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I am just starting Elantris, which is Brandon Sanderson’s first published novel. I’m not ready to call his characters two-dimensional, but let’s say they are simple. This is a subject that concerns me, because it I find it to be one of the major factors in making or breaking the quality a novel. I have […]
I was young when I first saw Doctor Zhivago. It would be fair to say that I didn’t really understand it. Primarily, I remember a series of visuals, and perhaps the music. I had watched it a few times since. It wasn’t until this year (well, last year now) that I read the book (the […]
Ever since the Toronto van attack brought the Incel movement into public awareness, people around me have periodically made statements expressing bafflement at their violence, rationale, and rhetoric. Indeed, their violence, rationale, and rhetoric — or at least the sensational bits pounced upon by the media — are illogical. However, it has occurred to me that […]
I have been watching a fair amount of Netflix television, the sort that comes as a single season of four to eight episodes, once referred to as a miniseries. A lot of them have been smart murder mysteries and/or political thrillers, and a lot of them have come from the UK or Australia. Mindhunter, Secret […]
The Justice Department, under the direction of the NRA’s boy, President Donald Trump, has moved to reclassify bump stocks as machine guns. I should begin by saying that I do not own any bump stock, and I have never fired a weapon equipped with one. I think they are a silly toy, and I have […]
[This is not about the Netflix series.] All my life, I have lived in the St. Louis area, which is at the northeast corner of the Ozark Plateau. A great deal of my outdoor life takes place in the Ozarks. The Mark Twain National Forest is scattered throughout the Missouri Ozarks. My favorite nearby hiking […]
It is usually the case that “the book was better,” but not in the case of The Devil Wears Prada. Actually, the novel and the film are very similar, and the film is a rather faithful rendition of the book. However, the end was subtly different, resulting in a profoundly better story. The Devil Wears […]
There is more than one kind of strong female character. It would not do justice to them to attempt to categorize them. That said, there is one strong female character I find to be cheap and cliché: female characters who behave like men, especially stereotypically stoic men. I’m not saying such that’s wrong, or that […]
Today is Armistice Day, the centennial of the end of the first World War. My thoughts about the violent nature of our species have evidently settled into my gut, because my reaction to events today is one of sadness over our futile waste of life. World War I was particularly dehumanizing, because it was the […]
I worked on two films in August on back-to-back weekends. I recorded sound for one and was the AD for the other. The sound gig was frustrating, primarily because of the DP, with whom I’ve worked before, and with whom I was similarly frustrated the first time. He has an attitude that drives me up […]
