This is Philip Crossman's Typepad Profile.
Join Typepad and start following Philip Crossman's activity
Join Now!
Already a member? Sign In
Philip Crossman
Vermont
Recent Activity
“I don’t want to look back any more.”
Image
The Past REVIEW In the first scene of this movie, a former husband and wife, separated for four years, gets into a car and begins to back up out of their parking place. He has returned to sign off on their divorce so that she can remarry. His return, as... Continue reading
Posted Feb 9, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"I could lay blame"
Image
Teacher Man REVIEW After thirty years of teaching, Frank McCourt headed out the d%oor of his last school into retirement. Someone said to him “You should write a book.” He did. “When I taught in New York City high schools for 30 years,” McCourt writes, “No one but my students... Continue reading
Posted Jan 31, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
Far from the Trree
Image
Far from the Tree REVIEW I can’t really do a better job describing this book/documentary than you will find HERE. But in short, consider all the different ways that a parent might find themselves raising a child who is unimaginably different than what they expected that a child of theirs... Continue reading
Posted Jan 22, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"GOD has yet more Light to reveal ..."
Image
Darkness Falls on the Land of Light REVIEW I will let the author of this book, Douglas Winiarski, summarize what his book is about. Darkness Falls on the Land of Light examines the breakdown of New England Congregationalism and the rise of American evangelicalism during the eighteenth century. It is... Continue reading
Posted Jan 20, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
“It hurt like hell but it was something I could feel.”
Image
Breath REVIEW Tim Winton’s Breath is a story about addiction. Not to drugs or booze but to danger and adrenaline. It is about two Australian boys who are introduced to the chemical highs of surfing beyond the limits of safety. Pikelet and Loonie are in their early teens when they... Continue reading
Posted Jan 15, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
“Corruption is paid for by the poor”  Pope Francis.
Image
Backstabbing for Beginners REVIEW “Corruption is paid for by the poor”  - Pope Francis. Backstabbing for Beginners is a primer in global corruption. In this case it is at the U.N. but it could be about the impact of corruption anywhere. Based on the experience of Michael Soussan, a mid-level... Continue reading
Posted Jan 8, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
Brick by Brick the pyramids rose. [they should have documented who built them, eh?] Do you ever embedd philosophical thoughts into the comments in your programs? Thanks for reading my blog sky. Always enjoy hearing your thoughts. Phil
Toggle Commented Jan 8, 2019 on "Is this all?’” at Eucatastrophe Reader
"Is this all?’”
Image
The Escape REVIEW Someone has actually made a movie out of Betty Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. The Escape is focused on (and believe me when I say that throughout 90% of this movie, the camera actually is focused on) Tara, a young housewife and mother of two small... Continue reading
Posted Jan 7, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
3
"For I was a stranger and you invited me in"
Image
Lean on Pete REVIEW Fifteen year old Charlie senses that he has an unreliable guardian but it is not like there is a way to go pick up a better one at a local transfer station. His father has a parental IQ score about .0001 above the legal limit where... Continue reading
Posted Jan 1, 2019 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"We call the factories 'sleep dealers', because if you work long enough, you collapse."
Image
Sleep Dealer Review “Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition,... Continue reading
Posted Dec 3, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
“I had started on a path of awareness.”
Image
Educated by Tara Westover REVIEW This is a story of a mind, like a fugitive slave making its way to Canada through an underground railroad called “education.” Tara Westover’s domineering father and his religion-fueled empire of certainty provides the “Iron Curtain” from behind which Tara must escape as a child,... Continue reading
Posted Nov 22, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
The Rise and fall of Jackson's Meadows
Image
Communal Organization and Social Transition REVIEW Yesterday, Vermonters voted on a number of statewide positions. They basically had to choose between a Republican and a Democratic candidate for Governor. Phil Scott, the Republican incumbent won by a substantial margin. The Democratic candidate was the country’s first major party trans-gendered woman.... Continue reading
Posted Nov 7, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"They think we're dirt. We are not dirt."
