“Jedi Scum” & Why It Made Me Frustrated again at Disney’s Handling of Star Wars

I responded, “You want to be a Jedi. Why would you say ‘Jedi scum’?”

the rare gem: A Unique Conversation

Given this was the first substantive gathering I’ve attended since the Before Times, I had to break the ol’ conversational skills out once again.

The Lost Joys of the Bookstore

Headed out while on a brief stay elsewhere and they had a real, honest-to-goodness bookstore nearby. It wasn’t quite the Mom & Pop store for which I’d been hoping, but it was a bookstore. Spread out before me, behind a glass edifice, was a vast expanse of paper and forgotten words. Authors known and never […]

Friendly Silence

A simple, philosophical pondering this time.

The Forgotten Genius of Francis Ford Coppola

Something I’ve realized as we revisit Coppola of the 1970s on Houselights for The Nerd Party is that he’s become something of a forgotten genius.

The Lost Lesson of Star Trek V: What We Don’t Share

As the world’s preeminent Star Trek V scholar, I find it incumbent upon myself to elucidate the subtler points of the film. I’ve pondered a lot, as have others, about the critique of pop psychology self-help trends as embodied by Sybok. I’ve projected whether we can see a thread running between The Voyage Home and […]

I Watched the Controversial Movie “Mandingo”

Mandingo. Watching the controversial 1975 film based on a book (and play, apparently) of the same name has left me disoriented. I haven’t been this off-kilter after a movie since I made the bad decision to watch twenty minutes of a Lars Von Trier movie that was streaming, because I knew his reputation as a […]

Return to Nakatomi Plaza

I got the chance to go see Die Hard in the theater again. I’m so glad I did. It was a reminder of how special movies can be, even after you’ve spent decades with them.