Movies Books

This is a spectacular, beautifully written novel. I bought this hardcover edition because I wanted to read the introduction by Frank Kermode. It offered a lot of background information pertaining to the novel, as well as references to previous editions and a timeline of the author's life.
The story itself is very intriguing. Containing all the elements of a tragic love story-forbidden love, a love triangle, betrayal, and death, I found myself hooked from the first chapter. What I found most intriguing was the second conflict-Charles' struggle with his own spirituality while he spent time at Brideshead. Although I found the text easy to read and understand, I still wouldn't call it a "beach read."
This is one book I will recommend to all my literary friends and will pick up time and time again. Although it may not be for everyone, I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

Great novels may speak to universal human concerns, but they do so by means of particulars, and those particulars interlock in different ways with the experience of each different reader. We come to books by different routes in terms of personal background, literary expectations, or cultural climate; it is only reasonable to acknowledge them. For example, I was initially attracted to the book by its resonance with my own Oxbridge days, the seduction of people from older families or greater wealth, and late adolescent confusion about sexuality and religion. More recently, I come to BRIDESHEAD REVISITED after reading a number of earlier Waugh books, together with those of his fellow convert to Catholicism, Graham Greene; this perspective casts a different light on a book that I knew only from the now-iconic BBC serial of 1981. And more recently still, there is stimulus of the new Miramax movie, a magnificent experience whose significant differences from the book nonetheless help to focus on what Waugh was actually doing. Personal, literary, and cultural: let me address these points in the opposite order. I shall try not to give any outright spoilers, but I am writing for people who already know the general outline of the story.

The movie first: splendid acting, fine period detail, and a feast for the eyes -- although Castle Howard in Yorkshire, one of Britain's grandest buildings, is surely at least twice the size of Brideshead. My greatest surprise in reading the book was to discover how many liberties the screenwriters had taken with the dramaturgy of the original. It was not just a matter of removing discursive passages and tightening things up; significant events had been taken out of order and others inserted, with invented dialogue to go with them. In both film and novel, the middle-class narrator Charles Ryder falls under the spell in turn of Lord Sebastian Flyte, his ancestral home Brideshead, and his sister Julia. The movie makes much more of the implied homoeroticism between Charles and Sebastian (which Waugh probably could not have done even if he had wanted to), but it also introduces his awareness of Julia quite early as a counterpoint to this, culminating in an episode in Venice which effectively causes a break with Sebastian. By the time Sebastian and Charles have parted in the book, however, Julia has made only peripheral appearances and has barely entered Charles' radar. Similarly near the end of the movie, the scene where Charles bargains for Julia with her Canadian husband Rex Mottram has no equivalent in the book whatsoever; Waugh simply glides over the transition as though it didn't matter. But then Waugh treats Julia's marriage to Rex as a hole-in-the-corner affair; he is a divorced man whom, as a Catholic, she can marry only in a state of sin. In the movie, by contrast, Rex too is Catholic and a splendid catch; the grand scene of Julia's engagement ball makes a dramatic climax, at which Sebastian disgraces himself by appearing drunk, and Charles is banished from the house.

So did Waugh not have the trick of the big dramatic moment? On the contrary, he could manage this perfectly well, as his other novels show, but here seems to aim at something entirely different. In every case, the adjustments in the movie tend towards a more conventional drama, in terms of social tensions, personality struggles, and the cavalcade of events. Much is made, for example, of Charles' lower social status, but there is nothing of this in the book, whose characters are grace itself. Emma Thompson has a virtuoso grande dame role as Lady Marchmain, the mother of Sebastian and Julia, but the character is the book is altogether gentler; she works through persuasion, not by force of will. Things that happen in the movie like a coup de théâtre, such as Charles coming together with Julia or Lord Marchmain returning home to die, take days or weeks in the novel. The movie is in the moment but earthbound, while Waugh has another dimension. His rhetoric is not that of a Hollywood actor; he is trying to represent the still small voice of God.

