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Picture Book Review: This is the Earth
by Sam Juliano This past week world famous theoretical physicist and renowned university professor Stephen Hawking issued a dire warning that if the human race were not careful they could bring about...
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Mustang, Knight of Cups and Stephen Mullen on Jacques Rivette on Monday...
by Sam Juliano The ferocious blizzard of last week has been followed up with some moderate temperatures, which have enabled much of the snow on the ground to melt away. We now move to February,...
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Jacques Rivette’s “Paris nous appartient” (1961)
by Allan Fish Note: This review by Allan Fish considers a seminal work of the late Jacques Rivette. Though it was previously published, it reappears to pay homage to the great director, and will be...
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QUENTIN TARANTINO’s THE HATEFUL EIGHT “No one said it had to be easy”/”No one...
© 2016 by James Clark The Hateful Eight (2015) is suffused with such a dazzling and challenging vein of cinematic bounty as to momentarily stop us in our tracks when setting out to convey it in...
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From Universality to Originality: Harold Bloom and the Question of Canonization
by Barry Germansky Given his tendency to prize a writer’s capacity for influence above all other evaluative considerations, it may seem unlikely for Harold Bloom to serve as a source of overt...
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Hail Caesar and Metropolitan Opera performance of Puccini’s ‘Turandot’ on...
by Sam Juliano Football fans were treated to a defensive match between the favored Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos, who triumphed in an error prone Super Bowl game that wasn’t always pretty...
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Michael Moore’s ‘Where to Invade Next’ and Stage Play “The Final Days of...
by Sam Juliano An arctic vortex descended on the Metropolitan area over the last few days, sending temperatures that bottomed out at -1 F Sunday morning in what is being called the coldest Valentine’s...
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“Loners”: ALEJANDRO INARRITU’S ‘THE REVENANT’ AND RIDLEY SCOTT’S ‘THE MARTIAN’
© 2016 by James Clark I love film stories where the protagonist is not simply haunted by an oversight but is palpably surprised by rare traces of insight, due to his or her carnal strengths....
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The Witch, Embrace of the Serpent and City of the Dead on Monday Morning...
by Sam Juliano More moderate weather has given us Metropolitan area residents a few very nice days, though I understand a rainstorm is heading our way late Sunday night. We are moving closer to the...
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Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and the “Everyday” Human Dilemma
by Barry Germansky Tolstoy is, from a thematic perspective, the master chronicler of the “everyday” human dilemma. No matter whatever else happens in our lives, Tolstoy understands that we will always...
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The Oscars, Virus of Fear and Rutgers University classical concert on Monday...
Screen capture from Oscar Best Picture winner “Spotlight” by Sam Juliano The 2016 Oscars are now in the record books. The winning film in a mild surprise is Spotlight, which previously won the Los...
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THE COENS’‘HAIL CAESAR!’“Divine Presence to be Shot…”
© 2016 by James Clark While it is indubitable that the new film by the Coens, Hail. Caesar! (2016), runs past us a tale impacting as a slice of the early 1950s, it is just as palpable that the...
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Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s ‘Cemetery of Splendor’ and Election 2016 on...
by Sam Juliano Americans have been amply regaled by the presidential election over the past weeks, and things will only get more intense as wee move through March and April. I have already committed...
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Zootopia, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and art exhibition on Monday Morning Diary...
by Sam Juliano Because I have been caught with the once-every-four-years Presidential election bug, I’ve been away from the site and other blogs the last several weeks. For both parties the moment of...
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Describing the Indescribable: H.P. Lovecraft and the Transition from Tangible...
by Barry Germansky H.P. Lovecraft’s short stories and novellas from 1917 to 1936, and his theory of cosmicism upon which they are based,aggressively dismantlehis era’s commonplaceepistemological...
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RIDLEY SCOTT’S ALIEN: “It’s almost primordial”
© 2016 by James Clark I think it’s a big mistake to suppose that the film title, Alien (1979), pertains solely with regard to the ugly killer of most of the crew of a spaceship. To opt for that...
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Election madness, Poirot and author book reading on Monday Morning Diary...
by Sam Juliano Presidential election madness continues, and like so many stateside I have immersed myself into the process by way of a close eye on the evolving news cycles, the day to day analysis...
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My Golden Days, Eye in the Sky, Hello My Name is Doris and Batman vs....
by Sam Juliano After a week of soul-searching that originally had me concluding that various domestic responsibilities and a marathon writing project would prevent me from proceeding on with the long...
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RIDLEY SCOTT’S ‘BLADE RUNNER’“It’s painful living in fear, isn’t it?
© 2016 by James Clark Blade Runner (1982) is one of a very small handful of films that can be truly described as “haunting.” What makes its power doubly remarkable is that it derives from an...
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Three Japanese masterpieces (Until We Meet Again; Happiness of Us Alone; She...
Capture from Tadashi Imai’s 1950 “Until We Meet Again” Capture from 1962’s “Happiness of Us Alone” Capture from Kinoshita’s 1955 “She Was Like a Wild Chrysanthemum” by Sam Juliano I have gone...
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