Mark Jenkins

When Mystery Writer Meets Pinup Girl (Who's Dead)

Mark Jenkins — Fri, 11 May 2012 02:30:37 +0000

Playing a Marilyn Monroe avatar in Nobody Else But You, Sophie Quinton endows her impersonation with less vitality than Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn. But that's appropriate: Quinton's character is already dead when this smart if outlandish movie opens.

The story begins with the disembodied voice of Candice Lecoeur (Quinton), a bottle-blonde, Marilyn-obsessed bombshell. She was the reigning sex goddess of Jura, a remote area of France that's almost Switzerland. Then Lecoeur's body is found in the snow, clutching a bottle of pills.

'Surviving Progress': Taking overdevelopment to task

Mark Jenkins — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:38:22 +0000

Not every human advance is a snare, according to Ronald Wright, author of A Short History of Progress. But some new techniques can lead to something the Canadian author calls a "progress trap" — a development that's ultimately more harmful than helpful.

Wright's book, based on a 2004 lecture series, is the foundation for Surviving Progress, a provocative if scattershot documentary from directors Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, who wander off topic more than once as they introduce myriad other voices.

In Astro-Dad's Footsteps: A Son's 'Mission' To Space

Mark Jenkins — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:15:35 +0000

Reaching for the heavens looks pretty easy in Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott's Road to the Stars. The title character didn't meet the eyesight requirements to train as a NASA astronaut. So he just paid $30 million to the Russian space program, and hopped a Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station.

Not everyone has $30 million, of course, and the story of how Garriott got the cash seems potentially interesting.