a strange course of events
a strange course of events... is anything but strange and eventful .
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the unexamined life is not worth living, but “ a strange course of events ” reminds us that the inspected one is not always worth watching .
the unexamined life is not worth living, but
a strange course of events
reminds us that the inspected one is not always worth watching .
of course the series of events could be little more than tragic co - incidence but they have kept the spirit of poltergeist alive .
a strange course of events directed by raphael nadjari; written by raphael nadjari, geoffrey grison; with ori pfeffer, moni moshonov, michaela eshet, bethany gorenberg reality in the films of is of. .
a strange course of events presents a prickly family dynamic punctuated by moments that could' ve been funny or dramatic in a different film but feel inert here. its emotions prove curiously inconsistent, hinting at darkness but never committing fully .
in meandering fashion, a strange course of events charts the slow and tentative reconciliation between these two characters, with the fact that saul is literally a fish out of the water in haifa used to underline how lost he feels in the new life of his father and beti, whom he’d never met before .
a strange course of events is a movie starring ori pfeffer, moni moshonov, and michaela eshet. saul, fortyish, a melancholic dreamer, decides to visit his father whom he hasn' t seen in five years, and whom he blames for all his ills. he discovers a possible new life ...
a deeply inconsequential gallic - israeli semi - comic collaboration, “a strange course of events” is just one darn thing after another, and not in a good way. french - born helmer raphael nadjari’s sixth feature reunites him with israeli thesp ori pfeffer, with whom he made “apartment # 5c, ” to tell a meandering yarn about a grumpy loner having an awkward [ … ]
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a strange course of events may also be available with public performance rights (ppr) and digital site licensing (dsl) for colleges and universities. to purchase the dvd with ppr or dsl, please contact estelle grosso at edu @ urltoken or call (212) 629 - 6880. click here to learn more at kino lorber edu .
but very few of today' s fans will know the petrifying real life events that inspired the film - or the curse surrounding it .
a strange course of events focuses on an adult son, saul (ori pfepper), who works as a night - time receptionist at a hospital in tel aviv. it’s a far from ideal situation and when the divorced saul’s loneliness becomes too much to handle, he decides to go and visit his father, shimon (moni moshonov), who lives in haifa with his new partner, beti (michaela eshet) .
a deeply inconsequential gallic - israeli semi - comic collaboration, “ a strange course of events ” is just one darn thing after another, and not in a good way. french - born helmer raphael nadjari’s sixth feature reunites him with israeli thesp ori pfeffer, with whom he made “apartment # 5c, ” to tell a meandering yarn about a grumpy loner having an awkward and unlucky extended visit with his father haifa. commercial prospects look niche in both the pic’s countries of origin, and uneventful offshore .
a young priest enlists the help of a demon hunter and a paranormal expert to search for a kidnapped girl in the underworld of mexico city .
swinton herself urged audiences to see “doctor strange” before criticizing it, while championing diversity .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
i would be surprised if this film received a general cinematic release. i watched this at a film festival and it' s typical of some movies that are shown at these events where the director is not in a hurry to tell his / her story .
cumberbatch and swinton received the loudest applause as the credits rolled, which was of course followed by marvel’s signature post - credits scene, featuring a certain avenger (no spoilers here) and a post - post - credits scene .
but the reality behind the fiction is equally as frightening. the film is loosely based on events at a house on long island, new york, where a family called the hermann' s were plagued by a so - called poltergeist .
' jonathan strange & mr. norrell': hogwarts for grown - ups - the new york times
strange may be a character that hews too close to the model of rich, egotistical white men with which superhero films are obsessed. but the film had the opportunity to do something different, by showing the interior of a character forced to rethink everything he knows and the nature of reality itself. instead ,
doctor strange
falls into some significant narrative mistakes .
one of the most glaring sins of “doctor strange” is how quickly strange masters magic. there isn’t much tension in his arc. while he struggles briefly at first to keep up with other students the ancient one has taken under her care, he’s soon stealing sacred books out from under wong (benedict wong), the sharp - eyed master who protects the texts at the ancient one’s behest. strange plays by his own rules, growing far beyond the skills of those around him. he even goes as far as bending time, secretly reading from forbidden texts and wielding the eye of agamotto. when karl mordo (chiwetel ejiofor) remarks that strange seems destined for this, i couldn’t help but roll my eyes. of course he was .
