Will is the author of the little-read books Secure Immaturity: A Nostalgia-Crushing Journey Through Film and Obsessive Compulsive: Poetry Formed From Chaos. Will is a film critic at 25YL but also specializes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the occasional horror review. Will loves his hometown Buccaneers and lives in Phoenix, AZ, USA with his two daughters.
“What kind of compromise goes into connecting with another human being? Is it meeting in the middle? Or going all the way to the end of the line? Philip Hayes found connection, but only with the darkest part of his soul. A region of self that he’ll inhabit for the rest of his life. Here, […] More
25 Years Later founder Andrew Grevas has a theory that any album that came out after 1988 from a band named Metallica must be from an imposter cover band. I’m not afraid of getting fired though so I can say without fear of reprisal that Andrew is an idiot. I love Metallica in all its […] More
Portrait of a TV fan. Name: Joe Britt. Occupation: cab driver. Tonight, Mr. Britt is going to watch ‘a really big show,’ something special for the cabbie who’s seen everything. Joe Britt doesn’t know it, but his flag is down and his meter’s running and he’s in high gear—on his way to the Twilight Zone. […] More
Introduction to the Series For the next calendar year, I’ll be digging into the metal music movement of thrash, which began its heyday in the early 1980s, suffered an untimely death at the hands of grunge in the early ’90s, and had a glorious, if unheralded, comeback in the early ’00s that still provides niche […] More
Two men alone in an attic, a young Japanese-American and a seasoned veteran of yesterday’s war. It’s twenty-odd years since Pearl Harbor, but two ancient opponents are moving into position for a battle in an attic crammed with skeletons, souvenirs, mementos, old uniforms, and rusted medals. Ghosts from the dim regions of the past, that will […] More
The Twilight Zone episode “The Howling Man” seems to fit the traditional “bottle episode” model: virtually one set being used, no special effects, limited casting and not the most elaborate script. A lot of bottle episodes exist to save the production company money so they can attribute more budget to another episode or grab that […] More
Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused always had a major effect on me as a young film viewer. Not just because it was emotionally honest and hilariously funny but because at the end of the film the main protagonist Mitch (Wiley Wiggins) goes into his room at the end of one very long day, puts on […] More
“We know that a dream can be real, but whoever thought that reality could be a dream? We exist, of course, but how, in what way? As we believe, as flesh-and-blood human beings, or are we simply parts of someone’s feverish, complicated nightmare? Think about it, and then ask yourself, do you live here, in […] More
Rod Serling managed to tap into the essence of human nature and boil it down so simply that decades and decades after his work was released, new generations are still learning from him the psychological construction of the human spirit and will to survive. And he’s relayed that message, time and time again, without pulling […] More
The kind of long narrative of serialized TV can be wonderfully immersive, but here at 25YL we also recognize the value of a great standalone episode. Join us as we explore horror and sci-fi anthologies old and new, along with some other standout episodes of shows you love. This week, Will Johnson discusses another episode […] More
The kind of long narrative of serialized TV can be wonderfully immersive, but here at 25YL we also recognize the value of a great standalone episode. Join us as we explore horror and sci-fi anthologies old and new, along with some other standout episodes of shows you love. This week, Will Johnson examines another episode […] More
The kind of long narrative of serialized TV can be wonderfully immersive, but here at 25YL we also recognize the value of a great standalone episode. Join us as we explore horror and sci-fi anthologies old and new, along with some other standout episodes of shows you love. This week, Will Johnson examines an episode […] More
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