Susan Hated Literature

I was at Croke Park today. As a witness you’d think I’d therefore have some clue what was going on, but, omg, wtf was that?

The first half was okay. We made some chances and really should have been further ahead. But the second half was just plain poor. The lineout was atrocious. How is it that Munster can be playing so well yet many of the very same players are so just not doing anything in the green shirt? I can only blame Eddie O’Sullivan. I’m rolling with the bandwagon here, I know, but honestly, I can’t come up with any other explanation.

Gordan D’Arcy’s injury was unfortunate as he wasn’t bad, but he has’t been anywhere near his best in a long while. In the “A” game Bowe played well, I wonder will O’Sullivan call him into the squad for the next match?

Today is James Joyce’s birthday, so I could have used one of his quotes as a title, but I decided instead to go with a line from George Hook, grump extraordinaire.

Dir & Writ: Chris Weitz
Based on book by Philip Pullman

• Dakota Blue Richards … Lyra Belacqua
• Nicole Kidman … Marisa Coulter
• Daniel Craig … Lord Asriel
• Freddie Highmore … Pantalaimon (voice)
• Ian McKellen … Iorek Byrnison (voice)
• Eva Green … Serafina Pekkala
• Sam Elliott … Lee Scoresby

I read, and really enjoyed, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials a while back, so I was really looking forward to this film, the first of three. Unfortunately it just isn’t very good. It should be. The story is a wonderful one, Kidman and Craig are fantastic, although Craig isn’t really on screen for all that long, and Dakota Blue Richards is wonderful as Lyra. Some of the other kids aren’t too great, but we’ll let them away. The special effects are, for the most part, superb. The polar bears in particular are fantastic.

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Dir: Brett Ratner
Writ: Simon Kinberg & Zak Penn

• Hugh Jackman - Logan/Wolverine
• Halle Berry - Ororo Munroe/Storm
• Ian McKellen - Eric Lensherr/Magneto
• Famke Janssen - Dr. Jean Grey/Phoenix
• Anna Paquin - Marie/Rogue

In this, the third X-Men film, there are two main plotlines. One concerns Jean Grey and her return from death in the form of the ultra powerful Dark Phoenix. The other revolves around a cure for the mutant gene, and what this will mean for the X-Men, and for mutants everywhere.

Only trouble is, this film is such a mess that neither story gets the treatment it deserves. We get a cursory look at what such a cure might mean to the likes of Rogue, after all her gift is much more of a burden than many. And then it is straight back into the fight. In the other story line we get exposition dumps and sudden information that makes no real sense in connection with earlier films.

Add to that the desire to stick in as many other mutants from the comics as can be seen on the big screen and you end up with a rubbish film. And such a disapointment after the previous two films which I really enjoyed.

Of course, it isn’t all bad. There are some elements that work; that quick glance at Rogue’s problem being one. And it all looks great, costumes, explosions, stunts. All great. But this merely serves to highlight how lacking in any sort of depth this film really is, and so makes it even worse. And then there is all that clunky dialogue, which not even Ian McKellan can make believable. Plus, plotholes.

All in all this seems more like the writers wanted to stick everything up on the big screen, to show how great the X-Men universe is, but instead managed to throw a lot of elements together and create a disapointment

IMDb | Official Site | Pah! | Samizdisandat | Random Burblings | Stainless Steel Droppings

Author: Alice Borchardt
ISBN: 0006483879 DDC: 813.54

Found this to be a very disappointing read. I read the previous two in this series: The Silver Wolf and The Night of the Wolf and while neither of them are spectacularly great novels they were both interesting, well-written stories.

Despite being set in the same world, and dealing with many of the same characters this novel feels half-hearted. As though Borchardt started out with the idea of writing it, but didn’t really put any effort into actually developing the story or the characters. They react and emote, but in sudden outbursts that seem to come from nowhere, and the entire story seems confused and badly laid out. There is a brief flashback that is badly executed and until I had finished reading it I wasn’t actually sure when it had occurred at all.

There is also the fact that there is a main character who never seems to get a name, instead is always described as “The Saxon”.
Overall I just found this lacking in any commitment, as though Borchardt wasn’t that interested in it.