SNAPSHOTImagine if you could see the Milky Way from your front porch? If you live in the Wet Mountain Valley of Colorado, you can. The valley is home to Westcliffe and Silver Cliff International Dark-Sky Association Dark Sky Communities, where night sky quality is shielded from excessive light pollution through Continue Reading
Movie review: Nomadland
There are movies, and they are surprisingly few and far between (despite what the endless awards ceremonies may decide and confer), which says an extraordinarily moving amount about the human condition in a voice barely above a whisper. As a society, we tend to associate loud and vocal with important Continue Reading
Book review: Gallow Glass by S. J. Morden
Books that subvert expectations completely are always great and gloriously good reads. Case in point is Gallow Glass by S. J. Mordern, a novel which gives every impression from the whimsically comical cover and tagline to being a humourous romp through the galaxy; but flip the book over and you Continue Reading
Movie review: Sublet #queerscreen
Getting lost in life is easier and far more common than we might suppose. In a world filled with definitive answers (not all of them right, of course), exhortations to be yourself and a sense that anything is possible, many people feel guilty when they feel adrift as if being Continue Reading
Lessons from the Screenplay: The Soul of character design
SNAPSHOT[This video examines] two fundamental elements of character design—want and need. Pixar’s film Soul puts these aspects of story structure right on the surface, and demonstrates why they’re so critical to creating a compelling, emotional character arc. (synopsis via YouTube (c) Lessons from the Screenplay) Soul is a beautiful, funny, Continue Reading
Book review: Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift
As a species, we love our all-conquering heroes. Perhaps because we feel insufficiently equipped to deal with life in its mundanity but most especially in its more extraordinary moments, we cling as tightly as we can to people who know all, can do all and rather happily for a world Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The bear and fleeting fame of The Moon’s Not That Great
SNAPSHOTAfter an astronaut returns from her lunar mission to find that the public lost all interest in the moon, the stories of the astronaut, a film director, and a bear intersect. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) There is a compellingly beautiful heart to this most attractively animated of short films. The Continue Reading