It just so happens that I started to watch Ken Burns’ The Dustbowl just as I finished this book, and contrasting the two approaches is illustrative. It’s interesting that Steinbeck makes no mention of the man-made nature of the disaster, even though he knew it was man-made. I suspect this is to help further create …
Month: August 2014
Hot Coffee (2011, Susan Saladoff)
Full disclosure: I was once a drinker of the “frivolous law suits” koolaid and, if I am not mistaken, I may have even mentioned in my first book that I thought judges should make decisions on “non economic” damages in civil suits.
Granados: Danzas espanolas (1994) by Angela Hewitt
I love Keith Jarrett, and I want to believe that his “improvised” sets from the mid ’70s on are indeed spontaneously conceived, but listening to these dances, I detect at the very least the inspiration for (to get snobby) the harmonic language of The Koln Concert at the very least, in two of these. This …
The Campaign to Fire Dave Nonis: Jake Gardiner
I think it’s safe to say that Toronto Maple Leafs’ GM Dave Nonis has had a pretty mediocre summer. No, he didn’t break the bank on any underwhelming free agents, like he did in 2013. But he also didn’t demonstrably improve the Leafs in any significant way – if anything they are shallower than they …
Battleship (2012, Peter Berg)
I briefly decided to live blog this one twitter, the first time I ever tried, but frankly I just got tired. It’s hard to know what to do with this film, produced by a toy company, “based” on a board game, and full of every single Navy movie cliche in history.