Quantcast
   
Tuesday - March 19, 2024

Posts Tagged With ‘ michael pena ’

 

The Road Better Off Not Taken

December 16th, 2018

As much as I love Unforgiven, In the Line of Fire, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Dirty Harry, I think my favorite Clint Eastwood film is Escape from Alcatraz. As bank robber Frank Morris, you can see him plotting a way off the famed prison from the very first scenes of the film. Eastwood’s Morris is taciturn, intelligent, and does not suffer fools gladly.* Clint Eastwood casts a long shadow. He’s been in the entertainment industry since 1955, and he has 72 acting credits and 40 directorial credits. At age 88, he keeps at it, releasing a film or two every few years. He’s made some... Read More

Earth’s Tiniest Heroes

July 8th, 2018

What do superheroes mean? Everything means something, but they don’t always mean the same thing. Westerns are a nostalgic look back at a time of independence and exploration. They’re also about the subjugation of native peoples and a time of almost complete anarchy. Science fiction can be a hopeful look to the years ahead, and it can also be a reflection of our anxieties about the present. Most folks tend to read superheroes as adolescent power fantasies. We want to have the brains of Iron Man, the raw power of the Hulk, the morality of Captain America. That’s why it’s easy to understand... Read More

Rocket Man

October 11th, 2015

The Martian is the movie we need right now. We live in an era of astonishing selfishness and decreasing selflessness. These days, fewer people study science and engineering during their college years. In fact, business is the most popular college major. Lots of us are taught that the proper trajectory in life is to get a well-paying job, get rich, and accumulate as much stuff as possible. Many of us are baffled by the idea of doing something for the common good, coming together for a singular goal. That’s the bad news. The good news is, people are fluid. We can change for the better.* We... Read More