Author: Alex Diaz-Granados
-
Musings & Thoughts for Monday, October 18, 2021, or: Of Moms, Birthdays, and My ‘Maybe Later’ Pile
Hi, there, Dear Reader. It is late morning here in my corner of west-central Florida on Monday, October 18, 2021. It is a nice fall day; the current temperature is 74˚F (23˚C) under sunny skies. With humidity at 38% and the wind blowing from the east-northeast at 11 MPH (18 KM/H), the feels-like temperature is…
-
On Film and Film Watching: My (Inadvertent)Saturday Night Diane Lane Film Festival
“Certain things leave you in your life and certain things stay with you. And that’s why we’re all interested in movies- those ones that make you feel, you still think about. Because it gave you such an emotional response, it’s actually part of your emotional make-up, in a way.”― Tim Burton, Burton on Burton Last…
-
On Film and Film-Watching: Revisiting ‘The Hunt for Red October’ in 4K…and Listening to the Commentary Track
Well, it’s early afternoon in New Hometown, Florida on Saturday, October 16, 2021. Even though it is ostensibly autumn, because we are in the subtropical zone it is summer-like hot outside. The current temperature is 86˚F (30˚C) under mostly cloudy skies. With humidity at 41% and the wind blowing from the north-northwest at 8 MPH…
-
On Poetry: ‘Where Time’s Winds Blow’
I rarely write poetry. I am, first and foremost, a writer of prose, with a side dish of screenwriting added for good measure. Poetry is a genre that I don’t tackle much because I always feel like, “Nah. This is drivel. It doesn’t sing.” In today’s parlance, poetry, my friend, is not in my comfort…
-
From the Epinions Files: ‘Anna Nicole Smith: Exposed’ DVD Review
(Written for Epinions in 2004, when I was 41!) Erotic? No. Soporific? Yes. Warning: This review deals with a DVD that contains “erotic” material, and as such contains references to nudity, sexuality, and other topics which may be offensive to some readers. Part One: Sex, Money, and Balancing Budgets, or, Why I Own this Awful…
-
Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, October 13, 2021, or: Shatner Boldly Goes to Suborbit, and My Blu-ray Collection Expands (a Bit)
Hi, there, Dear Reader. It is late morning here in New Hometown, Florida on Wednesday, October 13, 2021. It’s gray and somewhat cool outside; the current temperature is 77˚F (25˚C) under cloudy skies. With humidity at 48% and the wind blowing from the northeast at 6 MPH (9 KM/H),the feels-like temperature is 74˚F (22˚C). The…
-
Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, October 12, 2021, or: Parting Shots of a Protracted Rift Between Siblings
“I blinked my eyes and in an instant, decades had passed.”― John Mark Green, Taste the Wild Wonder: Poems Today it dawned on me that it’s been over half a decade since I last had a polite, if not friendly, exchange of words with my half-sister Victoria after our mother’s death. It wasn’t even a…
-
For the Love of Movies: Watching an Old Classic and Keeping Tabs on My Blu-ray Library
Last night I watched George Lucas’s first box office hit, American Graffiti (1973). It was a last-minute choice; I originally planned to watch the 1994 miniseries The Stand, the first adaptation of Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic novel about a government-engineered “super flu” that kills 99% of humanity and sets up the survivors for an “end of…
-
On Blu-ray Collecting: A Quick Update About ‘The Stand’ Blu-ray Set’s ETA
It’s mid-afternoon here in my corner of west-central Florida on Sunday, October 10, 2021. Except for the sound of the big TV out in the common room – Alfred, The Caregiver’s boyfriend of over a year, is watching the Paramount Network and he has the volume cranked up – the house is quiet. My bedroom…
-
On Blu-ray Collecting: A Glimmer of Hope in the Continuing Saga of Late Pre-Orders
For those of you who are following the continuing saga of Perpetually Delayed Pre-Ordered Blu-rays, I have an optimistic update regarding the ship-out date of The Stand (2020). If you recall, July was a busy month for pre-orders on Amazon, at least for me. Some were of books that will be published between early October…
