Author Archive
Ondine & Holy Rollers
Ondine (2009) ***1/2 Wayforce Entertainment 111 minutes Director: Neil Jordan Syracuse (Colin Farrell) makes a living by fishing off the coast of his native Ireland free of a catastrophic BP oil spill, with untainted fish at the end of his line. One day Syracuse unexpectedly catches in his net, a woman likened to the Celtic myth of the selkie ”“ a seal that can shed her skin and transform into a human. Syracuse”'s bright 10 year old daughter, Annie (played extremely well by Alison Barry) realizes her dad”'s past tense story of the mythical mermaid Ondine, is real in the present tense. Syracuse”'s new guest seems bemused by her surroundings as well as insisting on being away from people. He hides her in his deceased grandma”'s cottage in a cover. Almost reading her father”'s mind, his physically challenged daughter Annie visits the cottage, and finds Ondine swimming in a pool. Colin Farrell has shown on several occasions his [...]
The Great Extinction
by Peter Molenaar July 17, 2010, a storm is brewing”¦ In the past 540 million years there have been five major events during which over 50% of animal species died. The most recent occurred 65 million years ago with the extinction of nearly all dinosaurs. What an incredible bonanza this was for the tiny ancestral shrew-like mamaliform whose gene pool was to explode and then radiate in every direction. As for the birds, they descend from that line of dinosaurs which included T. Rex. Surprisingly, the more archaic of present day birds have existed unchanged in form for merely one million years. The cormorants residing at Powderhorn Lake appear more ancient than that. From their island perch, our cormorants display horizontally spread wings bent vertically at the joint to declare: here I am. Their oil-drenched cousin, that iconic pelican, posed similarly before the camera. Moreover, elements of the old hadrosaur culture have been revived by our Powderhorn geese. Some [...]
