English Class as It’s Meant to Be by Andrew Collins My high school English class was a waste of time at best — destructive to the human spirit at worst. I suspect I am not alone. These classes foist brilliant literature on kids before they’ve grown mature enough to enjoy it, and it turns them […]
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My Unexpected Journey by Abigail Beck “He is late, is all,” said Dwalin the dwarf of his tardy leader, Thorin Oakenshield. That line – from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – flitted through my mind as I peered down the long carpet, hoping to glimpse a familiar face. My sister and I stood in the […]
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The Science of Story by James Roland I had the opportunity to watch Gravity this weekend with Robby Stephenson, Senior Engineer in the Mechanical Engineering Division at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Afterward, we talked about the science on display in the film, what they got right and what seemed off. More importantly, we talked about how […]
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It’s an Animal Thing: Why Riddick is a Franchise With Teeth by James Roland Less than a year after The Matrix caused a sci-fi frenzy, Universal dumped its low-budget space flick Pitch Black into the desert of February film releases and left it to die. But like its feral anti-hero, the film survived, earning more […]
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Scimitars: Tasting Wine in Monterey by J. Hamilton Ocean bays that face westward onto open seas exercise a strong fascination. My ancestors left such bays to travel to the New World, and as a youth I found my way across the country to Monterey Bay. The bay and its city opened before me like a […]
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Two Wrights Make a Wrong by James Roland The windows look like frames on a filmstrip as faces whiz left to right in a blur, folks staring out the train windows as it pulls into the station. It slows down enough to distinguish individual people, revealing a man with sunken cheeks, a ghastly scowl, and […]
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Astounding and Confounding by Andrew Collins For the first time ever, the 2013 Sundance Film Festival has chosen a dozen of the top short film submissions and presented them to the wider world via YouTube. Aside from length, short films have far fewer limitations than feature-length films, for it is nearly impossible to subject them […]
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Joy, Sorrow, and Wine by J. Hamilton It shouldn’t seem odd that the old man went on a drunk. His life’s work finished; the old world wiped out like it never existed; the new world a scraggly landscape of bushy, young trees, the oldest living creature being Noah himself — and then his vines produced […]
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The “Mexican” Standoff: A Meditation by J. Hamilton “Bang.” “Bang.” “Tap, tap, tap.” As far as I can tell, that’s what a real “Mexican Standoff” would sound like — the sound of two guys dying and one walking away. Let’s look at the mechanics: The classic standoff requires three individuals who are physically near one another […]
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Epic Ride, part 2 by Titus Gee (Big D and I continue the adventure we started in Epic Ride, part 1.) A weathered Mazda convertible from sometime in the early ’90s rounded the hill and crept toward us. The driver crawled it over the heaps and creases of dirt washed across the pavement and splashed […]
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