My maternal grandmother passed away over the weekend, so I’d like to pay her tribute with a movie list. I’m not sure how big a fan of movies she was, having not grown up very close to her, physically, but Grandma Gloria can be credited with introducing me to movie hopping, at least. One of the few summers I was able to visit her was in 1992, and I mainly recall the year due to the movie we snuck into, Sister Act. And the movie we legally watched before it, Death Becomes Her. I probably would have forgotten both of these lame films in any other circumstance, but the significance of the event has kept the specific time and place of their viewing in my memory probably forever.
Grandma Gloria certainly wasn’t the most free-spirited grandmother to ever live, but a few things, such as the introduction to movie hopping, always made me think she was a bit cooler than other kids’ grandmas. Then there was the fact that she’d been married four times, which my friends found shocking. Grandmas aren’t supposed to go through husbands like that, apparently. Did it make her cool, though? My cousin would refer to her as “Grandma Get-Around,” and supposedly Grandma Gloria took the nickname as a compliment. I guess that made her a little cooler, proudly acknowledging this decidedly un-grandmotherly trait.
A list of coolest grandmothers in movies may not be the greatest way of honoring Grandma Get-Around, but in a way the fact that most of the following characters aren’t really that cool shows me just how hip my grandma really was. While grandfathers are often portrayed as fun and wise and as great storytellers, grandmothers tend to fall to one of two uncool extremes, traditionally grandmotherly or youthfully lewd. The latter category doesn’t necessarily only consist of unlovable characters, and I hope one day there’s a Who’s the Boss movie so that “Mona” can take the top spot on this list. Until then, here are the ten coolest grandmas I could think of. If you know any that are cooler, please let me know by commenting below.
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Before you go to the polls today, you need to understand where the candidates stand on the really big issues. No, I don’t mean silly stuff like the economy. I mean the issues that threaten to plunge the world into an era of scorched, apocalyptic savagery. Sure, an ongoing war in the Middle East and gradual climate change are kind of scary, but how will Obama and McCain respond to the threats that can wipe out 99% of humanity overnight? These are dire times, and doomsday cinema has made one thing clear: this will probably be our last president before Armageddon sweeps from sea to shining see, so we’d better choose wisely.
After the jump we look at where the candidates stand on the issues, from Alien Invasion to Zombie Plague.
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Will this year’s presidential election be determined by which candidate is more hip? Barack Obama is younger, listens to Jay-Z and Kanye West and is something of a trendy choice among college students. McCain, on the other hand, is older and (now) less athletic but is still considered to be hip in a cool grandpa kind of way. Like the grandpa who has exciting war stories to share. Have you seen the video footage of him jumping from an explosion during the USS Forrestal fire? That’s pretty cool.
So, the outcome of the race may depend on what the majority of Americans think is cool. Charisma or Muscle. It reminds me of an election for high school class president. Who is more popular, the preppy basketball player or the more jockish captain of the wrestling team?
But do we really want a cool president? Let’s take a look at some of the coolest fictional presidents from the movies and decide if it’s truly a good idea to base our vote on which candidate we’d prefer to hang with.
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Earlier this year, I thought that it was way too late for a Sex and the City movie. But then it made a ton of cash, so I guess I was wrong. Still, I’m going to continue similarly thinking it’s too late for another X-Files movie. And even if I’m proven wrong and the masses get out to theaters this weekend in search of the truth, I’ll keep on believing that X-Files: I Want to Believe is way past its time.
To celebrate Mulder and Scully’s tardiness, here are 10 other movies that came out too late:
- The Godfather Part III (Released in: 1990; Should have been released in: 1976) - Never mind the fact that had this third installment been made years earlier, Sofia Coppola wouldn’t have been cast and therefore wouldn’t have given her terribly infamous performance. The more important matter is that sequels arriving more than a decade after the previous installment are almost always doomed. The longer the wait, the higher the expectations, and the greater the disappointment. Of course, not everyone agrees that it was also too late for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Live Free or Die Hard, Rambo, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, etc.
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