Manns Medium

  The movie Shelter is based on the bestselling series by Harlan Coben, it follows the story of Mickey Bolitar (Jaden Michael) after the death of his father leads him to start a new life in suburban New Jersey. When another new student disappears, Mickey finds himself tangled in a web of secrets. With the help of two new friends, Spoon (Adrian Greensmith) and Ema (Abigale Corrigan), they reveal a dark underground that may hold the answers to decades of disappearances. Keeping me totally engrossed from the first episode to the last was not really the storyline or the actions and dramas, it was how awesomely those actors and actresses played their roles.   It seemed so effortless, watching them, that it was easy to forget it was a movie/series. I could not control my anxiousness to start the next episode.   Not many movies can make me feel the same emotions that the players were supposed to feeling but man, this was one and that journey this series took me on was one that...

  Today’s focus is on this election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden for the office of the President of the United States and while I cannot say that it is not something we should not be focused upon, there are other things going on behind the scenes of this that we refuse to recognize or choose to just simply ignore. Many claim that it is a fight between Democrat and Republican, Liberal and Conservative, the Right and the Left, the Right and the Wrong but that is not the truth, as I see it.   It is and always will be the fight between Good and Evil. This battle has been waging since the beginning of time and it is a never-ending war.   It is a battle that will be and must be fought every day of our mortal existence.   It is one that will never have clear winners and losers because if just a few of us fail to achieve victory in this war, we all fail.   This is not a battle to save the soul of a country, a nation, a world, or a universe.   It is the ba...

Growing up in a small town like Brownsville, Tennessee, there was very little that was going on at the time that a black kid could hold their heads up to.  What we saw on the ole black and white television were people who didn’t look like us and all the heroes of my time wore white like the Lone Ranger or blue like Adam-12 and the team from Emergency.  Some wore white like Marcus Welby, M.D. or Dr. Ben Casey but the ultimate hero for me was John Wayne another that only allowed me to watch his antics on the screen and model myself after.  That was before the Harlem Globetrotters were televised a few times and then was the only time that I could ever dream of making it on the big screen. The only downside to this dream, to me, was having the ability to play basketball and of all the skills I possessed, playing basketball was one I sorely lacked in.  The next major obstacle was over-coming the sneers and jeers I would hear about these men from people of my own race...

In a time when it appears that money is the primary and sometimes sole motivator behind movements we make, it is apparent that this may have been the only true reason for the new anti-Obama documentary as evidenced by The Huffington Post in an article titled 2016: Obama's America' Expands Into More Theaters Amid Accuracy Issues by Kia Makarechi.  I say this because it appears that it’s co-director, Dinesh D’Souza and it’s producer, Gerald Molen, have risked their reputation to present a movie that is supposed to be based on fact while showing severe indifference. The article chronicles the rise of the gross at the box office “this past weekend” as well as the expansion of it’s audience.  It states that “Molen defended the project as “fair and truthful” in a recent interview” but “the Associated Press fact-checked the film, which attempts to trace the roots of Obama's ideology. The newswire service found a number of errors or claims that are not made in good faith”.  Th...

Claudine Zap of Yahoo! TV penned an article titled Kanye West to Join 'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' which reports that “Kim K. confirmed to E! Online that her new beau, rapper Kanye West, will appear on several episodes of the reality series, saying: "I want to show my life,” adding, "If we are having dinner and he does show up, I'm sure we're not going to go, 'Stop the cameras!'" But she added, "I'm not going to be taking a bubble bath and drinking champagne or on a sex swing [on camera] like Khloé and Lamar do," My first thought after reading this was how extremely competitive Kim must be when it comes to the success of the family.   The comment about bubble baths, drinking champagne and sex swing was a little much and made me begin to think that Khloé may have a sibling stalker on her hands instead of a supportive sister.   I also began to wonder if this was nothing more than just another stunt by Kim to boost her ratings ...

