Genus
Book
In the Britain of a few tomorrows time, physical perfection is commonplace and self improvement has...
Godber Plays: 4: Our House, Crown Prince, Sold,Christmas Crackers
Book
Godber Plays: 4 brings together four recent plays by one of Britain's most prolific, popular...
Awix (3310 KP) rated The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) in Movies
Jun 16, 2020 (Updated Jun 16, 2020)
The film-makers seem to have noticed the theoretical issues with the plot of the book - the main character has no real agency and is merely an onlooker - and fixed this by introducing a subplot in which Moreau experiments on him, thus setting up a reasonably elegant action-adventury sort of climax complete with happy ending. This does put the film rather at odds with Wells, though, and gets in the way of exploring the book's actual themes - its somewhat problematic subtexts about social control and the different sort of uplift attempted by the British Empire are still there if you look for them, seemingly by accident. Enough of the book's imagery and ideas survive to make this worthwhile viewing and probably the most rewarding adaptation, but really - read the novel as well.
Gertigstrasse 56
Book
A gripping narrative account of one family's struggle against fascism in Germany. Spanning...
The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion, Sexuality and Gender
Donald L. Boisvert and Carly Daniel-Hughes
Book
How do religion, gender and sexuality interact? How have they impacted, and continue to impact,...
The Inner Power of Stillness: A Practical Guide for Therapists and Practitioners
Alexander Filmer-Lorch, Caroline Barrow and Maggie Gill
Book
The Inner Power of Stillness illuminates the lost value of stillness for the individual therapist or...
Yoga and the Pursuit of Happiness: A Guide to Finding Joy in Unexpected Places
Book
Everyone is looking for happiness, but very few really know where to find it. Maybe it's that house...
ClareR (5779 KP) rated The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 in Books
Apr 18, 2021
The opening essay about Kushner’s participation in an illegal motorbike race on the Baja Peninsula was probably my favourite - it sounded terrifying and exciting all at once. She does seem to like anything to do with motors, as a later essay showed. This one wasn’t really for me, but this is a collection where there is something for everyone. The chapter on wild cat strikes was interesting, as were the ones where she describes her formative years in her hometown and the music concerts she went to (loved these too). The last essay in the book played out as though it was on a film in my head.
The essay about prison reform was really thought provoking, as was that of when Kushner visited a Palestinian refugee camp. I could easily have read more of this one - no matter how saddening it ultimately was.
Rachel Kushner really can write. As she did in The Mars Room, each of these essays really evoked a time and place and made this book pretty hard to put down.
Many thanks to Jonathan Cape for inviting me to read this via NetGalley.
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) in Movies
Sep 20, 2020
Was fully ready to come out of this being like "Yeah this ain't really all it" but it was, it really fucking was all it. I've seen big budget studio movies from less than a year ago (including but not limited to a certain superhero-led murky monstrosity involving a big purple thumb villain and some exposition stones) that look demonstrably worse than this - which, for all intents and purposes, is the best looking movie of all time (considering the time, anyway). There isn't a lone shot that looks anything less than astounding, what people must have felt back in 1968 watching this doesn't even have anything remotely comparable today. I can understand why some people wouldn't gel with this; some scenes are played out way too long and much of the William Sylvester stuff is dull as a doorstop not to mention stifled by the visual gimmick - but it avoids being the easy style over substance vehicle it could have been (which for the record I still would have been all for) by actually having a truly ingenious and thought-provoking screenplay with go-to quotes out the wazoo. And I think even this film's supporters don't give it enough credit for how continually unnerving this is, either. Obviously there's nothing more constructive one can even add about the greatness of the film or its score, acting, effects, etc. It rules.
Assassination Vacation
7.7
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Book
Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and...
non-fiction