Author: Seth Harris

An immigrant from the U.S. trying to make sense of an increasingly saddening world.

Movie Review – Coherence

Coherence (2013)
Written by James Ward Byrkit & Alex Manugian
Directed by James Ward Byrkit

coherence

Emily arrives at a dinner party at a friend’s house where conversation quickly turns to the historic passing of a comet over the United States that evening. Reports are coming out of people’s smartphone screens spontaneously cracking, and one party guest has a brother who is a physicist and warn that strange electromagnetic phenomena could occur. Everything goes wrong with the power shuts off, and the guests notice one house down the road as the only building with any light. Two people go to investigate, and things get stranger and stranger. A lockbox is found at the other house with numbered photos of all the party guests. As tensions rise so does paranoia, and the people gathered that evening begin to turn on each other.

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Movie Review – Ghost Stories

Ghost Stories (2017)
Written & Directed by Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman

ghost stories

Professor Phillip Goodman has made a career out of being a skeptic of all things supernatural and mystic. When we catch up with him, he’s exposing a medium that preys on grieving parents. Out of nowhere, Goodman is contacted by presumed dead paranormal investigator Charles Cameron, an inspiration to Goodman. Cameron claims that he had a crisis of faith and discovered three cases that he could find no rational explanation for. Goodman takes these three cases with the intent of doing his investigation and proving them hoaxes. However, as the good professor explores each incident and speaks to the people who witnessed each one he finds strange coincidences that hint at something more sinister behind these events.

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Movie Review – Wag the Dog

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Wag the Dog (1997)
Written by Hilary Henkin and David Mamet
Directed by Barry Levinson

wag the dog

When the President is under the weight of a scandal he gets help from Conrad Brean, a master spin doctor who has an endless bag of tricks to manipulate the media. He creates distractions that get people talking about the spin instead of the scandal. So the President needs his help when he is caught fooling around with an underage Firefly scout during her troupe’s visit to the White House. Brean strikes upon the idea of creating a false war with Albania to fill up the news cycle. Brean gets help from White House staffer Winifred Ames and Hollywood producer Stanley Motss to create a false yet believable war. This war comes complete with footage from war-torn Albania, a star-studded patriotic anthem, and war hero that needs to be brought home.

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Movie Review – Boy

Boy (2010)
Written & Directed by Taika Waititi

James-Rolleston-Boy

Boy lives on the eastern coast of New Zealand in 1984. He lives on a small farm with his Nan, his brother, and cousins. He loves Michael Jackson and his absentee father. He hangs out with his pals Dallas and Dynasty while swooning after Chardonnay, a girl in his class. Then one day, when his Nan is out of town, his father returns and enlists Boy in helping him discover money he buried in a field years ago. Boy will spend some weeks getting to know his father better, imagining a life away from this place, and ultimately learning the reality behind his father and the fantasies he has constructed around the man.

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Movie Review – The Adderall Diaries

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The Adderall Diaries (2016)
Written & Directed by Pamela Romanowsky

adderall-diaries

Stephen Elliott’s first book was a memoir on his mother’s death due to cancer and the subsequent emotional and physical abuse at his father’s hands which he cites as driving him to drugs. Stephen has gotten a new book deal and is checking out what he wants to write about next, finally setting on the murder trial of Hans Reiser, a software guru accused of killing his estranged wife. During a reading from his memoir, Stephen is interrupted by his father whom he has written had died years prior. This sudden revelation causes the writer to lose credibility among New York’s publishing scene and eventually strains his relationships. With little options, Stephen decides to directly confront his father and his misgivings about his memories of the past.

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Comic Book Review – The Kingdom

The Kingdom (1999)
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Ariel Olivetti, Mike Zeck, Jerry Ordway, Mark Pajarillo, Brian Apthorp, Matt Haley, Frank Quitely, and Barry Kitson

kingdom tpb cover

In 1996, DC Comics published Kingdom Come, a four issue prestige mini-series under their Elseworlds banner. Elseworlds was an imprint that DC would use to tell “imaginary” or What If? style stories. Kingdom Come stood out from the pack because it’s painted art came courtesy of Alex Ross, an artist who first made his mark with the fantastic Marvels mini-series. Ross co-wrote Kingdom Come with Mark Waid and delivered a story set approximately thirty years in the future to examine how an elderly Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman dealt with a world that was becoming increasingly darker and more violent. Fan reaction was through the roof, and DC wanted to capitalize on the ongoing buzz around this brief story. So, they decided to greenlight The Kingdom.

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Movie Review – Remember

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Remember (2016)
Written by Benjamin August
Directed by Atom Egoyan

remember

Zev Guttman wakes to find his wife Ruth is missing. Exiting his bedroom, he finds himself in the hallway of a nursing home where a kind nurse explains that Ruth passed away months ago. Zev is slipping further into dementia and losing track of memory from both the present and the deep past. His only friend is Max, a fellow resident of the nursing home who has a secret pact with Zev. One evening Max gives Zev a letter which sets the latter man on a journey across America, looking for a man named Rudy Kulander. This man has ties to both Max and Zev and their meeting will end in bloodshed.

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Comic Book Review – DC One Million

dc summer blockbusters 1990s

DC One Million (1998)
Written by Grant Morrison (with James Robinson, Ron Marz, Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning)
Art by Val Semeiks (with Peter Snejbjerg, Howard Porter, Bryan Hitch, Butch Guice)

JLA_One_Million_TP

In a burst of power, the Justice Legion of the 853rd Century appears before the modern day JLA. This team of the future explains they have come to hold down the fort while Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and the others travel into 853rd Century to herald the return of Superman Prime who has been in a self-imposed exile within the sun for millennia. The teams swap places with the JLA rookies (Steel, Zauriel, Plastic Man, Big Barda, Orion, and Huntress staying behind). As soon as the original team departs, all hell breaks loose. The android Hourman releases a nano-virus that was secretly programmed into him and Vandal Savage nukes Buenos Aires. It becomes clear this whole hero exchange was turned into a plan to destroy hope in the galaxy and transcends the present and future.

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Movie Review – The Witch

The Witch (2016)
Written & Directed by Robert Eggers

the witch

In the 1630s, a man named William and his family are exiled from his Puritan plantation after he is found guilty of promoting an alternative view of accepted Christianity. After traveling through the wilderness, the family settles on a remote plot of land on the edge of the woods. While playing with the baby of the family, eldest daughter Thomasin suddenly loses him to an unseen force in those woods. She’s met with suspicion by her mother and William is driven further into desperation. The crops rot on the stalk, the goat is only giving blood, and there is a malevolent air about the land. The eldest son, Caleb strikes upon a plan to venture into the woods to gather rabbits from traps so that the family can sustain themselves with some bit of food, but this journey will damn his entire family.

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Movie Review – Mojave

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Mojave (2016)
Written & Directed by William Monahan

mojave

Tom is an incredibly famous and successful Hollywood director who is drowning the sorrows of his personal life in alcohol and partying. After a particularly draining bender, he drives his jeep off into the Mojave Desert for some solace. Tom is in an accident that flips his vehicle over, and he continues on foot only to encounter a malevolent stranger who is stalking the sands. Jack is a grizzled and articulate man wandering the desert armed with a hunting rifle. Tom suspects no good can come of this and a physical struggle ensues that leaves Tom with the gun and on the run from Jack. Tom’s paranoia leads to a tragic mistake that Jack intends to use against him even after the director escapes the desert.

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