“YOU DON’T HAVE TO be a videogame freak.” I heard that reassurance on my way in to see Steven Spielberg’s newest extravaganza ‘Ready Player One’, which arrives in theaters everywhere next week. It’s based, after all, on Ernest Cline’s 2011 barnstormer young-adult novel of the same name – which memorably made USA Today hail the author as “the hottest geek on the planet”.

I then got the same reassurance from the director himself. The world premier screening was held at the South By South West festival, in Austin’s legendary and beautifully renovated theater The Paramount; and Spielberg emerged onto the big screen’s narrow strip of stage … to the kind of rapturous welcome that rock-stars may take in stride, but few others.

Continue reading “SXSW Review: “Ready Player One” Pummels Senses with Total Gaming Immersion” »

Dateline: Austin, Texas – I DON’T REALLY WANT TO SAY ‘SIDESHOW’. But I’ve noticed something while here on my annual foray to SXSW, that gigantic combination of movies, music and all matters digital (plus growing spin-offs like education, video-gaming, comedy and more) that now pulls almost half-a-million participants into the Texan capital.

I’ve been finding stimulation and satisfaction more in the many small and idiosyncratic showcases than in the central marquee, keynote sessions and events.   Continue reading “On the Fringes of Hi-Tech ‘South By South West’ – the Centrality of Human Caring” »

A DEVELOPING STORY that’s being tucked away here and there across our national media deserves a lot more attention. Its main attraction? Well, it features a crude and deeply corrupt President who is also allegedly a sexual predator.

Political forces, which have eventually come to include leaders of the party that nominated him for the presidency in the first place, are massing to remove him from office. It’s now only a matter of days before he’s out.

Such a story might understandably carry some appeal for many Americans.     Continue reading “Removing a President – A Message From Afar?” »

LIKE MANY POWERFUL STORIES, this one starts in a black South African township. One day in the early 1950s, a boy was photographed jumping for joy.

Much later – this week in fact – the boy died, by then a world-renowned troubadour called Hugh Masakela. Fans everywhere mourned his death from prostate cancer at 78 years of age.     Continue reading “How A Truth-Teller Got His Instrument, and Moved The World” »

STORIES, I’VE HEARD TELL, are the lifeblood of societies and cultures. Whether they’re factual reporting … convincingly true-to-life fiction … or gripping, incredible fantasies … we all do seem to need ‘em. They can pump through our system with rousing drive, or calm and reassure us like a soothing heartbeat.

Actor John Lithgow, in his much-traveled one-man show that came to rest and opened tonight on Broadway, poses a fundamental question to his audience when the show begins. Why do we tell and listen to stories?     Continue reading “Stories and How They Grab Us … as Shown by a Master” »