Matthew Kresal's Blog

With a lifetime spanning across three-quarters of the twentieth century and into the early decades of the twenty-first, Gore Vidal had a ringside seat for much of what came to be termed “the American century.” It’s perhaps no wonder then that he became an active chronicler of its history and politics in novels, essays, lectures, commentary, and more besides. Nor was he limited to merely that topic, something that this 2013 documentary revels in across its ninety minute running time.

Scaffolded by...

John F. Kennedy’s presidency has long proven a rich source for dramatists and filmmakers to mine. How could it not be from a dashing and charismatic young president with a beautiful wife? Or the dramatic events of his thousand days in office from Cold War tensions in Cuba and Europe to the struggle for civil rights at home, not to mention tensions between the White House and the powerful longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover? Rarely has all that been as well captured as it was in the 1983 minise...

Recovering from Covid over the weekend and dealing with the unusually wintery weather we're having here in Alabama at present, I finally watched two recent DC movies that I'd not seen (albeit for different reasons).


The first was The Batman. Why have I been avoiding it? Two reasons: Robert Pattinson and a three hour runtime. And while I have some issues with both still (including Pattinson’s emo Bruce Wayne and the everything after the Arkham scene with Batman and Riddler feeling like a fourth ac...

Across thirteen weeks in 1980, writer of science fact and fiction Arthur C Clarke took viewers on a journey through the mysterious and unusual with the series Mysterious World. A series that focused on what Clarke called “mysteries of the first and second kind.” That is, mysteries that no longer were in the modern world and phenomenon where evidence existed but interpretation was debated. In the series opening episode, Clarke noted a third kind of mysteries that included psychic phenomenon, ghos...

The humidity was a jolt to the senses. The interior of the airliner from Miami had been comfortable compared to this. Not just because of the lack of fellow passengers. Franklin reminded herself that this was the eve of the "off-season." Even so, she hadn't been ready for the humidity.



Franklin made her way through the terminal. Immigration, her luggage checked, all the usual suspects. In the last two years, it had become a routine. Hence the slip-on shoes she wore. Or the only hygiene product sh...

Through a combination of submersible availability and James Cameron's film stirring the interest of cable channels such as Discovery, the mid-late 1990s was something of a golden era for Titanic documentaries. Finding a niche that presented the familiar tale of the 1912 disaster on the North Atlantic was always a challenge. One of the better efforts was Titanic: Untold Stories, shown on Discovery in 1998 and now up on YouTube through a Titanic channel, which combined different approaches into a ...

From presenting past presidents on the screen to imaging fictional ones dealing with crises ranging from wars to alien invasions, The American presidency and film have often come together throughout the medium's history. They've offered windows into corridors of power and reflected moments in America's history through fiction. Something which makes the 1972 film The Man an intriguing viewing experience, presenting a vision of something that would only come to pass more than thirty years later: t...

As I begin to type these words, it's less than a half-hour into 2022. Out with the old, in with the new. Or so the saying goes. Yet 2021 was, despite its share of dramas and odd setbacks, a surprisingly productive and rewarding year for me. Across 2021, I had numerous articles and reviews released, several short stories published in addition to my first novel, Our Man on the Hill, which came out from Sea Lion Press in May. Yet, the highlight of my year as a writer came from something published i...

Bigfoot. The Loch Ness Monster. Sea Monsters. UFOs.

These are just a few of the topics that have, over the decades, drawn in television makers seeking to produce documentaries on the odd and the unexplained here on Earth and beyond. Programs and even series that have, for better or worse, delved into sensationalism and muddied the waters. One of the series that stands out from the pack aired four decades ago on Britain's ITV network bucked the trend to a large extent. Fronted by one of the world'...

With Daniel Craig's last James Bond  film playing in cinemas, speculation has already started about the next film. Remembering how the films often pull from current events and remembering the time of the year (and with tongue a bit in cheek), join me over on Medium's On the Trail of the Saucers as I muse about the future of 007 and offer a potential future villain...

‘Saucers Are Forever,’ Anyone?