Everything else is just made up
It’s now been a little over three years since the release of my book 35 Miles From Shore. The picture on the left was taken at my very first book signing, which happened to be at a Borders store in Chicago. By now I had fully expected that the book would have made its way [...]
A review of Gasland written and directed by Josh Fox Rating ***** Remember a while back how outraged we all were over the BP oil spill in the Gulf? What if I were to tell you that there is a much more damaging environmental catastrophe occurring right now in the U.S. that dwarfs the BP [...]
A few weeks ago when the Casey Anthony verdict came back as not guilty, I wasn’t surprised. I had not watched every minute of the trial. Much of what I knew about the case I learned from the slanted coverage on HLN and the biased coverage from Nancy Grace. But thanks to HLN I did get [...]
Review of I love you Phillip Morris written and directed by Glenn Ficarra John Requa Rating **** This is a hard film not to like. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor play the two main characters at the heart of this story. Jim plays con man Steven Russell who decides that it’s easier to con people [...]
A review of Inside Job written and Directed by Charles Ferguson Rating ***** Over the past couple of years I’ve started but never finished several books about the financial meltdown. I had the best intentions, as did the authors who wrote the books. But everytime I got to the section on credit default swaps, derivatives, [...]
A review of Overboard by Micheal Touglas Rating ***** This is the story of two sailboats, a storm, and two men tossed overboard. The incident took place in May of 2005. The 45 foot sail boat Almeisan was sailing from Connecticut to Bermuda when it, like the other sail boat, got caught in a massive [...]
Review of Chow Down Directed by Julia Grayer and Gage Johnston Rating *** 1/2 I just got back from grocery shopping today. I spent $140 for groceries for two people. While that’s a little higher than normal, the one thing different about this trip to the grocery store is that I returned with not a [...]
Forks Over Knives written and directed by Lee Fulkerson rating *** 1/2 I first got tuned in to eating less meat as a way to better health after reading Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and the documentary that followed called Food, Inc. Michael’s book was an eye opener. The topic of his book, however, was more [...]
Now that I’m working in advertising I find myself studying and critiquing different types of advertisements. I mentioned how dumb I thought it was for a local grocery store to use a QR code in a TV ad in my article QR codes: The good, the bad, and the ugly. So I’ve decided to start a [...]
Review of The Red Tent written by Ennio de Concini, Richard L. Adams, Richard Adams and directed by Mikhail Kalatozov Rating **** One of the reasons I have this blog is to bring attention to nonfiction books, films, and documentaries that others might have missed. A few posts back I wrote about the film Silkwood, [...]
Within hours of the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound, one of the major networks played an animation of the dramatic Navy Seal operation. There was a firefight. A helicopter was forced to land in the compound. It was right up Hollywood’s alley (note: The people behind the Hurt Locker are already planning a film). [...]
After almost two years of searching, they’ve finally located and recovered the black box of Air France Flight 447. This is the flight that crashed in the Atlantic, killing all on board. You can read the full story at Investigators find Air France black box. There is going to be a lot of interest in [...]
Review of Silkwood written by Alice Arlen and Nora Ephron and directed by Mike Nichols Rating **** One advantage of using an online service like Blockbuster or Netflix is the ability to watch older movies that the stores no longer carry. This movie, released in 1983, was mentioned in a story related to the nuclear [...]
The two films I’m writing about in this post were both nominated for best picture last year – 127 Hours and The Fighter. So it’s not like they need any help from me. That’s why I’m combining both reviews. But both films deserve to be on my end of year best of list. This past [...]