the world premiere of “doctor strange” was held at the famous tcl chinese theater on thursday night. fans braved the 90 - degree heat to get a glimpse of the sorcerer supreme himself, benedict cumberbatch .
the strange thing about the johnsons - don' t ask, just watch! from michael roy on vimeo .
there are many great actors that color the film' s margins, but “doctor strange” doesn’t make the best use of them. rachel mcadams plays one of the most poorly written superhero love interests i think i’ve ever seen. she has a warm, flirtatious energy that is a welcome addition to the movie. but she isn’t a person so much as a convenient prop forgotten about for long stretches until strange needs her .
the neorealists, among others, made cinematic art out of lives lived in quiet desperation. but while “strange course” offers plenty of tension, what passes for drama is shaul’s slip - and - fall at a fish market. mr. nadjari, who wrote the screenplay with geoffroy grison, may have been intending a minimalist character study, but even so, he has abdicated his responsibility: too much of this family drama is left to the audience to fill in .
after a fateful slip, saul will find his place as a son, a father and more .
the family, who moved away soon after, believed the events were somehow connected to an ancient native american burial site near their home - something which features heavily in spielberg' s movie .
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
given mystical powers by a talismanic keepsake, a young man embarks on a quest to fight shadowy forces and solve a mystery from his past .
in an effort to expose this plot, slopen eventually has his own consciousness coded and placed within a conveniently harvested prisoner. i will spare you the many semi - plausible twists that precipitate this odd course of events, so as to highlight the beguiling moment when slopen meets slopen: “dressed in an unfamiliar linen suit, looking at me with pity and disbelief, was me; or, me as i remembered myself. ” both original and xerox spend the remainder of the book attempting to escape the bad guys .
jonathan strange & mr. norrell by susanna clarke. illustrations by portia rosenberg. 782 pp. bloomsbury. $ 27. 95 .
doctor strange'
s worst sin in terms of casting comes in its villain. at this point, has any major franchise wasted as many great actors in thinly - written villain roles as the mcu? mads mikkelsen is an amazing actor who often creates an alluring mix of darkness, pathos and passion. his unsettling screen presence is perfect for this kind of story. but kaecilius, a former pupil of the ancient one, has such muddled motivations and little interiority that mikkelsen is surprisingly forgettable. strange’s battle with him ultimately comes down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. strange doesn’t care about being a hero. the juxtaposition between kaecilius and strange is one of the more ill - thought out central conflicts from a blockbuster in a long time. they aren’t battling because of opposing ideologies or deep emotional history. they’re simply an inconvenience to each other. if anything, mordo’s obsession with order would make him a more compelling foil for kaecilius .
and they earned poltergiest the title of the most cursed production of all time .
in effect, strange is proven right. who cares about rules and breaking the laws of nature when you’re actually right, and in turn you save the world? strange never grows much as a character since he proves to be right about far too much, justifying his ego and rank arrogance. cumberbatch is having considerable fun with the role (although he brings nothing unexpected) but he can’t distract from how nothing in strange’s story feels earned. you also can’t ignore that “doctor strange” is essentially the story of a white man who travels to an “exotic” land, whose culture and people he doesn’t respect let alone know the language of. yet somehow he just happens to realize he’s a natural at magic and gets good enough to beat practitioners who have been doing this for years .
at the same time as she takes the philosophy course, sophie receives a strange postcard sent to hilde møller knag, care of sophie. the postcard is from hilde' s father and wishes hilde happy birthday. sophie is confused, and moreso when she finds a scarf with hilde' s name on it. she does not know what is happening but she is sure that hilde and the philosophy course must somehow be connected. she learns about socrates, who was wise enough to know that he knew nothing. then alberto sends her a video that shows him in present day athens and somehow he seems to go back in time to ancient athens. she learns about plato and his world of ideas and then about aristotle, who critiqued plato, classified much of the natural world, and founded logic and our theory of concepts .
the world premiere of “doctor strange” was held at the famous tcl chinese theater on thursday night. fans braved the 90 - degree heat to get a glimpse of the sorcerer supreme himself, benedict cumberbatch. hollywood boulevard was transformed into a grand magic sanctum as the cast and crew took the red carpet to celebrate the opening of [ … ]
even with these considerable faults “doctor strange” can also be charming. it’s a spry film brimming with great details, striking imagery and joy. it pushes the mcu into a fascinating world full of magic and villains that exists beyond our understanding of time and reality—maybe next time they’ll do something interesting when they get there .