BRIDESHEAD REVISITED (1944) is an often funny book, with satires of upper-class twits, sanctimonious hypocrites, and posing aesthetes, but it is rooted nonetheless in a basic sense of civility. Waugh's earlier books, such as PUT OUT MORE FLAGS (1942), were more obviously satirical and not so rooted, but you can see the author struggling to give them moral ballast. This occurs most obviously in A HANDFUL OF DUST (1934) where, in an attempt to resolve the frivolous immoralities of the novel, the author tacks on an ending that belongs to a different world altogether. Here, although the religious themes are introduced as a matter more of biography than belief, they are nonetheless pervasive. Compare Waugh to Graham Greene, who converted to Catholicism four years before him. Greene's fascination with sinful characters who nonetheless find salvation, as in BRIGHTON ROCK (1938) or THE POWER AND THE GLORY (1940), is an assertive statement of a doctrinal paradox; Waugh is more subtle. Indeed, it would be possible to come away from the movie believing that it was an anti-Catholic tract. And yet in the book, Lord Marchmain, Julia, and especially Sebastian in his later years as movingly described by his younger sister Cordelia, emerge as just such prodigals returned to the fold. Even the agnostic Charles appears at the end to be at least half-way towards conversion. Brilliant though the movie's final scene in the chapel was, the ending of the book goes deeper.

So what are those universal themes I mentioned? You don't need to have been at Oxford to respond to such a fine description of the springtime struggle to define one's place in society, one's sexuality, one's talents. You don't need to have lived through a war to lament the passage of time and feel the need to honor the past even when hailing the future. You don't need to come from a noble family to recognize the importance of roots, something essential that comes through no matter what; dysfunctional though the Brideshead family may be, it is no accident that Charles is presented as being virtually without a functioning father at all, deprived of the very roots that make them who they are. And you do not need to be Catholic or even Christian to seek some guiding principle in life, or find a means of living without one.

I became obsesses with this movie when I heard Bruce Campbell speak at his book signing. It introduced me to the world of the Mojo story-telling of Joe R. Lansdale. I rushed out and ordered Writers Of The Purple Rage which included Bubba Ho-Tep. This volume not only includes the original story but also the screenplay to the movie. It is amazing how faithful Don Coscarelli has kept the script to the original. As an added bonus there is an inttroduction by Lansdale and Coscarelli plus their autograph to this limited 970 editions. The retail price is $40.00. Truly this is a bargain at $28.oo. If you see the movie, you will definitely want this fine companion piece!!!

Once upon a time, Texan writer Joe R. Lansdale was forced to put his ailing mother in a rest home. The writer found the place both sad and creepy...and a wonderful setting for a story. Combining two fallen heroes from his youth (Elvis Presley and President John Kennedy) with an interest in archeology (i.e. mummies) Lansdale drafted the story Bubba Ho-Tep, wherein the eldery men who may or may not be who they say they are (the aforementioned misters Presley and Kennedy) battle a soul sucking mummy that is feeding on the frail residents of the rest home they live in. Lansdale's story is sad, spooky, funny, and ulitmately heartwarming as the two find themselves vitalized by the battle with a nemesis that only they can see and touch. Ironically, Lansdale did not care much for the story and was surprised when it became a fan favorite. He was also stunned that Phantasm writer/director Don Coscarelli wanted to make the story into a movie. Considering how oddball the concept was, it is no surprise that financing Bubba Ho-Tep would prove problematic. But Coscarelli stuck to his vision and snagged Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis to star and managed to make the movie he wanted to make. When no one would distribute it, he distributed it himself and a bona-fide cult classic was born. In this book are Lansdale's story and Coscarelli's respectfully faithful shooting script. Whether you are a fan of Lansdale, Coscarelli, or Campbell (or all of the above, like me) this book is required reading. Highly recommended.

Join all of your buggy friends on and adventure you will never forget. As all the Ants battle it out with the grasshoppers this book (and the movie) will almost make you cry at the end. I would recomend this book to the adventure "bugs"!

