By Blake Penfield, Student Reporter The vindication of the comic book nerd continues. While the common folk were piling on the 300 bandwagon and The Dark Knight was smashing every conceivable commercial and critical record, the comic book nerds quietly were blowing a collective raspberry and touting, "I told you so!" to a world that had once ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Student Reporter Allow me to preface this list of summaries, predications and opinions by offering a quick commentary on the Academy's Best Picture nominations for this year. They are, in a word, abysmal. Only two of these films deserve their place on a Best Picture list and, consequently, several more-deserving films have been ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Student Writer Read Comments Getting older brings a lot of changes in your life. You have to squint to be able to recognize the person waving ten feet away. Your hair loses all color and then completely secedes from the scalp union. You begin to feel a growing resentment for all things new and different until, in a state of ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Contributing Writer Director Oliver Stone surprised a lot of folks with his willingness to address extremely tender and controversial modern events with 2006's World Trade Center. Most people did not quite know what to think - was it too soon? Was it morally permissible to profit financially from the single greatest tragedy our ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Student Writer People always are coming up to me and asking, "How can I be sure that I have a soul?" Just constantly. It's ridiculous. Well, now I have an answer for them. If you can sit through Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist without smiling, then you have no soul. Remember those John Hughes' movies from the '80s? Ferris ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Student Writer Nazis and dinosaurs. Here we have two groups of people (Nazis are people, too) who always are portrayed as villainous, conniving sadists in film. In fact, with the exceptions of Schindler's List and The Land Before Time IXXVIII, I cannot think of one film where a Nazi or a dinosaur is portrayed as a real, feeling ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Contributing Writer You know the last apple in the carton at the store? It's all gross and bruised. That's about the horticultural equivalent of the movie "88 Minutes," which was actually filmed and finished in 2005. Israel and a few other countries actually got DVD releases of the film before TriStar decided to pick up the ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Contributing Writer 'There Will Be Blood' Showcasing some of the finest performances in recent film history, the stirring and epic "There Will Be Blood" is a force to contend with this Oscar season. Who would have thought the story of an oilman's search for wealth could be so beautiful? Boasting an impressive eight Academy ... [Read More…]

By Blake Penfield, Contributing Writer Beware: children and pregnant women may not want to attend this ride. It's not crude. It's not crass. Instead, it's a portrait of the sickness that hides in humanity's heart. Perhaps no other picture in the last year provides such a gut-wrenching, beautifully dark, obtusely blunt and deliberately unapologetic ... [Read More…]