IF YOU HAVE ONLY SEEN the movie version of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you are missing out on an extraordinary literary work. Granted, it takes a while to get into — a criticism also (and often) leveled against…
Tag: film/vid
Takes on takes.
Why I Love: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
IT’S THE EPISODE-BY-EPISODE CONTINUITY. It’s the attention to detail (even in the direction). It’s the character development. (It’s also the characters.) It’s the insiders-feeling treatment of religious faith. It’s the strong female roles (mostly). It’s the sometimes-complicated political schemes. It’s…
Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
— Albert Einstein
5 Thoughts: Re-re-RE-Viewings
0. THERE ARE FILMS THAT YOU see once and say, “Meh.” Then there are others which grab hold of and mold your psyche in unexpected ways; movies that cry out “Watch me!” and require repeated viewings to grok in fullness…
Literal Myths
DOES IT MATTER WHETHER OR not our sacred writings are historically accurate? This question comes up every year at our synagogue Torah study, as people go to great lengths to try and explain the fantastical events of the text, especially…
Why I Love: Star Wars
IT’S THE BLUE INTERTITLE PROCLAIMING “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” It’s the concept of the Force: nakedly nondual, essentially Taoist, but not preachy about it. It’s the costumes. It’s the sets (even the CGI ones,…
Our Own Little “Zone”
IF YOU WERE CONSIDERED A teenage weirdo in the late 1970s/early 1980s in Northern California’s suburban Diablo Valley, you could always find a place on Friday nights at an independent cinema-house in Walnut Creek, gathering with others of your tribe…
5 Thoughts: The ORIGINAL Matrix
1. WHILE I DON’T BEGRUDGE THE siblings Wachowski their success, and I don’t really believe they stole my idea, as the first populizer of something called “The Matrix” I feel I must firmly and finally speak my piece. 2. Make…
Well, He Did
DRIVING THROUGH SONOMA RECENTLY, I spied what may be the funniest, most secretly famous vanity plate ever devised. It was a California plate bearing the simple, six-character legend: HAN 1ST (If you need this explained, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_shot_first.) By the way…
Live Long and Proffer
THE FIRST SOLO BAY AREA excursion I made after my mom and I moved to Walnut Creek in August 1977 was a trip to the aptly named Federation Trading Post, a Berkeley specialty store selling all sorts of Star Trek…
Raiders of the Lost Prayer
THE SCENE IS TENSE. RENE Belloq, a French archaeologist hired by the Nazi government (ptoo ptoo ptoo) to steal the Ark of the Covenant in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, is about to open the sacred artifact wherein…
Art Imitates Science Imitates Art
WHO DOESN’T KNOW “THE UNIVERSE Song” from the Monty Python movie Meaning of Life? The one that starts out, “Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving / And revolving at 900 miles an hour…”? For years, I’ve…