A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

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 ...

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, conse...

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. ...

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...

Cover art by John Harris. (C) 2007 Del Rey/Lucas Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) This station is now the ultimate power in the Universe! I suggest we use it.  - Admiral Motti. One of the most important locales in George Lucas'  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope  is the Galactic Empire's gigantic battle station code-named "Death Star." Essentially an armored sphere the size of a small moon (its diameter is stated as being 160 kilometers) and powered by something called a "hypermatter reactor," the Death Star carries nearly 1,000,000 crewers, stormtroopers, TIE fighter pilots, med techs and doctors, political prisoners, bureaucrats, Fleet and Army personnel, and even civilians who have been enticed to open stores and other businesses aboard. At the heart of the Death Star is its Prime Weapon, a planet-killing superlaser which takes time to charge up and requires top-notch gunnery experts to run. These "facts," of course, are well-known to...

One of the nicest things about Sony Classical's soundtrack album from  Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith  is the bonus DVD that comes with the CD. Titled  Star Wars: A Musical Journey , this is a magnificent collection of 16 music videos that span the entire six-Episode saga. The Prequels' four major themes ( Duel of the Fates, Anakin's Theme, Across the Stars [Love Theme from Attack of the Clones),  and  Battle of the Heroes ) underscore beautifully edited montages from the 1999-2005 trilogy, while action/setting cues and major themes from the Classic Trilogy feature scenes from all six  Star Wars  films to follow the Skywalker family's pivotal role in the rise and fall of the Galactic Empire.  Of all the film series that feature classical-styled scores, George Lucas's  Star Wars  saga (which he personally calls  The Tragedy of Darth Vader ) is certainly a prime candidate for music videos. Indeed, Lucasfilm produced thre...

I know that many, if not most, of the problems that affect everyone's hit counts are purely technical or related to the site's business model. We reviewers can't solve  those  problems. Sure, tech-savvy Epinions members who know how to crunch data and have hands-on experience with website design and operation should chime in and suggest fixes to Damon and his colleagues. I'm a writer, so I can only sit on the sidelines when we discuss Google Panda, Alexa ratings, the SdC database, and things of that nature. As a writer, though, I think we need to consider the possibility that we need to change how we write our reviews. Many of us, including me, tend to write long and detailed reviews in an attempt to cover every feature of a product. We have a site-wide tendency to describe not only a product's important features, but to pad reviews with "facts" that a typical website reader might not care about. The average reader does not like having to wade through ...

I got to admit it...I almost didn't buy this album. When "Billy Joel Greatest Hits: Volume III" was released in 1997, I wasn't sure if I wanted to purchase it. I hadn't bought many of Joel's post-"An Innocent Man" albums (although a few good friends had given me "The Bridge," "Kohcept," and the "Greatest Hits: Vols. I & II" as presents); I'd heard the quality of the songs had veered from great to good to mediocre, and because I was building up my classical music CD collection, I wasn't about to spend my limited music-buying bucks on albums that would disappoint me. So when I read a review in my local newspaper that stated, in short, that Volume III wasn't exactly the most fitting "adieu" to pop/rock recording by "the Piano Man," I said to myself, "Nah, I better not waste my money on this CD; let's get Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of Saint Martin-in-the-Fields' A...