“The picture got great reviews but let’s take a chance anyway.” That’s what I usually say to my wife when we’re planning a night out at the movies. Critics and I are not usually on the same page. But the Disney release called “Earth,” a compendium of brilliant nature footage cribbed from a BBC series, seemed irresistible, even though it got raves. True, there’d been quibbling about the corn-ball narration and the selection of stentorian-voiced James Earl Jones to deliver it, but the summation of the reviews was: don’t miss it.

Disney had taken miles of extraordinary footage from the long-running English nature series and condensed and shaped it into a story of sorts: mama polar bear and her cubs emerge out of hibernation in the arctic snow, with the adorable babies blinking at their first sight of the summer sun. She begins the task of teaching them to survive. Papa bear, meanwhile, or “dad” as he’s known in the narration, is off on the ice floe, trying to catch a seal for his dinner. But “global warming” is making this difficult to do as the ice is breaking up earlier than usual. Dad falls into the frigid water and begins swimming for his life. He swims and swims till he gets to Antarctica where there is an abundance of seals. But dad is too weak from all that swimming, can’t nab a seal, and lies down and dies. End of family. (more…)

I quit smoking years ago but love second hand smoking. I especially love watching women smoke. It is more of a cinematic fascination. It looks good. Women are magic and when they come with their own pyrotechnic effects, they are precious.

There’s nothing more American than a strong, beautiful woman blowing smoke in my immigrant face. It makes me feel like a full-fledged American citizen. I’m enchanted by the smoky veil of the American dream and feel the mighty fume coming out of the American land, a Native genie rising from the bottled mysterious desert of endless imagination… 

Tobacco was the first intimate bridge between the European settler, the American land and its native population. Smoking tobacco was one of the first peaceful cultural exchanges between settlers and natives. Tobacco was also one of the first uniquely American exports to the world and through the burning of this magnificent plant the New World covered the old world with the purifying smoke of freedom.  (more…)