Rants

Sorry Cinema Scrooges: Die Hard is a Christmas Movie

It has come to my attention that some people out there on the Interwebs still cling to the notion that Die Hard, the celebrated action film starring Bruce Willis, is not a Christmas movie. Look, Gremlins counts as a Christmas movie, Edward Scissorhands counts as a Christmas movie, and  –Lord help us all– Santa Claus Conquers the Martians counts as a Christmas movie. So yes, “the Christmas episode” of action movies does indeed count as…

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Various and Sundry

Caroling with the Bard, kinda

Who doesn’t like caroling? And who doesn’t William Shakespeare? Well, quite a few people in both camps, actually… but let them stew in their camps like Achilles in his tent. If you, like me, think that those are two great tastes that go great together, Mya Gosling, the creator of Good Tickle Brain, gets you. More importantly, she has devised Shakespearean Christmas Carols not once, nor twice,  but thrice, and, um tetralogically? Really, it’s like all…

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Various and Sundry

Shall We Play a Game?

While not a secret, I don’t post too much about being a board gamer here, but one of the things I’m most looking forward to during this season of spending time with family and friends is playing a few board games — including some that have not “hit the table” in a while. I also generally get a game we can play as a family each Christmas (the previous ones, Feuerdrachen and Drachenturm, have been…

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Various and Sundry

Field of Troubled Dreams

If you checked out my earlier post, you know that I’m readying the 2018 edition of my favorite films. I always add a new crop of films to the sort every time, but I also find time to re-watch some of the old films… and Thanksgiving weekend proved to be a great time to do so. One of the films was the delightful modern fantasy, Field of Dreams. Sharp-eyed readers will recall that it ranked #29…

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Various and Sundry

Boxed In

I have a number of rituals at the end of the year. One of them is to do some cleaning and decluttering. I always mean to do “Spring cleaning” around Spring, but it doesn’t always happen that way. Invariably, this means getting rid of a bunch of old boxes and such. Also invariably, I’m deluged by a bunch more boxes from holiday deliveries. I know I’m not alone. How do all of us deal with…

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Various and Sundry Writing

I have my caper film!

Well, I mean, realistically, someone else might leap into action and have a caper film on the subject of produce theft, but Rene Chun’s article about a Virginian vineyard being robbed of grapes made me think this could be a movie to be made in my backyard. In fact, I forwarded it as a possible entrant for Scriptnotes’ periodic segment “How would this be a movie?” So, I guess what I’m saying is I’d be…

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