Here's an interesting news item.

But First, Some Context
All across the Southern United States there are monuments to Confederate Soldiers and Generals who fought and died in perhaps the single most divisive point in American history, the American Civil War. There is a strong and vocal group opposed to the existence of such monuments, and it ( Read more... )

Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2005

10. Jarhead (Sam Mendes)
Sam Mendes' (American Beauty [1999], Road to Perdition [2002]) next project starring Jake Gylanhaal, Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard set in the Middle East before and during Desert Storm. I'm sure, if nothing else, this will be beautifully photographed (Roger Deakins takes over for ( Read more... )

I recently found out that the plan for the Freedom Tower (the tower planned to stand where the Twins Towers fell) has been changed....again. I don't know if any monstrously tall office tower going up on the ground where a couple of thousand people died when the last office tower was run into by a hijacked airplane is ever going to happen without a ( Read more... )

Being in Savannah (at least 9 hours away from close friends and family), I have been trying to keep good relationships with the people I know back home. Family is top of the list. It is too easy for things to fall into a kind of superficial acceptance instead of any real connection between two people. A relationship is an organism and an ( Read more... )

I thought this was interesting. The British Film Institute made a list of 50 films that children should watch by the age of 15. Pretty eclectic list, if you ask me. Not that I disagree with a lot of the choices. Of course, there are a number of films on that list that I haven't seen yet...actually a lot of them.

( Films I Should Have Seen...And Should Definately See Before Making My Kids Sit Through Them )

You know, some people have a real problem with The Rock (Michael Bay, 1996) and Armageddon (Michael Bay, 1998) having DVD releases through the Criterion Collection. Criterion usually releases smaller, character-driven films (a lot of foriegn films) and many films that may not recieve much of a DVD release if Criterion wasn't around. They have ( Read more... )

All the talk about the Box Office Slump™ is exceedingly silly. The doom-and-gloom paranoia spewed from the media is not surprising in that it is what the media does best: namely, exaggerate whatever sound-byte they’ve been handed into palpable fear being bought by the hearts of consumers. It is surprising how quickly people translate the silly “ ( Read more... )

Top 10 Films of the 1980's
(As of July 14, 2005)

10. Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Tim Burton, 1985)
Tim Burton examines the simulacrum of Hollywood storytelling and boring, everyday life in his bombastic style with a sharp wit and an eye for comedic detail.

9. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982 ( Read more... )

To me, Batman Begins did what the Star Wars prequels promised to do, that is: offer insight into the origins of an iconic character, give some of the mythological details about how things come to look the way we know them to look, provide backstory, create a palpable world full of mystery, subtlety and complexity, and to do all this while telling a ( Read more... )

It has been over a month since I last posted here. I don't even know if anyone actually reads this or if it is just some way of purging myself of something or other online with the possibility that someone else might read it. It is not so much that I haven't thought about posting something new (in fact, I check my friends' journals nearly every ( Read more... )