Comic-Con 2015: My Rotten Tomatoes and Common Sense Media Panels

I was thrilled to be invited to be on two of the best panels at Comic-Con. Every year, movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives attendees the chance to talk back to the critics at “Your Opinion Sucks!” Each person is given a paddle with a ripe tomato on one side and a rotten tomato on the other. Attendees have sixty seconds to explain why the critics are wrong about a movie and then the critics have a chance to respond and the whole crowd indicates their views with the paddles. The result is raucous, passionate, and very funny. Everyone who got up to speak had some defenders with the possible exception of the guy who, over the objections of his girlfriend, wanted to tell us why he didn’t like “Inside Out.” Scott Mantz of “Access Hollywood” went so ballistic that I had to explain to the crowd that it was Lewis Black controlling his brain. The glamorous, gorgeous, witty, and all-around magnificent Grae Drake is out in the audience talking to the crowd, and Top Tomato Matt Atchity does his best to moderate the very immoderate panel of critics.

This was the first time my friends at Common Sense Media had a panel at Comic-Con and I was honored to be invited to participate. The topic was “Fandom: The Next Generation” and we talked about whether and how to get kids interested in their parents’ nerdy, geeky passions. We had a surprise guest star: Agent Coulson himself, Clark Gregg of “The Avengers” and “Agents of Shield” — and father of a 13-year-old. All of us on the panel are parents, and three of us had our children in the room. The conclusion: kids are, thankfully, their own people and we should be open to whatever their own nerdy, geeky choices are as we share our own. I got a big kick out of one of the attendees who came over to me after the panel, an adult woman whose father was wearing an “Incredibles” shirt because they love to cosplay together.