A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

On Friday, December 15, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures released Star Wars: The Last Jedi, the eighth Episode in the Skywalker Saga and the ninth live-action film in the space-fantasy franchise created 40 years ago by George Lucas.  Starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Laura Dern, and Andy Serkis, The Last Jedi is the second film of a Sequel Trilogy set 30 years after the Rebel Alliance's victory over the evil Galactic Empire. It has, so far, gotten good reviews and earned $494.6 million in its first week of wide theatrical release.  On the same day, Walt Disney Records also dropped Star Wars: The Last Jedi - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack on compact disc and digital download. Composed and conducted by John Williams (with an assist at the podium by William Ross), Star Wars: The Last Jedi is the eighth score composed by the current dean of modern American film scoring for the long-running St...

The World at War Last Days in Vietnam The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns Vietnam: A Television History The War: A Ken Burns Film Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns The Cold War Prohibition: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick Victory at Sea The West: A Film by Stephen Ives A Film by Ken Burns: The Roosevelts: An Intimate History Empire of Dreams: The Making of the  Star Wars  Trilogy The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns & Lynn Novick The Central Park Five: A Film by Ken Burns The American Experience: Battle of the Bulge

Can liberals explain why they view conservatives as ignorant? I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, a stereotypical “liberal.” I consider myself to be a middle-of-the-road independent. However, I tend to side with moderate liberals on most issues, especially those that deal with social issues, such as women’s rights, civil rights for all, gender equality, LGBQT equality, access to quality public education, and freedom of the press. To die-hard supporters of Donald J. Trump and his MAGA crowd, I  am  a liberal in their eyes. So, okay, I’ll bite. I’ll answer this question. First, I will start with a cautionary statement against gross generalizations. It goes something along the lines of “I don’t think all conservatives are ignorant.” in fact, I can name some highly intelligent conservatives that I respect greatly, even if I disagree with many of their opinions: George Will William F. Buckley, Jr. Jennifer Rubin One of these, William F. Buckley,...

In the fall of 1977, Arista Records (a now defunct label owned by Sony Music Entertainment) released Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, a 10-track selection of cues and themes composed by John Williams for Steven Spielberg's eponymous "humans meet aliens" UFO film. Arista released the album as a single-disc vinyl LP, as well as on cassette and eight-track tape. It also released the disco version of "Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on a 7-inch single, which was included as a bonus on the vinyl release. The theme, if memory serves, was incorporated into the tape editions as a bonus track; this was also done with the 1990 compact disc distributed by Varese Sarabande Records under license by the original label. Composer John Williams and director Steven Spielberg began working on Close Encounters of the Third Kind (CE3K) as early as 1975, shortly after Jaws (the duo's second collaboration) was completed....

Hi, there. Uh, okay. So today’s question is:  For those who didn’t vote for Trump, what would Trump have to do to get your vote in the 2020 election? First, you have to understand that the people who didn’t vote for Trump in ’16 don’t make up a huge monolithic bloc or live in a leftist, anti-American mythical land called Utopia. (Or, as the most aggressive of Trump supporters might put it, Libtardia.) I can’t speak for  every  anti-Trump voter, I can only speak for myself, although I’m sure that my reasons for not voting from the current President are not too different from other non-Trump voters. Photo by Michael Stewart/Getty Images Second, understand this: Donald J. Trump is 71 years old (as of December 12, 2017). As such, he is older than the late President Ronald W. Reagan at this point in his first term. People at that age simply  do not change  their personalities, philosophies of life, political views, or their agendas. These are pretty mu...

How can we return American society to the 1950s, when people were more politically incorrect? You can’t. Time, societies, and history only go forward in time,  not  backward. The idealized 1950s Extreme conservatives who also happen to be white, religious (often Evangelical Protestants but, really, from any denomination) that miss the “good ol’ days” seem to be asking this, not just on Quora, but in other social media and in “real life” conversations. On the surface, asking “How can we return American society to the ‘50s, when people were more politically incorrect?” seems rather innocent enough, evoking nostalgia for an era where life seemed idyllic. Idyllic, that is, if you were a white person, especially a white male person, with strong religious beliefs and staunchly conservative political views. What the questioner is really asking, though, is this: Why can’t we return American society to a period of history when it was: Okay to discriminate against ...

How did A&E Network's History, aka The History Channel, fall into disrepute with history buffs, historians, and TV critics? Essentially, History, which was originally named The History Channel, followed the same path as its parent network, A&E. It was seduced by television’s version of the dark side of the Force: “reality programming.”  And it was consumed by it. First, though, a little history about, well, History. Back in the 1990s, A&E started out as the Arts and Entertainment cable channel. I didn’t watch it much back then, but it used to be the “go to” channel for viewers who wanted to see programs about fine arts, music, travel to exotic places, and documentaries. Eventually, as it often happens with cable channels, the owners of A&E, which include ABC and Hearst, decided to create a separate channel devoted to historical content, primarily documentaries. And in an inspired burst of creativity, A&E named the spin-off “The History Channel.”...