Category: Film
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My Oscar Picks for 2011
This Sunday, February 27, 2011 will be the 83rd annual Oscar awards presentation. An art form with a storied past, and I believe a bright future. Although India churns out many more pictures than the U.S. each year, the art of the film and the studio are uniquely American. I’m…
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True Grit – Film Review
The Coens open True Grit at night with a slow zoom in on a slain man lying just off a softly lit porch, being blanketed by snowfall. The voice-over is Mattie Ross, speaking to the audience from nearly three decades in the future. She describes how her father was shot…
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2010 Academy Awards – Vote Your Favorites
For years I ran an office pool on the Oscars and did very well. I’ve since dropped the gambling which was a smart move because over the last few years my predictions have not matched well with the Academy members. As we approach the March 7th awards show it’s worth…
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Up – Film Review
What is the definition of story? My answer is “conflict.” Great stories unfold against a backdrop of tension and combine reality and fantasy. Pixar Animation Studios has mastered this formula for kids and grown-ups alike. Their latest work, Up, tracks the life of Carl Fredricksen (Ed Asner) from the time…
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My Oscar Picks – 2009
I used to be much better at picking the winners than I am these days. I would see every film, some more than once, then sit down and agonize over who would win. Frankly I was pretty good at it in the ’90’s. One year I only missed four or…
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The Soundtrack Stands Alone
Film composers are required to be extremely thoughtful and versatile artists. Strictly speaking films are two dimensional; vision + sound. The director has a lot of tools in the tool box when it comes to visuals; light, color, movement, pacing, costume, editing, etc. Sound has a much more limited palette;…
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Settling the Screen Actors Guild Dispute: A Proposal
The Screen Actor’s Guild is on the verge a strike, much like the writers last year. At issue is the amount of compensation actors receive from digital/internet medium revenues collected by the studios. Standard contracts were written before the internet was a mass medium and the actors want the terms…
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Yet Another Format, Blu-ray
I’ve had all the home video formats. It started with the Sony Betamax, then quickly moved to VHS, as the electronics company JVC won that war. Marketers take note, never use the word Beta in the name of your product. From my perspective Beta was superior to VHS in almost…
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Through a Glass and Darkly – Veterans Day
Today, Veterans Day, is a day to reflect and appreciate the countless citizens who served or are now serving our country in military uniform. My father and his brother were in the Navy in WWII, having enlisted right after Pearl Harbor. Dad served in the Pacific Theater and was involved…
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Paul Newman – Icon of the Screen is Dead at 83
My earliest memory of Paul Newman was in 1967 when my family was on our annual summer vacation at my Uncle’s lake house in Michigan. It was a small city that had only one movie theater. They were screening Cool Hand Luke that July, and I remember it well, “What…
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Remembering September 11, 2001
The towers have been gone for seven years now, and with them over 3,000 who lost their lives there, at the Pentagon and in the Pennsylvania plane crash. They are sorely missed. Many others suffered injuries that day and survived. What to do with that sacred ground in New York…
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Don LaFontaine, Voice of the Movies is Dead
We all know the voice. It’s the one you hear when you’re sitting in a darkened movie theater waiting for the feature presentation to begin. The trailers for coming attractions are projected and so is that voice. Deep, diction perfect, clear like a galloping horse in the night, cutting through…
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The Power of Film – Pangea Day 2008
UPDATED JANUARY 26, 2026. The websites and links to the YouTube video are no longer available. Apologies for the inconvenience. Pangea means entire earth. The supercontinent of 250 million years ago before the land masses separated into today’s configuration. At that time the world was one. Today it’s still one,…
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Elizabeth: The Golden Age – Film Review
Elizabeth the 1st has been endlessly studied from all angles. Historians, novelists, biographers and of course filmmakers. Arguably, no one knows as much about the psyche and behavior of Elizabeth than the academy award-winning actress Cate Blanchett. Playing her first in the 1998 film Elizabeth, and continuing her interpretation in…
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Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who – Film Review
It’s not that easy to find a theatrical release suitable for a 3 year old. But it was Good Friday, we weren’t working or schooling, and determined to go to the show. So we navigated our way through a spring snowstorm to see Hollywood’s latest attempt to bring a Dr.…
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Arthur C. Clarke – The Cosmos Reclaims One of it’s Own
It was late fall 1968. I just got off the school bus and walked into my childhood home. My father greeted me by saying he had a very special birthday present. We got into the car and 90 minutes later we were in St. Louis, driving up to a movie…
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Academy Splits Oscar into 13 Pieces
Photo Credit: The New York Times The 80th annual Academy Awards ceremony aired last night, hosted for the second time by Jon Stewart. It was more informal and well down on the energy scale than in years past. Mr. Stewart did a great job at bringing his signature lines and…
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My Oscar Picks on My 50th Post
This my 50th post! I started this blog last October as an experiment in social computing. Since I work in the Internet space, I thought it would be good research as we look at launching community for our brand. I’m really into it now. It’s very early Sunday morning February…