Tag Archives: movies

A Year in Movies 2021 – Part 1

Posted on January 16, 2022 by Ralph Hanson

2021 was a rough year, given a pandemic that kept many of us at home for much of the year. There were also public conflicts over people refusing masks and vaccinations.  In my home, we wondered: Could we go out … Continue reading →

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Everything is a Remix – Apocalypse Pooh

Posted on October 8, 2021 by Ralph Hanson

Back in 1987, comedian and filmmaker Todd Graham had a thought. What if he combined sequences from Francis Ford Coppola’s classic reboot of “Heart of Darkness”  Apocalypse Now with segments of the Disney version of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey … Continue reading →

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In The Heights, Returning to Theaters, and the Importance of Representation

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Ralph Hanson

While I’ve always been a big fan of action and sci-fi flicks, the movie I’ve been most excited about seeing this summer has been Lin-Manuel Miranda’s (Hamilton) and Jon Chu’s (Crazy Rich Asians) musical extravaganza In The Heights.  In the Heights … Continue reading →

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Director James Gunn takes on critics of “cancel culture”

Posted on March 9, 2021 by Ralph Hanson

Movie director James Gunn has had his own personal run-in with the so-called “cancel culture,” aka being held accountable for things you have said. As you may recall, long before Gunn became a big-time Marvel Cinematic Universe director of the … Continue reading →

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Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Ralph Hanson

Why did it take so long for Quaker Oats to abandon Aunt Jemima as a pancake brand? Aunt Jemima has a new name: the Pearl Milling Company. Quaker Oats announced it would drop the name Aunt Jemima last summer after … Continue reading →

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Will “Everyone’s Gone to the Movies” be true again?

Posted on October 12, 2020 by Ralph Hanson

Back in May, I wrote a long post about the effects the COVID19 pandemic is having on the movie and movie theater industries. The short version? It’s a disaster. Theaters stayed closed for months and movie producers have had to … Continue reading →

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Memories from 9/11 – Musicals, Movies and Motorcycles

Posted on September 11, 2020 by Ralph Hanson

It was 19 years ago this morning that I was teaching my freshman media literacy course at West Virginia University.  I had a class with close to 350 students in it.C-SPAN’s Washington Journal morning show was playing on the big screen as … Continue reading →

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I’m Back: What did I miss?

Posted on June 22, 2020 by Ralph Hanson

After an intense spring of work on the eighth edition of Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, a full draft of the manuscript is with the editor’s at Sage.  That doesn’t mean I’m done working on the book, but it … Continue reading →

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Movies and Theaters in the Age of COVID19

Posted on May 12, 2020 by Ralph Hanson

Back in March of 2020, it was becoming clear to the movie industry that it was going to be a significant amount of time before audiences were going to be gathering in large numbers anywhere, let alone close-packed movie theaters. … Continue reading →

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“If we break quarantine, we could all die.” Alien, 1979

Posted on April 20, 2020 by Ralph Hanson

My favorite bit of social distancing art is this tattoo design done by artist Genevieve Kent-Bethley out of Kitchener, Ontario. It’s been circulated heavily on Twitter without credit to the artist.

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