We are coming up to that thrilling time of year again, when animation filmmakers and students flock to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival taking place from June 11-17 in Annecy, France. The festival is the world’s largest animation film festival and it is always an amazing experience, a showcase for the best in contemporary […]

Annihilation Reviewed by John David Ebert Alex Garland’s new film, Annihilation, concerns a pentad of five female scientists who are sent, armed with automatic rifles, to investigate a mysterious anomaly known only as the Shimmer, an iridescent zone of rampant, biologically mutagenic power that has emerged from a lighthouse on a shore of the American […]

Blade Runner: 2049 Reviewed by John David Ebert In a way, Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner sequel takes the theme of Ridley Scott’s original film–the quest of the replicants to break free of their four year life span and to attain Transcendence from the temporal flow–and inverts it, for now the quest is for the replicants […]

American Gods, the Starz Adaptation Reviewed by John David Ebert In the later work of Martin Heidegger, he developed a theory in which he described how authentic Things “thing” through the resonance of the Fourfold which they activate through their very authenticity: thus, the age old jug or the ancient bridge are not mere objects […]

  Twin Peaks: The Return Episodes 1-5 Reviewed by John David Ebert This review is based only on the first five episodes of Twin Peaks: The Return, but I think we can already begin to see the main themes emerging. Agent Dale Cooper has apparently been cloned at least twice by some unspecified electronic force […]

ALIEN: COVENANT Reviewed by John David Ebert The opening scene of Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant identifies the android David as a sort of compression of the history of high western culture: the flawless David at once evokes Adam being awakened on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, but he also reminds one of a kind […]

The following is excerpted from ARCHAI by John David Ebert: This book can be ordered here: https://www.createspace.com/7099675     carboniferous pastoral   …an explosion of riotous green shrapnel bursting atop row after row of spindle thin fern trees which the broken earth has shoved up with vertebral force at the sun to cleave it with chemical […]

The following is an excerpt from Gilgamesh Redux by John David Ebert: This book can be ordered here: https://www.createspace.com/7095190 THE TALE OF LUGALBANDA the army of enmerkar on its way to aratta: a horizon splayed with sticks of bronze spears heavy chariots copper helmets human swarm of living flies ravaging the planar surface of the flat […]

  (That You May Never Have Heard Of!) Note: Posted by Lobell, written by Larry Ruppel There is a film festival held each year in a storybook-like village that is best described as one of the most magical experiences that can be had for aficionados of animated films. I am referring to the Annecy International Animated […]

  On Luminous Screens & Other Electron / Neuron Assemblages: An Excerpt from Videodrome Scene-by-Scene by John David Ebert Luminous surfaces: today, everywhere one looks, we are surrounded by self-luminous electronic video screens. They come in all shapes and sizes from the tiny rectangular squares of our smartphones to the gigantic advertisements on the sides […]

The Revenant Reviewed by John David Ebert Occasionally, a dying medium is still able to produce a masterpiece. It happens. Hence, when Classical art was in its Hellenistic death throes it could still produce a Laocoon or a Cyclops Polyphemus from Sperlonga; the dying novel managed to breathe forth Gravity’s Rainbow and Blood Meridian; and […]

  Now available at the following link: https://www.createspace.com/5970466

Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens Reviewed by John David Ebert The new Star Wars film, directed by J.J. Abrams, is certainly entertaining and fun to watch. It works especially well as a vehicle for Harrison Ford’s character of Han Solo, who dominates the film with an excellent performance (which makes up for the […]

Visionary Creativity: How New Worlds are Born, is now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle, and on Barnes & Noble. From the back of the book: These are times of turmoil. But times of turmoil can also be times of creativity as we become aware of new possibilities in our arts, sciences, and industries, and of […]