I’m always a bit worried my Dad never gets a fair shake—though by now he is completely bone. Everybody who sees a few antique pix of my parents and hears a couple of low points—well, they just automatically assume he was an ass and she was St. Bridget or what have… Read full post »

Confession: I never dug Star Wars. When y’all sagged after Phantom Menace, how I had a chuckle—‘cause I felt the same way in ’77. So I never really paid attention, except for the basso Nazi with the gas mask, so I missed the guy somewhere down there in the credits/… Read full post »

Almost on top of the terrorizing of NYC by Son of Sam with his barking .44 Bulldog, my hometown went atremble over half the firepower, wielded by a duo of mystery men. They would be quickly dubbed the “.22 Caliber Killers” (local media was nothing if not sly in the… Read full post »

Study the above photo. I know I have, since it arrived several years ago in one of my photofinisher packets. At first, it looks like some odd wash of light and color. But then you start to notice details. It looks like there are rough indications of features—faces. I can… Read full post »

I remember when Steven Spielberg used to be more fun.

That was before his reinvention as genial cinematic rabbi, before he became Important and message-y. Before he became mogul and tycoon, before he started shooting handheld, and in monochrome. Before he became an investor in president… Read full post »

 A WRITER whom I too often quote and whom I will therefore not now name, once dissed photography. I paraphrase: “Photography, the laziest of the arts. True, some photographs are more attractively mounted than others. But who should get the credit? The photographer? The camera… Read full post »

…But of course, they already are. I know this is where most people start rolling their eyes and carping that if The Government had Its way, we’d still have blacksmith shops and affordable housing. (And actually we do—blacksmithery—horses are still shod, y… Read full post »

I wouldn’t be the first to notice that the two biggest films of 1976 were sports pictures. And oddball sports pictures at that. The bigger, of course, involved an incoherent side of beef and his “second chance/long-shot” slugfest with the Ali-esque Great Black Hype. In second/… Read full post »