestic box office was a fierce one, with ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ in its second weekend narrowly edging out ‘Dune: Part Two’ in its third. But after those two holdovers, the box […]

When I was a boy, I saw an old black-and-white horror movie on TV. I’d not seen this kind of movie before and was emotionally unprepared for what a jolt it would be. A woman was spending the night in a castle. She wakes up in the middle of the night because of a noise. […]

Since Po (Jack Black), the main character of the ‘Kung Fu Panda’ movies, is known for his corpulent eating habits, it makes sense to compare the animated franchise to a sort of comfort food. These movies aren’t exactly ‘healthy’ choices that send the imagination soaring, but they aren’t ‘junk’ that people outside the target audience […]