Film Review: 1917

By Becky Lauer

Full disclosure – I have a very limited knowledge of the events of World War I.

Personally, I like to do my research before watching historical dramas, otherwise I feel like the kid who didn’t do the reading before class discussion. So, as I waited in the theater for an early screening of the film 1917 by Sam Mendes, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was walking into.  I knew Andrew Scott, Colin Firth, Richard Madden and Benedict Cumberbatch were involved so I trusted the time spent in the theater would be worth it. I expected to see a good movie, not one the greatest movies of the year.

Toss of the Dice (Excerpt)

David L. Saffan

CHARACTERS:

DOUG 20 years old, a college student

JEFF 20 years old, a college student

CHUCK 21 years old, a college student

STEVE 19 years old, a college student

HANK 21 years old, a college student

LINDA 20 years old, a college student, Doug’s girlfriend

GUNG-HO (JOHN) 20 years old, a college student

PLACE: The small off-campus apartment that Doug and Jeff share at a college in the Midwest

TIME: Monday night, December 1, 1969

Book Review: Adam Nemett’s “We Can Save Us All”

By David M. Olsen

We Can Save Us All is an ambitious debut by a very talented Adam Nemett. The book begins with a chance meeting of our rather nerdy protagonist, David Fuffman, in an odd, drug-enhanced damn-building exercise where he meets the charismatic and wealthy Mathias Blue—in a frigid river, at Princeton. This clever scene is a fun springboard into the witty, satirical, and nihilistic novel that is to follow. The story is set in the near future where all-too-realistic issues of war and climate change combine with a phenomenon called “Chronostrictesis,” where time itself seems to be coming to an end as though through a funnel: human existence as we know it is no longer, as the characters have to stockpile food and supplies for the severe weather and the impending superstorm.