Sign up
Search
Advanced search settings

Search only in certain items:

Search results
All (267)
Content
People
Apps
Books
Orbs
Movies
Music
Podcasts
Shows
Tabletop Games
Tech
TV
Video Games
YouTube Channels
Videos
    Pendulum

    Pendulum

    Adam Hamdy

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Book

    James Patterson has hailed Adam Hamdy's PENDULUM as 'one of the best thrillers of the year' saying...

40x40

Awix (3310 KP) rated Jabberwocky (1977) in Movies

Feb 10, 2018 (Updated Feb 10, 2018)  
Jabberwocky (1977)
Jabberwocky (1977)
1977 | Action, Comedy
6
6.6 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating Watch
Little bit Slithy, little bit Frabjous
Oddball comedy-drama that sets the tone for much of Terry Gilliam's career by being visually ravishing but a bit all-over-the-place story-wise. Gilliam's background at the time was in TV comedy, which may explain why so many well-known TV comics turn up in the film - apart from Michael Palin, there's Warren Clarke, Harry H Corbett, John le Mesurier, and so on.

The thing is that this isn't actually very funny - there are the seeds of some good jokes here, but the fact the movie has been filmed and edited in the style of an art-house historical drama kills most of them dead. Still, the medieval period has seldom been brought to the screen with such an authentic sense of filth, squalour, and misery, and the monster suit is pretty good. That said, if you're not into absurd comedy, Dragonslayer (1981) tells a very similar story in a more accessible style.

(And I have to say I'm astounded a film so focused on gore and bodily functions has only got a PG certificate. Caveat emptor.)
  
40x40

David McK (3207 KP) rated The Four Feathers in Books

Jan 28, 2019  
The Four Feathers
The Four Feathers
A.E.W. Mason | 2001 | Fiction & Poetry
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
'Every man would be a coward where he but brave enough' is a quote that I thought came from this novel.

Turns out I was wrong on both counts - the actual quote is 'For all men would be cowards if they durst', and was actually written by John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester in his poem "A Satyr against Reason and Mankind" roughly 2 centuries before the publication of this novel.

It's also a line that Mason, ad the others of his generation, would have had absolutely no understanding of and would (probably) have been vehemently against, as depicted in the events of this story.

This story starts on the eve of his regiment sailing off to fight in Sudan, when Harry Feversham resigns his commission, having just gotten engaged to his fiancee. When his 'friends' find out they send him three white feathers - the symbols of cowardice - which he receives in the company of that fiancee, who adds a fourth.

In a bid to retain his honour - valued above all else by the Colonial British of the time - Harry hatches a plan to go under-cover to Sudan, looking for opportunities to prove his bravery to those friends and (finally) his fiancee so they will take their feather back.

(Personally, I don't know why he didn't just do the same as Nobby Nobs in [a:Terry Pratchett|1654|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1235562205p2/1654.jpg]'s [b:Jingo|47990|Jingo (Discworld, #21)|Terry Pratchett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327921813s/47990.jpg|1128623], and save said feathers for a mattress ... )

The result is very much a book of its time, very much a 'boys-own' story of Harry and his daring escapades in the Sudan. It's also very much so a novel that needs read with that in mind: to modern minds, the entire premise might seem a little rickety (would someone really go to those extremes just to 'prove' their bravery?), but such was the mores of the day.