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Almost any sci-fi film nerd will already know the story about why the death of Captain Dallas in Ridley Scott’s landmark 1979 film, Alien, is not shown on-screen. Rather, the alien xenomorph rears up before him, and then the camera cuts away to a shot of Ripley, listening in on a radio to her captain’s…
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So many good books have already been written about Hollywood legend Humphrey Bogart that even a biographer as talented as William J. Mann must have felt the need to find a new twist. A new gimmick. And with Bogie and Bacall: The Surprising True Story of Hollywood’s Greatest Love Affair, Mann found one—a combined biography…
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A few days ago, Google showed me a link to my book on one of the big piracy websites. I feel like I’ve finally hit the big time.
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This installment of my ongoing Classic Sci-Fi Book Covers series is another “modern classic,” dating back only to 1999. But I still really like it. The book itself, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, is quite a bit older, having been published in 1974 when it won the trifecta of sci-fi literary awards—the Hugo, the…
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I’ve read many fine coming-of-age novels in my time, but never one about a 62-year-old protagonist. Yet, in Under the Wave at Waimea, that is exactly what Paul Theroux delivers. And it’s a thing of beauty. Joe Sharkey is a champion big wave surfer in Hawaii. Past his prime but still a hero to younger…
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** SPOILERS BELOW** (Disclaimer: This essay is about a film by the director Roman Polanski, who, as of this writing, is a fugitive from justice in the United States on rape charges involving a minor. I have no opinion regarding Mr. Polanski as a person. This essay merely concerns the film as a work of…
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The first time I saw MTV, it was in black-and-white. My dad had gotten a new job in Tallahassee and had rented a small one-bedroom apartment there to live in until the rest of the family could move up. I went to visit him one weekend and slept on the couch in the tiny living…
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Hey, I haven’t plugged my book in…like…days! Many, many days! So, I feel no guilt in doing so now. Yesterday, I googled Twice the Trouble just to see if anyone had posted anything new about it, and I discovered that it’s available on Hoopla. With pretty good ratings! Who knew? It made my day.
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Earlier this month, America lost one of its funniest and most versatile character actors, Garrit Graham. He was one of those actors whom everyone recognized instantly, but no one ever knew his name. Rather, he was “that guy who played X in Z,” where X is one of your favorite characters in one of your…
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