Way back in my film school days, I had an interaction with a favorite cousin whom I had not seen in some time. This opportunity to reconnect saw our first interaction since I had been accepted as a film student, and so he asked me what basically everyone asks me right after I tell them I’m studying film, “So, like what’s your favorite movie, then?” When approached with this question, at least by associates who are not necessarily film buffs, my default response is usually something I know has been on Netflix in the last year. (Though if I had to pick an answer ... maybe Silver Linings Playbook .) I think this time I said James Cameron’s Titanic . He then had a sort of illuminated reaction and followed up with, “I see, so you like … old movies.” My response to this was something in the vein of, “Well, yes , but NOOOO …” Steven Spielberg being a 29-year-old on the set of Jaws In academic circles, t he demarcation between “c...
I have wondered if I was the only one who thought that "Sea of Monsters" was the weakest of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians pentalogy, but I have seen my reading echoed by other book loyalists. This second installment is perhaps penalized partially because it marks several major junctions in the larger series. This is, for example, the part of the series where the scope of the adventure really starts to enlarge. We know going in that there's an angry, deceased titan out to destroy Olympus, and that he's amassing an army, and so we need a sense that this threat is growing stronger. But this also marks a turning point in how series author, Rick Riordan, chooses to develop his main character. And so, season 2 of the Disney+ television adaptation faces similar crossroads. Season 3 of this show is already filming as we speak, so its immediate future is already spoken for, as far as production goes. But stylistically, this second seas...