Del Toro’s “Frankenstein”: 9 Reasons Why You’ll Need a Bigger Screen

November 7, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Frankenstein Movie Poster 2025 displayed outside a theater at night. The monster is a gangly tatterdemalion behind the logo and the logline "Only Monsters Play God".

Now showing at a theater near few!

Midlife Crisis Crossover Calls Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein One of the Year’s Best Films™!

Once again the Academy Award Winner has collaborated with Netflix after the previous successes of his animated version of Pinocchio, his Cabinet of Curiosities anthology miniseries, and the Trollhunters stuff I never looked into. Frankenstein was clearly one of the highest ranking dream projects on his wish list, fulfilled at last with a noticeably enormous budget, a stellar cast, his most lavish production design ever, and a too-brief theatrical exhibition before the November 7th relegation to its forever-home in the app’s small-screen back-catalog cellar.

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Happy Belated Halloween from MCC!

November 1, 2025 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne and me doing jazz hands in front of an arch made of inflatable jack-o'-lanterns.

Halloween joy on Friday night!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each Halloween night my wife Anne and I are among the few holiday observers still handing out candy to trick-or-treaters in our suburban neighborhood. However, this year marks the first time since 2006 that we shirked the tradition, but it was for a very special, one-time reason: we were invited to a Halloween wedding.

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Cincinnati Comic Expo 2025 Photos: Cosplay and the Superman Family!

October 26, 2025 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne posing with Karen Allen at her table while holding an autographed 8x10, both smiling very sweetly.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Marion Ravenwood herself, Karen Allen!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I enjoy attending entertainment and comic conventions together, whether in our hometown of Indianapolis or in our neighboring states (and sometimes even farther). We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

This weekend we once again drove two hours southeast of Indianapolis to attend the fifteenth annual Cincinnati Comic Expo, which is normally held in the heart of their downtown that’s not so different from ours. However, while the Duke Energy Convention Center has been undergoing a two-year renovation project, CCE relocated to the Sharonville Convention Center, a smaller venue on the city’s north side that we previously visited for HorrorHound Cincinnati in 2018 and 2019. This was our fifth time at CCE, two years since our last one. This year’s event celebrated a unifying theme: Superman! Nearly the entire guest list had credits from various works featuring the Man of Steel — a proud commonality to celebrate here in the year that saw the release of The Greatest Superman Film of the 21st Century So Far.

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Our 2023 Road Trip #13: Calhoun and the Slave Mart

October 24, 2025 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Three pairs of 19th-century slave shackles hung in a single vitrine.

Shackles on display at Charleston’s Old Slave Mart Museum.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Every year since 1999 Anne and I have taken one road trip to a different part of the United States and seen attractions, wonders, and events we didn’t have back home. From 1999 to 2003 we did so as best friends; from 2004 to the present, as husband and wife. After years of contenting ourselves with everyday life in Indianapolis and any nearby places that also had comics and toy shops, we overcame some of our self-imposed limitations and resolved as a team to leave the comforts of home for annual chances to see creative, exciting, breathtaking, outlandish, historical, and/or bewildering new sights in states beyond our own. We’re the Goldens. This is who we are and what we do.

For 2023 it was time at last to venture to the Carolinas, the only southern states we hadn’t yet visited, with a focus on the city of Charleston, South Carolina. Considering how many battlefields we’d toured over the preceding years, the home of Fort Sumter was an inevitable addition to our experiential collection…

Our day-long walk through downtown Charleston continued beyond King Street’s south end as we digressed from browsing boutique windows to observing two commemorations of American history along our path — one a cemetery, the other a museum. Those functions are common stops for us in past trips, but rarely do we find one of each within close proximity to each other and yet representing opposite ends of the moral spectrum, insofar as the unavoidable topic of slavery.

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The Heartland International Film Festival 2025 Season Finale

October 20, 2025 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana, Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
balcony view of a movie screen down below. Onscreen is a pic of Emily Deschanel and two producers, encouraging viewers to become a Heartland member. Walls around screen are glowing green and have large icons of film reels.

Our Sunday night view from the balcony of the Tobias Theater at Newfields. The slideshow still is from last year’s world premiere of ReEntry.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Once again I took a week’s vacation from my day job and posted for eight consecutive days about the six films I saw at three theaters in nine days, one virtual screening we’ll get to in a moment, plus a few other entries that included still another movie, albeit more of an anti-Heartland studio product that opened the same weekend. I doubt anyone out there read every single word, but I’m not even done yet!

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Nuremberg”

October 20, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Russell Crowe faces off against Rami Malek while Leo Woodall stands in the background.

Zeus vs. Freddie Mercury! TWO GODS ENTER! ONE GOD LEAVES!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Our final theatrical screening of the festival, and their official Closing Night selection, was also the very first entrant I bought tickets for, based on a single selling point: Academy Award Winner Russell Crowe IS Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring IN Nuremberg! And that must be announced or imagined in the deepest possible Epic Voice Guy voice or else why bother.

