Unfiltered with Josh Cohen

Movie Review: It (2017) I must confess that I didn’t have particularly high-minded ambitions for this film as I had been (and still am) an avid watcher of the iconic 1990 mini-series with a stellar performance by the great Tim Curry as the demonic clown, Pennywise. Embarrassingly, this deeply disturbing interpretation of Stephen King’s novel character is one whose face often intruded in my nightmares growing up. It seems that this 2017 redux helmed by the up-and coming Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise could eclipse the seemingly insurmountable effort of 1990. The film starts with the familiar yet wonderfully revivified scene of little Georgie Denbrough (played by Jackson Robert Scott) chasing his paper boat down the street of an indiscriminate suburban town (my fellow “It” enthusiasts invariably know this town to be Derry, Maine) which articulation of the street circumnavigates into the sewer. It is here where the only somewhat dormant nightmares of my youth burst throug...

Reston was an assistant to U.S. Secretary of the Interior,  Stewart Udall  (1964–1965) and served in the  U.S. Army  (1965–1968) as an intelligence officer. He was a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina (1971–81). [1]  Reston is a Senior Scholar at the  Woodrow Wilson Center  in Washington D.C. [2]  and has been a fellow at the American Academy in Rome and a resident scholar at the Kluge Center at the  Library of Congress . Reston is the author of 17 books, three plays, and numerous articles in national magazines. His works of both fiction and non-fiction cover a wide range of historical and political topics. Five of his works,  Galileo: A Life ,  The Last Apocalypse ,  Warriors of God ,  Dogs of God , and  Luther's Fortress  have been translated into thirteen foreign languages.  Warriors of God  was an international best seller. The Last Apocalypse was a main ...