******MARS-SIZED SPOILERS!****** I grew up admiring the gorgeous, inspirational space art by Chesley Bonestell (1888-1986), who remains one of my favorite artists. I love his imaginative paintings of future space exploration, with astronauts setting foot on the moon, Mars, and even the Saturnian moon of Titan. Growing up in the 1970s and early 1980s, those…
Month: June 2026
Marcia Lucas (1945-2026); an editing virtuoso of 1970s cinema…
A long time ago, in an editing bay not too far away… Born in Modesto, California in 1945 to an Air Force officer father, Marcia Griffin moved all over California, until her parents divorced and she went to North Hollywood, where she and her mother stayed with her grandmother. It was in Hollywood where Marcia…
Apple TV’s “Star City”; unpacking the Soviet sidequel to “For All Mankind”…
******ROCKET-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Debuting in November of 2019, “For All Mankind” was created by veteran TV writer/executive producer Ronald D. Moore, best known for the critically-acclaimed reboot of “Battlestar Galactica” (2003-2009), along with coproducers/writers Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert. The series was hung on a deceptively simple premise; what if the Soviets had beaten the Americans…
For All Mankind’s season 5 finale, “This Land is Our Land,” regains some much-needed optimism…
******TITAN-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Apple TV’s “For All Mankind” nearly lost me with its surprisingly reactionary 4th season, which saw the demotion and humiliation of its stronger women characters, such as Margo Madison (Wrenn Schmidt), who is brutally imprisoned, while astronaut Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) was shot, and exiled from Mars after a revolt at the end…