Category: Movies
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‘Star Wars’ Collectibles & Toys Review: Star Wars The Black Series Artoo-detoo (R2-D2) (Dagobah) (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 40th Anniversary Figure)
Artoo-Detoo (R2-D2): A Jedi’s Loyal Mechanical Companion On August 1, 2020, Hasbro released a new “wave” of Star Wars The Black Series toys and collectibles to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of 1980’s Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and the tie-in Star Wars line of action figures, vehicles, toy lightsabers, and other toys…
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Adventures in Screenwriting: Mom Would Have Been Proud
Mom Would Have Been Proud Way back in the late Seventies – circa early in 1978 – I told my mom, “You know what? Someday I’m gonna write a movie. I wanna write one, anyway.” I had just seen Star Wars during one of the three times that I watched it over its long run…
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Movie Review: ‘Midway’ (2019)
Midway (2019) Directed by: Roland Emmerich Written by: Wes Tooke Starring: Ed Skrein, Tadanobu Asano, Luke Evans, Etsushi Toyokawa, Aaron Eckhart, Jun Kunimura, Nick Jonas, Peter Shinkoda, Mandy Moore, Hiro Kanawaga, Woody Harrelson, Patrick Wilson, Dennis Quaid From Smight to Emmerich In the summer of 1976, as the United States prepared to celebrate its Bicentennial, Universal Pictures released Midway,…
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Odds & Ends for July 24, 2020
Odds and Ends: July 24, 2020 Hi, there, Constant Reader. I hope you are safe, healthy, and practicing safe social distancing on this penultimate Friday of July 2020. As I sit down to write this in my little corner of Florida, it’s almost 2 PM Eastern (not that it matters, since I can’t publish this…
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Movie Review: ‘The Great Escape’
The Great Escape (1963) Written by: James Clavell and W.R. Burnett Based on: The Great Escape (1950), by Paul Brickhill Directed by: John Sturges Starring: Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Donald, James Garner, Gordon Jackson, David McCallum, Steve McQueen, Hannes Messemer, Heinz Weiss Group Captain Ramsey (BSO): Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn…
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‘Star Wars’ Collectibles & Toys Review: Hasbro ‘Star Wars The Black Series: Captain Phasma’ Action Figure
Captain Phasma – Stormtrooper Commander of the First Order In November 2015, Rhode Island-based Hasbro, Inc. released the first Star Wars The Black Series 6-inch scale action figures based on characters from the then-upcoming Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens feature film. Among the figures in this first wave was the sixth in the…
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Music Album Review: ‘A Bridge Too Far – Original MGM Motion Picture Soundtrack’
In June of 1977, Metro Goldwyn Mayer/United Artists released director Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far, a World War II epic based on Cornelius Ryan’s 1974 non-fiction book about Operation Market-Garden, the star-crossed attempt by the Allies to use three and a half airborne divisions (two American, one British, and one Polish brigade) and the…
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Music Album Review: ‘Superman: The Movie – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’
Hi, there, Constant Reader! Well, here we are on the first day of July 2020, and in my corner of Florida all is tranquil at home on a hot early summer afternoon. Presently, the temperature outside is a sizzling 94˚F; with humidity at 56% and a westerly breeze of 11 mph, the heat index is…
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Home Media Comparison: ‘A Bridge Too Far’ DVD vs. Blu-ray
A Bridge Too Far on Home Media When producer Joseph E. Levine’s $25 million adaptation of Cornelius Ryan’s non-fiction book A Bridge Too Far landed in theaters on June 15, 1977, home media as we know it today was in its infancy. Videocassette recorders existed, of course, but they were still mostly used by the…
A Certain Point of View, Too 