Aug
02
2006
Author: John Crowley
ISBN: 0413513505
DDC: 813.54
See also: LibraryThing ; Spike Magazine
On a certain day in June, 19-, a young man was making his way on foot northwood from the great City to a town or place called Edgewood.
This book, one of the classics of fantasy literature, did absolutely nothing for me. Okay, that is a slight exageration, because there were some touches that appealed to me. The whole fairy tale atmosphere. The house of different fronts. The randomness of so much of it. And even the language was appealing on occasion. But overall it was all a load of nothingness that I neither enjoyed nor hated. It simply was there. And the interesting lines, descriptions and ideas did nothing to help the sluggish nature of the book. There wasn’t any real story that appealed to me, and none of the characters seemed all that well drawn to me. They were all there to play a role.
Maybe that was the idea, they were after living the Tale. But it wasn’t enough to keep me interested through all those pages when nothing was going on. And even when things were happening, it read as though nothing was occuring.
“It’s as though,” Daily Alice said, “each day is like a step, and every step takes you further away from - well, from when things made more sense.
Well, reading this book was like an exercise in futility. Each paragraph was a step away from a story and into a desciption, but a description that didn’t really matter, entertain or interest me.
Tags:
4 Stars,
813.54,
Bored Now!,
classic,
Faerie Wars,
John Crowley,
Little Big,
not my cup of tea,
sff
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Aug
02
2006
Dir & Writ: Luc Besson
- Jamel Debbouze - André
- Rie Rasmussen - Angel-A
Don’t you just hate when a film you’ve been enjoying falls to pieces in the final third?
Angel-A starts off well. We meet André as he tries to talk his way out of debt, on a few occasions. None of his smooth talking seems to go down very well, so he thinks maybe the American embassy will offer some help. He is an American citizen after all. But no, they don’t, and suicide crosses his mind. Crosses it enough for him to stand on one of Paris’ many bridges and think about jumping.
As he is preparing to leap he notices a woman standing close by, and after a brief exchange of dialogue she jumps. He follows suit, not in an effort to kill himself, but because he wants to save her.
I really enjoyed the first half of this film, it has a nice, slightly comedic tone, and everything looks stunning. Black and white photography really can make everything look great. The plot wasn’t the best, but I enjoyed the interaction between André and Angela. Unfortunately it all goes to pot at the end. Overblown and underwritten. It is nothing but a mess as it tries far too hard to make some philosophical point about love and identity and loving oneself. It fails, instead veering off into melodrama.
That’s not to say I hated, I still enjoyed, but only a little. If I was being all stereotypical I would even say it is a typical French film; black and white, and a lot of talk about nothing.
IMDb | Movie reviews for greedy capitalist bastards | The Focus Clinic | SheWhoMust
Tags:
6 Stars,
Angel-A,
angels,
French,
good premise,
Jamel Debbouze,
Luc Besson,
overblown,
Rie Rasmussen,
romance,
sff,
stylish,
subtitled,
underwritten,
weak ending
Related posts
Aug
02
2006
Not too many spam comments make it past Spam Karma, and those that do are mostly trapped in the moderated comments section. So they aren’t out there bothering you readers[1] but every now and then I have to delete a load, or confirm they are spam. For some reason this happens more over on Susan Hated Literature, and normally, if it does occur, there will be 5 or 6 on the same post. And then the following day the same, or similar ones on a different post. It doesn’t bother me, not any more.
But I have been amused to see a recent trend develop. Not the random segments of words, though that can throw up some interesting phrases, but the fact that more and more the messages seem to start off with an apology. “Sorry for this” or “I’m sorry ;( ” or “I don’t want to but”
It must be forced spammage, don’t you think? Somewhere, out there a group of poor unwilling spammers must sit, surfing and typing away with evil terrorist types holding guns to their heads. It makes me very sad. So it does.
I wonder, do they have targets to meet. Must make spam appear of X amount of sites or the spamorists will shoot my toe off. Must get Y incoming links or the spamorists will kneecap me?
Still doesn’t make me feel in the slightest bit guilty[2] as I hit that “Spam” button and prevent that comment on how great my site is, and don’t I want to get some terrific new ringtones from appearing.
Linknotes:
- lucky you, I mean who wants to read about popping pills and shagging birds… ↩
- fx: shifty eyes didn’t say it made me happy either did I? ↩
Tags:
randomness,
spammer
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