Reviews!
Last week I watched BBC drama, David 'One Day' Nicholls penned, The 7.39 and thought it was well observed and acted, I enjoyed it. It was apparently a nod to Brief Encounter which I didn't realise until it was pointed out in The Guardian. I wonder if trains=romance is a direct cause of Brief Encounter or if there is something the British inherently find romantic about railway travel? In reality of course there's nothing romantic about weak tea, stale egg and cress sandwiches and toilets where the door might open at any moment but perhaps that works quite well as a setting for infidelity. Much like getting the train it seems a good idea at the time but usually ends in tears!
At the weekend I decided that I would go and see 12 Years a Slave. I would give it a solid four out of five stars. It's a compelling narrative of an extraordinary historical primary source that we're lucky has survived and the majority of the actors do an excellent job. I have one or two criticisms though. Firstly McQueen has a tendency to use obviously 'arty' direction shots at times which pulled me out of the story as I was distracted by 'Oh McQueen is trying to be artistic there'. Secondly I feel Brad Pitt is woefully miscast and the story would have been much better served by casting a less well known (or alternatively much better) actor for his role as all I could see was 'Brad Pitt - Hollywood Philanthropist' which gave the film a whiff of undeserved paternalism. Finally, and it's more an observation than a criticism, the violence that we see on screen is no where near as graphic as some commentators have implied. Perhaps by movie standards it is but by actual historic record standards it's fairly sanitized.
I have given up on The Killing six episodes from the end due to increasing levels of preposterous plot being dragged out and not going anywhere. The thought of another six hours was just unbearable so I chose not to bear it.
Instead this week I watched on DVD Searching for Sugarman which is about two fanboys trying to find out what happened to forgotten folk singer Rodriguez and made me cry with fannish joy. It's a lovely, feel good, film and I highly recommend it.
Now on to books! I have recently finished, on reginaspina's recommendation, Runemarks and it's sequel Runelight by Joanne Harris. Set 500 years after Ragnarok it is oodles of Norse mythological fun!
While there is a long list of 'shitty things the gods have done' one of the things that always really bothered me was the casting out of Fenris, Hel and Jormuungandr when they've done nothing. In the Norse Myths children's book I have the three of them are just these little, weird looking, kids and they toddle along to Asgard because they've all been summoned as the gods don't like a) the look of them b) the amount of time Loki is spending with them, and Hel is so little she's holding Loki's hand and it's just horrible because it's so unfair.
Then Loki goes totally dark side (Gee I wonder why!) and causes the death of Balder and so the gods take his other two kids, rip them apart and use their innards to bind Loki to a rock!!!! What did they ever do? What did Sigyn do to deserve her children murdered apart from clearly having a thing for bad boys?
Anyways a main plot of Runelight is Loki, sort of in charge of the gods as Odin is indisposed for the moment (it follows the more traditional Odin and Loki are brothers format), is reluctantly trying to save the worlds while having to deal with the gods who hate him, an ex and kids who hate him but are helping anyway, and a wife who adores him and really irritates him by doing so. It is awesome. As much as I enjoyed Runemark I loved the inclusion of 'Angie', 'Jorgi' Fenris and Sigyn in the sequel and I even had a tear in my eye in the end but I won't spoil the ending by saying why in case anyone plans to read.
At the weekend I decided that I would go and see 12 Years a Slave. I would give it a solid four out of five stars. It's a compelling narrative of an extraordinary historical primary source that we're lucky has survived and the majority of the actors do an excellent job. I have one or two criticisms though. Firstly McQueen has a tendency to use obviously 'arty' direction shots at times which pulled me out of the story as I was distracted by 'Oh McQueen is trying to be artistic there'. Secondly I feel Brad Pitt is woefully miscast and the story would have been much better served by casting a less well known (or alternatively much better) actor for his role as all I could see was 'Brad Pitt - Hollywood Philanthropist' which gave the film a whiff of undeserved paternalism. Finally, and it's more an observation than a criticism, the violence that we see on screen is no where near as graphic as some commentators have implied. Perhaps by movie standards it is but by actual historic record standards it's fairly sanitized.
I have given up on The Killing six episodes from the end due to increasing levels of preposterous plot being dragged out and not going anywhere. The thought of another six hours was just unbearable so I chose not to bear it.
Instead this week I watched on DVD Searching for Sugarman which is about two fanboys trying to find out what happened to forgotten folk singer Rodriguez and made me cry with fannish joy. It's a lovely, feel good, film and I highly recommend it.
Now on to books! I have recently finished, on reginaspina's recommendation, Runemarks and it's sequel Runelight by Joanne Harris. Set 500 years after Ragnarok it is oodles of Norse mythological fun!
While there is a long list of 'shitty things the gods have done' one of the things that always really bothered me was the casting out of Fenris, Hel and Jormuungandr when they've done nothing. In the Norse Myths children's book I have the three of them are just these little, weird looking, kids and they toddle along to Asgard because they've all been summoned as the gods don't like a) the look of them b) the amount of time Loki is spending with them, and Hel is so little she's holding Loki's hand and it's just horrible because it's so unfair.
Then Loki goes totally dark side (Gee I wonder why!) and causes the death of Balder and so the gods take his other two kids, rip them apart and use their innards to bind Loki to a rock!!!! What did they ever do? What did Sigyn do to deserve her children murdered apart from clearly having a thing for bad boys?
Anyways a main plot of Runelight is Loki, sort of in charge of the gods as Odin is indisposed for the moment (it follows the more traditional Odin and Loki are brothers format), is reluctantly trying to save the worlds while having to deal with the gods who hate him, an ex and kids who hate him but are helping anyway, and a wife who adores him and really irritates him by doing so. It is awesome. As much as I enjoyed Runemark I loved the inclusion of 'Angie', 'Jorgi' Fenris and Sigyn in the sequel and I even had a tear in my eye in the end but I won't spoil the ending by saying why in case anyone plans to read.