1776
reviewed January 3, 2019Riveting, detailed account of the first year of the American Revolutionary War. After a lively opening account of the British Parliamentary debates about how to handle the colonies, in which McCullough deftly sketches the opinions and eccentric characters on both sides of the issue, the narrative focuses on military matters: George Washington’s initial indecisiveness and poor strategies (thoroughly redeemed in the sequel of course, but how close America came to failure in that first year!); his aristocratic Virginian disdain for the wretched Yankee soldiers; the squalor and viciousness of 18th century warfare; and the daring, dedicated, enterprising self-made men who officered his campaigns. McCullough quotes heavily from diaries and letters, and describes the characters and actions of British and Colonials vividly.
The Shape of Water
reviewed September 24, 2018The Shape of Water should have been beautiful: Creature from the Black Lagoon with a successful romantic ending. Sally Hawkins is indeed luminous playing a mute woman who feels herself an incomplete being, as much a freak as the ichthyic “asset” acquired by a military research laboratory, stolen from its home in a South American river where it was worshipped as a god.
Octavia Spencer is warm and dignified and strong as the heroine’s friend. Her smile of willing shock and delight when Elisa reveals her liaison with the creature is one of the best moments of a film full of many such moments.
The main villain of the piece is, however, so darkly unredeemably evil under his perfect sixties veneer as to skew the balance, and the movie has all of writer-director Guillermo del Toro’s trademark fixation with puncture wounds and dismemberments. The harshest moment is the torture and execution of the sympathetic Russian mole whose poet-scientist’s soul responding to the creature’s nature rebels at capturing or killing it for his masters.
The first two-thirds of the movie are absorbing despite a few over-the-top choices; the last third is a dark and ugly chase sequence. The ending is as expected for a del Toro story but the preceding nastiness robs it of the proper catharsis of a fairy tale.
The Caves of Steel
reviewed September 15, 2018In form a “locked room” murder mystery, The Caves of Steel is a thoughtful science fiction novel about crime and justice. The world a thousand years from now is less strange than the echoes of the world of 64 years ago in the character of the society and people. But Asimov’s sketches of feelings and motivations ring true. With The Gods Themselves and The End of Eternity, Caves of Steel is among my favorite of Asimov’s novels.
Babylon 5
reviewed Summer 2018I loved Babylon 5 when it first aired. Yes, it was a cross of Lensmen and Lord of the Rings. Yes, it had something of the aesthetic of a saturday morning cartoon (technically, the special effects and make-up were superb, but the designs felt a little cartoony to me even then.) Yes, it sometimes chose to be stagey and dramatic, formal and artificial, but that worked with the material. Yes, it was occasionally amateurish, with something of a 1960s quality which was unexpected in the early 90s. Yes, J. Michael Straczynski’s dialogue could be predictable or cliche (but as Clive James said of Telly Savalas’ performance in Kojak “[he] can make bad slang sound like good slang and good slang sound like lyric poetry” and that is the case with some of JMS’s excesses as performed by some of his better actors.)
I’m re-watching it on Amazon Prime. The special effects have suffered transfer artifacts which is sad, because they were stand-out in their day and even more amazing to fans who understood how they were produced. Straczynski got the genre, had a good story to tell, wrote appealing characters portrayed by personable actors. I loved the show in all its aspects and it stands the test of time for good, thoughtful, engaging space opera.
Things Are What You Make Of Them
reviewed August 26, 2018
When you are stuck, or fearful, or feeling inadequate or overwhelmed, turn to Kurtz’ book for a little inspiration.
His advice is handwritten on pages torn from notepads, printed on perforated pages which encourage you to tear them out and paste the, up.
A happy book.
The Empress of Ireland
reviewed August 24, 2018If you know who Brian Desmond Hurst is, I need only report that Christopher Robbins is a fine anecdotist who accurately, amusingly, and affectionately describes the unusual characters and scenes that make up the time he spent with Hurst collaborating on a film. If you do not know him, I can set the stage no better than by reporting that Hurst the film director made Scrooge, the quintessential Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim and offering Robbins’ opening scene: Brian walking into the pub at 11am bearing an orange for the barkeep to make his breakfast mimosa with; builders taking an early pint insult “the old queen”; Brian buying them a round of drinks and, as the cowed and sheepish men mutter their thanks, delivering the exit line, “I am not an old queen, I am the Empress of Ireland.”