I teach high school English and have a master’s degree in my content, so I’ve read quite a bit and I’ve studied many authors. I took a seminar in Jane Austen, but, to my disappointment, the only book I enjoyed was one NOT written by Austen (Evelina by Frances Burney, in case you’re curious). I’ve…
There are very few horror movie theater going trips that stick with me as incredible experiences. “Paranormal Activity” floored me with its outstanding ability to silence a packed theater, bringing to reality the idiom, “You could cut the tension with a knife.” The surprise ending of “Saw” thrilled me so much, I went to see…
“I miss the Cassie I was. I wonder what that Cassie would think of me now — the Cassie who kills.” The introductory voiceover for The 5th Wave is certainly not typical of your run-of-the-mill PG-13 fare, but unfortunately, that’s where the non-similarities end. The first act of the film introduces Cassie Sullivan (Chloë Grace…
Times are tough. These times I mean. Or rather, Tim Blake Nelson does, or seems to do in his Anesthesia. These are times of self-absorbing, self-imbibing, self-obsessed selfishness from which we’re constantly trying to tell ourselves apart — unwittingly remitting ourselves to the badlands of choice wherein our decisions continue to be ruled by self-interest…
It’s not always easy to do the right thing, even in a stable world. When the going gets tough, you know you’re supposed to do what’s right, but instead you do wrong. That’s the unfortunate reality of our responses to everyday situations . . . but what happens when your support system is gone? What…
The impact of a documentary is generally determined by either the power of the filmmaking or the potency of the subject matter. Of course, the best documentaries are those that draw strength from both areas of the process, but those are rarer than the docs that earn points for simply finding a great topic and…
Every Christmas season, two categories of people emerge from their Thanksgiving comas: Those who identify with Buddy the elf and those who identify with the Grinch or Ebenezer Scrooge. Some start listening to Christmas music before Halloween; some “Bah, humbug!” their way through shopping malls and tree lots. Yet, there’s also the forgotten few who…
