Few documentaries are as touching as Alive Inside, a film that realizes at its core that people don’t just learn from true stories; we’re moved by them. This is undoubtedly assisted by the fact that the film’s two points of focus are concepts we can all relate to in one way or another: Music and…
In a world where idealism is a scarce commodity, Aaron Swartz stood out. A computer programmer and political and social activist, Aaron had a quaint goal — to make the world a better place, to help us live our lives so that they make a difference. Ultimately, however, though he tried to save the world,…
Watching Siskel and Ebert on television during the 80s and 90s was an important weekly event in my family. Their movie reviews, that included clips from each film, was a learning experience that offered entertaining and insightful opinions as to whether or not a film was worth seeing. Gene Siskel’s death in 1999 felt like…
We all know that, in today’s world, telling the truth may set you free, but it can also make you an inmate or a corpse. Activist folk singer Joan Baez, however, reminds us that, “Courage has to do with being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway.” It is a fitting description of…
Actor James Newcomb said, “There are individuals who come along in certain periods of time who advance the human spirit to the next level.” Such an individual was Polish violinist Bronsilaw Huberman, recognized, alongside that of Heifetz, Szigetti, and Kreisler, as among the great violin virtuosos of the twentieth century. What is not widely known,…
In To Be Takei, the titular George Takei gives his viewers — and plethora of Facebook fans — a good, hard look at his personal day-to-day life, as an Internet sensation, as a renowned voice-over artist, and as a doting husband. The authorized bio-pic is illuminating and wildly entertaining. We all knew George Takei was…
Though we know very little about some of the great artists of the past, many say that it is not important because we have the works. Yet the world still longs for knowledge about the living, breathing human being, the man or woman behind the name on the painting or the title page. This element…
