Last week’s reading: Robert Harris’s Lustrum is the second of two novels recounting the life of Roman philosopher/orator/lawyer/politician Cicero. Harris can write smoothly and entertainingly about any subject, modern or ancient, Lustrum being a good example. It’s an enjoyable and intriguing read, although the five-year period covered by this book is telescoped at the end, [...]
For a stay-at-home reader like me, seeing two films each week, one hundred annually, represents a major challenge, one I’m only gradually tackling. Even a hundred movies a year is barely sufficient for one to aspire to be a film fan. Over 2009, I managed to view 54 current or near-current movies, so I guess [...]
Also posted in Vietnam Redux |
The brilliant book Mao’s Last Dancer, Li Cunxin’s memoir of childhood conscription by the Chinese state into ballet boot camp redeemed by defection and global stardom, was always going to be tough to translate to celluloid. Cunxin’s life story has so many turning points ripe for saccharine treatment – a Hollywood blockbuster approach would have ruined [...]
After two affectionate filmic glimpses into the turbulent late Sixties – The Boat that Rocked and Taking Woodstock – An Education took me back slightly further, to pre-hippy England in 1961. Based on a memoir and scripted by Nick Hornby with his usual flair for dialogue, the film gently tackles the onset of feminism. Sixteen-year-old Jenny, [...]
I came to Duplicity because of its lead actor Clive Owen, knowing little about it other than it was a thriller and co-starred Julia Roberts (something I was less than enthused about). But from the rapid-fire opening scene at a resort, when the two stars first engage, I knew I was in capable hands. Duplicity [...]
I only managed seven films last month, nearly all DVDs of recent or last-year releases. I’m not convinced November will prove much better, but here’s what I’m aiming for, a potpourri of intriguing movies: Mao’s Last Dancer – the trailers fill me with dread but the book was so evocative, I have no choice Cold Souls [...]
The older get, the less I like kids’ animation, especially the ones not-so-subtly tagged as ‘for children but there’s plenty here for adults.’ Yes, I liked Toy Story when my offspring were at the age to revel in it, but hey, aren’t the franchise sequels just the pits? Sorry to rant but the point of [...]
The trailer for Doubt, directed by John Patrick Shanley(who also wrote the screenplay and the original play, winner of a Pulitzer Prize), does the film an injustice, splicing out strangely incongruent bits that make the two protagonists, Father Flynn and Sister Aloysius Beauvier, to be overwrought, overacted. Overacted this certainly isn’t. Merryl Streep restores herself in [...]
Some beguiling releases, accorded good reviews by Salon and The New Yorker: The Invention of Lying with Ricky Gervais I’m hooked on Steven Soderbergh, even if he sometimes overreaches, so I’ll put up with Matt Damon in The Informant As for the Coen brothers, I find them hit and miss, but Burn After Reading was [...]
After the glories of the Melbourne International Film Festival, cinematic bleakness arrives in Melbourne. Only the first three are movies in the cinemas, the others are DVDs, mostly films that stayed in Melbourne cinemas for too short a time. Mao’s Last Dancer – much hoopla but the book was so good that the movie is [...]