A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

I don’t know if anyone reading this remembers Connections, a British TV import hosted by the congenial writer and commentator James Burke that was broadcast here in the U.S. by the Public Broadcasting System in the early 1980s. This 10-part miniseries explored the intricate and seemingly strange connections between individual scientific discoveries and simple inventions.  It also showed how those links forged the chain of our modern technological society.   Considering its theme and scope, Connections could have been about as exciting as watching paint dry, but Burke’s wit and effervescence made it both fascinating and indelible. I mention this seemingly irrelevant tidbit because after I watched that series while I was in high school, I became more aware that history and historical events don’t just “happen” and leave no lasting legacy.  After all, if this were the case, there would have been no Second World War 21 years after the end of the First World War. However, as

Star Wars film novelizations have been around since late 1976, when Del Rey Books published Alan Dean Foster’s Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker. Credited to writer-director George Lucas, the first adaptation of a Star Wars screenplay gave the world its first glimpse at a story set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.” The book’s 1976 edition performed modestly at first; later, when Star Wars became a box office juggernaut, sales of the paperback edition of  Foster’s novelization took off like an X-wing fighter and launched it into the New York Times Best-Sellers list. Since then, Del Rey, a division of Ballantine Books, has published all the subsequent Star Wars novelizations, including the ones for the 1999-2005 Star Wars Prequel Trilogy. For the first time in one stunning volume, here is the complete, epic story arc: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Experience the sweeping tale of good and evil, of myth and magic

Donald J. Trump, the 45th President of the United States, has been in the White House for less than a month. In that short period of time, he has become the least popular Chief Executive in American history, thanks to his abrasive, take-no-crap-from-anyone demeanor, his penchant for divisiveness and "rule by fear," and just plain dishonesty. As a result of such unpopular decisions as banning people from seven Muslim countries from entering the U.S. with visas, insisting on building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border (and saying that Mexico will pay for it), waging a vigorous war against the press, and dissembling about why former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was asked to resign over Flynn's pre-inauguration conversation with Russia's ambassador about the possible easing of sanctions, Mr. Trump's popularity continues to spiral downward. Per the latest Gallup poll (February 17, 2017), the President's popularity hit a historically low po

“Star Wars: The Complete Saga – 2015 Re-Issue” On October 13, 2015, 20 th Century Fox Home Entertainment re-issued “Star Wars: The Complete Saga,” a nine-disc box set that collects the six films of George Lucas’s epic space-fantasy series set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” on Blu-ray discs (BDs). This set, which also includes three BDs of bonus materials culled from Lucasfilm’s archive, has the same content as Fox’s 2011 “Complete Saga” collection. The only major differences are the packaging and, in some sets, the artwork on the BD labels. Considering that Fox has re-issued “Star Wars”-themed box sets countless times since the days when videotape was the dominant home video format, it’s obvious that the studio hopes to capitalize on renewed interest in the nearly 40-year-old franchise as a result of Disney/Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” “Star Wars: The Complete Saga” was dropped a month before Fox introduced the Limited Edition Steelbook BDs for e

Star Trek Beyond (2016) Written by Simon Pegg & Doug Jung Directed by Justin Lin Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban,  Simon Pegg, John Cho, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Sofia Boutella, and Idris Elba Star Trek is perhaps one of the most successful franchises of all time, and maybe even one of the luckiest, at that. Considering that it got its start as a science fiction television series which only aired for three seasons on NBC, Gene Roddenberry's creation went on to spin off five television series (including Star Trek: The Animated Series ) and 13 feature films. Not including Paramount/CBS Studios' income from the various TV shows, Star Trek - the franchise's film element, anyway, - has earned $2,266, 473, 168 at the global box office. ($1,400,952,879 of that comes from the North American domestic market.) Thus it's not surprising that Paramount asked producer J.J. Abrams to give fans a new Star Trek film set in the alternate (or Kelvin) timel