Image
Black Sea REVIEW The seaweed is always greener In somebody else's lake You dream about going up there But that is a big mistake Just look at the world around you Right here on the ocean floor Such wonderful things surround you What more is you lookin' for? “Under the... Continue reading
Posted Oct 30, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"The Invasion"
Image
Going Up the Country REVIEW Going Up the Country: When the Hippies, Dreamers, Freaks, & Radicals Moved to Vermont is written by a fellow faculty member at my college, Yvonne Daley. “My Vermont story began in 1967,” she says in her introduction, “when my first husband and I left graduate... Continue reading
Posted Oct 30, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"Just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified video game.”
Image
Ready Player One REVIEW What is the appropriate balance between engaging life and escaping it? Between facing reality and imagining a fantasy? Between actual experience and vicarious adventure? Ready Player One places us in a dystopian future (2045) where people live trailer trash lives in high rise trailer parks with... Continue reading
Posted Oct 29, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"But Yehya was not convinced, and he did not stop bleeding."
Image
The Queue REVIEW Basma Abdel Aziz’ novel is dystopian fiction, political satire, and a statement of vigorous religious and social dissent. It can at times remind the reader of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (there are multiple characters telling their stories). At times it reminds one of Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal (in... Continue reading
Posted Oct 29, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"I mean, your character, Maria, not you."
Image
Clouds of Sils Maria REVIEW I have not much to say about this film. I found it ingenious but without a point to the genius in the end. A middle aged actress who became a star at the age of 18 in a play where she played a young seductress... Continue reading
Posted Oct 20, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
You know there is no other way
Image
Scene from the Romanian movie, Graduation. [Background] A middle aged Romanian doctor (Romeo) and his wife (Magda) have an eighteen year old daughter (Eliza) who has earned a place at Cambridge University in England. She just needs to do well on her final three graduation tests. The day before her... Continue reading
Posted Oct 17, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
A Sustained Act of Random Kindnesses
Image
The Kid with a Bike REVIEW First of all, this movie needs a better title. Having said that, more people should watch it than probably will. It is not often that a child actor inhabits his (or her) character this convincingly. Cyril is about ten. He lives in a home... Continue reading
Posted Sep 22, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"This land is my land. This land is your land."
Image
Little Pink House REVIEW This movie illustrates to me the power of a movie to get a story into people’s consciousness and the limitations of a movie to get the *whole* story in there. The story focuses on the experience of a woman who owns a home along the river... Continue reading
Posted Sep 12, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
“In the near future, after economic catastrophe and climate change came famine, the great migration and the civil war.”
Image
Humanity Bureau REVIEW “In the near future, after economic catastrophe and climate change came famine, the great migration and the civil war.” This is a movie starring (is that the right word for this actor these days?) Nicolas Cage that is marinated in anti-Trumpism. It is clear that the movie... Continue reading
Posted Sep 8, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
“I have my own ideas. My own taste.”
Image
Back to Burgundy Review Back to Burgundy is a film about three siblings coming to terms with some unresolved childhood matters as adults. Their father has died and the three of them must make decisions about the family vineyard. But the story is more complex than that. It seems clear... Continue reading
Posted Sep 8, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
“We have always been honest with each other.” “Have we? Have we?”
Image
Disobedience REVIEW This is a film marinated in the questions of honesty as they apply in highly conservative religious communities. Ronnit is the daughter of a great Rabbi. Alas, she is also gay. Esti is her first love and now the wife of Ronnit’s cousin Dovid - the heir apparent... Continue reading
Posted Aug 12, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
“We were alive in those days"
Image
Summer Interlude REVIEW Today’s movie was from the archives; Ingmar Bergman’s 1951 Summer Interlude a movie about the tragedy of losing a first great love in life. The film’s plot is not complicated and its characters, Marie and Henrik, are not complex. A young ballet dancer falls in love with... Continue reading
Posted Aug 12, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
"Bring back the folk"
Image
American Folk REVIEW I am glad I did not listen to Roger Ebert on this one. This is such a lovely movie about how life can bring you into connection with strangers if you will be open to it. A young man and a young woman sit on a plane... Continue reading
Posted Jul 29, 2018 at Eucatastrophe Reader
Comment
0
Subscribe to Philip Crossman’s Recent Activity
The Typepad Team
View all »
kelvin chong
TacoEater
Amin Matalqa
Niche
tarad
sheson
View all »
0 Favorites
Blogs and Sites
Around The Web