This coming week will see the remake of Ben-Hur, the 1959 classic movie of revenge and redemption. Naturally, I’m curious of the remake, but I’m also wary. I want it to be good, but it seems doubtful that it could be Charlton Heston good. In anticipation of the remake, I read the original book...
I’m on a quest to understand movies; in fact, it’s one of the reasons I write movie reviews. By writing about a movie, I find greater understanding and appreciation of it. Though I will never be an expert in film, film history, film deconstruction, increasing my knowledge about such topics is not only educational,...
If there was any doubt whether the current cast had the strength and talent to carry the Star Trek movies forward, Star Trek Beyond shattered that doubt. It is a thrill ride from its humorous opening scene to its final shot of a starship under construction. Once again J.J. Abrams, acting as producer rather...
The other day, I posted my review of Star Trek (2009), and I wanted to post a short review of Star Trek Into Darkness, in anticipation of seeing the third installment, Star Trek Beyond. Released in 2013, Star Trek Into Darkness is the second installment of J.J. Abrams reboot. In my review of the...
As a boy, I loved Star Trek. Though the original series played for only three years, reruns were always on. And I read the books, the Bantam adaptations of the episodes. When Star Trek: The Movie came out in 1979, I had to see, as I had to see the next two movies. I...
What’s Up, Doc? is a 1972 comedy starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. The plot centers around the the confusion caused when multiple matching bags arrive at the same hotel. Though two of the suitcases contain innocuous items, a third contains expensive jewelry, and the fourth, top secret documents. When the bags become mixed...
Remember how in the 1980s and 90s we awaited a new Star Wars movie, and then LucasFilms released A Phantom Menace, and we said, “Huh?” It wasn’t that we hated the movie, but we knew it wasn’t the Star Wars movie we wanted and anticipated. This is the way I feel about Independence Day:...
Two successful detectives battle over police ethics. Touch of Evil is a 1958 film noir directed and starring Orson Welles. It also stars Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh. Set in a Mexican border town, it follows the rivalry between the American detective, Captain Quinlan (Welles), and a Mexican detective, Mike Vargas (Heston). After...
There is a sameness in the way horror movies begin. A group of friends load up their car and head into the country for a binge of sex and booze. Or a family moves into a new town, a new house, to help recover from some tragedy, usually the lost of a child. Or...
Though an atheist, I love the story of Jesus. One man sacrificing himself for the salvation of all–there’s poetry in that. As a writer, I want to write that story, and many writers, especially in Western Literature, revisited this story in there own works. Some very directly, like Nikos Kazantzakis in The Last Temptation...
