If not for the atomic bomb, I might not be here. My father came of age during World War II. He trained to be a pilot in 1945, and even after Hitler shot himself in his Berlin bunker, the common wisdom was that a war was still on, that Japan would never surrender. The common wisdom was that it would take around a million U.S. service members to successfully invade Japan, my father being one of them. The common wisdom was that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives in the long run. It seems to have saved my father’s life. And yet. The United States, my country, is the only... Read More

Let’s get something out of the way first. Despite being a strong supporter of responsible gun control, I absolutely love gunfights in movies. From John Woo’s acrobatic bullet ballets like Hard Boiled to the urban warfare in Heat, if a director can stage an action sequence involving firepower in a creative and compelling way, I’m so there. That’s where it gets tricky, isn’t it? How many gunfights have we seen in movies? Thousands. How many do you remember? That’s why, if you’re going to have folks blasting away at each other in your film, you’d... Read More

Okay, folks, time for a thought experiment. Imagine you’re a whale, a sperm whale to be precise, living in the year 1820. While most of your kind measures 50 feet long, you’re a big sucker that’s around 85 feet long. You spend your days hanging out with your pod, hunting squid, enjoying the freedom of the open ocean. Life is good, right? Well, that’s where we get into a good news/bad news scenario. The good news is that, as the largest toothed predator on the planet, you don’t often get hassled. The bad news is, inside of your head is a liquid wax called spermaceti.... Read More