A little while back, I found the time to read The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. It helps that they’re relatively short and are fast reads. Collins mixes character and action well, and they certainly are page-turners, as we become more deeply invested in the fates of the main and secondary characters she has introduced.
They are also dark–with each book getting progressively darker and more disturbing. There are a lot of things I liked about the books. Here are five: Continue reading »
I recently saw both the Swedish and English language adaptations of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel Let the Right One In, which I’ll admit that haven’t actually read–yet.
I’ll focus primarily on the English language version, which I saw first, but many of my comments apply to both films. Also: be warned, while I don’t give away any specific plot twists or revelations, some of my comments may provide hints that make it easier to guess at those twists–not exactly a spoiler warning, but just a heads up. This isn’t so much a review of the film, as a commentary on the construct of the vampire and the haunting, poignant, and somehow resonant way in which that concept is treated.
This is the first movie I’ve seen, since Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, that has sought to evoke the idea that the blood-drinking yearnings of the vampire is just a corollary to the true, profoundly existential horror of such a creature, and the isolation that arises out of its fundamental nature. These aren’t hip, sparkle-in-the-sunlight, hang out with their ersatz vampire family type creatures. Continue reading »
There’s a lot to love about the breath of fresh air that is the BBC’s redux of the Victorian classic. Here is a short list of why I am all over this latest incarnation of the tactless SuperSleuth and his entourage:
5. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman
The two play their respective roles with conviction. Freeman’s Watson is grounded, polite, and tactful–a fantastic foil for Cumberbatch’s abrasive but charismatic Holmes. As an updated version of the pair, they are simultaneously credible, likeable, and intriguing–in a fascinating kind of way. The pair of them also have fantastic chemistry. Which leads nicely into the next the next thing I love about the show…
4. Bromance… or something more?
The running gag of the show is that everyone assumes Watson and Holmes are a couple. On such occasions, Watson feebly asserts that they’re just friends, and yet… there’s clearly something that runs deep, between the two of them, in a way that you don’t really see in the usual run of “buddy” films and shows. It’s an intriguing undercurrent, abetted by the aforementioned chemistry, that keeps everyone guessing about what, precisely the two of them share, even if it is exclusively at the emotional, rather than the physical level.
Sherlock’s emotional distance from the rest of the word makes his swift and deep attachment to Watson–and the early, instantaneous rapport that somehow, believably springs up between two such differing personalities–all the more fascinating. Continue reading »
Just watched the most recent iteration of Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowska as the eponymous Jane and Michael Fassbender as Rochester.
It’s funny how so many of these adaptations of classics are becoming like Shakespeare–it’s a matter of comparing renditions, productions, and portrayals of the well-known and beloved characters, rather than seeking the definitive version.
One of the things that struck me this time was the notion of plainness and how that must have been a significant protection for women of little means at the time. If you were thrust into the role of dependent (or, of course, servant) and were attractive, then I suspect that the world would have been a dangerous place indeed. The minority of women in that situation would have been lucky enough to get a marriage offer. And in the mean time, attracting the attention of the husband or the son of the household would have led to possible rape and brutalization, as well as ruination and disgrace. In a world where women had little autonomy and almost no legal agency, they would have had to walk a very fine line indeed.
Being plain would have served as something of a shield in such situations. Presenting yourself as nondescript, and fading into the background would have been the safest option in such times, I would think. Someone who attracts neither the amorous attentions of the men nor the rivalrous resentments of the women would at least have survived in such adverse and oft-challenging circumstances. That kind of invisibility would have been an advantage in other ways as well–it would have allowed an astute observer to learn a good deal about the dynamics of the interactions and relationships between the people who had power over her finances and her life.
I was recently drawn in by the fantastically slick film trailer for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”:
I seriously love this piece at so many levels. The editing, the saturation–and most particularly the way in which the music and the images/text pulse together, such that the music is closely integrated with the visuals and adds the sense of an implacable, sinister escalation of tension and danger. Wonderfully done (so good that it will no doubt be cliche within a year or two).
It actually got us out of our comfortable, on-demand film-viewing chairs and into the movie theatre–a not inconsiderable feat (esp. considering that you can’t pause films in the theatre, the popcorn is absurdly pricey, and we always seem to get stuck in front of a pair of Whispering Demons who are under some mysterious obligation to provide a running commentary during the film).
But out we went–and discovered that the actual film is rather different to what the trailer implied. Continue reading »
My husband and I watched the pilot of the television show “Numb3rs” last night. It’s about two brothers: the older one works for the FBI, while the younger one is a math whiz and a youthful prof at an eminent university. The younger one sees the entire world as numbers, and ends up helping out the older brother in solving a serial killer case by analyzing the data according to the application of mathematical principles.
My kind of show. I love geeky premises that involve the application some specialized skills that others don’t have and require the characters to think through the problem before acting upon it. I also love it when a show sets itself the challenge of being bound by certain concepts or principles that have to be obeyed as part of the crime solving process.
Except it rarely works that way. Numb3rs is a case in point. To disclaim: I’m not a math person. Nonetheless, even I had a bit of a problem with the solution to the pilot (warning: spoilers in the next two paragraphs. Skip them if you don’t want to know specifics about the pilot).