and if we are really being honest, voluntary viewers of the strange thing about the johnsons get off of this carnival ride of intrigue, mystery, and disgust in less than 30 minutes flat; unlike survivors of these heinous and life altering crimes. survivors unfortunately can never get off this ride and are usually condemned to a lifetime of emotional roller - coasters, nightmares and freak shows. only the fortunate few get to write a new future through years of therapy, catharsis and forgiveness .
over the past few weeks a short film entitled the strange thing about the johnsons has been quietly making the independent film circuit while a leaked (wink - wink) copy has been creating quite a stir on the internet. this stir and much needed discourse has african americans, in particular, choosing sides between a white filmmaker' s freedom of expression and a community' s rejection of ownership. but what if there are no sides to be chosen under the revealing light of the truth .
a tribute to the late tab hunter, a gay matinee idol and hollywood trailblazer .
magic convinces best when employed in the service of another literary aim: mythopoeic history, as in tolkien; a study of power, as in le guin; even the bildungsroman, as in rowling. what end does the practice of english magic serve in
jonathan strange & mr. norrell
? true, the napoleonic wars as presented here do seem to have been won partly because of magical campaigns - - the scenes of the fleet of enchanted warships made out of rain are stylish and unforgettable :
a police officer came to investigate but was almost hit by a flying globe while a british press photographer who went to cover the story witnessed his flashbulbs lift off a table .
swinton inhabits the sorceress with her trademark oddity and cutting humor. it takes only a careful tilt of her head or blithe remark to strange to believe this woman has lived for hundreds of years. in many ways, swinton’s presence seems to be from another film entirely—one that would truly embrace the weirdness of the premise beyond some trippy visual effects .
a priest was called and ministers from all sorts of faiths conducted rituals on the front lawn but still the strange happenings went on as parents james and lucille and their two children lucille jnr, 13, and james jnr, 12, became increasingly scared .
so does the exercise sometimes ring oddly hollow? has clarke, bewitched by her own talents, forgotten that readers need to care deeply about the characters? impressive as magicians, neither mr. strange nor mr. norrell are particularly appealing people; they both seem like sidekicks out of dickens, promoted onto a central stage before they' ve had the chance to develop as prime - time players .
mr. norrell had many talents, but penetration into the hearts of men and women was not one of them. strange did not speak of the restoration of his wife, so mr. norrell imagined that it could not have affected him very deeply .
we are expected, i think, to forgive mr. norrell his limitations, but we too have been far more distracted by the spectacle of magic than by the limited depiction of jonathan strange' s husbandly grief .
roger ebert was born on this day in 1942, and died a little over five years ago. i owe a good part of my success…
writer jon spaihts also praised the casting choice. “tilda is an instance of us taking a male role and putting a woman in it, which i think the film badly needed. the comic world of ‘ doctor strange ’ is very male. so we were looking for opportunities to have not only ethnic diversity, but to have gender diversity in the film. ”
on their weekly walk, an eminently sensible, trustworthy lawyer named mr. utterson listens as his friend enfield tells a gruesome tale of assault. the tale describes a sinister figure named mr. hyde who tramples a young girl, disappears into a door on the street, and reemerges to pay off her relatives with a check signed by a respectable gentleman. since both utterson and enfield disapprove of gossip, they agree to speak no further of the matter. it happens, however, that one of utterson’s clients and close friends, dr. jekyll, has written a will transferring all of his property to this same mr. hyde. soon, utterson begins having dreams in which a faceless figure stalks through a nightmarish version of london .
and jonathan strange' s wife is recovered from the land of faerie, a time - honored goal for a fantasy escapade, like meg rescuing charles wallace from it in
a wrinkle in time ,
or ida her baby sister in maurice sendak' s
outside over there
or janet her elfin lover, tam lin, in the english ballad. but these are points of the plot, nothing more .
join hilda as she travels from a wilderness full of elves and giants, to trollberg, a bustling city packed with new friends and mysterious creatures .
