• Pixar’s Soul – Themes and Reflections

    Rather than be specific, which I couldn’t be without re-watching the movie and taking notes, I’ll give you a summary of what happened and make comments along the way. The main character is a part-time band teacher in a middle school. The movie opens with him getting promoted to full-time work. He immediately feels let…

  • Review of All You Need is Kill

    I was 13 years old in 1993 when Groundhog Day was released in theaters. 5 years later, I started writing a looping screenplay of my own called “Breeze Way”. In 2009, Hiroshi Sakurazaka published All You Need is Kill, a looping war action drama, which was released as Edge of Tomorrow in 2014. I was…

  • Predestination Explained: a Timeline without Paradoxes

    The following timelines show how the timeline we saw in the movie, Predestination, was not the original timeline, but one edited by Robertson. These are just my ideas: Option 1 Time travel was invented in 1981 and Robertson is tasked with creating the perfect temporal agent. Robertson researches medical textbooks and finds a case of…

  • What Really Happened in Jake Gyllenhaal’s Enemy Movie?

    ***Major Spoiler Alert***Do not read this if you don’t want the movie spoiled for you. It contains major spoilers. We have met the enemy and he is us.” –Pogo by Walt Kelly, 1971 What Really Happened in Jake Gyllenhaal’s Enemy Movie? In Enemy, both men (Adam and Anthony) are same man, a married history professor…

  • The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

    The Secret Life of Walter Mitty debuted in the United States on December 25, 2013. This review focuses on the how the film is an essay on the transition from analog to digital – made for and by the children of the 70’s (otherwise known as Generation X), the “analog vs. digital” and “disrespect for…

  • Ben Stiller’s Walter Mitty Longboards

    UPDATE: Bustin Boards has confirmed that it’s a Bustin Boards Boombox longboard and after seeing the movie, it should be noted that there is only one longboarding scene in Iceland. The other New York scene mentioned in this article is ‘covered’ by CGI which makes it look like Walter Mitty is longboarding on asphalt. All…

  • Symbolism in Wes Anderson Movies

    Colin Marshall recently commented on about a series of RogerEbert.com video essays on Wes Anderson films. These are my comments on his comments, but mostly it’s about the symbolism I see in Wes Anderson films. Suitcases – first few movies they are always silver, last few canvas; they are always matching and of different sizes…

  • Jobs, Grants, and Everything Else

    This is a blog post about jobs, work, getting grants, writing books, watching movies, the state of the Maker culture, and everything Elon Musk is doing nowadays. It started with a conversation I had last night with my wife’s cousin’s husband about these things. This is a summary of that conversation and of my current interests…

  • 22 Movies that Question Reality

    Edit: this post is currently up to 31 “false reality” movies + 2 TV shows. Updates follow the original post. Movies can make us question reality by prompting these types of questions: What is real? Are we real? Is this life real? What is a simulation or a lie being told to us? How do we…