A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

 Note to the Unwary Reader or Would-Be Buyer:       Contrary to the product listing title provided by the Shopping.com or Epinions database, neither of the two models in Samsung’s BD-C5500 series (BD-C5500 and BD-C5500C) supports 3D video.  I figure this is worth mentioning to all interested parties to ensure the accuracy of this review.   Even though I already own an older Samsung Blu-ray player, certain circumstances – my elderly mom’s failing health and inability to climb stairs –have compelled me to buy a second Blu-ray player so that I can (a) spend a bit of my free time with Mom and (b) not have to get DVD versions of movies I own on Blu-ray disc just so Mom could see them.  I am a guy of very modest means, therefore I avoid getting  the absolute best of the best  in electronics.  Our three HD TV sets are 720p instead of the top-of-the-line 1080i or 1080p (much less 3D models), and neither of our Samsung Blu-ray players has bu...

“Stand by Me” is a moving coming-of-age comedy drama directed by Rob Reiner. Adapted from Stephen King’s novella The Body by screenwriter-producer Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon, this 1986 comedy drama follows the misadventures of four pre-teen boys (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman and Jerry O’Connell) who hike through the woods outside the small town of Castle Rock, Oregon to look for a missing teen’s corpse. Like director Robert Mulligan’s “Summer of ‘42” and other coming-of-age movies, “Stand by Me” is not a plot-driven movie. It’s a character piece that focuses on Gordie (Wheaton), Chris (Phoenix), Teddy (Feldman) and Vern (O’Connell) during a weekend-long trek in the Oregon woods to find a dead kid’s body before a band of teenage hoodlums led by Ace Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland) does. On the surface, “Stand by Me” is one of those “small” films that are better suited for after school television specials than the silver screen. But King’s well-written novella is...

In the 42 years since the end of the war in Vietnam, Hollywood has produced a number of films about that "lost crusade," ranging from the grand yet surreal vision of Apocalypse Now to the very commercial and silly Missing in Action and Rambo . In 1986, writer-director Oliver Stone ( JFK, W. ) took audiences into the frightening spectacle of jungle warfare in Platoon. This film, based on Stone's combat experiences in Vietnam circa 1967, is the story of 19-year-old Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), an upper-middle class type, who has volunteered for combat duty. His fellow GI's are from the slums and small towns of America. They're the ones with little more than two years of high school - poor, unwanted and drafted to fight for "our society and our freedom," as Chris says in a letter to his grandmother. Of course, the story of men in battle has been told before, and Vietnam War films all seem alike, with their helicopter assaults and seemingly endl...

Once upon a time in America, player pianos -- which were modified pianos with internal mechanisms that read "piano rolls" very much like computers today read, say, CD-ROM discs -- were "the" big thing in popular American music. I first saw one at the Miami Museum of Science many years ago, and I was enthralled by what (to a 12-year-old boy) was a pretty neat sight -- a piano that played by itself! At the time, Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" rag was in vogue ( The Sting  was a big hit movie at the time), and I stayed at that part of the museum, listening to the melody from a long-gone era and watching the keyboard move as if a ghost had decided the museum was too darned quiet and wanted to hear some happy tunes of the past. George Gershwin grew up in the early part of the 20th Century and thus had first-hand experience with player pianos, as the liner notes by Artis Woodhouse explain in "Gershwin Plays Gershwin," a 12-track collection...

(C) 1981 National Public Radio and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Poster art by Celia Strain The Han Solo Solution Cast: Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi (Bernard Behrens) Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) See-Threepio (Anthony Daniels) Artoo-Detoo Han Solo (Perry King) Chewbacca (Chewie) Dealer Heater (Joel Brooks) Squeak Proprietor 1st Trooper 2nd Trooper Narrator (Ken Hiller) Announcer: OPENING CREDITS Music:Opening theme. Narrator: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there came a time of revolution, when Rebels united to challenge a tyrannical Empire. In the most desperate crisis of that Rebellion, plans vital to the survival of the Rebel Alliance were secretly placed in the memory banks of the astrodroid Artoo-Detoo. An unlikely group has gathered together to undertake a journey to Alderaan, where Artoo-Detoo and his interpreter-counterpart, See-Threepio, must be safely delivered. Luke Skywalker, a young moisture farmer on the planet Tatooine, and Ben Kenobi. one of th...