more disturbing, the explanation of the malevin procedure, when it finally arrives, is slapdash. we are asked to believe that scientists can map “every nuance” of consciousness by a “judicious and sophisticated” examination of someone’s linguistic patterns. (they create a proxy version of samuel johnson, in fact, because he committed so much of his life to paper. )
shaul is a melancholic dreamer, with a tendency to run whenever things go wrong. he returns to haifa one day for a reckoning with the father he has not seen in 5 years. but getting along with an hippie mother in - law with a penchant for new age, a daughter on the verge of adolescence, and a father who' s been converted to yoga is not easy. after a fateful slip, shaul will find his place as a son, a father, and more .
forty - something saul is a melancholic dreamer, with a tendency to run whenever things go wrong .
shaul is a melancholic dreamer, with a tendency to run whenever things go wrong. he returns to haifa one day for a reckoning with the father he has not seen in 5 years. but getting along with an hippie mother - in - law with a penchant for new age, a daughter on the verge of adolescence, and a father who' s been converted to yoga is not easy. after a fateful slip, shaul will find his place as a son, a father, and more .
as slopen soon discovers, the letters have been written by a lumbering, tattooed savant who speaks and writes exactly like dr. johnson. the man is kept as a sort of captive in the home of gould’s partner, a mysterious russian named sinan malevin .
but getting along with an airy - fairy mother - in - law with a penchant for new age, a daughter on the verge of adolescence and a father who’s been converted to yoga is not easy .
it only takes a few minutes: when shimon asks about shaul’s marriage, shaul says tersely that he’s been divorced for a couple of years and has custody struggles over his daughter, michal. the white - haired shimon (moni moshonov) has a surprise of his own: he’s got a girlfriend, bati (michaela eshet), a gentle soul who runs a new age - y shop in the mall where shimon works .
puzzled, the lawyer visits jekyll and their mutual friend dr. lanyon to try to learn more. lanyon reports that he no longer sees much of jekyll, since they had a dispute over the course of jekyll’s research, which lanyon calls “unscientific balderdash. ” curious, utterson stakes out a building that hyde visits—which, it turns out, is a laboratory attached to the back of jekyll’s home. encountering hyde, utterson is amazed by how undefinably ugly the man seems, as if deformed, though utterson cannot say exactly how. much to utterson’s surprise, hyde willingly offers utterson his address. jekyll tells utterson not to concern himself with the matter of hyde .
sophie amundsen is fourteen years old when the book begins, living in norway. she begins a strange correspondence course in philosophy. every day, a letter comes to her mailbox that contains a few questions and then later in the day a package comes with some typed pages describing the ideas of a philosopher who dealt with the issues raised by the questions. although at first she does not know, later on sophie learns that albert o knox is the name of the philosopher who is teaching her. he sends her packages via his dog hermes. alberto first tells sophie that philosophy is extremely relevant to life and that if we do not question and ponder our very existence we are not really living. then he proceeds to go through the history of western philosophy. alberto teaches sophie about the ancient myths that people had in the days before they tried to come up with natural explanations for the processes in the world. then she learns about the natural philosophers who were concerned with change. next alberto describes democritus and the theory of indivisible atoms underlying all of nature as well as the concept of fate .
the heroine of marcel theroux’s previous novel, “far north, ” was an intrepid survivor named makepeace who scavenged books from the ruins of a post - ­apocalyptic manhattan, but showed little interest in actually reading them. “a person is always better than a book, ” she reasoned .
she was misdiagnosed with crohn' s disease in 1987 and died the following year of a heart attack as doctors operated on a bowel obstruction. she was just 12 .
the academic who narrates theroux’s new book, “strange bodies, ” would bridle at that notion. in fact, he has trouble running together a string of thoughts without citing one writer or another, most often the subject of his scholarly labors, the revered english critic samuel johnson. that’s not what makes him a compelling protagonist, though. what makes him compelling is — well, perhaps we should let him speak for himself :
but we never get a coherent accounting of the physiological exactitudes of this operation. what portions of the brain, exactly, are removed from the host body and what is implanted? instead, we see a mosh of images (“the redness of everything, that bucket with its unspeakable contents... ”). it remains murky, as well, how this magic linguistic code might transfer actual memories from the donor to the recipient — a crucial question given that our memories are the essential building block of our identities .
meet eccentric homeowners whose seemingly ordinary spaces are full of surprises, from a backyard roller coaster to an indoor aquarium .
