8 posts tagged “reviews”

Probably a bad thing for a writer, but I seem to have gone off reading paperbacks, in particular science-fiction and fantasy.  Double-bummer for a writer of fantasy.  Not sure what the problem is -- or if it can actually be defined as a problem.  Just that it is.  Been moving towards strange (for me) choices of book. 

At the moment, hot from the postbox is a delivery of Pashtun Tales -- a wonderful rich anthology of stories from the afghan-pak border.  Skimming a few pages, I dipped straight into the middle of a story of the Parrot and the Starling, and couldn't tear my gaze away.  It's very rare of late that I've been able to really enjoy any kind of fiction with passion, but in the lines of that story I felt my soul twitch.  The styles, the themes are so steeped in the traditional culture of that region, I didn't have to close my eyes to picture myself there. 

The other thing I've been reading lots of is short stories -- mostly drawn from the lastest issues of Interzone, Black Static, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, and Realms of Fantasy.  The stories are so fresh and quixotic compared to the thick, tepid trilogies that seems to be tripping out of publishing houses. But -- confession:  I've still to finish reading both of Neil Gaiman's short story collections.  Woe me.

There is also a nice backlog of National Geographics stacked up in the corner of my bedroom carpet.  A couple of years I ended up doing exactly the same thing I've done this time -- subscribed to a year's worth and due to busy, unforseseen circumstances, left them unread.  Didn't renew and spent the next year reading them and making notes.  Just watching the mags pop through the letterbox motivates me and maybe a little later than anticipated, I get the benefit of the articles.

Curse of the Golden Flower starring the bewitching Gong Li - a wonderfully lavish, sensory-soaked film for visual feasting. The intricate family drama is delightful, the action a wee bit outdated and cheesy but overall very satisfying.

Joss Whedon's Serenity - very much with a Buffy-esque feel, with a pinch of Angel thrown in for good measure. Some lovely visual effects and action sequences, but a little too much like small screen than big screen to be completely satisfying. 

A surprise discovery has me putting down American Gods for a break, and re-reading one of my favourite books:  The Gun Tree by Zahrah Nasir.  I originally read it about a year or two ago and it moved me then in a way few books have.

Briefly, its about one woman's determination to discover the truth of the Russian war in Afghanistan.  But  more than that its a book about self-discovery, pain, determination, of what it means to be human.  In it's pages is the most stark, soulful prose I have ever read.  The title itself references a tree growing in the rebel fighters' basecamp, which they used to hang their guns and bullets, when they were not being used.

Here is an exceprt:

It is a unearthly tree to be growing here, to make itself available for this purpose. 
...

The sap of a mulberry tree runs in rivers of blood.  Crimson, darkly red, and sticky.  It scares me.

Still, I sit in its shade, leaning my back againt it.

The gun tree weeps, everywhere there is a knot it weeps. 

It weeps rivers of blood.

The mulberry tree is bleeding now.  It bleeds in exactly the same way as the man who had just returned from the raid on the convoy.  He had lost the upper part of his right thigh. 

The tree bleeds in sympathy.

The man bled to death sometime in the night, but the mulberry tree is still bleeding this morning.

I guess trees take longer to die than men. 

Flicking through the TV channels one night, I caught Rear Window by accident--the Hitchcock remake of one of my favourite films--starring Christopher Reeve as the wheelchair-bound voyeur. 

The first half of the film feels very familiar, with Reeves in Jimmy Stewart's shoes, and Daryl Hannah in place of Grace Kelly, working together well as the couple who become interested in the goings on of the apartments in the opposite building; visible thanks to large, industrial sized panes.  With little else to occupy his time, and divert his attention from his incapacitated state, Reeves quickly becomes absorbed by the comings and goings of his neighbours, proving to own a formidable memory and eye for detail.  It's this that leads him to believe one of the inhabitants (a curvy blonde whose face we never quite see) has been murdered. 

It's after this point that the film departs from its Hitchcock roots.  Subsequent events leading to the identification of the murderer and a verification that a crime has indeed been committed aren't so familiar and while there are some nice elements of tension--including the use of technology (emails, the internal wiring of Reeve's apartment) to add fresh drama--cleverly worked around Reeve's own disability, it didn't quite go far enough to create the ensaring detail of Hitchcock's nail-biting original.

A little bit up, a little bit down, that's the best way to describe the seventh series of Smallville.  The intense intra-character interactions that define a lot of the core aspects of the show have been great in places and not-so-great in others.  I gotta admit, I was reserving judgement a little, and in the first couple of episodes of the series was pretty non-committal about the whole thing.  That all swung around mid-season, building up gradually from it's weak start, and now the crescendo is building for a tantalising finale. 

I'm currently on episode 19, with only one more to go.  For a moment, watching episode 18, my imagination went away with me and I started imagining all sortsa endings for the season involving CK back on Krypton.  It was especially gratifying to see foreshadows of the future Clark used in the tail end of the episode.  A nice touch.  Another satisfying touch, has been the steady growth of Lex's dark side and his descent into the evil meglomaniac we know he will be.  I'm looking forward to seeing more of this next season, plus a resolution to Clana and the emergence of Lois & Clark.

