by Melinda Snodgrass | May 25, 2009 | Blog
Why can’t anybody make a good movie that isn’t an Academy Award contender? Why can’t a summer movie be entertaining and good? Sometimes they succeed. IRON MAN, the first two Spider-Man movies.So why the rant? Ian and I went and saw TERMINATOR SALVATION last night. Partly it was homework, we wanted to check out the director, but I was hoping for an entertaining couple of hours. Instead I was staring at the screen in disbelief, or dissolving...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 20, 2009 | Blog
As usual I was up early, and went downstairs to read in front of the fire, and wait for the breakfast buffet to open. I ended up breakfasting with a young man from Beijing who was making is way slowly back home after years of working in Germany and France. He had been in the film industry in France, and Walter had mentioned I was a screenwriter so we talked about the business of movies. In China there isn’t a film industry per se. There are rich oligarchs who make...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 17, 2009 | Blog
There is a move afoot by the Catholic bishops and religious fundies to severely curtail stem cell research. People on our side of the debate need to be heard. Please go to this website, follow the instructions and send a comment to the NIH.This is urgent. Please respond. There are many of us who would benefit from the cures offered by stem cell research. Let’s not embrace ignorance.
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 13, 2009 | Blog
Now it can be told. In addition to the reprint of earlier books Tor has purchased another new volume. We’re returning to New York City with a focus on the police who worked the mean streets of Jokertown. The book will be called Fort Freak, and will feature old stalwarts and some of our new recruits.
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 12, 2009 | Blog
Big confession from the person who left Next Gen bitter, tired and disillusioned, and longing for the original Trek. There were times during those endless, stiff, moralizing episodes on TNG when all of us were longing for Kirk to kiss a girl and slug a bad guy, and Spock to life an eyebrow, and McCoy bluster.But I digress. I went to the J.J. Abrams Star Trek with no expectations, and ended up enjoying it very much. It played to the feel of what made old Trek so...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 8, 2009 | Blog
After another on time, uneventful, one hour flight with a meal, we arrived at the Izmer airport. We all signed up as drivers at the Avis desk, collected out car and headed off for Selcuk. Walter drove, I sat up front with the maps navigating. It turned out to be an easy forty-five minute drive. The roads were very good, and despite ending up on a toll road it turned out to be very inexpensive, and we even managed to find the lane for cars without an automatic...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 5, 2009 | Blog
Direct TV is trying to get me to go for the premium channels again by offering me Showtime free for three months. Mostly it seemed to consist of horror flicks, but two night ago I managed to catch THE GREAT DEBATERS. This is a fantastic movie about the debate team from a tiny black college in Texas that goes on to defeat the Harvard debate team in 1936.The script is wonderful. Every performance is a jewel, and it is especially moving to watch this in the age of...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 2, 2009 | Blog
Hi, All, Now it can be announced. Tor is going to reprint the first three Wild Card books. (Hopefully this will just be the start, and people will finally get to read the Black Trump triad). Anyway, this is great news, but even better news is that there will be new material in the first volume.Carrie Vaughn, Michael Cassutt and David Levine will be providing new stories that will help fill in some of the history in book one. I hope we get the same great artist for...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 1, 2009 | Blog
A new survey has revealed that "The more often Americans to to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey." You can read the entire article here.Religion is such a good thing. Yeah, right.
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 30, 2009 | Blog
Here’s something funny, amazing and sweet to take the taste of torture out of your mouths. This really made my afternoon. Check out Snowball the dancing cockatoo
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 29, 2009 | Blog
My first experience on Turkish Air, and it was great. On time departure, an hour flight, a meal was served. Once at the airport we tried to figure out how to get to our hotel in central Ankara, and settled on the bus. A cab would have been faster, but it was interesting taking the pulse of the city as we made our way deeper into the haze of pollution and the hundreds of multi-colored apartment buildings thrusting into the grey sky like strange stalagmites.At the central...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 23, 2009 | Blog
The Republican talking point seems to be that these "techniques", make that torture was justified because it worked. Under this theory why not bring in a prisoner’s wife or children and torture or murder them in front of him? That would probably "work" too. Does that mean it’s justified? I guess so in Republican double speak.Next, the F.B.I. are the heroes of this story. Yes, you heard me right. Hoover’s F.B.I. ...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 22, 2009 | Blog
I’ve been watching and reading about the growing evidence that torture was authorized at the highest levels of our government. It sickens me. And the “ends justify the means” argument that has been presented by a dwindling number of Bush apologists is equally horrific. Every actual interrogator who has been interviewed has said they could have elicited the same information without resorting to torture, and that information obtained under such tactics is...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 20, 2009 | Blog
By the time we finished the archeological museum it was 2:30 and we were ravenous. We picked a cafe close to the palace, and settled at a window table to watch the world go by. After taking drink orders our waiter carried over a tray loaded down with small plates of cold appetizers. I love eggplant and there was a chopped eggplant dish which I immediately ordered. Walter and Pat picked a couple of other dishes. The waiters returned with two kinds of bread. ...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 20, 2009 | Blog
Okay, I need somebody to tell me what the hell is up with DOLLHOUSE. I’ve been scrolling through my Tivo since I got home. There were two episodes of Dollhouse, and I gotta say — the squik factor, very high now.S & M leathers? Really? How many times have they had Echo dressed up like a hooker, and now they’ve just got to take this next step?The weird, frigid Englishwoman using the most appealing male character in the cast as a walking vibrator.The...
