Anyone who knows me well knows that I have largely retired from the film reviewing game. While it once served as my central writing focus, and, in fact, probably turned me into the writer I am today, I no longer find it to be my primary interest. Instead, I now plunk away mostly in the…Read more A Collection of Recent Reviews
Hot Out Here
“It is so damn hot out here.” Sam looked up suddenly, her eyes struggling to adjust to the blazing sunshine that was beating down on the patio where she and Jason were sitting. “That’s true,” she responded, feeling herself grow peevish at Jason, who once gain was engaging in his favorite mantra. “But that’s July…Read more Hot Out Here
The Red Cliffs of Golgamon
Try as he might, Sebastian Mondo couldn't focus on his work. He was numb and disconnected. Content needed to be written, messages needed to be sent, but there was something blocking him, a numbness that couldn't be overcome. All he could do was sit and stare at his computer, sinking deeper into his desk chair.…Read more The Red Cliffs of Golgamon
How One Leaves Orhan
What had she been doing? Flames cracked and popped within the ornate fireplace, casting a gold and orange glow through the small study. Amabel sat reclining in a high-backed chair, her thin legs extending toward the blaze. Yawning, she stretched her arms, brushing past the heavy wood and velvety cushion that composed the chair's back.…Read more How One Leaves Orhan
Film Review: I, Daniel Blake (2016)
About six or seven years ago, I developed a minor obsession with the work of Ken Loach, the iconoclastic English director of acclaimed films like Kes, Looks and Smiles, Raining Stones, My Name is Joe, Sweet Sixteen and The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Back then, I watched a number of these in quick succession.…Read more Film Review: I, Daniel Blake (2016)
All Aboard to Cravenmoor
Jerome knew that life didn’t often appear this way, at least outside his dreams. Lush forests demarcated by raging waterfalls, dusty mountains punctuated by valleys of swampy marshland and sunlit meadows covered in iridescent flowers – such natural grandeur wasn’t abnormal. He’d even experienced some of it before. Instead, it was the town at the…Read more All Aboard to Cravenmoor
Toward the Stars, Toward Home
There was nothing aside from blackness - divorced from time and space. Then a light appeared, a pin-prick that gradually opened like a film iris. A giant eye stared at him. It was distorted and fragmented, a reflection of an eye rather than the real McCoy. His cheek felt cool and smooth, and he recognized…Read more Toward the Stars, Toward Home
The Skiff
She never listened to me, which was half the problem, but I knew that she was right about my family. My father had enlisted at 18, and like so many of his generation, had served his country and then never talked about it again. He swallowed his pain, buried his anger and in doing so…Read more The Skiff
Film Review: In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
Like so much of my semi-recent foray into horror, John Carpenter's last good film, 1994's In the Mouth of Madness, came to my attention due to its Lovecraftian connotations. As the final installment of Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy" (which also includes The Prince of Darkness and the classic science fiction film, The Thing), Madness is another direct…Read more Film Review: In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
TV Review: American Crime Story – The Assassination of Gianni Versace (2018)
In his 2003 true crime novel, The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson states the following regarding Daniel Burnham, the famous architect, and H. H. Holmes, the infamous serial killer, the two figures at the heart of his story: "Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and…Read more TV Review: American Crime Story – The Assassination of Gianni Versace (2018)
Adam Mohrbacher 