Lastly, it would be remiss of me not to mention the soundtrack this season, which, always good, has been excellent with haunting tracks and lyrics from Lifehouse, Missy Higgins and Vast, but to name a few.  I can't wait to see what season 8 brings.

This week I watched two very different movies:
Pathfinder [2007] dir. Marcus Nispel.
Ocean's Thriteen [2007] dir. Steven Soderbergh.

I loved Ocean's Thirteen, and I really didn't expect to.  It wasn't particularly well made or brilliant, but it was just good clean, classic fun.  I giggled and grinned at all the right places.  There was just the right balance of glitz and glamour, sophistication, backstabbing and double-dealing.  It was old fashioned storytelling--and it delivered on everything it was supposed to do:  entertain.

Pathfinder is a little more difficult to review.  I loved it, and enjoyed it. Difficult not to, as its a beautifully crafted film set against a backdrop of the most amazing panoramas I've seen since Lord of the Rings.  The subject matter of the film is also delightfully juicy; the arrival--pre-Colombus--of Viking raiders on American-Canadian coasts.  The story is dense enough to please, and the violent skirmishes are shockingly brutal, with relentless action from the first discovery of the Viking 'dragon' ship until the film ends.  Be willing to employ a healthy suspension of disblief, and the film will not disappoint.

Apollo's expression when he saw Starbuck pull alongside him in her viper, pretty much says it all.  The cockiest fighter pilot this side of a battlestar is back, feistier than ever and looking pretty damn good considering she and her plane blew up into itty bitty pieces at the end of the last season.  Yet, there she is, as large as life, with a mysteriously resurrected viper that is not only unscratched and undented, but completely data-less.  So, where's she been?  Is she a cylon, clone, hybrid, human or something else altogether?  And what if she is human and the cylons have found a way to tinker with her?  How and why else would she mysteriously know her way to earth...?  Women's intuition?  Um, maybe not.  Lee and Bill's reaction to her return is gratifying--genuine heartfelt relief that comes from close relationships.  Anders reaction is puzzling, lukewarm at best, and while he is struggling at dealing with his own cylon identity, you'd think there'd be a little more cheer from his side.  But... maybe that's natural considering his wife's admission that she would put a bullet between his eyes if she ever found out he was a cylon.  Good old Kara.

Talking about Anders... one of the best scenes in this opening episode features him being scanned by the cylon raider.  Was he the instigator for the cylon withdrawal?  Did he issue a silent command that the enemy plane read?  Did the raider awaken something within Anders, or was it a case of the cylons checking (and recognising) the activation of the final five?  Truly one of the best space battle scenes, we've seen, but not enough of it... I'd have loved for it to be longer--for the whole episode to have been longer, in fact.  The four newly discovered cylons seem pretty determined to stay true to their 'humanity' and the relationships they have formed.  But how realistic is that?  We've already seen Anders stumble in the air--was it a newbie mistake under pressure, or something more sinister?  Tigh is struggling with himself--was the image of him shooting Adama a fear, fantasy, a premonition or something else?  The only one of the quartet that seems to be holding it together is Tyrol. 

Ah, Baltar.  Not as strong a plot line here as I'd have liked.  His adoption by a neo-religious cult and the healing of the sick child (coincidence anyone, or his immune system latterly kicking in?), and even the murder attempt was way too predictable... tired writing from the BSG scriptwriters--surely not?  A lead up to a devastating twist, maybe...hopefully.

So where does that leave us, or rather where does that leave Roslin, as Starbuck has her left in a rather difficult situation.  Roslin's reaction to Starbuck's appearance is puzzling.  For someone who believed so strongly in the scriptures and prophecies, and was in a not-so-dissimilar position herself not too long ago, her adversion to Starbuck's claim shows a strange reversal.  And what are the implications of her and Bill's relationship for the rest of humanity?

And who is 'he that believeth in me'...?  God believing in Baltar or Leoben in Kara?

Last but not least, shame about Lee's decision to quit the military.  I know I'm not the only girl that'll miss seeing him in uniform...

I may have to take back some of what I said in my last 4400 review.  The new series is opening things up quite nicely.  There's Richard, Lily and baby Isabelle on the run, endlessly propelled on their as yet, unknown quest.  Also, we're starting to see Shawn detaching with his past and moving forward with Jordan Collier, of all people; a move that would have been hard to pick from the events of the last season.  

Elsewhere, parental issues dominate.  Baldwin and Kyle's relationship is healing -- or is it?  Are they falling back into the old patterns of their father-son dynamic, and what is happening to Kyle?  All interesting questions, begging answers.  Maia and Skouris reveal the complexity of the parent-child relationship and things aren't always as black and white as they seem.  Would you read your child's diary?  

It was a nice touch in the extended first episode, to see the ripple effect device being used so well, with the restoration of the sanity of the neuroscientist who is destined to be the 'father' of the work on special abilities -- through his research on dormant areas of the brain.  Hopefully, this is something we'll see more of as the series develops.

Last but not least, some nice twists and further dramatics with the rise of Shawn and demise of Collier -- as the interwoven destinies of Isabelle and Kyle with the 4400 grow ever more mysterious and sinister.  

My favourite lines so far came from episode 3 - The Weight of the World:
Shawn:    "You can be a manipulative little pr*ck you know that?"
Collier:    "It helps to use your entire skillset when you're trying to change the world."