A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Laugh It Up, Fuzzball: The Family Guy Trilogy Directed by Dominic Polcino and Peter Shin Written by Alec Sulkin, Kirker Butler, Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and David A. Goodman Based on the Star Wars Trilogy created by George Lucas Reviewer’s Note: This article is a review of the box set and its features. Peter Griffin (as Han Solo) Look, we got four or five of the main characters on this ship. I think we'll be fine. The Trilogy Seth McFarlane’s long-running (and twice canceled) Fox animated series Family Guy  has lampooned the Star Wars franchise many times since its 1999 premiere. In most cases, McFarlane and his writing staff have added many quick Star Wars- related gags to the satirical misadventures of the Griffin family (voiced by McFarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, and Seth Green) and the cast of supporting characters. In addition to visual references and adaptations of Star Wars quotes such as “Lois, if you strike me down, I shall beco

The Pacific  is what I like to call a “cinematic bookend” to the Emmy Award-winning 2001 HBO miniseries  Band of Brothers.  It’s not a sequel because it doesn’t follow Army soldiers in the European Theater of Operations. It’s more of a “companion series” because it’s about three Marines (John Basilone, Robert Leckie, and Eugene Sledge) and their experiences in the war against Japan. Because Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, and Gary Goetzman teamed up with most of the writers, producers, and directors of  Band of Brothers,  the 2010 miniseries was not made to compete with the earlier show. It was made in part to address Pacific War veterans’ concerns that Hanks and Spielberg focused on the ETO  twice  in less than three years ( Saving Private Ryan  was released in 1998) and that  their  story wasn’t being told. (This, too, was a complaint that the late Stephen Ambrose received after he wrote a series of books about the war in Europe. He was about to work on a book about the war in the

(C) 1989 G.P. Putnam's Sons  Reviewer's Note: I originally wrote this review in November of 1989 for Catalyst, the student newspaper of Miami-Dade Community College's South Campus. Clancy's new novel clearly a success Alex Diaz-Granados Managing Editor What would happen if a U.S. President were to approve a covert military operation against the Medellin Cartel in the mountains and jungles of Colombia? In Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy, author of the best-selling novels The Hunt for Red October and Cardinal of the Kremlin, creates a scenario pitting the U.S. military's special operations assets and the CIA's stalwart Jack Ryan against the ruthless Colombian drug barons. After a seemingly routine arrest at sea of two cartel hit men who have killed a wealthy yacht owner and his family, the FBI stumbles onto a complex money-laundering scheme linked to the drug lords. When the U.S, government begins freezing the cartel's financial assets, t

If you are old enough to remember the earthshaking events that took place between June 1989 (the Tianamen Square massacre in Beijing) and December 25, 1991 (Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's announcement that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would cease to exist six days later as a political entity), you probably recall feeling a sense of relief and exultation.  After all, unless you were a die-hard Marxist who believed that Communism was the solution to humanity's problems - never mind that it is one of the most oppressive and tyrannical forms of governance - there was plenty to celebrate, especially once the red and gold banner with the hammer and sickle was lowered from the Kremlin's Spasky Tower for the last time. The Cold War between the Russian-led Warsaw Pact and the U.S.-led free world was over. There was no need for an expensive and never-ending arms race. Countries such as Cuba, North Korea, and all of the former Soviet satellites in Easte