Change Your Image
edwardclinch
Some movies and television were very influential to Edward in that decade. Mostly sci-fi: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Superman, Rocky II, Jaws. James Bond. War movies.
By the 1980s Edward, known as Eddie then, definitely had a love for many films, shows and stars. Some smaller movies made impacts, too.
Eddie (as known back then) realized that Vietnam was something us Americans were dealing with. Part of that processing was through film and television.
Edward also really enjoyed watching certain sports and competitions.
Human spectacle. It's all drama and good print.
Edward was able to perform in few shows and I enjoyed those experiences. I liked the reaffirmation that people liked it.
Edward also always enjoyed church services and practices and striving for higher community goals.
In the 1990s Edward became fluent in Spanish, living and studying in South America. He attended and studied film; Edward watched some shows more critically, and he was exposed to more international stories, which he mostly enjoyed, feeling a greater sense of fulfillment and knowledge through international cinema.
Edward also studied and enjoyed other international languages since then.
He worked in some shows, but eventually switched tracks and became a teacher.
In the 2000s there were still important movies and some television shows that Edward watched intently.
Sports was a constant, and he got a charge/boost in blogging about sports and other things from 2006-2009.
Writing is still a very compelling expression and art that he continues to develop. He enjoys good literature.
Having a family has been very satisfying; it is very much a part of who he is and wants to be.
Continuing old family relationships and maintaining memories of the past are important to Edward. Knowing more about human history is a constant.
He used to have a couple websites, but Foxsports.com has seemed to have to taken it away.
Edward wishes he could retrieve and recover all the worthwhile writing he has ever done.
He is not as crazy as Kafka, and he is probably not as good a writer.
But he feels he has things to say, things to remember, things to celebrate, and things to mourn.
And, all those things are important to him, and perhaps for others.
Edward has been blogging since 2014. https://clinchitsoonerorlater.blogspot.com/
From 2006 to 2009 Edward blogged on two sports sites created by foxsports.com, but they were blogicided with unfair warning. One was edclinchs'it.com and the other papaclinchsaint'sit.com. He misses what he wrote, and would like anyone to help him find and recover them.
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
War, Inc. (2008)
Yikes! Pretty bad
Not funny. Not well written. Not realistic. Too bad, with all the talent and money. This movie could have made some more sense if it had a better writer or 10.
Star Wars (1977)
Beautiful Movie Using A Streamlined Version of Dune
La Guerra de las Galaxias (Star Wars): A Review and Perspective
George Lucas is a genius, no doubt. A master film artist; the best at what he does. He created a film, its universe and its successors that stand up as cinematic wonders.
He took me by storm with this tour de force when I was six. I did not realize it was subtitle "A New Hope" until years later.
I saw it once in the threatre downtown, and then I saw it again at the drive-in threatre north of town. I was small, and the story made all the sense in the world to me. Breathtaking. Dynamic. Too good to be true. Drama and action, at its best.
We did not have a Beta Max or a VCR back then, but we did get HBO a bit during my youth and I recall it debuting on pay cable. And then finally ABC showed it for the first time on network TV. I must have seen it at friends' homes on their video machines, too. Maybe at a party here or there.
I was hooked, like so many of my generation. It filled my imagination with possibilities.
Maybe because of this film, I distinctly remember saying at the end of 1977 on New Year's Eve,"1977 was a good year". Pretty good, considering that 1976 was a fond tri-centennial year in the United States, and yours truly was a precocious 7 years old with that much perspective as years go.
My first two action figures were Han Solo and a Stormtrooper. My best friend two houses down had Luke Skywalker, R2-D2 and Darth Vader. And I seem to remember Obi-Wan Kenobi and C3-PO. And the Landspeeder. Of course, those figures may have been owned by a number of other neighborhood friends. I think anyone my age was drinking the Kool-Aid.
By Christmas 1978 or 1979, I got the Darth Vader Tie Fighter as a present. Still have it (2013).
By 1981 or 1982, I got all the figures from the first two movies.
Significantly, I read "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" by Alan Dean Forster around 1979, which notably added to the understanding and capabilities of Darth Vader. (Check it on Wikipedia).
And the myth of this blockbuster series was fundamentally essential in my life and imagination.
Later, in 1997, at age 26, long after getting over the fact that the 9 part series would not come to fruition (although some people must have rumored the prequels by then, I guess), a college roommate suggested a book based on my question to him what his favorite book was.
Dune. A story and concept I was somewhat familiar with. As an avid comic book collector in the 1980s, I saw copies of it featured in the front of the main store I frequented. Then around 1984 the film came out. It did not have success, which segues back to George Lucas and his genius. I think that Lucas had read and enjoyed Frank Herbert's Dune series and figured out how to adapt the story and streamline it in a more palatable fashion for the masses.
Perhaps others have questioned George about this. I would be completely shocked if George Lucas never read Dune prior to making his masterpiece.
But for film, George knew how to write and perhaps, more importantly, knew how to put in film what his story was about.
Nothing but fantastic.
I am not accusing George Lucas of plagiarism. But all works of art and concepts usually derive from other places.
And I think it is important to acknowledge that the desert planet of Tatooine, that is now part of our own earth lore, has a great part of its conceptualization in the far off planet of Arrakis, aka Planet Dune.
What will 2015 bring? It will all tie together, I am sure. And not just back to 1977.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
A Good Film to Begin Understanding
There ought to be more films that do this. Good stories taking place with believable characters in lands that the rest of us are seldom exposed to. Yes, some aspects were a bit fantastic. But it showed us a different world, a different culture, new actors and characters who do not fit the Hollywood mold. This was original.
Well done on that count.
For many reasons, Hollywood does not portray the greater world that well. We do not get very much insight to foreign (non-Western, non-US) cultures. Which is a shame, because film exists to teach us so much, if we could figure out how to market it. Sometimes there are breakthroughs, and I think this is one of them.
When I was attending UCLA ten or more years ago as a graduate student (please do not pigeon hole me as pretentious for saying that), I began to believe that if a person was capable of understanding the sub-continent of India, then they could probably understand the complexity of the whole world.
This movie presents a beginning of that peek into a separate world that we all share.
What other Indian films (or rather, movies about India), give us any knowledge of it? The Jungle Book, A Passage to India, Gandhi, Patrick Swayze in the City of Joy. Usually the characters have a strong British influence, even Gandhi. The Jungle Book is mostly animals, some of whom represent more American jazz than anything from India.
There are authentic and classic Indian movies out there. I watched the Apu trilogy as a film student. And I am sure there are more recent Indian made serious and entertaining films today.
But a movie like "Slumdog Millionaire" breaks through the 3rd world wall, and helps us all see our planet more clearly.
I hope this would happen more often.
And very often, the same old actors are in the same old plot lines.
I know Tom Cruise and others of his ilk like to work, but do we always have to get the same ones? Money awaits. And this is an investment in many peoples' lives as much as one actor, I get that.
But our minds continue to atrophy while great scripts and world themed adventures flounder in the ether.
We need more like it, but different of course.