I love movies, tech, politics, games and more. I've been writing professionally since 1985 and, thankfully, have worked with some of the best editors in the business. I'm also a proud member of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association (Critics Choice Awards).
News out of Disney today is the imminent closure of venerable game studios LucasArts. I can’t say this comes as much of a surprise as the company seemed to be going virtually nowhere for several years now. However, the studio shouldn’t pass into oblivion without remarking on the impact they had earlier on. LucasArts was […]
I have a friend who almost never fails to ask me what game I’m currently enamored with. Oddly, for possibly the first time in my life, the only game I’m currently addicted to is on my phone and it’s an Android version of a card game we often play at Penn Gamers. It’s called Tichu. […]
You can pretty much say I grew up with Star Trek. We watched the original series in my house on a black and white 13″ Zenith TV that we thought was all anyone needed. It was the same TV I sleepily watched while Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the actual moon. Later came […]
A doctor living in East Germany in 1980 is forced to endure the humiliation of working in a remote low-tech hospital in Barbara. Barbara is the kind of film artsy reviewers love but that challenge many viewers to comprehend why. It’s billed as a political and psychological thriller but will elicit little sense of either […]
The next grand tale from the author of the Twilight Saga pits humanity against an alien race that exists by inhabiting the bodies of other races in The Host. A race of aliens known as Souls takes over Earth over with almost no bloodshed. These Souls take over a human and eradicate all of their memories […]
Dramatic climate change suddenly threatens the existence of a solitary caveman family in the new animated film from Dreamworks—The Croods. The main plot of The Croods is pretty typical in that it takes current day aspects of everyday life and pastes them onto a Paleolithic family. The father, Grug (voiced by Nicolas Cage), is obsessed […]
Timeline is a simple little game that we’ve been playing of late. The core game (now more accurately referred to as Timeline: Inventions) comes with 110 cards that depict inventions throughout human history. The cards have a picture of the invention on both sides and its name. On just one side of the card you’ll […]
It’s dull, flat and extremely predictable almost in an insulting fashion.
An unassuming local adman is recruited to head up the messaging for a referendum vote to determine the fate of Chile’s long-time dictator in the new foreign film, No. In 1988, under intense worldwide pressure, Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet decided to allow his people to vote on whether he should run the country for another […]
Veteran 911 operator Halle Berry is pushed to the breaking point, along with the audience, when she takes The Call. This is the latest thriller from director Brad Anderson who last kept audiences on the edge of their seat with his 2008 tension-inducer, Transsiberrian (though I wasn’t one of them). The Call focuses on Jordan Turner […]
Matthew Fox stars as a World War II general who walks a tightrope between revenge and justice for Japan’s divine leader in Emperor. Fox plays Brigadier General Bonner Fellers, a member of General Douglas MacArthur‘s staff. MacArthur is recreated here in commendable fashion by Tommy Lee Jones. The movie literally starts off with a big bang as […]
Hunger, obesity and their potential causes are scrutinized in the new documentary from the makers of Food, Inc. called A Place at the Table. The film points out that, in the 1970s, the will was there to end hunger in the United States. Action by the government nearly eradicated the epidemic only to have it storm back […]