I should just say right up front that Aishwarya Rai walking up out of the river is worth nine bucks by itself.

Furthermore, The Last Legion is easily the least terrible of the late rash of sword-and-sandal films -- where Troy, Alexander, and King Arthur all battle for that coveted D- (and Troy, at least, ain't getting it), The Last Legion claws ( Read more... )

I just got finished literally re-reading my copy of C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength to death; it's a 1975 paperback, and somewhere during its many moves, its glue must have just given up. As I was paging through the chapters, pieces of backing snapped or sighed open; the whole last quarter of the book is probably in three- and four-page chunklets ( Read more... )

During a brief letup in wholesale Austerity, we found ourselves the other day in 57th Street Books. mollpeartree coveted Jared Diamond's Third Chimpanzee, so I had an opening and took it, buying Mike Ashley's Mammoth Book of King Arthur for the amazingly low price (for a 670-page book) of $13.50. I've had spotty luck with the Mammoth series before; some are ( Read more... )

Dear Internet:

Would it freakin' kill you to have a complete English translation of Wolfram's Parzival online somewhere?

Your friend,

Ken

The number of Keira Knightley square-inch-seconds in King Arthur is probably worth a matinee ticket, if you can tolerate a much muddier than usual Bruckheimer flick.

Its "Arthur" is the (imaginary) lineal descendant of Lucius Artorius Castus (fl. ca. 185 A.D.), himself the only Roman official in Britain known to have borne the name Artorius.Its " ( Read more... )