I grew up voraciously reading mystery novels, with Agatha Christie being my author of choice, with other mystery writers thrown in from time to time. She was a prolific writer and I suspect that I have read at least 90% of her output. Hence my ideas about the conventions of that genre have largely been shaped by her books. [Read more…]
It looks like 2014 is going to be big year from religious mush in films. In addition to the Noah film I wrote about yesterday, Heaven Is For Real will be released around Easter, supposedly based on a true story about a little boy who had a near death experience and then gave a remarkably detailed and accurate account of all the people and things that he had seen in heaven, including things that he could not have known about. [Read more…]
The story of Noah in the Bible poses a serious challenge to religious believers. Taken literally and looked at without using a religious lens, this is a monstrous story of the worst genocide in the history of humankind, and committed by a supposedly loving god no less. Religions have for a long time managed to gloss over this story to obscure the most ghastly aspects of it. They spend time on quite a detailed description of all the preparation work on building and stocking the Ark, quickly go over the actual slaughter, and then spend time on what came afterwards, with rainbows and sunshine and birds and flowers heralding the dawn of a wonderful new world. [Read more…]
I recently watched two films The Prestige (2006) and Now You See Me (2013). The former was recommended to me as one of Hugh Jackman’s better films to observe his acting capabilities and he does give a good performance. In fact, both films have excellent actors (the great Michael Caine appears in both) and one is never bored while watching. But what I want to focus on these two films is how otherwise pretty good films get ruined for me by the desire of the filmmakers to spring surprise endings on the viewer, even if those endings ruin the credibility of what came before. (There will be major spoilers for The Prestige after the jump. In fact, I pretty much give away the whole story.) [Read more…]
I have seen almost all the Alfred Hitchcock films. I enjoyed most of them because he showed how you could build up suspense without gratuitous violence and gore, and he avoided horror merely for the sake of it. In particular, I liked the fact that he never resorted to the supernatural. All the weird things in his films always turned out to have rational explanations at the end. [Read more…]
The excellent book Dirty Wars that I reviewed yesterday is about 530 pages but is so well written that it was not hard to get through. What made it hard to take were the things the book described. For those who do not have the time to read it, the documentary of the same name covers the main points. But even those who have read the book will find the film well worth watching. It is one thing to read about the people and events described in the book, it is quite another to actually see the people and places involved and to hear from them first hand. [Read more…]
I recently watched the film X-Men (2000) about a team of mutants each of whom have specialized superpowers, such as the ability to create turbulent weather or magnetic fields or shift into other shapes, and so on. This was one of the films recommended to me by readers as one of the better examples of Hugh Jackman’s acting skills, whom I had never seen act in a film before. [Read more…]
The actor Hugh Jackman was interviewed on The Daily Show about his new film Prisoners. I have seen him being interviewed before and he seems to have a very good-natured and engaging personality but I have never actually seen any film of his. Since I am not a big fan of the superhero genre, I have not gone out of my way to see his Wolverine films, which seem to constitute a big part of his oeuvre. [Read more…]
I have not watched the TV sensation that is now just two episodes away from the conclusion of its five-season run and that seems to have people completely hooked. But despite that, I did read the breathless coverage of last Sunday’s episode (it was impossible to avoid) that seemed to have been quite violent. As a result, I have (I think) a pretty good idea of the story line. [Read more…]
Thanks to a link provided by commenter rdmcpeek43 in response to my post on Billie Jean King , I watched the American Masters program on Billie Jean King last night. It was very good. I am not sure how much longer it will be freely available on the web. The film was a biography of her but was less about her tennis as such and more about her pivotal role in advancing equality for women on the tennis circuit, all taking place at a time when women were vocal about the need for equality and justice in all areas of life. [Read more…]