By CJ Tiernan I suppose it’s possible someone watched the Harry Potter movies without first reading the books. It’s unfathomable to me, but possible. For those of us that did read the books, we experienced a fantasy world for the ages, full of life and color and possibility. As a result, it set the stakes really high for the movies. Like, really high (James-Franco-at-the-Oscars level high). The characters in the books are so fleshed out and J.K. Rowling utilizes a very visu

By CJ Tiernan Shakespeare once wrote something about names and flowers (C’mon, you know the one). Anyway, he was wrong. A name can make or break the essence of a character. Han Solo tells us he’s a lone wolf. Ted Lasso tells us he’s in charge of corralling a group of individuals. Mickey Mouse tells us he’s a mouse. Sometimes, the writer just goes wild with it. Princess Consuela Banana Hammock is a name a character (who already has a name) makes up for themselves. Inigo Mont

By CJ Tiernan Consider this: statistically speaking, you will consume more meals whilst seated at a table than any other piece of furniture. Did I just blow your mind or what? A table is a landing pad for both food and active, practical storage. Sometimes it’s for meals, other times it’s for laundry or gaming. Sometimes you put a lamp on it or (back in the day, at least) a landline. Tables are everywhere and (outside of a Buffalo Bills tailgate) often built to stand the tes

By CJ Tiernan Production Design is the term used to describe the creation of the visual world of the film. It is the sets and props that one sees on screen. If asked to describe it like one of your French girls, you’d call it the Mise-en-scène, which translates to “placing on stage.” Long story short, it’s everything you see in front of the camera or the physical world of the film. Color, design, placement, lighting, and so much more go into sculpting a world that we believ

By CJ Tiernan You ever stop and look around the English-language landscape? It’s wild out there. We have words that sound the same but are spelled differently. We have words that mean multiple, palpably different things. We, the denizens of the melting pot, have words inherited from seemingly every other language under the stars. It can be a lot to handle. Worse yet, we often ignore the available words with imbued pizazz and lean on the rudimentary and familiar (unforgivabl

By CJ Tiernan Creating something new is hard. To conjure something from nothing takes time and effort. This is a list showcasing people braggadociously showing off their skills. They have created something new, inside of something they created. My list, drawn from books, movies, and TV shows, illustrates invention within creation. Hat tip to all you intrepid writers. This is my Top 11 List of the Greatest Fictional Games in the history of fiction. 1. Jumanji – Jumanji - M

By CJ Tiernan Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year. If you're in the midwest like me, you experience cold, snowy days imploring you to while away your hours indoors by the fire with a mug of cocoa in hand watching Christmas movies. Nearly every Christmas movie has its foundation built from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol . One of the main characters has a change of heart at the end and discovers the true meaning of Christmas and basic human decency. My dad like

By CJ Tiernan Adages, Idioms, Axioms and Proverbs. These are phrases that we use, some almost daily, to convey our thoughts and our meanings. They're often things we've heard from others over and over again and they serve as a shortcut (our brain is always down to clown with a shortcut) to deliver our message or an opportunity to avoid answering the truly daunting questions like "How are you" and "How have you been?" I am always positively smitten when I encounter a character

By CJ Tiernan I haven't seen a lot of movies from this range of time. I was born in 1988, so movies from 1969 on back weren't regularly ones I would stumble upon. In fact, a majority of the movies on this list were ones I did see as a kid as five of them are animated. I'd say they're all rated G or PG but some of them came out so long ago they predate the MPAA. That may not be true, but the rating system back in the day was crazy. Have you seen "Splash"? That movie is rated P

By CJ Tiernan When you first learn to read as a child, it opens up world of possibilities. You can pick up a book and read it all on your own (Awesome!). You can explore a world or learn and grow. It creates your first real moment of autonomy as a human being. Below is a list of my 11 favorite books that I read as a child. I read these over and over and over again. 1. Harold and the Purple Crayon Written and Illustrated by Crockett Johnson Published in 1955 This book, about a