Justine McDaniel helped revive the student newspaper at Santa Rosa High and served as editor there all four years. She now is a junior at the University of Puget Sound. She has been an intern at Sonoma West Times and News and the North Bay Bohemian. Read her thoughts on a classic series of books.
Can a 30-year-old film about a conversation between two middle-aged friends say something to young adults today? Maria Carrillo's Kenny Kasper explains why this film is worth a look, even though there "is no dream diving, time traveling or parallel universe jumping."
Montgomery High's Lloyd Xie writes about a favorite Japanese film directed by Shuji Iwai.
Maria Carrillo's Marianna Mapes writes about a New York Times restaurant critic who has to don a series of disguises in order to find out what the best restaurants are really like for ordinary patrons.
Elliott Miller gives "True Grit" three out of four stars. Read why he thinks studio execs had a potentially great film dumbed down.
Montgomery High's Kelsey Dayton reviews the latest Leonardo DiCaprio film, "Inception," directed by Christopher Nolan.
Watch the movie trailer.
Find a link to Sonoma County theaters where the film is playing.
Sonoma State's Ricardo Mora provides a rugby player's perspective on the novel, "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest." Mora played rugby last spring for the Elsie Allen High Lobos.
Elsie Allen High's Deisy Vargas writes about the lessons she takes from "The Blind Side."
Cardinal Newman High's Elliott Miller gives 3.5 our of four stars to a film that marks the beginning of the end to "one of the most consistently excellent series of films in cinema history." Elliott reviews films for Digitale Stories and for Cardinal Newman's art and literary magazine.
Robert Digitale is a retired staff writer for The Press Democrat and the author of the fantasy novel, Horse Stalker, which the North Bay Bohemian calls “a magical adventure.” Contact him at rdigit9@yahoo.com.
Follow the blog on Twitter @digitalestories.
Photo by Anderson Photography
Rena Wang graduated from Montgomery High in Santa Rosa and now attends Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass. She writes of "Life is Beautiful," "When I first watched it years ago, I thought the plot was absurd, especially since it seemed to deal lightly with such serious topics as WWII concentration camps. I was astounded at how a movie could so unabashedly leap from drama to romance to comedy to tragedy. In the years since, I’ve come to understand the film actually represented reality to the highest degree." We include a trailer of the film, which won three Academy Awards.