powerful, exquisitely acted. one of the most realistic and heartbreaking performances by a child actor i’ve ever s…'
forty - something saul is a melancholic dreamer, with a tendency to run whenever things go wrong. he returns to haifa one day for a reckoning with the father he has not seen in five years. but getting along with an airy - fairy mother - in - law with a penchant for new age, a daughter on the verge of adolescence and a father who' s been converted to yoga is not easy. after a fateful slip, saul will find his place as son, a father and more .
derrickson and co - writer c. robert cargill have spoken at length about the decision to cast swinton in a role that was originally a tibetan man in the comics. they feared casting an asian man or even woman would mean the character would fall into well - worn stereotypes. so, they whitewashed the role. if the only way you can bypass these issues is to whitewash the part (yet keep the asian setting and vague mysticism), the problem isn’t the character, it’s your lack of imagination as a creator. the filmmakers behind “doctor strange” may be well - intentioned but that doesn’t soften the racism threading the movie. despite the desire to be inventive, “doctor strange” unfortunately repeats many of the mistakes of its predecessors beyond uncomfortable racial politics .
in this way, “doctor strange” reveals the precarious place in which superhero films find themselves. director scott derrickson and marvel studios president kevin feige have repeatedly defended this movie' s controversial casting. they’re very aware of the increasing expectation of audiences. but it isn’t enough to cast actors like benedict wong and chiwetel ejiofor in supporting roles, you have to give them something interesting to do. and as fun and light as “doctor strange” is, it is impossible to ignore the problems inherent in casting tilda swinton as the ancient one .
at its best, the prose can be rummy and startling, though a reader must put up with the occasional trope evoking the authorial style of other times :
the duchess of b - -... declared
;
there was a noble fire in the hearth and all was comfort and quiet .
and what of the use of archaic spellings - - chuse for
choose ,
shewed for
showed ,
etc. ? tiresome, perhaps, but useful: we feel we' re in a deeply foreign country, yet it seems we still can speak the language. just like going to toronto. strange !
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actor julian beck, 60, who played preacher henry kane in the second movie, died of stomach cancer as the film was released and will sampson, who took the role of a native american shaman died after undergoing a heart - lung transplant .
being ships of rain they made no sound at all - - no creaking of timber, no slap of sail in the wind, no call of sailor to his mate. several times groups of smooth - faced men of rain came to the ship' s rail to gaze out at the wooden ship with its crew of flesh - and - blood men, but what the rain - sailors were thinking, no one could tell .
but the book’s deeper ambition is to raise questions about the nature of identity. “the human personality is not an object, ” slopen observes, “it’s a process, a constant state of becoming, that depends on a web of interdependencies, binding us to one another with invisible filaments, to our time, to memories and possessions, and back to our changing selves. ”
what keeps this densely realized confection aloft is that very quality of reverence to the writers of the past. the chief character in
jonathan strange and mr. norrell
isn' t, in fact, either of the magicians: it' s the library that they both adore, the books they consult and write and, in a sense, become. clarke' s giddiness comes from finding a way at once to enter the company of her literary heroes, to pay them homage and to add to the literature, to slot this big fat book into our own libraries of spells. in this fantasy, the master that magic serves is reverence for writing .
movies and tv shows are certified fresh with a steady tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide - release movies, 40 for limited - release movies, 20 for tv shows), including 5 reviews from top critics .
as he proved in “far north, ” theroux has a knack for warping the anxieties of the present into an unsettling vision of our possible future. his focus here could not be timelier. once firmly entrenched within the province of religion, the dream of everlasting life has, in the age of capitalism, metastasized into a multibillion - dollar industry that runs the gamut from genetic manipulation to vitamin supplements to the quackery of cryonics. as one character explains it, “you understand that the next technological frontier is the human body itself? ”
our collective fear of death, and the hovering possibility of resurrection, tug the reader through this ingenious if sometimes vexing novel far more than the protagonist’s personality. for nicholas slopen — though he has a whale of a story to tell — turns out to be something of a cold fish. “i see that one of the most harmful patterns in my previous existence was my pose as an emotionally invulnerable intellectual, ” he notes at one point. not surprisingly, his wife is cheating on him, his teenage children are drifting away and his career is floundering .
a devastated widower adopts a
nothing to lose
approach to life that causes him to make unexpected new connections. ricky gervais stars .
