Mike Ettel

Mike Ettel is a freelance journalist who enjoys watching, reading, and writing science fiction. He’s still waiting for the day dinosaur cloning is made a reality.

The 10 most important lessons from 80s vampire movies

The 10 most important lessons from 80s vampire movies

Once seen as dusty, old dental cases in frilly shirts who’d lounge in their coffins and listen to baroque between victims, vampires received a major makeover in the ‘80s. They rocked out to Bauhaus. They invaded high schools and suburbia. They wore an absolute ton of sunglasses. The decade...

Every dinosaur in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies — ranked

Every dinosaur in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies — ranked

Note: This list was written before and does not include new Dominion dinos. There’s something about dinosaurs that just takes you right back to childhood. Both Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg cited their own childhood fascinations with dinos as what sparked their passion for Jurassic Park. It is pretty...

The top 10 John Hughes movies

The top 10 John Hughes movies

There are some directors you think of when certain movie genres come up: Alfred Hitchcock mastered the psychological thriller, Akira Kurosawa cornered the market on the samurai epic, Sergio Leone dominated the spaghetti western—and John Hughes wrote the book on movies about teens. Of course, Hughes branched out into...

Every theatrical Star Wars film — ranked

Every theatrical Star Wars film — ranked

Across four decades, three trilogies, 12 theatrical films, seven animated series, countless theme park rides, a holiday special, all kinds of continuation novels, and enough merchandising deals to fill the belly of a Sarlacc, Star Wars has pervaded pop culture like no film franchise before or since. Like Luke Skywalker...

Every theatrical Batman film, ranked

Every theatrical Batman film, ranked

Whatever name you prefer to call him by—Batman, the Batman, Batsy, the Caped Crusader, the World’s Greatest Detective, the Dark Knight, the Dork Knight, Beloved—Bruce Wayne’s alter ego has taken many forms over the years in his efforts to protect Gotham from clowns, plant ladies, and...

The top 10 live-action fantasy movies from the ’80s

The top 10 live-action fantasy movies from the ’80s

With new advancements in special effects and the success of Star Wars in particular, studios and filmmakers turned their attention as they headed into the 1980s towards a genre of storytelling that has been entertaining audiences since time immemorial: fantasy. With special effects wizards who could now build life-sized dragons...

The top 10 representations of nerds in cinema

The top 10 representations of nerds in cinema

The Nerd has a long history in the movies, one that probably dates back to silent comedian Harold Lloyd and the bespectacled klutz he played in films like Safety Last! (1923) and The Freshman (1925). The term “nerd” was apparently first popularized in the mid-seventies by Happy Days when it...