Book Review: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew
by Daniel Parker I finished this book with three questions about it : Is this novel a detective story, a social commentary or just a story about a rambling drunk? Winner of the DSC award for South Asian Literature, Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew, by Shehan Karunatilaka, follows a retired nihilist sportswriter, named W.G. Karunasena, as […]
Film Reviews: The Strange Case of Angélica
by Alex Carrigan One of the running events at VCU I am most fond of is the VCU Cinematheque, a film series sponsored by VCU Cinema. On Tuesday evenings, a non-American film is shown at the Grace Street Theater, with a discussion following the film. One movie recently showcased by VCU Cinema is a Portuguese […]
Film Review: 12 Years a Slave
by Alex Carrigan This was not an easy movie for me to sit through. Then again, when has a film by British director Steve McQueen ever been? McQueen has only released three feature length films to date, and none of the films are easy watches. His first film, Hunger, won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes […]
The Saga of Alan Moore’s “Swamp Thing”
by Christopher Sloce I used to have something that resembled a swamp in my front yard. I spent a lot of time in there pretending to be Roland from The Dark Tower, had a cap gun and everything. I also used to pretend to be Swamp Thing, who appealed to me as a more dynamic kind […]
Notes on Al Columbia
by Christopher Sloce Whatever nostalgia taps into, it is something primal. Nobody I know is immune to suffering its effects, even the hardened among us who revisited some cultural artifact, only to learn our tastes didn’t match up with what we now find moving or funny. And fear and horror are nothing if not primal. […]