Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption proves why King is a master storyteller. This novella is a masterclass in storytelling technique, demonstrating flawless pacing, excellent use of dialogue, and natural character development. While King can be overly descriptive in his other works, he shows remarkable restraint here, stripping everything from the writing but the bare essentials.... Continue Reading →
In the 1980 film Somewhere in Time, Christopher Reeve (of Superman fame) plays a man who falls in love with a portrait of a young woman long dead. His obsession with her photo leads him to discard everything that reminds him of the seventies, and following a rather intense night of self-hypnosis, he travels back... Continue Reading →
Every streaming service wants to make the next Game of Thrones. Barring the last two seasons' abysmal ratings, George R.R. Martin's book-based drama had studios the world over greening with envy, and because of that, viewers have been subjected to a flood of poorly conceived imitations the likes of which we haven't seen since the... Continue Reading →
I sit (virtually) with my artistic conspirator and college-attending daughter, Jasmine, to discuss one of our favorite pieces of fiction, Howl's Moving Castle, comparing Diana Wynne Jones's original fantasy novel with Hayao Miyazaki's cinematic interpretation. We also get into anime in general and the differences between Western and Japanese storytelling. Love Studio Ghibli? Or books... Continue Reading →
Everything old is new again! Nostalgia sells, and like any good business, Hollywood is banking on your childhood like never before. Instead of the innovative storytelling we grew up with in the '80s, we are inundated with sequels, prequels, remakes, and reboots. Disney gave us new Star Wars, Amazon's Rings of Power brought us back... Continue Reading →
Whoo-Boy. A lot's been going on, so let's get to it. Ages of Aenya As you probably know, Ages of Aenya finally became available last month, and sales have been brisk. It's great knowing people from as far as Europe and the UK have read the story and have had nothing but good things to... Continue Reading →
I feel that I owe J.K. an apology. I had always felt that her depiction of evil was a bit naive, 2-dimensional, "comic-booky." I had long taken the liberal stance that real evil doesn't exist, or if it does, it's very, very rare. People are genuinely good, I thought, and genuinely want to do good... Continue Reading →
It seems to me that a lot of feminists just don’t know when to celebrate. It isn’t as if the world doesn’t still have a ways to go before we reach equality between the sexes, we most certainly do. But that doesn’t mean we cannot take note of small victories along the way. What is, at times, even more aggravating is when feminists try and turn positives into negatives.
Case in point, Wonder Woman, which just released this weekend, is a fantastic film with a fantastic star, Gal Gadot, directed by a female director, Patty Jenkins. It is the first female-led superhero film since 1984’s abysmal Supergirl, and the best reviewed DC film on Rotten Tomatoes at a whopping 94%. Audiences are loving it, as the movie has already raked in 100 million. Wonder Woman is all kinds of groundbreaking, but none of that seems to matter to CNN film critic Lewis Beale. Never mind that my two daughters, 7 and 12, were utterly ecstatic leaving the theater, or that I could see in their eyes that same sense of well, wonder, that I must have had at their age watching Christopher Reeve don the cape. For so-called feminists like Beale, Wonder Woman’s virtues are invalidated because Gadot is just too damn pretty, and she shows just a bit too much thigh. It’s at these moments that I wonder (no pun intended) whether people like Beale even understand what feminism is.
Now I have given a great deal of consideration to this notion that female heroes cannot be sexy, as I have struggled to reconcile my naturist ideals with feminism. And while my own heroine, Thelana, will most definitely never come near the status of icon that Wonder Woman embodies, it is worth noting that many of the same arguments in support of a thigh-exposing heroine can be made for my all-nude hero.
Thelana: The Nude Heroine
I can already hear the detractors, the angry feminists calling me out as a sexist. Their argument, I imagine, will go something like this,
Thelana is the lead heroine in Nick Alimonos’ fantasy epic, “Ages of Aenya,” and she has everything we love to see in a female character: strength, intelligence, and she can dish out punishment good as her male companion. She even passes the Bechdel test! So why am I up in arms about Thelana? Well, when it comes to hyper-sexualizing women, this author’s hit rock bottom. We’re not talking chainmail bikinis or skintight tights here either, because with this super hero, there is no costume. You read that right. She is utterly, unapologetically, naked. If “Aenya” was some kind of erotica, I might give it a pass. But no, this is serious fantasy, straight out of Westeros and Middle Earth. So, as a…
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I know what people are going to say. First, I am going to get accused of click-baiting. The only reason I am criticizing this film is to get attention, they'll say. This is, perhaps, what is most depressing. Social media creates peer pressure, to the point where you're afraid to voice your true feelings. Whether it's 97% for Star... Continue Reading →
Bob Clark’s excellent, albeit lengthy article is best summed up by his final paragraph, “Simply put, after all these years, the conversation surrounding them hasn’t ended, and isn’t likely to cease any time soon, as passionate supporters seek to defend it, even in the face of overwhelming objecting opinions. The fact that so many people are still talking about these films, even to decry their motives and attack their substance, stands as proof positive enough that they succeeded in making a permanent mark with audiences, providing a series of expert escapist adventure every bit as disturbing and thought-provoking as they are entertaining– love it or hate it, the movie remains a frequent talking point, and that makes it a modern classic.” I have made similar arguments in my own reviews. The Star Wars prequels remain true works of art; the proof is in the way they are continually discussed and debated. Poor films are forgotten. Lucas’ magnum opus has never been, and will likely never be.
Star Wars—Episode II: Attack of the Clones
***1/2
By Bob Clark
Prologue: Guilty Pleasures
In Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the respected surgeon Tomas finds himself unable to find work after returning to Soviet-occupied Prague, thanks to his refusal to recant an article he’d written prior to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. The matter of his article makes for one of the most persuasive readings of Greek mythology—a political interpretation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. According to Tomas, the Communists of his country who claimed to be unaware of the Soviet Union’s atrocities were just as guilty as Oedipus, the Theban king who brought plagues upon his kingdom by unwittingly marrying his mother. “As a result of your ‘not knowing,’ this country has lost its freedom…” writes Kundera. “And you shout that you feel no guilt? How can you stand the sight of what you’ve…
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The Art of Storytelling 
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