The main reason for seeing Born in Flames is for the intellectual butt kicking it provides. While not a very pretty or well polished, there's enough brain power behind the philosophical issues addressed and provocative subtext to put the most intelligent academic scholar to shame.DVD Verdict says, "Born in Flames is a compelling, sobering rebuke to the growing political apathy both in America and worldwide. If only more films were like it." Rotten Tomatoes has a 66% audience score but no critics rating.
With this novel, Booker Prize-winning author Anita Brookner confirms her reputation as an unparalleled observer of social nuance and deeply felt longings. Brief Lives chronicles an unlikely friendship: that between the flanboyant, monstrously egocentric Julia and the modest self-effacing Fay, who is at once fascinated and appalled by Julia's excesses. Thrust together by their husbands' business partnership -and by a guilty secret- Julia and Fay develop an intense bond that is nonetheless something less than intimacy, a relationship in which we see our own uneasy compromises, not only with other people, but with life itself.Brookner doesn't hint at upcoming events. Tragedy strikes or not, but there's never a warning.
The late afternoon is my bad time, when the light goes. I get nervous then, and long for someone to come. At those times I feel fatally like my mother, waiting in the dusk for me to wave to her as I approached the house. But after a while I get up and make a cup of coffee and switch on for the news. There is absolutely no point in giving way to melancholy. There is always another day, or so I like to think.
On the whole my life has been very easy, very pleasant. I was a pretty girl, I married well... It all seems a long time ago. But what most women want I once had. I try to remember that.
Through all the restrictions and the worry that my mother's condition imposed on me my love for her grew, as, I think, did hers for me. This love was not a pleasure to either of us; it was, if anything, a burden. My mother felt it harnessed her to this world, which she tried so hard to ignore and which she was ready to leave, while to me it was the magnet that drew me unwillingly home, back to that narrow house and my mother's almost noiseless footfall, and the cup of tea that she silently put before me, as if appeasing a stranger in some primitive ritual. She had grown thin and frail; when I took her in my arms I could feel her heart beating under her cardigan. I took to staying with her until she had got into bed, and then sitting with her while she drank the hot milk and honey that I brought her. She would relax and smile at me then, briefly reverting to the mother I had always known, and I would lay my check on her hand in relief and gratitude. "You go, dear," she would say, with something of a return to her old manner.
I had reached that dangerous state in which I could see every fault that I had committed, and I desired an enormous confrontation so that I could cancel it all and begin again. This, of course, is impossible.I've marked so many passages in this book, ones I find particularly striking, that to put them all here would give away too much of the plot. The ones above are representative, though, and are all fairly early in the book.
It's the kind of movie that casts a spell regardless of how many times you have seen it, commanding your interest to such a degree that it makes you forget what you know about the narrative and just go along, eager for each new shoot-out and to see who is left standing once all the bodies are counted.Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 98%.
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| The Cup of Tea by Mary Cassatt |
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| 5 O'Clock Tea by Mary Cassatt |
I woke up this morning
The blues all around my bed
I woke up this morning
The blue's all around my bed
I didn't have nobody
To hold my aching head
If you don't want me, woman
Give me your right hand
If you don't want me, woman
Give me your right hand
'Cause I can find me another mama
And I know you can find a man
I love you, Memphis
You know I love, love you so
Lord, I love you, Memphis
Tennessee, I love you so
And I'd rather be here
Than any other place I know
I've got my ticket
I'm sure gonna ride this train, hey, hey, hey
Lord, I've got my ticket
I'm sure gonna ride this train
I'm goin' some place
Where I wont hear 'em call your name
I'm goin' to the river
Take me a rockin' chair, sing them blues, boy
I'm goin' to the river
And take me a rockin' chair
And if the blues don't leave me
I'll rock all the way from here
I don't want you, mama
And I know you don't want me, Lord, Lord, Lord
I don't want you, woman
And I know you don't want me
So I'm goin' to New Orleans
From there on across the sea
the film owes a slavish obligation to propaganda that cursed many a wartime adventure story. The Elizabethan era is a cloak for World War II moralizing, with the Spanish armada standing in for Hitler's quest for world power, and Elizabeth I as a Churchill-style orator calling all good free men into action against the powers of evil. This gets a bit thick...Empire Online gives it 5 out of 5 stars and closes with this: "One of the very best and most lavish of all the Errol Flyn sweeping adventures. A feast for the eyes and the a good fun romp." DVD Talk mentions its influence on George Lucas' Star Wars franchise and calls The Sea Hawk "exciting". The Guardian discusses the historical inaccuracies and mentions Hitler. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 100% and an audience score of 88%.
The special make up is very well executed, looking realistic while still allowing the actor to convey emotion through the prosthetics, and there’s a very emotional few scenes between him and his very young son that will get to you, all packed into just about ten minutes or so, do have a look
Opens with Wolfe's income tax payment. Motivated by money alone, Nero involves himself in a crime which has been broadcast over a great national network. A leading lady of the microphone interviews a racetrack tout and a professor of mathematics. In the course of the interview, as a plug for one of the sponsors, a noted soft-drink manufacturer, each guest is served a bottle of the beverage. To the astonishment of the radio public, the embarrassment of the soft-drink manufacturer, and the annoyance of the New York Police Department, the racetrack oracle instantly drops dead of cyanide poisoning. How did cyanide get into the drink? And how could anyone be sure that the tout would receive the fatal bottle? Or, for that matter, was the poisoned bottle intended for him at all?
