Left to my own devices

Our latest (and last, of 2016) Pic of the Week is actor Ezra Miller. Enjoy!

A week ago I saw the new Star Wars movie, Rogue One , at an IMAX theater with a group of friends and a crowd of adoring fans. There were laughs, whoops, hollers and applause. It was a great experience, including the post-film discussion at BW3. That night, I gave the film a 9 out of 10. A few days later, I went back for a second viewing, and now give it a 7.5 I still quite like it, but the lowering of the rating was deserved. It's a good movie, but not without faults. Allow me to explain (spoilers ahead).

I don't often make a worst movies of the year list, but this year has provided some real stinkers. Disappointments on many levels. So, without further adieu, here are the ten movies (in alphabetical order) that would be best avoided from 2016....

Our latest Pic of the Week is model Danny Tuohey. Enjoy!

"Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine." -Leonard Cohen  Do you ever miss someone? That's probably a fairly silly question, as most of us -- at some point or another -- tend to miss people we know. Sometimes the separation between us is death, or distance, or simply time. With death, we know we will never see the person again (unless you choose to believe in an afterlife and a sort of spiritual reunion). With distance, there can be the occasional get-together, but it is rarely satisfying on a permanent level. Separations by time (waiting for the work-day to pass) are much easier to bear. Of course, there is another reason to miss someone, to have their absence stand out in a peculiar fashion. That reason is the rift. This one hurts perhaps only less than death as a reason, though maybe even a bit more. There's something pervasively sad about a human relationship halted in its tracks due to em...

Well, 2016 is almost over, and the number of movies left to see this year are dwindling. Here, then is my current Top 10 list of my favorite films of the year (so far): 1. Swiss Army Man 2. Moonlight 3. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 4. Hello, My Name is Doris 5. Hell or High Water 6. Sing Street 7. Eye in the Sky 8. Dead-pool 9. Arrival 10. 10 Cloverfield Lane As for what I'm most looking forward to seeing from the rest of 2016: La La Land, Loving, Passengers and Rogue One !

It is my contention that trust is overrated. We as a society seem to put a lot of faith in the concept of trust, whether it be in our business dealings, interpersonal relationships, or political leaders. I'm not saying that it is meaningless, or useless, just that we tend to rely too heavily on it. Trust, in and of itself, is not necessarily a good thing. Allow me to explain.

It happened again. Wednesday night I ventured out to a new downtown eatery and came away nonplussed. It's an Indian restaurant, Kohinoor , which only opened last month. To be clear: my lack of enthusiasm is not in any way related to the restaurant, itself. The staff were nice, the service was good, the setting was clean and cozy. No, the culprit is, again, my fussy sense of taste. Pretty much all my life, I've been a picky eater. Not sure why. Over the years it has become something of an annoyance. How I would love to enjoy a broader range of foods. Alas, the taste buds do not comply. At one point, I chastised my mother, certain in the belief that she had somehow never brought me up with the proper potpourri of dining experiences. She quickly noted that, from a very early age, I'd spit out the vegetable-flavored baby food. The pickiness, it runs deep.

"What's wrong with Rock Hudson? He looks ill." Those words were uttered, more than once, by my parents and maternal grandmother (who was visiting us at the time) in our living room one night as we sat around the TV watching Rock Hudson and Linda Evans on Dynasty . "There's something wrong with him," they continued. It was the mid-1980s, and I'd never heard of Rock Hudson, let alone HIV or AIDS. All of that was about to change. Today, on World AIDS Day, I remember that night from over thirty years ago very clearly, along with the news, not long after, that Hudson was suffering from something called Auto Immune Deficiency Syndrome. It was something not often spoken of publicly. Our own president didn't even utter the terms "AIDS" until 1987, some two years after it had killed his friend Hudson. This would be the old Hollywood friend whom the Reagans ignored when he came to them for help. Rock Hudson's death shone a spotlight on ...