Today, April 23rd, we are celebrating the UK’s third annual World Book Night. Last year I participated for the first time distributing copies of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It was a fabulous experience and as soon as the opportunity to sign up as giver for this year opened up I grabbed the chance…
Little Face
22 April 2013 by Leave a Comment
Over the past couple of years I’ve spotted several Sophie Hannah novels that appeal to me but because of that ever-growing list of unread books I’ve been loathe to actually buy any and open myself up to a new author. If I love the first book I read of any author I tend to get a little obsessive…
Top Ten: Tantalising 2013 Trailers
19 April 2013 by 4 Comments
2013 is looking like a decent year for cinema. The beginning of the year saw some great films released – Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln are among my favourites and the summer blockbuster season has already had a decent start…
Olympus Has Fallen
17 April 2013 by Leave a Comment
It’s a relatively common event for films to come out in pairs – when one studio has an idea for a blockbuster movie you can bet a rival studio is having the same idea at the same time. Asteroid disaster movies Armageddon and Deep Impact were both released in 1998, volcano films Volcano and Dante’s Peak were both 1997…
The White Queen
16 April 2013 by Leave a Comment
We’re just a couple of weeks away from World Book Night 2013 and I’m heading to Waterstones this week to pick up my 20 copies of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. I was determined this year to read more than just the book I was giving out…
Argo
15 April 2013 by Leave a Comment
Just before the Oscars I did one of those Facebook quizzes – how many Best Picture Academy Award Winners had I seen. I was confident and as I started clicking from 2011 downwards I was quite happy – The Artist, The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker – I was on fire…
Oz The Great and Powerful
12 April 2013 by Leave a Comment
The Wizard Of Oz holds a special place in my heart. It isn’t my favourite film or even my favourite musical but it is the film which first showed me the magic of cinema. It was the early 80s…
Oblivion
10 April 2013 by Leave a Comment
There’s a debate that rages in literary criticism over how many stories actually exist. Is it, as Joseph Campbell would have us believe, only one – the hero’s journey? Is it Cristopher Booker’s seven basic plots or are there as many as Ronald B Tobias claims – a whole 20? No matter how many narrative arcs actually exist it’s fairly clear that there are very few original stories out there…
Jack The Giant Slayer
26 March 2013 by Leave a Comment
The current Hollywood craze for reimagining fairytales as big budget films has passed me by. The Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland irritated me, it was too much of same old manic faced Johnny Depp and wild eyed Helena Bonham-Carter for my liking…
Top Ten: James Stewart Films
24 March 2013 by 8 Comments
To round off my James Stewart celebration weekend here are my Top Ten films starring the great man himself. And one starring an invisible 6ft rabbit…