A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season One       Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship  Enterprise.  Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.       Background   In the summer of 1986, Paramount Pictures was on a collective “high” about  Star Trek.   Much to the studio’s surprise, Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi TV show was now the company’s crown jewel franchise. It survived cancellation by the NBC TV network in 1969 by becoming a hit in syndication. In 1973,  Star Trek  returned briefly to network television via Filmation’s   Star Trek: The Animated Series .  Plans for theatrical films and TV movies came and went, but by 1977, plans were underway to launch an updated version of the show as the flagship of the Paramount Television Service.  The new series,  Star Trek: Phase II , starred most of  The Original Series’  cast except Leonard Nimoy.  Star Tre

Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Kay Adams: What was that? Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract. When I was nine years old, my mom, older sister, and I saw Francis Ford Coppola's  The Godfather  at the now-gone Tropicaire Drive-In in Miami. The now-classic adaptation of Mario Puzo's novel about an aging  New York Mafia don's efforts to hand over his empire of crime to his favored son was a top draw, and Mom and Vicky were  curious about it. I don't know why they took me; I'm assuming that they couldn't find a babysitter, or perhaps they didn't think that it had any objectionable content. Because we had recently moved back to the States after living abroad for six years, I was still learning English, so I didn't understand any of the movie's plot, nuances, or the dialogue. I  was , however, freaked out by the two sce

Muse:  It was supposed to be easy. I take ship... ransom... nobody get hurt.   Captain Richard Phillips:  You had thirty thousand dollars. And a way to Somalia. It wasn't enough?   Muse:  I got bosses. They got rules.   Captain Richard Phillips:  We all got bosses.       Captain Phillips,  directed by Paul Greengrass ( United 93 ), is one of those based-on-a-true-story thrillers that keep a viewer’s attention even when the ending is not in doubt. Like Kathryn Bigelow’s how-they-got-Bin Laden film   Zero Dark Thirty  or Greengrass’ docudrama about the hijacked 9/11 plane that  didn’t  hit its intended target because its passengers resisted the terrorists,  Captain Phillips  is not a whodunit but rather a movie that answers the question “How did he survive the ordeal?”  Starring Tom Hanks in the title’s role of Captain Richard Phillips, the 2013 film focuses on the hijacking of the  MV Maersk Alabama,  a U.S.-flagged container ship captured by four Somali pirates in Apri

I first played  Axis & Allies  almost 30 years ago when Milton Bradley (now Avalon Hill/Hasbro) first published it as a board game. It was heavily promoted in Playboy magazine with an impressive print ad campaign.  When Hector Perez, a college buddy of mine, and I were looking for an intellectually challenging pastime, I suggested we look for a copy of  Axis & Allies . Even though it was pretty pricey for my budget ($30.00 at Toys R Us), Hector and I went "halfsies" and bought a set. We ended up playing  Axis & Allies  all afternoon and well into the night, with the Axis (under Hector's command) triumphing over the overmatched Allies (yours truly). Change the Course of History in a Few Short Hours AXIS & ALLIES is a classic game of war, economics, and strategy. Victory goes not only to the team that conquers its opponents on the field of battle, but also to the individual player who seizes the most enemy territory. Axis & Allies  has many virtues

Nos·tal·gia: Pronunciation: nä-'stal-j&, n&- also no -, nO-; n&-'stäl- Function: noun Etymology: New Latin, from Greek nostos return home New Latin -algia; akin to Greek neisthai to return, Old English genesan to survive, Sanskrit nasate he approaches  1 : the state of being homesick : HOMESICKNESS  2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia  - nos·tal·gic /-jik/ adjective or noun  - nos·tal·gi·cal·ly /-ji-k(&-)le/ adverb  Nostalgia.  For most of us, the past sometimes seems more attractive than our present or somehow less frightening than the undiscovered country of the future. It's an illusion, really, but memory has a way of dulling all but the sharpest pains, the saddest memories, and the rest of all our yesterdays become a series of sepia-colored memories in which we take refuge from our 21st Century red state-blue state, conservative vs. liber

To me, one of the best things about the movies is the vast variety of themes that composers have created over the years. From Max Steiner’s “ Tara Theme” of Gone with the Wind to “ The Flying Theme” from E.T. , composer/conductor John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra take us on a musical journey spanning nearly four decades in Aisle Seat.  Of the 10 themes presented in this Philips CD, three were composed by Williams. Two are famous in the Williams repertoire -- “The Flying Theme” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark March” -- but they were still relatively new when this album was first released 21 years ago.  The third Williams composition is “If We Were In Love,” a romantic theme from Yes, Giorgio , a forgotten (and forgettable) movie starring Luciano Pavarotti. No matter…even if the movie flopped, the theme survived. It’s sweet and sweeping, almost operatic, yet you can hum it -- if nothing else, great movie music often is catchy and easy on the ears.  The other c

One of the toughest problems that faces filmmakers involved in creating and selling any "franchise" movie series (whether it's  Indiana Jones, Star Trek, Star Wars, Batman  or  Superman ) is "How do you keep an audience's interest (and repeat business) in your characters and situations without getting stale or silly?" Now, there are lots of possible good answers, but two of the most obvious are "Be consistent and follow the rules of the universe you create, and above all, don't be constantly remaking the first movie over and over again." Unfortunately, not every screenwriter, director or creative team keeps these rules of the road in mind.  The Superman  movies which starred the late Christopher Reeve started out with a classic (Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie ) then qualitatively slid downhill when the producers decided to give the next two movies to Richard Lester. So when Sam Raimi's first two  Spider-Man  movies proved that the