In no small measure inspired by BBC America's Canadian-produced tricky and fun new series Orphan Black, which centers heavily on cloning what-ifs, I came back to this simmering question (thanks, TV!) -- why not cloning? And the question inevitably becomes -- why hasn't it happened yet? It seems that no...

Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.

I find the pursuit of cultural and ethnic authenticity to be an unnecessary and quixotic pursuit in America. In fact, it's downright un-American. The United States...

The pedigreed filmmakers behind "Zero Dark Thirty" are denying the claims that their film supports torture, saying essentially that their film merely depicts torture as it's an important part of the story. So they only show it, but do not support it. This goes to the old Hollywood...

The only people I fundamentally do not understand are the people who have guns. It's like they love living next to a cobra thinking it will never bite them. Believing also that if only everyone in the world lived next to a cobra, then we'd all live in a safer...

I think of myself as a sensitive, intellectual person in touch with my emotions, but I walked out of the latest Bond installment Skyfall feeling like I've had enough. Enough of these morose, soul-scraping, suicidal male "heroes" who seem over-burdened by the courage required by their fictional jobs and just...

A complaint about Internet complaining.

Getting access to a keyboard does not make you a superhero, increasing your brain size and making you invisible. When you get on the net, you are the same person you were a second earlier. Still, this truism seems to escape the perception of many.

I wanted to share some dilemmas I faced in creating a character for my latest project. I am writing and directing a fiction film inspired by the real life of Solomon Bibo, who was a Jewish governor of a Native American...

Being an American president is like being an Avenger. The president is there to protect us from evil forces and to guide us in the hour of need. The POTUS position is more than a job, it's a symbol of all our hopes and dreams (and often the focus of...

As I drive through Los Angeles today, I can't escape the feeling that the city is about to crack. It's bursting at the seams, its roads old and unkempt like the skin of an old man who spent too much time in the sun. It feels like the city can...

One prerogative of people who opine online is their ability to pontificate on how they can do things better than [insert person/activity here]. So here is my list of phone app ideas that can transform culture. These don't exist yet as far as I know. Maybe some of these are...

I recently drove through the town of Laguna Beach in Florida and had vague flashbacks to being in Laguna Beach in California. These flashbacks and the weird feeling intensified as after Laguna Beach I ended up in a place called Santa Monica. Still in Florida. It's not like it looked...

In defense of slowing down the pace of entertainment for babies and adults.

Yesterday we conducted a long overdue experiment. We showed a few scenes by world cinema auteurs to our 2 year-old son. In particular, excerpts from the work of Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Andrei Tarkovsky. The verdict?...