Past Watchful Dragons
Beginning with an Empty Page
A couple of years ago the writings of Patricia McKillip were recommended by Jeffrey Overstreet. I began with The Alphabet of Thorn, then read The Book of Atrix Wolfe, and am presently reading The Bards of Bone Plain. McKillip is a beautiful writer, and masterfully weaves the power of story and words into her own ...
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Rambling Review: Oz the Great and Powerful
Alternate title to this post: “Oz the Great and Powerful…Not So Much.”
I have to admit that my expectations were probably a little bit higher than they should have been going into this movie, but the previews were tantalizing; Sam Raimi is the director (Spiderman trilogy); Rachel Weisz is in it; I’ve liked James Franco in ...
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Dark Knight Trilogy Chiasm
Douglas Jordan came up with the following structure of the Dark Knight Trilogy, and, since he doesn’t have a blog, he gave me permission to reproduce it here. Due to significant formatting issues, I had to insert the chiasm as a JPEG, so my apologies regarding the clarity and the ongoing formatting issues below it. ...
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Hutchmoot Reflections
Last weekend I had the privilege and pleasure of attending Hutchmoot 2012. Putting the experience into words is no small feat, and any attempt on my part to do so would result in certain failure. The previous two Hutchmoots were wonderful in their own right, but I cannot remember being as utterly exhausted in the ...
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Mercy Realized
In reading Flannery O’Connor this summer in conjunction with an ongoing reading and discussion over on Jonathan Roger’s blog, I came across this especially poignant passage from The Artificial Nigger. Of course, it has more impact within the greater context of the story, but makes a certain impression in its own right, too.
Mr. Head stood ...
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Rambling Review: Brave
I had a mix of expectations when going to see Pixar’s newest film, Brave, this afternoon with my wife and oldest boys. An original story featuring a heroine was intriguing to me, given that Pixar had not done so to date, and to set it in Scotland looked even better. I stayed away from reviews ...
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Story Time 2
I suppose it has been a busy couple of years, which can partly explain why I haven’t taken the time to post some of the stories we’ve discovered or particularly enjoy reading – or more correctly, the stories the children want to hear. So here are two that stand out in particular of late. The ...
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Rambling Review: The Avengers
“HIGHLY ENTERTAINING.” That’s about the best way to describe The Avengers. Go see it on the big screen, and you will be glad that you did. While I would not say it is the best comic book movie I have ever seen (The Dark Night still holds that spot in my mind, and Batman Begins ...
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Rambling Review: John Carter
Judging by some of the recent headlines, you would be led to think that John Carter is a a great disappointment as a movie; that it is not worth seeing; and that people must be leaving movie theaters all over the United States wishing they could get their money back. Quite the opposite is true. ...
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Rambling Review: Hugo
Finally got around to watching Hugo. On the whole, I liked it. Beautiful visually; well-acted; and actually had some character development. However, I thought it dragged somewhat, especially the first hour, so I wasn’t as engrossed by the film as I might have hoped or was even willing to be. This is a strange way ...
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