Blog
These stories have been around a long time. Some of them I have updated. Many of them I haven’t. This started out when blogs were like, new!
The Little-Seen Failure, “Before the Rains” – A Movie Review
The Merchant Ivory film, Before the Rains (2007), is a wonderland of rich scenery. Set in India, it was photographed by its director, Santosh Sivan. Too bad a second-rate story, with the character of a British colonialist in 1937 given short shrift, wrecks the...
Perrotta and His Sudden Departure: “The Leftovers” – A Book Review
In the non-naturalistic The Leftovers (2011), Tom Perrotta's new novel, millions of people have disappeared from the earth in a Rapture-like phenomenon, and a great many were not Christians. It was a "random harvest" and most of Perrotta's attention is fixed on what...
A Young Man’s Cancer in “50/50” – A Movie Review
The screenplay for 50/50 was penned by one Will Reiser and is based on Reiser's own bout with spinal cancer. A tragic comedy as opposed to a comic tragedy, it stars Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as the young, dutiful suburbanite with a tumor on his spine. The most...
Plenty of Fish – Online Matchmaking – Does it Work?
Plenty of Fish and the online matchmaking world is thriving as usual. The question - My Matches – How is this determined? Do these sites actually have a ‘technological’ system that matches you with people you are compatible with? Matchmaking Test I have been playing...
I Salute You, Sir: “Captain America” – A Movie Review
In Joe Johnston's comic-book movie, Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), a brave but physically puny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) becomes, via a serum, a stunningly strong Captain America, eager to defeat a powerful Third Reich psychopath with a red skull (Hugo...
The Not Very Good “Noelle” – a Movie Review
Religious holiday fare from December 2007, Noelle presents an American Catholic priest with a guilty secret. He needs, and receives, the same spiritual consolation the parish padre in Bernanos' novel Diary of a Country Priest receives. A small-town Catholicism now...
Yes, Rodriguez Has Made Junk But He Also Made . . . “Spy Kids” – A Movie Review
Spy Kids (2002) is yet another action flick--a nutty and charming one. I'm talking genuine charm, not Hollywood charm, thanks to director-writer Robert Rodriguez. He patently believes in what he's doing, he can be funny, and he venerates marriage and family. (In...
Not Exactly Priceless But It’s Good: “Priceless” – A Movie Review
In Priceless, a 2008 French film (with English subtitles) by Pierre Salvadori, Audrey Tautou stars as Irene, a gold-digging beauty who mistakes a waiter-cum-bartender, Jean (Gad Elmaleh), for a rich man, only to discover the truth after Jean has happily bedded her...
“Border War” is Still Relevant – A Movie Review
Want to see a strong documentary? Kevin Knoblock's Border War, from 2006, is it, for it skillfully presents its subject of the "border war" involving illegal immigrants from Mexico. It concentrates on a number of participants in this war, most of them opponents of...
