Beasts of No Nation (2015) Pros: location photography, child actors Cons: piling on “Beasts of No Country,” the high-profile Netflix theatrical and streaming release of Cary Joji Fukunaga’s adaptation of the novel of the same name by Nigerian-American writer Uzodinma Iweala filmed in Ghana is not for the squeamish. Probably its target audience is unfamiliar […]
Category Archives: News
Closer to the Moon Pros: cast, music, gallows humor Cons: the reality was not funny, making for uncertainty of mood in making and reacting to the movie Set in Bucharest A.D. 1959, “Closer to the Moon” (2013, written and directed by Romanian Nae Caranfil; released in the US in the spring of 2015, now streaming […]
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Oct
Oct
Death Rounds by Peter Clement Pros: decent premise Cons: long dull passages, lack of action Death Rounds by Peter Clement is a disappointing medical thriller. Two hospitals are on the verge of merging. Needless to say, this makes some people very happy and others quite miserable. The atmosphere is full of tension at both places. Meanwhile, […]
The Devil’s Knot Pros: cast, Georgia locations Cons: script Atom Egoyan (1960-) has made only one great movie, “The Sweet Herafter” (1997). The 2014 “The Devil’s Knot” seems in theory somewhat similar to that classic in approaching community-wide grief, after three West Memphis, Arkansas are slain, found nude and tied up with their shoe laces. […]
The Savage Professor: A Novel by Robert Roper Pros: East Bay local color Cons: buckets of blood and other carnage What overcame my aversion to contributing to the fascination with serial killers enough to read The Savage Professor by Robert Roper (Nabokov in America, Mexico Days) was the local color. Epidemiologist Anthony Landau, the titular professor, lives in […]
Tabu (2012) Pros: sonorous voice of Henrique Espírito Santo Cons: Lisbon middle, ludicrous prologue, purple prose narrations Though there is an adulterous liaison far from Europe in Miquel Gomes’s 2012 movie, and though it is often a silent movie, and at others a silent movie with voice-over explication, I considered titling it “Tabu” is very […]
Survivor in Death by J. D. Robb Pros: Decent character development Cons: Not the strongest mystery in the world Survivor In Death is the 20th book in J.D. Robb’s In Death series. Set in the 2050’s, this series follows Lieutenant Eve Dallas in the NY Police Department. In each book, she’s dragged into a case – usually a homicide […]
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Sep
Sep
Forbidden Planet blu-ray Pros: soundtrack, sets Cons: pace, cliched characters I only just got around to watching the 1956 MGM “Forbidden Planet,” the first sci-fi A-picture (not counting the German silent “Metropolis”). I can see that it was pioneering, not least in electronic music (which was not permitted to be credited as a music […]
Go Set A Watchman Pros: No, you do NOT get to redefine this American Literature icon Cons: Hands off my Atticus..!! All readers and viewers of film/TV have characters they have come to know who are inviolable in their mind. We know their hearts and mind. If there is one fictional character in my mind who I know …it is Atticus […]
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Sep
Sep
Be Afraid by Mary Burton Pros: decent who done it, and why Cons: characters I couldn’t stand Mary Burton’s Be Afraid is a thriller that uses one of my favorite techniques. Tell us about a traumatic event from someone’s childhood, then move on to the present, where something is happening that has ties to the past event. […]