The Worthy But Lesser-Known Foes of Batman

One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was a DVD set of the Batman TV series from 1966. I had been waiting years for campy collection, but it had been unavailable until just this year. As I watched the various episodes, most of which pitted the caped crusaders against their most common villains like Penguin, Joker, and Catwoman, I made several observations about the other Gotham City menaces. ...

Wild, a Meaningful Adventure

Last month I was invited by AMC Theater to a complimentary screening of Wild. The film was described as one woman's 1,100-mile journey to self-discovery, and it was based on the bestselling book by Cheryl Strayed. I decided to go because the story seemed unique and meaningful, and such stories are not easy to come by. ...

Time Travel and Alternate Vantage Points Are Hollywood Blockbusters' Latest Content Generators

With sequels and prequels accounting for a higher percentage of blockbusters than ever before, one wonders how it is even possible new content can continue to be generated for these sequels. Two of the answers include time travel and alternate vantage points, which are discussed with some examples. ...

Asians and Australian Stake Claim For The Top 3 Spots of Design Genius

And then there were three... Thartchaieni Singam from Malaysia, Vietnamese-Australian Tung Vu, and Jack Leeson from Australia, have outlasted the 6 other designers from across the globe vying for the distinction of becoming the next Design Genius. ...

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies Review

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is the last chapter of the Middle Earth Saga. Let's see if the film truly takes us 'There and Back Again'. ...

WILD - A New Film Report

I'm having a hard time trying to understand why the film WILD just didn't work. I mean, you have a tale of a strong feminist-- fed up with life as she's lived it-- having cheated on spouse, and hyper-grieved mom's death--having not known how to say "No!" to Toms, Dicks and Harrys-- and having not given up totally on Heroin-- suddenly, randomly getting the idea-- from something glimpsed on a book rack-- that she will trek a good part of the Pacific Crest Trail-from The Mohave-and finish up in Northern Oregon, God willing. That's ambitious to say the least. ...

Nightcrawler and Interstellar - An Exploration of Darkness

From the vast, mysterious dark of outer space in 'Interstellar,' to the night-time Los Angeles gloom of 'Nightcrawler,' cinema-goers are spoilt for choice this fall, that is if they're looking for moments of thrilling disquiet, and the saturnine, gloomy intensity that comes with all-engulfing darkness. 'Interstellar' sees Matthew McConaughey reinforcing his new-found place in serious cinema as Cooper, a former NASA pilot tasked with one last mission; to journey into outer space to find a new home planet for mankind. Christopher Nolan reaffirms himself as king of cerebral, fast-paced science fiction films, taking pages from his own creations (Inception, Dark Knight... ...

Citizenfour - A New Film Report

The first thing that struck me about CITIZENFOUR was the almost disappointing nebbish appearance of Edward Snowden, the key character in this well-designed documentary that was mostly filmed in a small hotel room wherein Snowden was hiding out. There-- in the city of Hong Kong-- he had meetings with several people whom he'd chosen to publicly reveal the documents he had purloined from the secret files of the NSA data ports, which he-- as analyst for Booz Allen Hamilton-- had become privy to. ...

Cinema - Our Time Machine

Movies are transformative and can even take us back in time to our coming-of-age period. However today's high-tech flicks with their green screens fail to capture our moment in time creating stunning ersatz visuals that both dazzles and deceives. How will the current generation remember their moments in the sun if it's nothing more than a Paper Moon? ...

The Homesman - A New Film Report

When folks start their gushing about all the things that THE HOMESMAN tells us about life out in the Nebraska Territory around eighteen-fifty - how young women went crazy from the loss of their children from the harsh elements -- or how they lost a mom that their husband had to drag out in the coldest weather with scarcely a decent burial - or how a mom had to dispose of a child-- who's starving -- by pitching him into a hole in the outhouse- I find it hard to grieve their grief. These hurts are horrible, yet we've seen so much bad in our round-the-world coverage -- twenty-four-hours-a-day -- that such trials don't sink in. ...