Author Archive: Matthew Vasiliauskas
Matthew Vasiliauskas is a graduate of Columbia College Chicago, where he received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Film and Video Production. In 2009, he was awarded the Silver Dome Prize by the Illinois Broadcast Association for best public affairs program as producer of the Dean Richards Show at WGN Radio. His work has appeared in such publications as The Pennsylvania Review, Stumble Magazine and The Adirondack Review. Matthew currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Something In The Air
In George Orwell’s Homage To Catalonia, his 1938 novel detailing his personal experiences in the Spanish Civil War, the author memorably wrote that bombs were impartial and that, “they killed the men they were thrown at, and the men who threw them.” This grayness permeating through the cracks and crevices of political frustration creates a [...]
Room 237
Few films have provoked audiences to a degree of obsessive debate as much as Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic The Shining, and in the new documentary Room 237, director Rodney Ascher examines the iconic film and the seemingly infinite possibilities as to its true meaning. With the participation of 5 interviewees including a veteran ABC [...]
Blancanieves
In his seminal book on bullfighting Death In The Afternoon, Ernest Hemingway saw the act not as some sort of senseless barbaric sport but as a true art form akin to ballet or painting, but one that is fleeting and described it as, “an impermanent art as singing and dance are, one of those that [...]
Beyond The Hills
Candlelight flickers in a summer breeze, as a confining darkness descends upon a screaming girl chained to a makeshift cross. The prayers of St. Basil swirl violently over her, spoken by a priest and four nuns who believe the woman is possessed by a demon. Every anguished moment echoes along the walls, and soon after three days [...]
Like Someone In Love
The gray screen of a security camera fizzles into focus, revealing the penetrating hate-filled eyes of a young man. Muted shouts spurt from his mouth, possessed, infuriated lips staining the camera with saliva as his fists pound relentlessly at the door in front of him, the rhythmic boom now a frenzy shaking the walls as if [...]
Trishna
Within Hindu culture, the peacock is considered a sacred animal, emblematic of eternal life and renewal. The male peacock in particular though also possesses a considerable degree of pride, strutting and displaying its vibrant plumage to attract a suitable mate. It is this conflicting battle between personal renewal and hyper vanity that dominates director Michael [...]
Beyond The Black Rainbow
The human eye can distinguish about 10 million colors. Photoreceptor cells known as cones allow for this color-vision, and the greater amount of cones an organism possesses the more variants of color it can process. Humans have three, butterflies five and tropical Mantis Shrimp quite astonishingly have 16. Known as sea locusts by ancient Assyrians, [...]
The Walt Disney Classic Short Films Animation Collection Volumes 4-6
After a five-year hiatus from hand drawn animation, The Walt Disney Company will return to the medium with its latest animated feature The Princess and The Frog, tentatively set for a December 2009 release date. In anticipation of this occasion, the studio has begun releasing its classic animated shorts from its heyday of the 40’s, [...]
Lemon Tree
Trees have always seemed to play a significant role in the revelations and desires of human beings. From their roles in the Garden of Eden, to influencing countless authors like Theroux and Whitman, to even appearing on screen in films like Adaptation. Plant life, through its growth and eventual blossoming has always seemed a fitting [...]
Tokyo Sonata
One of the more famous pieces of fiction on the subject of unrest amongst the wealthy elite in post-World War II America is John Cheever’s “The Enormous Radio.” In the story, a family purchases a new radio, which by some strange and unexplainable phenomenon can listen in on all of the conversations of the neighboring [...]
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