Year: 2012

“Hit and Miss”–Or, “Boys Don’t Cry” meets “Dexter”

Written by diana on August 20, 2012. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. 2 Comments on “Hit and Miss”–Or, “Boys Don’t Cry” meets “Dexter”

This new mini-series created exclusively for DirecTV’s Audience Network stars Chloë Sevigny as a transgender hired assassin living in Yorkshire, England and fated to parent four children who have just lost their mother to cancer. One of the children, Ryan, is her son whom she fathered before pursuing her journey to becoming Mia. Now she finds herself the legal guardian to four children. When the children she inherits begin to affect her, she is shaken by her own amorality. In each opening scene, the camera moves over Mia’s pre-op transsexual body: nude with both breasts and a...

Bar Pintxo: In a pinch

Written by diana on August 14, 2012. Posted in Local travel, Restaurants, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on Bar Pintxo: In a pinch

Recently on a trip to LA we embarked on a culinary adventure beginning with a cooking demo by Bar Pintxo Chef David Planowski at Surfas, a gourmet kitchen supply store in Culver City. Recently rated as one of the top 10 bars/tapas restaurants by Los Angeles Magazine, we wanted to check it out for ourselves by sampling at the demo. Surfas had about fifty participants with several audience volunteers helping Chef David with an unforgettable gazpacho, including his secrets: squeezing the tomatoes and cucumbers to get maximum juice and the variability of his standard vinaigrette (has to do...

“Between the Folds”–Origami as Scientific Art

Written by diana on August 6, 2012. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on “Between the Folds”–Origami as Scientific Art

Vanessa Gold, producer of the film, “Between the Folds” (winner of the 2010 Peabody award), chronicles origami, literally, “folding paper”. Many American children have attempted this Japanese craft in elementary school, making an origami crane or simple fish. However, origami is much, much more and has become something of a manic hobby among a number of Silicon Valley engineers. And, this film explains why–through filming the stories of ten origami artists/scientists, who have developed origami “technology”, in engineering, industrial design, and...

“The Newsroom”–A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Cable TV News

Written by diana on July 30, 2012. Posted in Television reviews. 12 Comments on “The Newsroom”–A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Cable TV News

In the opening episode, veteran news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is asked by a fresh-faced journalism student what makes America the greatest country on earth. Cajoled into giving a substantive response by the moderator, Will McAvoy throws caution aside and proceeds in a blistering monologue filled with statistics to explain why America isn’t. The collateral damage becomes significant. His boss (Sam Waterston) considers the episode a meltdown. The meltdown forces him to reassess his former self–a time when news reporting was about defending the ideals of a culture and truth...

“The Stoning of Soraya M”–Let He Who Is Without Sin….

Written by diana on July 23, 2012. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 3 Comments on “The Stoning of Soraya M”–Let He Who Is Without Sin….

“The Stoning of Soraya M. (2009) cuts into the soul with its fierce, unflinching narrative of Soraya Manutchehri, a 35-year-old woman stoned to death in a small Iranian village in 1986 after being convicted of adultery. Her death was the subject of Freidoune Sahebjam’s 2009 novel, La Femme Lapidée, a book banned in Iran. This award-winning indie film lovingly caresses the beautiful, wounded face of Aunt Zahra (breathtakingly played by the luminous Shohreh Aghdashloo) who is devastated by the stoning of her niece Soraya (perfectly portrayed by Mozhan Marno). Zahra pleads with a...

Community Colleges– A Change Is On the Way?

Written by diana on July 16, 2012. Posted in Monterey Peninsula College. 5 Comments on Community Colleges– A Change Is On the Way?

California community colleges have some of the lowest tuition fees in the country. And for decades, the community college system has taken great pride in being a “social equalizer”: operating under several mandates, one of which is to provide inexpensive postsecondary education. But budget cuts have forced campuses to dramatically scale back what they offer. The paradigm has begun to shift. Is it possible our tuition is too low? How should the community college system follow its other mandate: to prepare students for a career path? And what about “non-traditional”...