Turn left. You used to need a map to know that info, but these days, a voice from a screen tells you where to go on your trip. It’s easy and fairly reliable, so who would want to go back to wrestling with a map, or wondering if turning left was right? No, you haven’t…
A few times in these pages I’ve criticized the marketing departments of film studios for advertising films as the opposite of what they really are. There was 50/50, a movie about cancer that was sold as a comedy because Seth Rogan is in it and says a few funny things. August: Osage County was marketed…
The X-Men storyline called Days of Future Past appeared in issues 141 and 142 of The Uncanny X-Men in January and February, 1980. I first read it in mid-1980s when I was 12 or so and had just discovered the comic about outcast mutant superheroes. The story has haunted me ever since. It is set…
Once, it was the most natural question in the world: why? With a child’s usual curiosity, you asked it incessantly. Why are dogs black? Why’s the sun hot? Why do birds fly away? Why? You drove your mother nuts. But as you aged, answers came easier and “Why?” grew faint. You didn’t need to ask…
As I was walking out of Locke, a man behind me told his wife, “That’s my worst nightmare.” I was thinking of other clichés, too: for Ivan Locke, the events in the film are a shitshow, a tsunami, his Waterloo, a perfect storm. Most American audiences know Tom Hardy, who plays Locke, for sci-fi action…
You always hold doors open. That’s because your mama taught you to help others; you hold doors for stragglers, lend your ear, dispense advice, volunteer, donate and keep an eye on your neighbor’s house. Really, it’s no big deal. You’re a good helper, but how involved do you get in other people’s matters? Read Kitty…
WASHINGTON – Over the weekend on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, in response to a question about military health regulations which effectively bar military service by transgender persons, said he believes that regulations should be reviewed. Hagel said: I do think it continually should be reviewed. I’m open to that….
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 My biggest peeve with many comic book movies is how much they divert from their source materials. However, Sam Raimi’s three Spider-Man movies, whatever liberties taken with plot points, did not change the essence of Peter Parker and his alter ego: he was a teenage orphan who was bitten by a…
There are a large number of people who will go to see Under the Skin simply because they heard that there was a great deal of nudity in it. Of particular importance, Scarlett Johansson, the famous and curvaceous blonde actress many men (and women) fantasize about, is particularly naked, the first time she has gone…
Sometimes, you feel so adrift. Unmoored, unanchored, you feel as though you ride each wave alone, emotions and events washing over you until you can’t weather the storm any longer and you need an anchor. That’s when you reach for your family or your God. But what if both were denied to you? In Teaching…
