By Dr. Craig D. Reid As an award winning screenwriter as well as a filmmaker, I’ve learned how difficult it can be for the final draft of the screenplay to be anything like the screenwriter’s original story and vision, so I’m more sympathetic to the screenwriting knowing that as is common, too many cooks spoil […]
THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE: CAGE THE POWER IN THE NIC OF TIME
By Dr. Craig D. Reid When I was living in Los Angeles, from 2000 to 2006, I was an entertainment reporter for Reuters of Asia then for Reuters’ LA Bureau. The cool thing about this is that I was able to interview just about anyone in the film industry. One such interview was with […]
PREDATORS: PREDATOR-PREY INTERACTION SCIENCE IN CINEMA
By Dr. Craig D. Reid When Schwarzenegger’s Predator (1987) came out I was a PhD graduate student at the University of Illinois taking Entomology 319, Insect Pest Management, a legendary class taught by the late former head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Robert L. Metcalf. We just so happened to be studying predator-prey interactions […]
KARATE KID: THE WRONG, RIGHT AND DISRESPECTFUL
By Dr. Craig D. Reid The Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan starring The Karate Kid (2010) and its predecessor the Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita starring The Karate Kid (1984) has a unique balance of yin-yang philosophy seeped in martial traditions and chances are you’ll probably never recognize it unless you understand martial arts history, […]
STAR SHREK FOREVER AFTER – AND ENTERPRISING FILM
By Dr. Craig D. Reid The one thing you can count on in a Shrek movie is that the action sequences are based on something obviously familiar. However, with Shrek the Third (2007) and the latest (and last) installment to the franchise Shrek Forever After, only to the knowing eye or ear will recognize that […]
ROBIN HOOD: A BIRD IN HAND IS WORTH A CROWE ON THE SCREEN
By Dr. Craig D. Reid As a kid growing up in England, I’d hear that the kids in America would often play cowboys and Indians; cowboys being the good guys and Indians being the bad guys, which of course really was a skewered teaching tool of good vs. evil, and impressed upon the children the […]