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Kevin R. Tipple's review of Save Me the Aisle Seat

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Cover Designed by Alex Diaz-Granados. (C) 2012 Alex Diaz-Granados  Pros:  Well written and extensive on movies covered... Cons:  though the book as a whole lacks a unifying focus. A love of movies since childhood and a passion for writing combined long ago to drive the author into creating an account at Amazon and later Epinions so that he could write movie reviews. While those reviews have expanded into other content areas, movies remain the primary driving force for Alex Diaz-Granados. The result is this self-published book featuring just some of his eight years of movie review work at Epinions.com. After an introduction that discusses the passion the author has had all his life for movies¸ it is on to the reviews. The book is broken down into four chapter sections covering movies he liked and movies that he didn’t. The reviews are extensively detailed both in terms of plot and storylines as well as analysis of the films regarding these same details. As a result

Star Wars - Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (2004 DVD Edition review)

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With the phenomenal success of Star Wars in 1977, George Lucas realized he could continue the planned trilogy he had been outlining since the early 1970s. His original outline contained the raw material for Episodes IV, V and VI as well as the nebulous backstory that would become the foundation for the current prequels. So in 1978, with Star Wars (which would be rechristened Episode IV: A New Hope) earning hundreds of millions in box office receipts, Lucas, producer Gary Kurtz and the Lucasfilm production team began work on The Empire Strikes Back, the film most Star Wars fans believe is the best in the entire saga. Lucas gave his story to Leigh Brackett, an acclaimed science fiction writer, and hired her to write the screenplay. She passed away soon after finishing the first draft, so Lucas (who would serve as executive producer) handed the project over to up-and-coming writer-director Lawrence Kasdan (Body Heat, Continental Divide, and Raiders of the Lost Ark). Furthermore, h

A Time for Trumpets by Charles B. MacDonald: A book review

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Pros: Gripping and well-written account of the U.S. Army's greatest battle   Cons: None. The Bottom Line: Although it covers the same battle as "The Bitter Woods," A Time for Trumpets is more focused and benefits from the declassification of the "Ultra" secret. Great read! On December 16, 1944, elements of three German armies -- 14 infantry and five panzer divisions in all -- attacked part of the American First Army along an 80-mile front along Germany's border with Belgium and Luxembourg. The sudden and unexpected counteroffensive hit the Americans in an area the Allies thought would be a nice, quiet sector for combat-weary divisions to rest and refit while green divisions fresh from the States could be acclimated to life on the line: the dark and deep forests of the Ardennes. Planned and ordered by Adolf Hitler himself, this massive onslaught was launched with one objective in mind: penetrate the American lines, pass through the "impassable&

A Bridge Too Far: Cornelius Ryan's chronicle of the Arnhem debacle

On the morning of Sept. 17, 1944, taking off from 24 airfields in southeast England in what was "the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled for a single battle," the leading elements of three Allied airborne divisions roared aloft and set a course for their designated drop zones in Nazi-occupied Holland. Aboard this first lift of a scheduled three, men from the veteran American 82nd and 101st Airborne and the British First Airborne Division -- which was making its first combat jump -- anxiously waited for the green lights to light up and to step out into the Dutch sky in a daring and unprecedented daylight parachute and glider landing. Their mission, to capture -- "with thunderclap surprise" -- a series of bridges that spanned the Albert Canal, the Waal River, and the last river between the advancing Allied forces and Germany: the mighty Rhine.  On the Belgian-Dutch border, the tankers, soldiers, artillerymen, engineers, and vehicle drivers of Gen

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - The Complete Season One (review with Epinions link)

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When I was a much younger  Star Wars  fan in my early teens, one of my hopes was that George Lucas would create a TV spinoff based on the adventures of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 as they faced off against the evil Darth Vader and the legions of the Empire. Of course, I had no idea that Lucas had made the film now known as  Episode IV: A New Hope  with two other films in mind, nor did I (being naive and unschooled in the business of filmmaking) realize how expensive it would have been to adapt  Star  Wars from the big screen to the little one and make it work as well as the late Larry Gelbart had done with the TV version  of M*A*S*H. After the disastrous one-time airing of the   misbegotten  Star Wars Holiday Special  in 1978 and the somewhat lackluster live-action set-on-Endor TV movies Lucasfilm released in the early 1980s, I realized that maybe  Star Wars   wasn't really one of those film sagas that was meant to be given the  M*A*S*H  tr

The trials of caregiving....

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Mom as a teenager (circa 1943) Although I do not plan to turn my blog into a dreary litany of gripes about my current situation, I need to be able to get a few things off my chest.  I don't have too many people to turn to these days, and although I could probably start a discussion on my Facebook page about the dark side of care giving, I think that would do more harm than good. I'm writing at a moment of relative peace and quiet.  Margarita, the morning aide, came by and cleaned up Mom in bed since my mother no longer gets up to take showers even when she has assistants.  Margarita is only here for an hour on Saturdays and Sundays, so much of her time is devoted to cleaning Mom and doing light housekeeping chores in the bedroom, kitchen (if I haven't done it yet) and living room areas. Because Mom wanted to sleep late today, I ended up giving her breakfast at an hour more suitable for lunch: 12:15 PM.  I've been up since eight in the morning, having fallen as

Darth Maul returns in Star Wars: The Clone Wars' fourth season

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars – The Complete Season Four During the 2008 fall television season, the Time-Warner-owned Cartoon Network and Lucasfilm Limited returned to George Lucas’s “galaxy far, far away” with a new animated series titled Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Set during the intergalactic conflict from which its title is derived, Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a 3D computer-animated follow-up to the 2003-2005 2D Cartoon Network “micro-series” Star Wars: Clone Wars, which bridges the three-year gap between the Prequel Trilogy’s Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.   (Supposedly, the two shows are intertwined, with the newer series taking place between Chapters 22 and 25 of the 2D series, even though there are always going to be some continuity issues that hopefully will be addressed as the narrative of  Star Wars: The Clone Wars evolves.) Although the feature-length film Star Wars: The Clone Wars was not warmly received by many Star Wars fans and media