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    Re-cycle (2006)

    Re-cycle (2006)

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    Movie

    A writer wants to get a glimpse of some genuine supernatural occurrences while doing research for a...

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David McK (3692 KP) rated Ice Station Zebra (1968) in Movies

Nov 24, 2023  
Ice Station Zebra (1968)
Ice Station Zebra (1968)
1968 | Action, Classics, Drama
4
6.3 (4 Ratings)
Movie Rating
1960s Cold War submarine based thriller, based on the novel by Scottish author Alistair MacLean, with this movie - I have heard - being so beloved of Howard Hughes that it aired on a Las Vega station he owned over 100 times during his lifetime.

The plot? Basically, a satellite containing stolen equipment has crashed in the arctic. The race is on to retrieve said equipment.

But who can be trusted?
  
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Jamie (131 KP) rated 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four in Books

Jun 4, 2017  
1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four
1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four
George Orwell, Duncan Macmillan | 1949 | Film & TV
10
8.1 (104 Ratings)
Book Rating
Effective in the delivery of it’s central message (0 more)
Overwhelmingly bleak (1 more)
Stars slow and a little bit didactic
A true nightmare world, a dystopian classic
Winston is our everyman, a middle aged average male living under the heel of a totalitarian regime. His work is bland, his food is bland, his every day routine is bland. Winston is losing it, he wonders about the world that was before the party and resists in small ways. He ponders about the subtle ways that the party exerts it’s control, by perpetual war, by rewriting history, by lying so blatantly that the members of the party have to accept the lies as truth. Winston dreams of revolution and finds himself seeking out others likes him.

Nineteen Eighty-Four was not an easy ready by any means, it’s startlingly brutal. The beginning starts off rather slow as the readers gets to know Winston, the way he thinks and learns about his every day routine and are introduced to key characters. The middle of the book picks up, but it breaks up the pacing of the novel due to the fact that it essentially turns into an essay that outlines the structure of the party and the moral implications of it’s actions. While info dumps can be a bit disjointing to read, I could bear with it for this novel. The third half of the novel caught me off guard and it spun wildly out of control. I loved it, even when I found it difficult to digest. This is what made the book so brilliant, it doesn’t just tell you about right and wrong and then wrap things up nicely, the horrible reality of the book comes crashing down on both Winston and the reader’s head in full force.

The power structure of the party is just downright diabolical. I could think of any other way to describe it; the method of control, the reasons for maintaining such a strict social order, the sheer scale of the party’s reach – all of it was terrifying when taken as a whole. There were points in the second half of the novel where I had to put the book down because it was stressing me out too much, and this was a first for me. I now understand fully what folks mean when they label something as “Orwellian,” and why this novel is hailed as one of the very best of the dystopia genre. Hell, there are others that I read that I thought were bleak, but none quite to this degree. Nineteen Eighty-Four makes other books in the dystopia genre seem like lighthearted adventures novels.

The novel is extremely effective in the delivery of it’s core message about government control and humanity by creating a potential future that is harrowing, particularly because of it’s plausibility, as a warning to all. This is the type of book that will stick with me for a long time and I’m glad I finally sat down to read it.