This is only the beginning of a case more complicated than any Nero ever faced before. To solve it requires a degree of tramping around New York and rounding up of suspects far beyond the sedentary habits of Nero, and even beyond Archie Goodwin's capacity for swift motion and rapid-fire interrogation. There's only one thing for Nero to do. He must put the New York police force to work for him.
Selected as one of Stout's four best detective novels by Barzun and Taylor, And Be a Villain is also significant as the first novel in the Zeck trilogy, where Nero Wolfe faces off against a Moriarty-ish Napoleon of Crime by the name of Zeck. This story features some choice scenes of Wolfe ranting.
Sukiyaki Western Django is a blend of Buddhist philosophy, film noir fatalism, Shakespeare's Henry VI, and Japan's very own 12th-century Genpei War. It's a Wild West pageant of American history seen through Japanese eyes, reducing our entire frontier mythology to an ultraviolent grab for gold.Spaghetti-Western.net says,
Intentionally camp, deliberately post-New Wave, Sukiyaki Western Django is good fun, but constantly veering from violent melodrama to parody and back, the movie eventually becomes too much of a macaroni-pizza-pasta-spaghetti-chambara dish, too much at the same time to be anything in particular.Empire Online gives it 3 out of 5 stars and concludes: "Sumptuous at times but self-indulgent and incoherent at others." DVD Talk says, "To cram this review of Sukiyaki Western Django down to three words? It's fucking nuts." Rotten Tomatoes has a 55% critics score.
Drinking at a seedy bar on a rainy night, Hammer notices a man come in with an infant. The man, named Decker, cries as he kisses the infant, then walks out in the rain and is shot dead. Hammer shoots the assailant as he searches Decker's body. The driver of the getaway car runs over the man Hammer shot to ensure that he won't talk. Hammer takes care of the child and vows revenge on the person behind the deed.That Wikipedia article needs a bit of editing for clarity, if you ask me, but maybe it gets the general idea across.
Hammer's trail of vengeance leads him to hostile encounters with his police friend Pat Chambers, the District Attorney and his stooges as well as beatings, assassination attempts, and torture from gangsters that Hammer reciprocates.
It was one of those nights when the sky came down and wrapped itself around the world. The rain clawed at the windows of the bar like an angry cat and tried to sneak in every time some drunk lurched in the door. The place reeked of stale beer and soggy men with enough cheap perfume thrown in to make you sick. Two drunks with a nickel between them were arguing over what to play on the juke box until a tomato in a dress that was too tight a year ago pushed the key that started off something noisy and hot. One of the drunks wanted to dance and she gave him a shove. So he danced with the other drunk. She saw me sitting there with my stool tipped back against the cigarette machine and change of a fin on the bar, decided I could afford a wet evening for two and walked over with her hips waving hello.
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| Chinese Fringe Tree |
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| Dogwood |
This coffee... Hails from Memphis, the Seattle of Southwestern Tennessee - Is purchased, roasted and packaged with a little something we like to call integrity - Reminds us of a time before the double mint mocha decaf skim latte ruled the Earth - Knows good looks will only get you so far - Speaks without resorting to faux European words, except faux - Understands you. Maybe too well - Works best with one or two tablespoons of ground coffee per 6 ounces of water - Is the latest bundle of joy from Ugly Mug Coffee.Definitely worth checking out. Here in Memphis we can buy it all over town, including at Kroger. Elsewhere I'm not sure about availability, but you can order it from their website. We like the Hardy Passion blend best, but you can get one called Memphis Blend and one called Blue Suede Shoes.
There's the moon asking to stay
Long enough for the clouds to fly me away
Oh, it's my time coming, I'm not afraid, afraid to die
My fading voice sings of love
But she cries to the clicking of time
Of time
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Fire
And she weeps on my arm
Walking to the bright lights in sorrow
Oh drink a bit of wine we both might go tomorrow
Oh my love
And the rain is falling and I believe
My time has come
It reminds me of the pain I might leave
Leave behind
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Fire
It reminds me of the pain I might leave
Leave behind
And I feel them drown my name
So easy to know and forget with this kiss
I'm not afraid to go but it goes so slow, ohh
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Wait in the fire
Wa-wa-wait in the fire
A story set in a spoiled paradise. It is told by Triton, who at the age of eleven goes to work as houseboy to Mister Salgado, a marine biologist obsessed by swamp, sea movements and the island’s disappearing reef. Triton learns to polish silver; to mix a love cake with ten eggs, creamed butter and fresh cashew nuts; and to steam the exotic parrot fish for his master’s lover. As Triton recounts his story, an extraordinary voice emerges: naive and knowing, fearful and brave, a boy becoming a man in a world on the brink of chaos. Published by Granta.quotes that struck me:
I don't know why I lied, but sometimes I start saying the wrong thing and find I cannot stop. I wanted to tell him exactly what I had seen and what had happened. But the words were impossible to get out. I did not want to be tarnished by telling -by putting into words- what had gone on. It would have spoiled everything. We would have had Joseph between us forever. It was not what I wanted. It was better, I thought, to leave it untold. That way maybe the event would fade. It would disappear. Without words to sustain it, the past would die. But I was wrong. It does not go away; what has happened has happened. It hangs on the robes of the soul. Maybe putting it into words can trap it. Separate it. Afterwards maybe it can go in a box, like a letter, and be buried. Or maybe nothing can ever be buried.
