Fun and creativity abound in the warm and inventive new film The Lego Movie, which is currently playing at Tower Theaters.  The co-directors and co-writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller embrace the tactile interlocking aesthetic of their film’s namesake and thrust viewers into a world of, yes, legos, replete with […]

We are all familiar with this picture: it’s the first day of class, and students are staring at the phones in anticipation of their professor’s arrival, dreading the moment they must stow their lifelines in backpacks or back pockets. I am certainly guilty of anxiously clinging to my phone before […]

Beginning in the early days of January, a strong Arctic air mass bore down on the northern and midwestern regions of the United States in a cold front that was subsequently dubbed the “polar vortex” by meteorologists. The mystery behind why winds that typically circulate around the Arctic regions would […]

  Of all the principled stands I have taken in my life, none annoys my family and friends more than my decision about a year ago to cast off the shackles of the Disney/Marvel/Time Warner/DC corporate conglomerates’ seasonally mandated film fun-athons, also called the superhero movie. It is a personal […]

As the only continent with no native human population, Antarctica’s fate as one of the only remaining pristine ecosystems and as a site for scientific research hangs in the balance of a collective of nations. There are 30 countries, including Australia, Ukraine, Russia, Brazil, the U.S., U.K., China and Germany, […]

Frankenstein (1931) & Bride of Frankenstein (1935) An angry mob bearing torches and pitchforks, mad scientists and man-made monsters are horror and science fiction cliches that are so ingrained in the popular imagination that it is easy to take for granted where they originated. Mary Shelley’s richly horrifying tale of […]