Same as with the Academy Awards, World War II and the Holocaust are common subjects in Heartland selections, for reasons tragically obvious to anyone who’s seen enough of them and nevertheless supports the important, evergreen “Never Forget” message behind them. Nuremberg wasn’t the only such film on the docket, but it was certainly the highest-profile one. Its writer/director James Vanderbilt has worked on numerous big-budget crowd-pleasers (the last three Screams and both Amazing Spider-Mans, among others) and recruited a strong ensemble to tell this particular story, of which the indisputable highlight is — for those just joining us — Maximus himself as Göring, the bombastic narcissist and highest-ranking Nazi still alive after the war, the sort of boo-able real-life Kingpin in more ways than one, whose every move and every haughty gaze was like a steamroller through every room he entered.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Blue Moon”

October 19, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Andrew Scott in a tuxedo, one foot taller than Ethan Hawke in a 1940s suit. Both stand in a bar, staring through us at an offscreen woman.

Super-Villain Team-Up presents Moriarty and The Grabber!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Next up is Blue Moon, the twelfth film I’ve seen by prolific director Richard Linklater. His last joint, the true-story dramedy Hit Man, was among my favorites last year. Though his subjects vary wildly from one to the next, his films and their ensembles always have their laid-back charms, so invitingly that you don’t feel time passing because you’re enjoying the conversations so much…even when the loudest guy in the room is blissfully unaware that everyone else is aware of his problems.

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55 Is Just a Number, Not a Limit

October 18, 2025 By in Indiana, Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Anne sitting in front of a sign with a car on it reading "Ford $295 Order it today!" Wall is wood-paneled and has car-related mementos hanging on it.

DISCLAIMER: No surgeries or hair dyes were used in the making of this amazing lovely woman.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we’re getting old! And it happened again!

Last weekend Anne turned the big 5-5. At least it’s our understanding that 55 is “big”. She’ll now be eligible for discounts at select businesses even though she looks half my age under most lighting conditions. I’m a mere babe at 53 but sometimes have to tell cashiers that, no, I am not retired yet. Most days we don’t feel this old and have to remind each other that we are indeed this old and the actuarial math works out against us.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “It Was Just an Accident”

October 17, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
An Iranian auto mechanic sits in his van in the middle of the desert, smoking and thinking. Not far away are a body-sized hole he's dug and a discarded shovel.

CAUTION: Rated NC-45 for scenes of smoking.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Our next film is Heartland’s sold-out “International Centerpiece Screening” of It Was Just an Accident, which has been building buzz online among pro critics in the days leading up to its limited release in the largest U.S. markets this week. It’s rare for a small foreign film to open in Indy the same weekend as it does in NYC and L.A., so it’s nice that Heartland provides such occasions for us to feel like we count as a Major City by Hollywood distribution definitions.

The latest from writer/director/producer Jafar Panahi isn’t the first time he’s shot a film in his native Iran entirely without the government’s permission. The same held true for previous films such as This Is Not a Film and No Bears, not to mention some of his earlier ones that were made “legally” only to be banned later. A suspended prison already hangs over his head, but he still has plenty more to say through his art.

Full disclosure: after seeing Accident but before sitting down to collect my own thoughts, I read Vulture.com’s new interview with him, which contained a wealth of fascinating information. Anything in this entry that resembles Fun Trivia comes from their article.

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Heartland Film Festival 2025: “Happy Birthday”

October 17, 2025 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
A middle-aged woman and a tiny girl at the counter of a brightly lit bakery, where the chef is icing a cake.

Last-minute birthday cake shopping: kind of a headache in every country.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

As someone who watches every Marvel Cinematic Universe installment for better or worse, I’ve found it interesting to see what filmmakers do next after they’ve done their time in the machine. Sometimes they move on to equally gargantuan pop-culture universes (The Mandalorian, Superman). Sometimes they have a ball in their own sandboxes (Sinners, Wolfs). Sometimes they give the impression Marvel broke their brains (The Gray Man, Fast X). Sometimes they step back from Hollywood excess and find fulfillment in smaller works (Next Goal Wins, the upcoming Hamnet).

Case in point: our next film, Happy Birthday — Egypt’s official submission for Best International Feature at the next Academy Awards — comes to us from the talents of writer/director Sarah Goher, who was on the writing staff of Moon Knight, and her co-writer and longtime creative partner Mohamed Diab, who directed four of the show’s six episodes. (Two other writers receive a “Story By” credit, but as of today I can’t verify their names online for some reason.) Its total budget was probably less than what they paid the VFX team in charge of rendering Khonshu’s skull, but sometimes an indie film is just as capable, if not more so, of slipping through your jaded defenses with its sincerity right before it breaks your heart.

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