A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 1996 Berkley Books and Jack Ryan Limited Partnership On November 1, 1996, Berkley Books (which at the time was the paperback division of G.P. Putnam's Sons but has since been folded into the larger Penguin Random House conglomerate) published Tom Clancy's Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Force. Co-written by Clancy's researcher and defense expert John D. Gresham, Marine is the fourth volume in what is now billed as The Tom Clancy Military Library but was originally known as the Guided Tour series.  Fans of the late novelist and conservative commentator know that Clancy was an unabashed admirer of the United States Marine Corps. His best known fictional character, John Patrick Ryan, Sr. started his career in government as a second lieutenant in the Marines, a fact that has been mentioned in three of the five "Jack Ryan" films and Amazon's Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, as well as in several of Clancy's novels.  "Marine." S...

“A Few Good Men” (1992) Directed by Rob Reiner Written by Aaron Sorkin, based on his stage play Starring: Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollak Rob Reiner’s courtroom drama “A Few Good Men,”  an adaptation of Aaron Sorkin's stage play,  starts with a brutal act of extra-legal disciplinary action against Marine Pvt. William Santiago at the Marine barracks in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, located on the southeast tip of Cuba.  At “Gitmo,”   two of Santiago’s fellow Marines, Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson (Wolgang Bodison) and Pfc. Louden Downey (James Marshall), stuff a rag into his mouth, hogtie his arms and legs with duct tape. Then they watch in horror as their squadmate starts bleeding copiously. Santiago dies, and Dawson and Downey are accused of conspiracy and murder. A few days later, Lt. Commander JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore), a Navy legal officer assigned to the Judge Advocate General's Internal Aff...

The Departed,  Martin Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award-winning remake of Hong Kong's  Infernal Affairs , marks the New York City native's return to the gritty crime drama genre in which he made his mark back in the 1970s. Instead of turning his cinematic eye on the mean streets of the Big Apple, Scorsese ( Taxi Driver, Goodfellas ) explores the dark underside of Boston, Massachussets in a tale about corruption, the rivalry between the Irish and Italian mobs, and internal strife within Boston's law enforcement officers. Written by  William Monahan ( Body of Lies, Kingdom of Heaven ) and based on the original  Infernal Affairs  script by Alan Mak and Felix Chong,  The Departed  features Jack Nicholson as an aging but wily mobster named Frank Costello. Costello (loosely based on the notorious Whitey Bulger) is a menacing yet seductive gangster who early in the film recruits 12-year-old Colin Sullivan (Conor Donovan) into his circle of criminals. (Costello i...