Sunshine by Robin McKinley
At some point in the past I read Sunshine. And I loved it. I don’t remember when I read it, I didn’t review it on the blog or if I did...
28 March 2017
The Lost City of Z [based on the book] by David Grann dir. by James Gray
[imdb_movie_detail title=”The Lost City of Z” detail=”plot”] Sometimes when you describe a film or a book as “interesting” you really mean that you didn’t like it but don’t really want to...
27 March 2017
Foxcatcher dir. by Bennett Miller
Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) won gold at the 1984 Olympics. As did his older brother David (Mark Ruffalo). Now they are in training for the Worlds, and then they’ll be focusing...
18 January 2015
What Doctor Gottlieb saw by Ian Tregillis
the Little Red Reviewer posted her review of Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis today and in it mentioned this short story set in the same Milkweed universe. It is available to...
24 August 2013
This side of brightness by Colum McCann
In the early 1900s New York’s subway was in the process of being excavated. Working as sandhog was decent enough money, but it was dangerous work. As this book begins four...
25 July 2013
The Winter Prince by Elizabeth Wein
Book one in The Lion Hunters Although this book doesn’t really have any fatastical elements, I am still counting it towards this year’s Once Upon a Time challenge because it is...
3 June 2012
The King’s Speech dir. by Tom Hooper
The wireless changed a great many things. Before, all that was required of a monarch was that he look the part, and not fall off his horse. After the king would...
14 January 2011
W. dir. by Oliver Stone
This is an odd sort of a film. I mean, it clearly isn’t meant to be full of praise for George W. Bush. But at the same time it is almost...
19 November 2008
Royal Escape by Georgette Heyer
No ISBN ; Elsewhere Set after the execution of Charles I, this book tells the story of Charles II after his forces lose the Battle of Worcester[1] and he is forced...
23 October 2008
The Giant, O’Brien by Hilary Mantel
“Bring in the cows now. Time to shut up for the night”.
There came three cows, breathing in the near-dark: swishing with the tips of their tails, their bones showing through hide.
7 October 2008
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been occupying my imagination now for some days.
The Remains of the Day is about Stevens, a butler in a “grand old English house”. He spent his life trying to be a “great” butler in the service of Lord Darlington. With the death of Darlington he remains in Darlington Hall working for the new owner a rich American, Mr Farraday. It is at Mr. Farraday’s suggestion that Stevens, our narrator, first begins thinking about taking a short trip out into the English countryside, and to see Miss Kenton. Now Mrs. Benn she recently sent him a letter, hinting, Stevens thinks, at her unhappy marriage and her wish to return to service in Darlington Hall. On his journey Stevens reflects over his life and the changes he has seen.
24 June 2008
There Will Be Blood dir. by Paul Thomas Anderson
It is hard to know how to describe this film. It is more of a character study than a story. Of course there is some plot, an oilman and his desire to suceed, but the story isn’t too important. What is important is the character of Daniel Plainview, as played by Oscar winning Daniel Day-Lewis.
The opening scenes show just how driven Daniel is. We watch him, working on his own, in a mine. No dialogue at all for around 15 minutes, just this man in a hole, digging, dynamiting up the earth, falling down the hole, injured and yet still having the drive to pull himself out of that hole and struggle back into town to get his bit of dirt evaluated.
7 March 2008
Recent Comments