Scott Beggs looks at top-grossing films and says originality isn’t something Hollywood recently lost. He says it’s never been an original thinking place. It’s been a money-making place.

He explains, “The most original box office year was 1984 with 8 originals (Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, Gremlins, Karate Kid, Police Academy, Footloose, The Terminator and Romancing the Stone). Note how many of those got sequels or were remade. The least original box office years were (of course) 2011 and 2012, although 1968, 1972, 2007, 2013 and 2014 all only had a single original movie make the top ten.”

Sam Tanenhaus answers the question of To Kill a Mockingbird‘s endurance.

“For all the merits of the latest criticism of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” its appeal never rested on its realistic picture of Southern life. It was anachronistic even in its day (one reason, perhaps, that Lee set the action much earlier). There were sit-ins in Nashville and in Greensboro, N.C., in February 1960, five months before “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published. Within a year the Freedom Rides had challenged Lee’s sorting of humanity into simple categories — the high-minded Finches and the humble, hard-working African-Americans who look to them for protection, both groups united against the ‘ignorant, trashy people’ who represent the true danger to the community.” (via Books, Inq.)

The Rifleman (five seasons from 1958-1963) is now out on DVD. Marvin Olasky writes that it isn’t only a great western, but has a unique leading man. “Lucas McCain was also a compassionate conservative, supporting a recovering alcoholic who became a marshal, giving an ex-con a job on his ranch, and helping a man from China open a laundry. In one episode McCain could not believe that an old enemy had changed and become a doctor, but he admitted his mistake after the former adversary helped him in a gunfight.”

Seen in Philadelphia, a reader of two good books.