Showing category "Review" (Show all posts)

HERE - GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, November 8, 2024, In : Review 

My wife Melissa and I had the opportunity last Saturday, Nov. 2, to catch a viewing of the new Tom Hanks movie Here.

Now, ordinarily, I most likely would have decided to dedicate most - if not all - of my regularly allotted space in my weekly newspaper column to a full-length, hopefully well-thought-out review of this latest collaboration between the Forrest Gump team of Hanks, co-star Robin Wright and director Robert Zemeckis (who, with Eric Roth, also co-wrote the screenplay - based on a gra...


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KORAK AT THE EARTH’S CORE: MY REVIEW

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, February 29, 2024, In : Review 

I can’t remember after so many years if it was for a book or a movie, or possibly even a TV show, but years I ago I read a review in which the writer began by saying that the best review he could ever imagine sharing would consist of just a single word: “Wow!”


That single word review pretty well sums up my reaction to Win Scott Eckert’s latest addition to the ever-expanding mythology created well over a century ago by my all-time favorite storyteller, Edgar Rice Burroughs. I’ve wri...


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THE FLASH: MY REVIEW

Posted by John Allen Small on Thursday, June 22, 2023, In : Review 

Okay. So… The Flash.


Wow…


Just… wow.


All right, let’s be honest: Yes, the film has its faults. And I’ll get to those in just a bit. But for the moment…


When you’ve a guy who spent most of his first sixty revolutions around Ol’ Sol subsisting on a fairly steady diet of superhero comic books and TV shows and movies and related novelizations and tie-ins… when your earliest childhood memories are of sitting on your daddy’s knee at the age of 3 watching episodes of the orig...


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ADVANCE BOOK REVIEW: LORD GREYSTOKE RIDES AGAIN!

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, May 18, 2022, In : Review 

Recently I was invited to review an advance reader’s copy of a new novel scheduled for release later this year. 


This isn’t the first time I’d been afforded this honor; one of my favorite perks that comes with being a newspaper columnist has been the number of books, fiction and non-fiction alike, that I’ve received over the years from both authors and publishers. 


In this particular instance, however, the invitation held special meaning for Yours Truly, and - being an unapologetic book...


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BOOK REVIEW - THE GREEN HORNET: HOW SWEET THE STING

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, October 15, 2021, In : Review 

I've been a fan of the 1966-67 television version of the Green Hornet and Kato for literally as long as I can remember; some of my earliest memories are of sitting on my father's knee watching the show with Dad during its original ABC-TV run when I was 3 years old in 1966. That being the case, I like to think I know a little bit about the character portrayed by Van Williams, and for that reason have followed Moonstone's series of Hornet tales with great interest. (I even had the great good fo...


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THE BAND ISN'T STYX WITHOUT DENNIS DEYOUNG

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, July 7, 2021, In : Review 

A friend and colleague of mine who lives in Texas recently persuaded me to give a listen to the latest studio album by the rock band Styx, entitled Crash Of The Crown.


Now understand that the friend in question is one with whom I have more agreements than disagreements when it comes to such things as music, books, movies, et. al. For the most part our tastes seem to be fairly similar, which for me is always gratifying because my personal tastes in general always seem to run counter to that o...


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CATCHING UP ON MY READING: FOUR HITS AND A DUD

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, March 10, 2021, In : Review 

It occurred to me this past weekend, as I closed the cover of a book I had just completed, that the one good thing that came out of this past year - what with all the quarantining and fighting off the virus and shivering in that recent Arctic blast - was that I had ample opportunity to catch up on my reading.


Even when you’re a lifelong bookworm like myself, there are times when you have little choice but to stifle the urge to curl up with that latest acquisition from Barnes and Noble beca...


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TARZAN: BATTLE FOR PELLUCIDAR (A REVIEW)

Posted by John Allen Small on Friday, September 4, 2020, In : Review 

(The following review is based on an advanced readers' copy.)



Now THIS is Tarzan!


A few years back, in a review of one entry in the recent spate of new novels featuring the famed jungle hero that have been authorized by Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. over the past decade or so, I made the following observation: "As a life-long fan, I have long been of the opinion that even lackluster Tarzan tales are ultimately better than no new Tarzan tales at all. (I’ll be the first one to admit that some stori...


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THE KLAUS PROTOCOL (A Review)

Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, April 27, 2020, In : Review 

I have been a fan of Frank Schildiner's tales of Frankenstein's Monster and Napoleon’s Vampire Hunters for some time. Recently I was given the opportunity to read an advance copy of Schildiner's latest novel - an historical novel entitled The Klaus Protocol, and I have to say this this his best work yet.


Opening in 1938 (the year my late father was born, which made the story all the more interesting for me on a personal level) then flashing back to incidents that occurred two years previou...


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CARSON OF VENUS: THE EDGE OF ALL WORLDS (A Review)

Posted by John Allen Small on Monday, April 20, 2020, In : Review 

As a lifelong fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs (I began reading my father's copies of the Ballantine and Ace ERB editions as a third grader in the early 1970s), I have spent much of that life feeling mixed emotions whenever I encounter new adventures of Burroughs' heroes written by authors other than the master himself. Certainly these return voyages into the ERB realm have been uneven at best. On the one hand we have seen the heights of Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Swords Against the Moon Men a...


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SUNDAY SCHOOL AND STAR WARS

Posted by John Allen Small on Wednesday, September 18, 2019, In : Review 

Not long ago I was fortunate enough to receive a free advance copy of a new book that has just been released, and which I feel is worth your attention.


12 New Testament Passages That Changed the World by Joseph Bentz may well be the best book of its kind since Joseph Campbell’s The Power Of Myth. While writing from a deliberately Christian point of view, Bentz - like Campbell - delves into the deeper meaning behind these stories so many of us learned in Sunday school, and ably demonstrates...


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About Me


John Allen Small John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996). Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.) John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something. In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems. He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.

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