the story of a dysfunctional 40 - year - old unable to relate to the people around him is short on charm and narrative interest. twitter
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between february and march 1958, bottle tops and lids inexplicably popped, ornaments flew around the house, a heavy bookshelf mysteriously fell over and a virgin mary figure soared through the air and struck a mirror 12ft away .
basically the story of a man forced to finally see the injustice around him. riley’s movie is designed to do the same thing to you. …
hollywood boulevard was transformed into a grand magic sanctum as the cast and crew took the red carpet to celebrate the opening of 14th marvel universe movie .
in the city of motown, young ben discovers he can bring street art to life. smokey robinson is the executive music producer of this animated series .
straightforwardly put together, the film relies on the excellent performances and uneasy rapport between especially pfepper and moshonov, though eshet, as a woman who believes so strongly in the healing power of stones she has a shop where she sells them and consults on the matter, is an important third character who adds a lightness of touch that goes back and forth between slightly absurd and endearing .
then, as sophie' s education continues, the hilde situation begins to get more complicated. she finds many more postcards to hilde, and some of them are even dated on june 15, the day of sophie will turn 15. the problem is that june 15 is still over a month away. she discovers some of this with her best friend joanna, and one of the postcards tells hilde that one day she will meet sophie and also mentions joanna. strange things are happening that the girls cannot figure out. sophie' s relationship with her mother becomes somewhat strained as she tries both to cover up the correspondence with alberto and to practice her philosophical thinking on her mom. meanwhile, alberto teaches sophie about jesus and the meeting of indo - european and semitic culture. she learns about st. augustine, st. aquinas, and the christianization of greek philosophy that occurred in the middle ages. by this time, sophie has met alberto and he begins hinting that the philosophy is about to get extremely relevant to the strange things that are happening to her .
production: (france - israel) a mk2 (in france) release of an avenue b, transfax films, laila film, mk2 production in co - production with vito films, with the participation of cnc, ministere des affaires etrangeres, institut francais, the israel film fund, israeli ministry of culture and sport, with the support of israeli ministry of economy, digital media support program. (international sales: mk2, paris .) produced by caroline bonmarchand, marek rosenbaum, itai tamir .
a year passes uneventfully. then, one night, a servant girl witnesses hyde brutally beat to death an old man named sir danvers carew, a member of parliament and a client of utterson. the police contact utterson, and utterson suspects hyde as the murderer. he leads the officers to hyde’s apartment, feeling a sense of foreboding amid the eerie weather—the morning is dark and wreathed in fog. when they arrive at the apartment, the murderer has vanished, and police searches prove futile. shortly thereafter, utterson again visits jekyll, who now claims to have ended all relations with hyde; he shows utterson a note, allegedly written to jekyll by hyde, apologizing for the trouble he has caused him and saying goodbye. that night, however, utterson’s clerk points out that hyde’s handwriting bears a remarkable similarity to jekyll’s own .
the main problem with this film is its snail - like pace where there are many scenes where characters walk or run to reach their destinations. there' s also the lingering shot which delays the flow of the narrative. the narrative itself is meandering where there are several character relationships that are never fully explored. the film is more like separate images of a family relationship, instead of a flowing narrative where everything has meaning .
shimon has issues, too — we glimpse his flinty side — but shaul, perpetually sour, appears incapable of experiencing joy. he’s cold even with his daughter. until the last frames of the movie, he never so much as hints at a smile. the diagnosis from the aisle seat is that shaul is a high - functioning depressive .
with a cheery tone, clarke welcomes herself into an exalted company of british writers - - not only, some might argue, dickens and austen, but also the fantasy legends kenneth grahame and george macdonald - - as well as contemporary writers like susan cooper and philip pullman. aging fans of t. h. white and young turks who idolize neil gaiman will find much to their liking here, too. clarke is generous in her homages. obligatory nods are made to the notion of rings of power and books of spells. in the following, i picture arthur rackham' s work in
peter pan in kensington gardens
:
at first i took him for a hedge - root, but it was definitely a man .
and isn' t this a play on
for a few months, jekyll acts especially friendly and sociable, as if a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. but then jekyll suddenly begins to refuse visitors, and lanyon dies from some kind of shock he received in connection with jekyll. before dying, however, lanyon gives utterson a letter, with instructions that he not open it until after jekyll’s death. meanwhile, utterson goes out walking with enfield, and they see jekyll at a window of his laboratory; the three men begin to converse, but a look of horror comes over jekyll’s face, and he slams the window and disappears. soon afterward, jekyll’s butler, mr. poole, visits utterson in a state of desperation: jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for several weeks, and now the voice that comes from the room sounds nothing like the doctor’s. utterson and poole travel to jekyll’s house through empty, windswept, sinister streets; once there, they find the servants huddled together in fear. after arguing for a time, the two of them resolve to break into jekyll’s laboratory. inside, they find the body of hyde, wearing jekyll’s clothes and apparently dead by suicide—and a letter from jekyll to utterson promising to explain everything .
