I feel lucky living in a small town that has its own movie theater. I used to make the 15-mile each-way trek to ArcLight up in University Town Center in La Jolla when I wanted to see a movie, and that chain doesn't exist anymore, sad to say. I loved seeing movies there. It was... Continue Reading →
I spent a most enjoyable evening with Groucho Marx the other night. Yes, he’s been dead for well over four decades now, but his spirit lives on in writer/actor/director/producer Frank Ferrante, someone I’ve known for close to three decades (that’s a lot of decades for one paragraph). A new filmed version of Frank’s wonderful one-man... Continue Reading →
It looks spectacular in the daytime and even better at night, providing the neon is cared for and all lit up. The Loma Theatre is, sadly, no longer a movie theater, but it is a bookstore, which in my mind is the next best thing for it to be. It was opened in 1945, and... Continue Reading →
An amazing Hollywood bio, a trio of comics-related histories, and a small stack of graphic novels make up my March readings … a record-setting (for me at least!) ten books for the month. Buster Keaton: A Filmmaker’s Life by James Curtis We seem to be undergoing a mini-renaissance devoted to the silent film comedic actor/writer/director... Continue Reading →
In the fall of 1972, I was all set to see The Godfather in my hometown theater, the Victoria. I had made a date with the younger sister of a classmate. She was a freshman, I was a senior, and even though I had an unrequited crush on her older sister, I reveled in that... Continue Reading →
It’s all Marvel, Marvel, Marvel for me in this first month of the year, as I catch up with some Christmas gifts and visit some old friends … namely 1960s Marvel Comics! When You Are Mine by Michael RobothamThis is the third year in a row that I read a Michael Robotham book to start... Continue Reading →
By 1997 I had two issues of Innocent Bystander under my belt and I was heading towards issue #3. Because of my daytime job (well, really a nighttime one, since I worked the 3:00-11:30 PM shift) as a TV news graphic designer at KDKA in Pittsburgh, time was limited for any personal creative endeavors. I... Continue Reading →
2021 marked my first (almost-full) year of retirement, so I had plenty of time to watch, read, and wander in my never-ending quest for new movies, TV shows, and books. Here are my top five picks for the year in comics and graphic novels, books, movies, and TV. Longer reviews of the books can be... Continue Reading →
If you read enough comic books—or watch enough upcoming Marvel movies—you come around to the idea that there are universes within universes, alternate worlds where events play out differently. It could be something infinitesimally small (Ant-Man is called Gnat-Man, for instance) or monumentally huge (we lost World War II). In comics and movies and TV... Continue Reading →
It seems like forever since I read some of these … is October really that long? I think I finished Batman in the Fifties and Countdown: Bin Laden in the first week of the month, which seems like an eternity ago. Anyway … here’s what I read in October, equally split between comic collections and... Continue Reading →
Welcome to Sundays with Bond … James Bond! Over the next five weeks, as we ramp up to the (hopeful) premiere of the 25th James Bond Movie, No Time to Die, I’ll be looking back at Daniel Craig’s illustrious career as British Secret Service agent 007. I’m rewatching all four of his previous films and... Continue Reading →
Welcome to Sundays with Bond … James Bond! Over the next five weeks, as we ramp up to the (hopeful) premiere of the 25th James Bond Movie, No Time to Die, I’ll be looking back at Daniel Craig’s illustrious career as British Secret Service agent 007. I’m rewatching all four of his previous films and... Continue Reading →
We’re back with more long walks and more podcast listening, mainly (once again) about movies. Click here to read our first installment in this semi-regular series. LOVE IS A CRIMEYou always remember your first and mine was Karina Longworth’s excellent You Must Remember This, the podcast that got me listening to podcasts. She’s back for... Continue Reading →
Welcome to Sundays with Bond … James Bond! Over the next five weeks, as we ramp up to the (hopeful) premiere of the 25th James Bond Movie, No Time to Die, I’ll be looking back at Daniel Craig’s illustrious career as British Secret Service agent 007. I’m rewatching all four of his previous films and... Continue Reading →
Recently, I wrote about listening to the second season of the TCM podcast, The Plot Thickens, which was based on the book, The Devil’s Candy, written by journalist/novelist Julie Salamon in 1990. The subtitle of the book is “The Anatomy of a Hollywood Fiasco,” and boy, ain’t that the truth. (The title comes from a... Continue Reading →
innocent bystander 
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