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ClareR (5542 KP) rated Execution in Books

Jul 26, 2020  
Execution
Execution
S.J. Parris | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry, History & Politics, Thriller
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Execution is the sixth book set in Elizabethan world of Giordano Bruno. I have read the first book in this series, so it was definitely on my radar, but as so often happens with me, I got distracted by other books 🤯
The fact that I haven’t (yet) read books 2-5 has made no difference at all to my great reading enjoyment, so this can be read as a one off (but why would you do that? Books 1 and 6 are fab, so I’ll be reading books 2-5 without a doubt).

Bruno is working undercover for Elizabeth I’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham, and they hope to stop what becomes known as The Babington Plot - a plot to kill Elizabeth I, break Mary Queen of Scots out of prison and put her on England’s throne instead. This is all about Elizabeth’s claim to be queen. Henry VIII has disowned her as illegitimate when Anne was beheaded, and she was a Protestant to boot! Babington and his crew are staunch catholics, and they want a catholic on the throne. Mary fits the bill.

Francis Walsingham is desperate to find an excuse to dispose of Mary, and Babington is providing the goods. There is a secret letter exchange going on between the plotters and that Walsingham knows about, but he needs to catch them in the act - and he needs to ensure that Mary implicates herself completely.

This is all historical fact, as is Bruno’s existence, and I think that’s what puts the icing on the cake for me. I love historical fiction that brings real characters to life on the page. Bruno is a great character - he’s intelligent, funny and emotional. Basically, he’s a great character to build a story around.

So much research must have gone in to this book, and I really appreciate that. The side characters add couloir and substance to the whole story.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole for serialising this book, and I’ve now given myself the rather enjoyable task of catching up with Bruno!
  
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Lainie Kazan recommended The Graduate (1967) in Movies (curated)

 
The Graduate (1967)
The Graduate (1967)
1967 | Classics, Comedy, Drama

"The story, the acting was sublime. [Director] Mike Nichols did an incredible job. He just did such an amazing job. The story of the old woman and the young student was so new — we had never seen that onscreen, a depiction of that. Once again, I thought this was just a brilliant character study of these people. The story was extraordinary. I loved the relationship with Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. I just thought that was staggering. And Dustin Hoffman’s performance was so sweet, and he was so insecure and a mumbling fool in so many ways. And she was so seductive. You know, she was a counselor at my camp? She was a drama counselor. When I was nine, she was 17 or 18, and she came to the camp and I was the only one who really took to her of all my camp friends. She would have me lie on the ground and we’d be in this bunk — like in a rehearsal hall or something — she would have us lie on the floor and picture the sky and picture all the different things that could come from the sky [laughing]. She just inspired me. Then I watched her on The Goldbergs — not the new Goldbergs — but The Goldbergs with Molly Goldberg, the brilliant, brilliant television show in the 1950s. Then I saw her in The Graduate — I was a young woman — and I was just — oh my God, she was so beautiful. And I couldn’t believe I had known her. She inspired me to act, she really did. As did Francis Coppola. I went to college with him — Hofstra University. He was the person who wrote all the plays. He wrote the shows — all the original shows that I was the star of. I’d be hired to do all the shows that he had written and his uncle would write the music, so it was kind of great."

Source
  
The Father (2020)
The Father (2020)
2020 | Drama
Anthony Hopkins - a career best (0 more)
Dementia twists the strands of Anthony’s personal multiverse
Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) is elderly and living in his flat. His daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) keeps dropping by to check he is OK. But is this right? Strange things keep happening to him, from losing his watch to having strange people turn up at the flat. For Anthony is battling against dementia, and reality and fantasy are not quite as distinct as they once were.

Positives:
- I was one of those disappointed that Chadwick Boseman didn’t posthumously win the Best Actor Oscar for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”. But, boy oh boy, after seeing this I am fully supportive of the Academy’s position. Anthony Hopkins has delivered some astonishingly powerful performances during his career – from the tortured ventriloquist in “Magic”, to Hannibal Lector to the elderly pope in “The Two Popes”. But he really excels himself here, tapping both your emotions and your sympathies as the confused and terrified old man.
- The Oscar- and BAFTA-winning screenplay by Florian Zeller, based on his stage play, is devastating, subtly twisting the knife. It will be particularly telling/upsetting for those who are getting on in years and/or have/had elderly parents affected by dementia. I would personally not have included (being deliberately vague) the “Williams entry” scene in the trailer, since it is a jolt of a twist in the film. But there are so many other clever devices in the screenplay that you don’t see coming. The ending in particular is brutal on the emotions.
- The production design (an Oscar nomination for Peter Francis and Cathy Featherstone) is ingenious, as the set subtly and progressively transforms. Almost a ‘spot the difference’ in movie form.
- The score by Ludovico Einaudi uses atonal strings to great effect, as Anthony’s reality keeps shifting from under him.

Negatives:
- I’ve nothing here, hence my 10-bomb rating. I’ve seen some reviews that have thought that the movie was too “stagey” (which is a criticism I have levelled before at a bunch of “stage to screen” adaptations such as “Fences” and – more recently – “One Night in Miami” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom“). But I really didn’t feel that way about “The Father”. The claustrophobic nature of the plot was well served I thought by the (largely) single set location.

Summary Thoughts on “The Father”: Dementia is a cruel and heartless disease that robs any affected elderly person of their memories, logic and – ultimately – their dignity. I thought the movie was extremely clever in reflecting this decline, anchored by the astonishing career-best performance from Sir Anthony Hopkins. But this in turns makes this a very hard watch indeed!

(For the full graphical review, check out the One Mann's Movies post here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2021/06/12/the-father-dementia-twists-the-strands-of-anthonys-personal-multiverse/ . Thanks.