Category: Film & TV

Positive and Uplifting, Likable and Fun: Television’s Golden Age of Family Sitcoms

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there,” wrote L.P. Hartley in his 1953 novel “The Go-Between.” If you’re looking for proof of Hartley’s claim, just tune in, as I recently did, to the early episodes of “The Donna Reed Show,” where you can time travel all the way back to 1958….


Film Review: ‘The Great Awakening’

NR | 1h 56min | Documentary, Technology, Medicine, Social Science | 03 June 2023 (USA) The third and perhaps not the last in the “Plandemic” series, “The Great Awakening” from director Mikki Willis covers a great deal of ground found in the previous two films. However, it also includes reams of backstory, suggesting the seeds of the 2020 COVID-19 scare were…


Fish & Men | Documentary

Today, 91% of the seafood in America is imported as the U.S. is flooded with six billion tons of foreign seafood. Most consumers eat blissfully unaware of where their seafood comes from or even think to ask. Yet, the demand-driven seafood economy is having dire consequences FISH & MEN exposes the high cost of cheap…


Disney’s Box Office Blow

While Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” broke the bank at the weekend box office earning top honors, Disney’s live-action remake of “The Little Mermaid” sunk in comparison to its previous similar tentpole films. That’s according to box office analysts who noted the rarity of a Disney film based on a popular animated musical making a…


Hedy Lamarr: Hollywood Star and Inventor

After a day’s filming for a movie, Hedy Lamarr (1914–2000) would often slip unnoticed from her set trailer to get in a swim in her agent’s pool. There, she might be seen pausing after a lap contemplating her latest idea. Lamarr didn’t like the fame and attention she received from being a star actress during…


Fighting Corruption in Small Places: ‘A Stranger in Town’

Should you get involved if you see a problem, or should you just mind your own business? “A Stranger in Town” from 1943 is a vivid example of a man who gets involved with a small town’s problems in spite of himself and ends up inspiring change in a whole community. This is one of…


Film Review: ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’

PG | 2h 20m | Animated, Superhero, Action | June 2, 2023 For Spider-Man Experts Only Warning: this review of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” may suffer from Generation Gap-itis. At the press screening, I sat next to a trio of what looked to be Generation-Z critics who were on the edge of their seats for the duration of…


Epoch Watchlist: What to Watch for June 2–June 8

This week, we feature an enduring classic about World War I and an endearing story about a boy who seeks to free his friend, an orca whale. New Release ‘Asteroid City’ This romantic dramedy transports us to a fictional, small desert town in the American Southwest in 1955. It follows the stories of characters as…


A Musical for Any Mood: ‘Rhythm on the River’ From 1940

Is there a movie which you always enjoy watching, no matter what your mood is? “Rhythm on the River” from 1940 is such a movie, a little-known gem which belongs in every classic movie lover’s collection. This movie stars Bing Crosby, Mary Martin, Basil Rathbone, and Oscar Levant. This is only the second movie that…


TV Series Review: ‘Chimerica’: What Happened to ‘Tank Man’?

June 4th represents the anniversary of the CCP’s massacre of democracy protesters on and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Thirty-four years after the 1989 mass killings, the world still does not know the identity of the man dubbed “Tank Man,” who stood in front of a column of tanks, then leaving the scene of the…