Star Trek II: The Wrath of the Well-Read Villain

My kids have not grown up on "Star Trek", and until recently they knew nothing about it beyond Spock's ears, a captain named Kirk, and maybe a ship named Enterprise. For our regular movie night I recently picked "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." I didn't tell the kids what I was going to … Continue reading Star Trek II: The Wrath of the Well-Read Villain

Favorite movie endings

During my convalescence this past winter I watched a lot of movies. I've gotten busy making YouTube playlists of my favorite music and movies. I started one playlist privately just to collect some of my favorite concluding scenes from movies, and I threw in a few scenes from old movies that marked the Intermission break. … Continue reading Favorite movie endings

Pinocchio and Moby Dickens

My 10-year-old daughter and I recently read Carlo Collodi's 1883 story, "The Adventures of Pinocchio." Now, it turns out that the story is fairly dark, much more than the famous Disney movie of 1940. Parents may wish to be careful with this one, and a full plot description of Collodi's story can be found on … Continue reading Pinocchio and Moby Dickens

Hero, meet your villain; or, never mind

It's a common trope in fiction: a final confrontation between the central hero of a story and its central villain. It's an important trope in Westerns, both on the page and screen -- Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" is just one famous example. And we see it in works of fiction that are too many to count: … Continue reading Hero, meet your villain; or, never mind