A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

“Hate is the complement of fear and narcissists like being feared. It imbues them with an intoxicating sensation of omnipotence.”   ―  Sam Vaknin ,  Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited People - mainly those individuals who are blissfully unaware of my family history - often ask me, "Why can't you get along with your sister? She's your closest relative now that your mom is gone, and she's so nice/generous/loving. Can't you try and be her friend?" While it is true that my half-sister is my closest family member and, as far as I know, my only living relative in the United States, I have to say that as much as I'd like to be Vicky's friend, I can't. She is a seriously disturbed narcissist who has done me (and our mother) much more emotional harm than she had done good. She (and her small retinue of vocal supporters) will deny it, of course. Like many narcissists, Vicky has an uncanny talent for cleverly projecting a self-image of being an a

(C) 2007 Random House/Vintage In 2007, three years after the publication of Max Hastings’ “Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945,” the British imprint HarperPress published a companion volume about the end of World War II in the Pacific, “Nemesis: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945.” Like its predecessor set in the European Theater of Operations (ETO), “Nemesis” is an examination of the various military and political maneuvers that led to the Allied (primarily American) victory against the Japanese Empire during the war’s closing months. When Knopf, Hastings’ U.S. publisher, released the book for the American market as “Retribution: The Battle for Japan 1944-1945.” In this highly readable 688-page tome, Hastings depicts the earthshaking events that led to Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War in vivid prose and clear-eyed analysis of the various campaigns and battles that culminated with the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hastings sets up his Pacific War chessboa

In July of 1989, Columbia Pictures released “When Harry Met Sally…” a witty romantic comedy written by the late Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle”) and directed by Rob (“Stand by Me”) Reiner. Starring Billy Crystal as Harry Burns and Meg Ryan as Sally Albright, “When Harry Met Sally…” is a clever, humorous, yet unexpectedly moving look at the relationships between men and women. It covers various aspects of love and gender roles, but its most famous theme is Can men and women really be friends?   “When Harry Met Sally…” follows the course of the titular characters’ relationship over a 12-year period that begins in 1977 and ends roughly in the movie’s Present Day. As Ephron and Reiner set up the scenario, Harry and Sally have jgraduated from the University of Chicago and are headed east to start new lives and careers in New York. They have never met before, but Sally’s a friend of Harry’s girlfriend Amanda (Michelle Nicastro) and has agreed to take Harry along as a co-driver

March 1982 1 I first met Lauren Hitchcock when I was a 17- year-old junior at South Miami High. It was a spring day in 1982, and I was making my way from my third period class (English Three, College Bound) to my fourth period one (Mixed Chorus). I walked quickly – or, rather, as quickly as possible in a corridor full of my fellow high school students trying to get to their classes before the bell rang. I had attended South Miami for nearly two years, so I had lots of practice in weaving through the crowds and clambering the stairs from the Language Arts department on the second floor down to the music department wing on the first. I had just pushed open the door that led to the stairs when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a svelte jeans-and-blouse clad girl sitting alone on the landing. Her algebra textbook lay on the floor to her left, and her leather purse sat on top of a green Mead Organizer to her right. She slumped forward on the top step, and her dainty hands covered

Hi there, Constant Reader. It’s 4:21 p.m. on a chilly Monday afternoon in the Sunshine State. As I write this, it’s 66 degrees Fahrenheit under partly sunny skies. Though it’s not as cold as it was earlier today, the temperature is low enough for it to be a hot-chocolate-with-warm donuts day, at least for me! I’ve lived in (or visited) several cities (Bogota, New York City, and Seville) where it gets awfully cold, and chilly weather tends to make me want to bundle up in bed with a good book. I was going to write a movie review earlier today, but my eyeglasses broke; I’m nearsighted, and although I can see most of what’s on the big television screen, my eyes get awfully tired without my glasses. Worse, if I want to read the “news ticker” at the bottom of the screen when perusing CNN or the local news channels, I have to mosey up close to the TV to see the lettering. My spectacles are irreparably damaged and I need new ones, so my mission of the day has been to try and call Visionwo

Toxic relationships are dangerous to your health; they will literally kill you.   – Bryant McGill It’s a nice early January day in the Sunshine State. As I write this, it’s 81 degrees Fahrenheit under sunny skies. The house is quiet and peaceful – so much so that I’m thinking of playing some music…as soon as I decide what style of music I feel like listening to. Maybe I’ll grab a Frank Sinatra CD, or maybe I’ll listen to some classical music. Something calm and peaceful; I’m not in the mood for anything “bombastic” or “operatic” a la John Williams today. As I sit in my quiet (for the moment, anyway) study, I’m trying to figure out why I can’t have a solid and loving relationship with my older half-sister Victoria. After all, she is my closest living relative, and we were supposed to get along a bit better after Mom’s death a year and a half ago. Was our estrangement inevitable, or should I have kept trying to close the breach that has existed between us for nearly 30 y

What do you get when you combine the talents of writer-director Lawrence Kasdan, whose films are character-driven and meditative, and Stephen King, whose stories often focus on ordinary people in extraordinary (and often horrific) situations? You probably expect to see an odd hybrid that is part “The Big Chill,” part “Stand by Me.” Well, if you toss in a smidgen of thematic material from Byron Haskin’s 1953 invaders-from-Mars classic “The War of the Worlds,” the result of such a mashup is Kasdan’s 2003 film “Dreamcatcher,” a science fiction/horror tale based on King’s eponymous 2001 novel. Co-written by Kasdan (“Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) and William Goldman (“A Bridge Too Far,” “Misery,” “The Princess Bride”), “Dreamcatcher” tells the tale of four lifelong friends (played by Damian Lewis, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, and Timothy Olyphant) who stumble upon an alien invasion while on their annual hunting trip to a cabin near Derry, Maine. Kasdan be