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an interview with terry gilliam, director of
the man who killed don quixote .
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melancholy in the wake of a divorce, 40 - year - old shaul decides that visiting his estranged dad will perk him up. but shaul couldn' t be more wrong .
as i pondered these questions, i found myself returning to the original “frankenstein” and almost immediately succumbing to its charms. in telling her story, shelley clearly enjoyed the advantages of a more primitive scientific era. when less is known, more seems possible. but what makes shelley’s novel enduring is the fraught relationship between the creator and his creation, and the tremendous poignancy of the monster as he acquires a consciousness of himself, and his own social and emotional isolation .
steve almond is the author, most recently, of the story collection “god bless america. ”
the greatest of our literary works are, by contrast, predicated on a benign magic very much akin to the malevin procedure. readers are given access, through a thrilling accretion of language and story, to the minds and hearts of other beings. although they don’t exist within the world we physically occupy, these characters — from don quixote to emma woodhouse, from mrs. dalloway to holden caulfield — come to life within us. they become not only real, but eternal .
given this context, theroux’s modern frankenstein story — in which the actual research of post - world war ii russian utopians meets the technological ambition of the silicon valley parvenu — registers as eerily plausible .
the sad decay, which buildings, bridges and church all displayed, seemed to charm them... . they were englishmen and, to them, the decline of other nations was the most natural thing in the world. they belonged to a race blessed with so sensitive an appreciation of its own talents (and so doubtful an opinion of anybody else' s) that they would not have been at all surprised to learn that the venetians themselves had been entirely ignorant of the merits of their own city - - until englishmen had come to tell them it was delightful .
the relaxing soundtrack, which would be ideal for a yoga class, slows things down further .
at least, not one profiled so sketchily. directed by raphaël nadjari, the film follows shaul (ori pfeffer), a clerical worker at a hospital in israel, as he decides, apparently on impulse, to visit his dad, shimon, in haifa. father and estranged son have not seen each other in five years, so there’s a lot of catching up to do .
c. s. lewis' s book
the magician' s nephew
?
each puddle became a silver mirror... . he felt as if he might pass through any of those mirror - doors and find himself in one of the other worlds which once bordered upon england .
it' s clear that clarke' s library of books about magic rivals mr. norrell' s .
in the application of anything powerful - - chili peppers, kettledrums, hyperbole - - a little goes a long way, and too much sometimes delivers an effect opposite than that intended. prolixity is risky: a writer can take relish in perhaps more physical detail than is required. risky, too, is the impulse to deepen the back story; it can threaten to overwhelm the plot. (in 185 dense footnotes, an ungainly amount of invented and somewhat parodic scholarly material weighs upon this novel. )
the plot concerns a 40 something year old man who finally meets up with his father after not seeing him for several years. from there, the film takes on different directions and doesn' t know whether it should be a drama or a comedy. it doesn' t really succeed in either .
director scott derrickson took on the whitewashing controversy, explaining how selecting swinton was a diversity choice itself .
“my name is nicholas patrick slopen. i was born in singapore city on april 10, 1970. i died on sept. 28, 2009, crushed in the wheel arch of a lorry outside oval tube station... . i will have to commit myself to some details with a certain, and perhaps wearisome, degree of exactitude in order to provide evidence to support the contention contained in the first paragraph of this testimony: that i am nicholas slopen, and that my consciousness has survived my bodily death. ”
to employ dry humor in the service of majesty .
it has been remarked (by a lady infinitely cleverer than the present author) how kindly disposed the world in general feels to young people who either die or marry .
and, of english visitors to venice circa 1816, the good - natured narrator says :
he returns to haifa one day for a reckoning with the father he has not seen in 5 years .
