January 2012
3 posts
7 tags
Movie Review: The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)
This is one of those films that stays with you after the lights go up. It’s one of those films that makes think about your life, regrets, relationships and dreams you had to let go. This film makes you want to start over.
Frankly, I live to watch movies like that. Based on the novel La pregunta de sus ojos, The Secret in Their Eyes is a psychological thriller, at least on the surface....
6 tags
Book Review: A Study in Sherlock
This is a bit of a cheat since this book will probably never be adapted for the big screen. Nevertheless it is a book of stories about Sherlock Holmes and since we got to watch a new Holmes movie this past Christmas (thanks Guy Ritchie!), I think I’m allowed to indulge in some Sherlockian fun.
First I’ll admit that I don’t remember reading any of Doyle’s books. I came to...
4 tags
Movie Review: Hugo (3D version)
“We love Scorsese, yes, yes we do!”
(Picture source: GK Films)
Of all the movie adaptations I’ve seen and reviewed on this blog, this is by far the best one yet. It is the best not because the source material was essentially a picture book, it’s more due to the fact that both screenwriter John Logan and director Martin Scorsese have managed to elevate a simple story...
November 2011
1 post
4 tags
Book Review: The Invention of Hugo Cabret
(Picture source: The New York Times)
The Invention of Hugo Cabret evokes a simpler time. In the 1930s, we were still neophytes at technology. What machines were capable of doing was indistinguishable from magic. More importantly, it was the a time where sound films were being introduced in cinemas and like many of us today, the masses were experiencing film as a medium that transports and...
October 2011
1 post
Movie Review: The Three Musketeers
Careful boys, she’s got a lot more than petticoats under that skirt.
(Photo source: Rolf Konow, SMPSP – © 2011 Constantin Film Produktion GmbH, NEF Productions, S.A.S., and New Legacy Film Ltd.)
This is how I imagine the producers of this latest incarnation of Dumas’ novel pitched the idea to the studios: Mash Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible and Pirates of the Caribbean...
September 2011
1 post
4 tags
Movie Review: The Help
The Help movie is a heartfelt tale of women working together against incredible odds towards a better life. This story is as old as time, the Southern black and white racial story so familiar to any seasoned moviegoer that it doesn’t feel there’s anything new that can be told. I certainly felt that way going into the movie theatre and nothing I saw onscreen has changed my mind. The...
June 2011
3 posts
5 tags
Book Review: The Horla (audio)
Audiobooks have never appealed to me before but as part of my Whovian conversion, I started listening to the Doctor Who audiobooks which BBC puts out. BBC by the way has the most tasteful memorabilia strategy unlike Lucas who cheapens the Star Wars name by allowing the silliest things to be branded.
Anyway, in my audiobook travels I came across a 13-minute audio recording of a short horror story...
5 tags
Movie Review: Possession (2002)
You either love or hate Neil LaBute. If you’ve seen enough of his movies like I have, you’ll realize his stories challenge the social norm, like Lakeview Terrace where a black police officer wages a racist vendetta against his interracial neighbours or LaBute’s more well-known film In the Company of Men where a misogynist executive toys with the emotions of a...
5 tags
Book Review: One Day by David Nicholls
I’ve never been a fan of chick-lit, but One Day by British author David Nicholls is what I imagine good chick-lit is like—- funny, poignant, romantic without being overly cheesy, good supporting characters that don’t fade into the background, all that with an ending that still manages to surprise.
Any story worth telling has a “hook” and One Day has a pretty good...
May 2011
2 posts
6 tags
Book Review: Guy de Maupassant's Bel Ami
Imagine a story about a man who used his good looks to sleep his way to the top. Now imagine this story written by a late 19th century writer. That in essence is Bel Ami (“Pretty Boy” in French), author Guy de Maupassant’s second novel. What a refreshing role reversal, I thought. It starts off very much like a fairy tale: once upon a time, a young man George Duroy wanders up...
6 tags
Movie Review: Water for Elephants
The elephant in the room brought them together (This is my favourite shot in the entire movie.)
(Picture source: David James, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)
I left this movie thinking about eyes, actor Robert Pattinson’s big blues, the elephant’s enormous gentle brown liquid ones, and even Christoph Waltz’s creepy evil peepers. It’s not hard since Director...
April 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Movie Review: Jane Eyre (2011)
Judi Dench and Mia Wasikowska looking spiffy in bonnets.
(Picture source: Focus Features)
There are as many interpretations of Jane Eyre’s story as there are adaptations. Folks in the same theatre were clearly enjoying the film about a plucky teenager who lived centuries ago. Did they see it as a story about repressed Victorians? A plain Jane love story or a story about convictions and...
3 tags
March 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Book Review: Water For Elephants
You’re never too old to enjoy a circus. Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus elephants
(Photo source: Wisconsin Historical Society)
First and foremost this book is written by an animal lover for animal lovers. Yes, it’s also a romance set in the Great Depression. I think more importantly it’s a lesson about how we treat each other and our innocent 4-legged friends in...
5 tags
Book Review: Jane Eyre
There’s this part of me who wants to exult all the Gothic imagery in this book and turn this review into a copy of an essay I had written years ago for a high school literature class. So I’ll have to restrain myself.
It’s amazing how age can colour how you feel about a book. A simple tragic love story between a woman and a man that I enjoyed as a teenager turns into an...
4 tags
Movie Review: I Am Number Four
Actor Timothy Olyphant, probably wondering why he’s in this movie.
(Photo credit: DreamWorks)
[My review of the book is posted here]
It might have been a less than enjoyable book but I Am Number Four the movie is a far better version of the story it’s based on, something that is rare these days when any adaptation going through the Hollywood wringer is likely to be louder,...
February 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Book Review: Night Runner
I have never read a single young adult fiction book about vampires. Not Twilight, not Vampire Diaries even though I have watched the movies and the television series. Vampire Diaries is turning out to be one of those rare shows that get better with each season. I would even go as far as to say it’s as good as the mother of all vampire shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Just less snark.
I...
January 2011
3 posts
5 tags
Book Review: I Am Number Four
You can’t review a book about an alien superbeing living on Earth without thinking about our favourite Kryptonian. And neither can you expect any book about aliens with superhuman powers to stray far from the Superman themes of duty and destiny. I Am Number Four, a book about a young alien refugee living on Earth doesn’t bother reinventing the wheel. Yes, I know, it’s not...
4 tags
Confessions of a Canadian Nook Color Owner
I was swayed by the online reviews. A poor man’s iPad says one reviewer. At $US249 I certainly found the price persuasive enough to get one on a Christmas trip down to the US of A. As a magazine junkie, I was overjoyed at the thought of being able to subscribe to my favourite journals and newspapers at a great discount (because everyone knows digital copies are much cheaper but more on...
3 tags
In the beginning
I’ve been enjoying Movie Moxie’s movie reviews and tweets for a while. And so I was a little excited when she announced her Book to Film Club where we review books and their movie adaptations released in 2011. So far the lists look like this:
Reading:
January 2011 - I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
February 2011 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
March 2011 - Water for Elephants by...