Author: Alex Diaz-Granados
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‘Star Wars’ Collectibles & Toys Review: Star Wars The Black Series Luke Skywalker (Bespin) – (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary Figure)
“The Force is With You, Young Skywalker…” On April 28, 2020, in anticipation of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back‘s Ruby Anniversary, Rhode Island-based Hasbro, Inc. released a new wave of its Star Wars: The Black Series action figures and other Star Wars-themed toys and collectibles. Based on the heroes, villains, and sidekicks seen in…
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‘Star Wars’ Collectibles & Toys Review: Hasbro Star Wars The Black Series Imperial Probe Droid (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary Figure)
Return of the Probot! On April 28, 2020, Hasbro Inc. of Pawtucket (Rhode Island) released a new wave of its ongoing Star Wars The Black Series 6-inch scale figures to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Alongside such fan favorites as Luke Skywalker (Bespin), Princess Leia Organa (Hoth),…
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DVD Set/TV Documentary Review: WWI: The Complete Story – 100th Memorial Edition
The TV Series On Tuesday, September 22, 1964, CBS broadcast The Summer of Sarajevo, the first of 26 30-minutes-long episodes of a documentary series titled World War One. Written by John Sharnik and Irve Tunick and released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the conflict, World War One featured a score by composer Morton Gould…
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Movie Watcher Memories: ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ at 40
On May 21, 1980, Twentieth Century Fox released director Irvin Kershner’s Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to writer-director George Lucas’ Star Wars, which was retroactively retitled as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope for its Summer 1981 re-release. Like Star Wars, it opened mid-week close to Memorial…
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Audiobook Review: ‘William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Collection’
On February 14, 2017, Random House Audio released William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Collection, a 15-CD box set featuring the three audiobook editions of author Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars Trilogy. It consists of dramatic readings of Doescher’s first three books in the William Shakespeare’s Star Wars series: Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope, The…
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Book Review: ‘William Shakespeare’s The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh’
Two trilogies are now behind us, dear reader….Thank you for sharing this journey with me, and may the Force be with you onward, into episodes 7, 8, and 9. – Ian Doescher, in his Afterword to William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of the Sith’s Revenge: Star Wars Part the Third Roll swiftly as thou canst, good…
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Movie Watcher Memories, or: Mom Nixes Shark Pic
I was 12-and-one-quarter years old when Steven Spielberg’s Jaws made its theatrical debut on June 20, 1975 and lived with my widowed mother, Beatriz Diaz-Granados, in a house in the unincorporated community of Westchester in suburban Miami-Dade County. At the time, it was just us two living at the house on Southwest 102nd Ave; my…
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Book Review: ‘The World Remade: America in World War I’
“The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.”— President Woodrow Wilson, on the State…
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Book Review: ‘William Shakespeare’s Tragedy of the Sith’s Revenge: Star Wars Part the Third’
The boy is nearly now within my grasp, And I shall make him mine with this next move. I shall devise a play to pull him in, Some tale that pricks his heart with grief and woe. Come players, to the list, ye are engag’d! – Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, Act II, Scene 4, William Shakespeare’s…
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Book Review: ‘A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918’
On May 30, 2006, Delacorte Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House, published G.J. Meyer’s A World Undone: The History of the Great War, 1914 to 1918, a one-volume history about the most misunderstood conflict that very few people living in the 21st Century know about: World War I. Overshadowed by the global conflict that…
A Certain Point of View, Too 