A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Today is Saturday, December 8, 2012.  Though it's a bit cloudy and somewhat warm for a December day, it's nice enough outside for people to be going out on walks or to run errands.  I really want to be out of this house, doing anything, really, but because our weekend aide (Margarita) is only here for one hour on Saturdays and Sundays, I can only go out for a brief stroll around the block, and that is not really enough for me, kind readers. I've never been much of a "roamer" who needs to be out of the house all day just to for the sake of being anywhere but home.  When I was a student or had consulting/ghostwriting gigs which required me to be elsewhere, I enjoyed it, but because I was not a party animal and did not date anyone back then, I was fairly content with being a homebody. Now that I'm taking care of my sick mother, I desperately long for any physical escape from my environment. It's one thing to pick-and-choose when one goes to see a movie or

In the middle of the 1991-92 TV season (March 1992, to be precise), ABC and George Lucas's Lucasfilm Limited attempted a daring experiment; to give viewers a mixture of educational material - primarily focusing on early 20th Century history - and entertainment (edutainment for short) in a series titled  The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Like Lucasfilm's current Cartoon Network animated series  Star Wars: The Clone Wars ,  The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles  was an anthology; instead of being a linear narrative which starts in 1908 and ends in 1923, the series jumped around the timeline and alternated episodes with preteen Indy (played by Corey Carrier) and teen/young adult Indiana/Henri Defense/Henry Jones, Jr. (Sean Patrick Flannery).  Each episode was "framed" with prologues and epilogues set in the series' "present day" and starring George Hall as "Old Indy", a 90-something retiree who still wore his trademark fedora but also sported an ey

At 7:30 PM Eastern time on Tuesday, June 3, 1969, NBC aired  Turnabout Intruder , the  final first-run episode of Star Trek,  Gene Roddenberry’s science fiction/action-adventure series about the 23rd Century starship  Enterprise and its five-year mission to “explore strange new worlds.  To seek out new life and new civilizations.  To boldly go where no man has gone before.”  Star Trek  (which has been retroactively titled  Star Trek: The Original Series ) had never enjoyed much support from NBC or been a ratings heavyweight.  The network had wanted to cancel the show almost from the start, but the influence of Lucile Ball (owner of Desilu, the studio which produced  Star Trek  during Seasons One and Two) and a now-famous letter-writing campaign by the series’ fans saved Capt. Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Mr. Scott (James Doohan) and the rest of the  Enterprise  crew from being consigned prematurely into television’s Phantom Zone of Can

When I was the managing editor of my college campus' student newspaper back in the late 1980s, we ran a story about how many incoming freshmen - most of them recent graduates from local high schools - were having to take remedial classes in such courses as writing, reading and basic math skills. Most of us on the staff - myself included - either knew someone who had been a "great" student in elementary, junior high (what we used to school middle school back then) and high school but had failed at least one part of the Basic Skills Test required of all credit-course student applicants.  (Full disclosure: I passed the basic math part - by a miracle - but found Algebra 1 so intimidating that I tried to take remedial math...twice...and failed.) I no longer have the 1989-era issue, so I can't quote from it, but this recent article published in the Miami Herald this week covers the same topic. 13th grade: Many freshmen unprepared at community and state colleges As th

As a U.S.-born American citizen of Colombian descent, I have been very fortunate to have grown up in a bi-cultural environment which has allowed me to experience the rich culinary heritages of both the United States and Colombia.  To many people in the U.S. who have never traveled abroad or who may live in towns where there are no Colombian restaurants or Latin American markets, there exists a misconception that all Latin food must be like Mexico’s, which is compounded further by the fact that most of what we consider to be “Mexican” food is really a collection of Americanized dishes invented in border states such as Texas, New Mexico and California.  Because most of what is now Latin America was colonized by Spain, there  are  certain elements of Latin cuisine which are common to many South American and Caribbean countries.  For instance, corn-based tamales can be found in many Latin countries’ treasure troves of recipes, albeit in vastly different forms regarding ingredient

Robert Zemeckis’ 2000 drama  Cast Away  is one of those films that aspires for cinematic greatness, nearly achieves it, yet leaves the viewer with no small amount of disappointment at the very end.   Essentially a 20thCentury take on Daniel Defoe’s classic tale  Robinson Crusoe, Cast Away  stars two-time Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks as a FedEx systems analyst who is stranded on an island after his plane crashes in the Pacific Ocean.  Chuck Noland:  We live and we die by time. And we must not commit the sin of losing our track on time.   It  is late 1995.  Chuck Noland is one of FedEx’s most driven analysts; he is a man who is obsessed with efficiency and time management, which is logical considering that he works for a company which lives by its "Absolutely, Positively Anytime" slogan.  Based in the company’s headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, Chuck is tasked with ferreting problems with the transit of packages in such places as St. Petersburg in Russia.  If t