I hiked McKitrick Canyon in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Far West Texas over the Easter/Passover/Spring Holiday of Your Choice weekend. It is a beautiful oasis in the middle of the desert mountains, very close to Mexico, with creeks and blooming cactus in the springtime, Texas madrone trees and […]
The only film of Gabriel Byrne’s that my mother ever saw was Point of No Return. It had just become available on video and I rented it from the neighborhood video store (remember those?) and we watched it together. She died a year later, so this is a bitter-sweet memory, […]
Wah-Wah is the semi-autobiographical film by first-time director Richard E. Grant that contains a remarkable performance by Gabriel Byrne, who plays his father in the film. How Mr. Byrne managed to channel Mr. Grant’s father in his portrayal of this complicated man is a miracle. This is perhaps Gabriel’s finest […]
In his review of Defence of the Realm, Gene Siskel observes that one of the “acid tests” for determining a good film is if it provokes in you a desire to be part of the world it depicts. In this case, his response is “Yes!” He is fascinated by the world […]
Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Coleridge will all be remembered for their poetry. Byron will be remembered for his poetry as well, but he may be remembered even more for his rebellious, seductive, creative, and heroic life–a life as notable for its scandals as its literary achievements. A peer of the realm, […]
Milton got it right, even though he did not intend to do so. Paradise Lost is interesting, as a story and as a poem, while Satan is in the spotlight. As literary critics have noted, Milton saw in Satan all his own “best qualities.” God’s fallen angel is an “heroic […]