Author

Geoff Watkinson 10 posts 0 comments

Geoff Watkinson has contributed to Guernica, storySouth, The Humanist, Brevity [Blog], The San Diego-Tribune, The Virginian-Pilot, and Switchback, among others. His first nonfiction collection, 'Have Some Faith in Loneliness & Other Essays,' is due out in 2019 (Dreaming Big Publications). He is a lecturer in the English Department at Seton Hall University, and he is the founder/managing editor of Green Briar Review (www.greenbriarreview.com). Read more of his work at geoffwatkinson.wordpress.com/publications, or find him on Twitter: @GeoffWatkinson.

Film

Uncompromising Reality | Netflix’s The Photographer of Mauthausen Review

Geoff Watkinson Mar 9, 2019 0

There are countless Holocaust films on Netflix or otherwise, but what makes The Photographer of Mauthausen unique and meaningful is director Mar Targarona’s focus on the factual account of the Spanish in the Austrian concentration camp of…

Film

The Land of Hope and Dreams | New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen, and DNA

Geoff Watkinson Feb 7, 2019 0

I grew up in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, 40 miles northwest of Freehold, where Bruce Springsteen is from. A couple of miles away from my childhood home is the town of Centerville, where a blue sign marks what was the “center point for…

Film

Victors of The Night | Identity and Reflection in Bad Times at the El Royale

Geoff Watkinson Oct 18, 2018 0

As the film title suggests, things get worse for the seven characters with dark histories who seem to randomly collide in 1969 at the Lake Tahoe El Royale Hotel—a decaying former favorite of Vegas’ rat pack. The gimmicky hotel sits half in…

Topical

Facing Genocide: Letting History Repeat Itself in Syria

Geoff Watkinson Apr 18, 2018 0

I was 15-years-old the first time I saw a Holocaust survivor speak; she said that “we must never allow this to happen again.” Soon after, I went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. These were experiences of…

Film

The Relatable Amidst the Absurdity | Forgetting Sarah Marshall at 10

Geoff Watkinson Apr 18, 2018 0

In the February 2014 issue of The Atlantic, Olga Khazan, in her article, “The Dark Psychology of Being a Good Comedian,” explores the idea of successful comedy being “a little bit wrong and a little bit right.” Another way to put it is that…

Film Features

Would You Sleep With Robert Redford for 1 Million Dollars? | Indecent Proposal at 25

Geoff Watkinson Apr 7, 2018 0

Directed by Adrian Lyne, the 1993 film Indecent Proposal stars Robert Redford as John Gage, a billionaire playing a game of greed, seduction, and manipulation with David and Diana Murphy (Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore). The Murphys are…

History

The Duelling President

Geoff Watkinson Mar 31, 2018 0

There was a time when Presidents really were tough; they went to battle in the military, exchanged fire in duels, and fought—with fists—to defend their honour. This, really, wasn’t so long ago. And then there is the 45th President of the…

Topical

Grab a Branch: Trump’s Drug Proposal is Not the Answer

Geoff Watkinson Mar 30, 2018 0

One of the tree branches I always grabbed hold of while failing to get sober is possibility; that there are so many successful, creative, incredible people who have gotten sober. There was the late writer David Foster Wallace, who got clean…

Film

Film Review | The Search for Identity in Alex Garland’s Fantastic Annihilation

Geoff Watkinson Mar 10, 2018 1

*Contains mild spoilers* Natalie Portman delivers one of the best performances of her career in the new sci-fi film, Annihilation. The film offers a subdued thematic repertoire of creation and destruction that leaves one reflecting for…

Topical

Gun Control & The Pursuit of Happiness

Geoff Watkinson Mar 9, 2018 0

Guns, mental illness, and violence are one of the most explosive Molotov cocktails being thrown at steps of the Capitol, threatening everything that America is founded upon. There is no pursuit of happiness when our own children don’t feel…