Steve Ersinghaus

This weekend S and I caught the features DVD of HBO’s production of Deadwood, which we’ve been enjoying via Netflix. The conversation between creator and writer David Milch and Kieth Carradine was particularly fresh and insightful: two very smart guys talking about order, history, writing, character, and the creative process.
Milch and Carradine 1) are [...]

I waited with anticipation for the second season of Battlestar Galactica. The arc was tense, the approach new, and the characters were, I thought, dead on. The second season doesn’t seem to remember any of this. It’s difficult to explain what the problem is because the characters had reasons that took time to establish, but [...]

I wonder how this film is going to work out and how it will be received in my home town. Schooling and life in El Paso, in season, always had the basketball flavor and fever. It’s always a little thrilling to see the hometown heros in story.

Garden State, I think, should be added to our examples of the journey. A weak and cliched ending, but still worthy of study in this context.
Nicely paced (much like Lost in Translation), solid character writing, visually interesting. But could we please redefine and reimagine “happy ending”?

I’ve nearly completed my British Literature I finals and have been looking at journals and revisions of earlier writing by students. I think the final, a series of short answer questions, pin-pointed pretty well what I want students to know at the end (after lots of writing and reading), given the expectations and requirements of [...]

It’s time for another blockbuster-bust movie post, unfortunately. K and I hit the big screen today for the matinee showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire. I must say that I’m not a fan of the Rowling novels. I found them incidental and wonderfully upholstered mildness.
This is the second Potter film I’ve [...]

Welcome easywriter.
But now to this comment by Mark A on my post on Sin City the film. Mark writes
This films’ ability to capture the look of Millers’ books makes it a valid cinematic effort. It is a series of comic panels set in motion. Perhaps it’s greatest reason for being a film is to [...]

I read Frank Miller’s Sin City recently and while I found the art and graphic quality of the works interesting, I was never really grabbed by the stories. I found the film adaptation just odd.
The writing and acting aspire to classic noir. The visuals aspire to Miller’s rhythmic, psychologically jagged and electric blackness. But [...]

Here’s a link to June Noble’s story recently published in Vitality Magazine. In the article she details a powerful struggle against Lupus. June is a member of the Narratives group and an all around good kid. We value her contributions and have enjoyed her in class. A snip
As if on rebound from withdrawal, I [...]

Thud! and Wash is dead. I think I understand how this works. Wash dies at a moment you wouldn’t expect. The hard ride through the beast’s belly is over and the next phase of the journey is about to commence: the final battle. Wash utters something about keen pilotry. The flying shook the theater. Then [...]

Mark Bernstein on Serenity
A good movie. See it. Probably the best science fiction movie since The Matrix. And, while you could still make a case for the original Star Wars if you wanted, this is probably the best space opera to date.

S and I went for the show on Friday and we enjoyed a pretty [...]

Perhaps you all have seen the proliferation of monster/alien shows on television, a noticable trend away from the superhero amidst us, to the alien amidst us, which is not unique but going through revival. From Buffy and Smallville to the 4400 and Alien Invasion. The idea of the monster and the alien are related in [...]

Now that I have a film category (should have placed it long ago), here goes.
My daughter, K, and her friend, C, and I finally had the change to watch the “longer” version of P. Jackson’s LOTR last night. Took a while. But we left the final film wondering at some of the extended version inserts. [...]