If the characters in your story are in situations that aren't that relatable for most people, you can always find another way to help your audience find that emotional connection to them. In The Last Castle, the characters of a disgraced army general and a cruel prison warden are made more understandable by positioning them as a good boss and a bad boss.

Join me as I figure out why this movie does these two characters so well that audiences can overlook its predictable plot!

Coming-of-age tales resonate with most people because almost everyone has experienced the joys and pains of growing up. Most, but not all. Kiki's Delivery Service is a wonderful example of such a movie, and it tells its story in a fantasy setting with a young witch's initiation, so I look at how fantasy can be used to tell a down-to-earth story about a 13 year-old overcoming adolescent issues.

Sequels sequels sequels! How do you put together a fitting sequel that continues a story well? This week, I look at two different types of sequels: Blade II and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. One takes the original premise and expands it, while the other evolves the story into another chapter. Let's stake out two very different sequels and see how they were put together.