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the letter continues describing jekyll’s cry for help. far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, hyde needed lanyon’s help to get his potions and become jekyll again—but when he undertook the transformation in lanyon’s presence, the shock of the sight instigated lanyon’s deterioration and death. meanwhile, jekyll returned to his home, only to find himself ever more helpless and trapped as the transformations increased in frequency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to reverse themselves. it was the onset of one of these spontaneous metamorphoses that caused jekyll to slam his laboratory window shut in the middle of his conversation with enfield and utterson. eventually, the potion began to run out, and jekyll was unable to find a key ingredient to make more. his ability to change back from hyde into jekyll slowly vanished. jekyll writes that even as he composes his letter he knows that he will soon become hyde permanently, and he wonders if hyde will face execution for his crimes or choose to kill himself. jekyll notes that, in any case, the end of his letter marks the end of the life of dr. jekyll. with these words, both the document and the novel come to a close .
saul, fortyish, a melancholic dreamer, decides to visit his father whom he hasn' t seen in five years, and whom he blames for all his ills. he discovers a possible new life ...
so as people continue to submit comments like sick, disgusting, deeply traumatized, or even wow, i believe we should first ask ourselves ,
if this is how i feel as the viewer, how must it feel being the victim of incest ?
personally, i think we make a terrible mistake in vilifying filmmakers, storytellers or messengers because when we do this in some strange way we simultaneously and unwillingly empower the abusers. if films like the johnsons aren' t openly produced and seriously discussed, we silently say to the vermin that perpetrate these atrocities -
your secret is safe. carry on .
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martin scorsese directs this netflix original comedy special exploring the enduring legacy of emmy - winning sketch comedy show
sctv .
a lot went on at the cannes film festival, which ran from may 15 - 26, including new films by the coen brothers, roman polanski, jim jarmusch, steven soderbergh and many others. but some of the most, . .
to his credit, theroux plumbs those very recollections that bring slopen alive, “the dead weight of one of my children on my shoulder as i carried them sleeping from the car, my father’s dying words to me, as he clutched his own father’s medal, telling me he loved me. ” by the end, the tale has built into a certain elegiac crescendo .
trying to overcome his difficult emotional state, shaul, a solitary divorced man, goes to haifa to confront his father .
a look back at robert zemeckis' half - animated classic, who framed roger rabbit, on its 30 - year anniversary .
saddle up for six tales about the american frontier from the unique minds of joel and ethan coen, who wrote and directed this anthology .
but it was the death of young heather o' rourke, who played carol anne freeling, that sealed the film' s spooky reputation .
but there are a few crucial design flaws along the way. like mary shelley, theroux frames his narrative as an urgent confessional; slopen must tell the reader everything before it’s too late. the problem is that the author, perhaps in a nod to gothic tradition, wants to keep the reader in suspense, and so the first two - thirds of the book are filled with details that favor foreboding over revelation .
and, as the reboot hits cinema screens, it' s a legend that new viewers may just find haunts them... .
utterson takes the document home, where first he reads lanyon’s letter; it reveals that lanyon’s deterioration and eventual death were caused by the shock of seeing mr. hyde take a potion and metamorphose into dr. jekyll. the second letter constitutes a testament by jekyll. it explains how jekyll, seeking to separate his good side from his darker impulses, discovered a way to transform himself periodically into a deformed monster free of conscience—mr. hyde. at first, jekyll reports, he delighted in becoming hyde and rejoiced in the moral freedom that the creature possessed. eventually, however, he found that he was turning into hyde involuntarily in his sleep, even without taking the potion. at this point, jekyll resolved to cease becoming hyde. one night, however, the urge gripped him too strongly, and after the transformation he immediately rushed out and violently killed sir danvers carew. horrified, jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations, and for a time he proved successful; one day, however, while sitting in a park, he suddenly turned into hyde, the first time that an involuntary metamorphosis had happened while he was awake.
a strange course of events is a 2013 french-israeli drama film directed by raphaël nadjari . it was screened in the directors ' fortnight section at the 2013 cannes film festival . 
a strange course of events is a 2013 french-israeli drama film directed by raphaël nadjari. it was screened in the directors' fortnight section at the 2013 cannes film festival.
a strange course of events is a 2013 french-israeli drama film directed by raphaël nadjari. it was screened in the directors' fortnight section at the 2013 cannes film festival.