But it takes time, years, to learn how other people cope with themselves, how they come to terms with the changes that happen, always happen around them.
If there are gods in this world, or in the next, let them take pity on us and give us strength every day, because we need it every day. Every single day. There is no let-up, ever. Not really.
The thing you have to learn is to let what will happen, happen, I suppose. Not to struggle, not for anything."
I was learning that human history is always a story of somebody's diaspora: a struggle between those who expel, repel or curtail -posses, divide and rule- and those who keep the flame alive from night to night, mouth to mouth, enlarging the world with each flick of a tongue.Kirkus Reviews calls it "An extraordinarily accomplished mix of the sensual and the cerebral in beautifully detailed settings by a writer of great promise." The Boston Review closes with this:
The perceptive, thrilling drama of his narration seems to burst the limits of his framing device, a tribute to the power of his story. I look forward to reading every word he writes, not only for the pleasure of following one of the two or three best writers I've encountered among my contemporaries, but also in the hopes of seeing his stories escape his rather tendentious narrative bias toward literary relevance and speak more simply and dramatically for themselves.PostColonialStudies.Emory.edu explains the political background of the book. The Independent says, "Put your ear to the page, and you can almost hear the ocean whisper." It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
1) Rocky Horror Picture ShowI've seen half. I have plans to see Donny Darko, Eraserhead, Naked Lunch, Evil Dead 2, Lost Boys and Zardoz. Especially Zardoz, because of the picture:
2) Donny Darko
3) Eraserhead
4) Big Trouble in Little China
5) Re-Animator
6) The Man Who Fell To Earth
7) Naked Lunch
8) Primer
9) They Live
10) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
11) Repo Man
12) Altered States
13) Cherry 2000
14) Brother from Another Planet
15) Night of the Living Dead
16) Evil Dead 2
17) Time Bandits
18) Buckaroo Banzai
19) Slither
20) Dark Star
21) Plan 9 from Outer Space
22) The Hunger
23) Death Race 2000
24) Tales from the Hood
25) Sharktopus
26) Born in Flames
27) Lost Boys
28) The Warriors
29) Tremors
30) Zardoz
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| screenshot from Wikipedia |
Samuel Curtis, an interplanetary trader, sets forth through a rustic and remote solar system, unaware that his old friend Professor Hess is trying to kill him.I watched it at Hulu, but I don't see any way to embed it here. Here's a trailer:
Though many will argue with its inclusion in the canon of timeless classics, The American Astronaut announces a filmmaker with a vision as valid as David Lynch, a skewed view of reality ala the Coen Brothers, and a Terry Gilliam-esque way of making the futuristic and the fanciful seem soaked in grim and grit. Fans of cinema at its most pure and powerful will absolutely adore this film.366 Weird Movies says,
Because of it’s intense originality combined with a lighthearted, playful spirit, Astronaut is a movie only the most ruthless reality-worshiper could hate.... The American Astronaut could be described as many things—space western, garage band musical, nonsense comedy—but the one thing it indisputably is is a cult movie. That is to say, it’s a specialized and peculiar little flick that has a devoted group of followers, and a larger contingent of outsiders who are nonplussed by its popularity.RogerEbert.com has an interview with the director. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics rating of 63% and an audience rating of 89%.
"There will be new attacks of pain each time, no matter how many loved ones you lose. You'll die too, leaving your hopes behind you. But life's desirable, even if you suffer from love."
"...how can a grieving heart hope to comprehend..."
"There's no way to catch up with the dear one who has gone on ahead until God decrees it."from the dust jacket flap:
Naguib Mahfouz's magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for the first time. The Nobel Prize-winning writer's masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain's occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.The Christian Science Monitor says, "It's hard to overstate the rich pleasures found in this trilogy". In a 2012 article, The Daily Beast says, "The series, set against a backdrop of Egypt’s 1919 revolt against the British occupation, was recently reissued—and proves to be quite prescient, almost like a literary companion to the recent uprising." A review at Oprah.com calls it "a 20th-century masterwork equal to those of Joyce and Proust."
The novels of THE CAIRO TRILOGY trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons -the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayidd Ahmad's rebellious children struggle to move beyond his dominance in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mafouz's vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.
Throughout the trilogy, the family's trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, THE CAIRO TRILOGY is the achievement of a master storyteller.
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