Musings from the basement...

A Month of Kurosawa: Sanshiro Sugata (1943)

November 1, 2018 0 Comments

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, Akira Kurosawa: A Viewer’s Guide, due out Dec. 15 from Rowman & Littlefield — preorder here! — I’ll be doing capsule reviews all month covering every single Kurosawa film and posting (very) brief excerpts. These will be short impressions and recommendations, nothing more. For a full, detailed analysis of each, grab the book! Sanshiro Sugata (1943) It’s perhaps fitting that this, Akira Kurosawa’s directorial debut, is a story about a man of immense talent being awakened to the joys of life through that talent. Sanshiro Sugata is about a competitive fighter who must overcome his impulsive, often violent nature in order to find inner peace. Kurosawa wasn’t violent, but he was passionate and driven, so there are some parallels…
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Films

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Musical Memories: Jane’s Addiction, “Summertime Rolls,” and dancing on a rooftop

May 21, 2018 1 Comment

Songs are stories. A song can conjure up a time and place like nothing else. Some songs are inextricably etched together with moments in my life. These are Musical Memories. For a couple of summers, I lived on a rooftop, crowded into an apartment with a gaggle of bearded, sweaty men with strange accents. They called themselves “Texans.” During the day, we’d dress up like cowboys, throw rubber chickens at one another, then have a shootout. We got paid to do this. In the evenings, we’d go back to our rooftop apartment and drain many, many cans of very, very cheap beer. It paid like shit and the work was not what I was cut out to do, but the carefree lifestyle and the people…
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Music, Videos

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That time I wasted my life editing together a ‘new’ J.R.R. Tolkien book, then lost it

April 17, 2018 0 Comments

The recent announcement of a ‘new’ book by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Gondolin, which will compile previously published material about one of the great tragic epics of Middle Earth’s early days, brought to mind a few weeks of wasted life circa 2002 or so. It’s a waste that still frustrates me to this day. Years ago, I got this idiotic idea in my head to edit together a load of Tolkien stuff into a standalone book. There was a wealth of material about a character called Turin, a cursed man who goes through some truly awful stuff, up to and including accidental incest and the death of just about everyone and everything he comes in contact with. Yes, it’s a real joy! Turin’s story…
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Books & Authors, Geek Stuff, Random Musings

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The final stages of writing a book are always the most nerve-wracking

March 24, 2018 3 Comments

The last few hundred yards of a marathon are always the toughest. Well, okay, I’ve never run a marathon and doubt I could run more than a block and a half even if being chased by knife-wielding ducks, but you get my point*. I’m currently under contract with Rowman & Littlefield, and have been neck deep in writing a manuscript since last August, due to be delivered by May 1. (I’d love to be able to announce what it is, but have to wait until they release the information first.) I’m almost there. Being immersed in a big project is generally a must for me. Keeps me focused. Keeps me sane. And it’s gratifying seeing something come together piece by piece. The act of creation,…
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Random Musings, Writing

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Annihilation is a sleeper science fiction gem with GOD-AWFUL marketing and heady themes

March 14, 2018 2 Comments

You may have seen the name “Annihilation” in passing. Natalie Portman, a shimmering force field, monsters? That’s the one. It’s in theaters in the U.S., Canada, and China right now, where it’s getting stomped by Black Panther and others, and is on Netflix everywhere else. Watch the trailers and it looks like a movie we’ve seen before. A concerned lover (Portman) takes on a dangerous task to rescue their loved one (husband) from a strange place (inside a huge force field, or “shimmer”), but there are monsters there, so it becomes a fight for survival. This is the picture every trailer and commercial paints of the movie. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The trailers are absolute garbage and do a TERRIBLE job of…
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Films, Geek Stuff

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