I was surprised to find that the new series on the USA Network called “Necessary Roughness” would be as good as advertised, it was so much better.   The star of the show is Callie Thomas (Dr. Danielle (Dani) Santino) and she plays her character like it was more a part of her.   When she discovered her husband, Craig Bierko (Ray Santino) was cheating on her, she made a very tough decision to seek a divorce.   It was later discovered that even though her husband said he wanted to come back home, he was making moves which contradicted it.   Moves like freezing the credit cards, claiming to have lost all of his profits in his garment business and fighting for the kids so as not to have to pay child support.   Dani bundled up that ball of energy and strapped in to fight back. She knew that the road would be rough trying to raise two teenagers, Patrick Johnson as Ray "Ray Jay" Santino Jr. and Hannah Marks as Lindsay Santino.   They too, had to digest the su...

There are a few philosophies that I live by and which has served me well.   One of the main one is the adage “give a person enough rope, they either become a cowboy or hang themselves.”   A cowboy in the sense of the Old West where he/she rides in to save the day and rides off into the sunset as a hero.   Hanging themselves in the typical sense of not knowing when to cease and desist from an action which reflects poorly on the person committing the action but also the collective country as a whole.   Being a single father, I try to instill these in my kids, hoping that these philosophies will also serve them just as well. When I read the article about Mr. Limbaugh implication that African-American households teach their children to hate America, this was the bridge too far for me.   According to reporting from Media Matters, Mr. Limbaugh was conducting Open Mic Friday and discussing the issue some felt the Grand Ole Party (GOP) had with the Hispanic communit...

Joe Pompeo ’s article titled Keith Olbermann announces new ‘Countdown’ contributors was very good news to someone who loved his show on MSNBC and enjoyed his take on the Worst Person in the World.   The article reported that “Keith Olbermann's forthcoming prime time show on Current TV is starting to take shape, ahead of its June 20 premiere .   Olbermann has high expectations for the program, which bears the same name as his former news hour on MSNBC. But he has a lot of catching up to do--Current, which launched in 2005, is available only in 60 million U.S. households--a much smaller audience than its competitors.”   It may open to a smaller audience but I am confident that it will grow and become as popular as his other offering. While it must be said that I do not agree with everything that Mr. Olbermann says or every stance that he takes, it is still the only real place where we can disagree without being disagreeable.   I believe even with just “only in 60...

Recently I was confronted by a problem of my adopted daughter trying to coordinate college with finishing high school on a good note.   She seemed quite concerned that figuring out which one to pursue more than the other was going to make her lose her mind.   My advice was to concentrate on that which was directly in front of her and I would assist with those things that may occur later.   That little three minute conversation seemed to be the best medicine because she left my presence singing.   It was then that I began to think about all of the small things that seem to dwarf the larger ones and even minimizes them. I thought about my recent royalty check from AuthorHouse/Author Solutions.   While it amounted to only $41.00, it was $41 dollars that I did not have and it could easily allow me to purchase pull-ups for my three year old son.   Being unemployed for quite some time, that little check was enough to allow me to finally get a decent night sle...

In an age where so many are not being held responsible for their actions or inactions, this article was not such a surprise but it did make me want to offer a few thoughts.   These thoughts are nothing new and have been expressed by more than I at one time or another.   The Associated Press article titled Feds: TV producer should be extradited to Mexico reported that “ U.S. Justice Department officials say former "Survivor" reality television producer Bruce Beresford-Redman should be extradited to Mexico to stand trial for the killing of his wife during a Cancun vacation last spring.”   It further explained that “the 39-year-old and has been fighting extradition in jail since Nov. 16 as well as “the body of 41-year-old Monica Beresford-Redman was found April 8 in a wastewater treatment pump at a Cancun resort. An autopsy says she was struck on the head and asphyxiated.”   Even though Redman has publicly protested his innocence of this crime, it is still a responsibi...

Catch “Breakout Kings” at its regular time Sunday s 10:00 PM (EST) on A&E Fox’s loss is A&E’s gain.   It has been reported that this show first pitched this idea to the Fox Channel who refused it only to have A&E pick it up.   The decision maker from Fox may now have to live with the fact they threw away a runaway hit.   Here is just a little of what is in store for anyone watching this show. The first thing to be aware of is Charlie DuChamp (Laz Alonso) has waited for years to finally get away from behind the desk of the US Marshall Service where a weak heart landed him and this is the same ailment that killed his father some time ago.   His drive to make this work is rooted in finally getting a chance to prove him self and being the only official US Marshall Representative makes him more than responsible for the results shown by this experiment.   This drives him to be somewhat “heavy handed” but as time and relationships build, he seems to be co...