Follow the bugs on the adventure of their life. Together they find the courage to fight hopper and his gang and save ant island. Flick is an outcast that is always braking things. Because of his latest mishap Flick is sent on a mission to find warrior bugs. Going to the city is a scary place for a little bug, can Flick find they heroes he is searching for, or is the real hero Flick?

This is a cute story for children to read. A Bug's life from Flik's point of view. Anyone would like to read it.

This is a cute story for children to read. A Bug's life from Flik's point of view. Anyone would like to read it.

My 22 month old daughter loves this book! I read every book before reading it to my child - some books are not age appropriate, and others are simply not very well written. My daughter loves this book and she insists we read it every day - the illustration is great, the rhyming poem is cute, and the book is simply fun.

My son is totally facinated with Elmo, so he instantly took to this book. Don't let the cover fool you, however. This book includes most of the Sesame Street characters, including, in part, Bert, Ernie, Cookie Monster and Grover. There were also two characters included who I am not as familiar with- Hoots and Prarie Dawn. The characters keep finding bunny rabbits all over the place, and they don't know the source of the bunnies. At the end, Big Bird tells his friends his bunnies have run away, and then he realizes that his friends have found his bunnies. The last two pages are great and show all of the characters in the book at one time.

This is a very quick book, and you can read it to your little one in less than 2 minutes.

Anne-Marie Levine's poetry lies at the intersection of everyday life and experience with her gift for finding just the right word, just the right moment, just the right question, just the right irony or outrage. If you have ever had the pleasure of hearing her read, you will know that she leaves her audience in stitches...The right response to her poetry is a very special laughter--the laughter that is simultaneous with curiosity and wonder. Reading her poems, brilliantly compressed into the sort of writing that everyone can make time for, Levine has the power to peel away the layers of mixed messages, confusion, and complexity heaped upon us by our cultural conventions and to reveal the real state of human affairs beneath. Anne-Marie Levine hears the poetry in the ordinary prose of the New York Times and the nightly news; she sees the poetry in the actions of those around her who have no idea their utterances are becoming lines in her poems. She can make a poem out of a news report, a dinner party, a painting, a medical disorder, a research report, or the coincidence of her own birthday being on Kristallnacht.

Bus Ride to a Blue Movie is a gem. If you want to know what is new and fresh in the poetry market today, read Anne-Marie Levine.

Anne-Marie Levine's new collection of poetry, "Bus Ride to a Blue Movie," is intimate, moving, prickly, funny, endearing, and revelatory. It is poetry for those who wish to experience more than one emotion at a time. An antidote to the mono-emotional narratives of television and Hollywood movies, the poems evoke a bewilderingly delightful assortment of feeling and response.

Anne-Marie Levine's poems observe daily life, with its conflict of joys and humiliations. The poems, sometimes lyrical, sometimes flatly direct, evoke the mordant wit of Oscar Levant, both self-effacing and critical. Humor's welcome presence does not hide the pains; it is in addition to.

In "Night Bodies," Anne-Marie Levine says she suffers from amusia - "the inability to produce musical sounds," but her poetry contradicts that diagnosis. Her words take on compelling musical forms: the scherzo of "poems," the fluorescent nocturne and clinical counterpoint of "Tunnel Vision," the elegiac "First Wife," the journalistic concerto in six parts in "From the Front Page of the New York Times, 10/19/87," and the haunting melody made of real notes in "Solo for David."

The poet's wisdom is conveyed subtly, parsed and rhythmic. "Mournful Nutrients" unsettles, with its analysis of the confused clarity of medical pronouncements, an analysis which concludes with an observation of Mies van der Rohe. Two pages later, personal experience and medical fact come together again in the playfully titled, "Out of a Stamp Roll and 400 Eggs."

The poems interrogate memory and its obligations. "Four November 9ths" shows how memory endures when the personal intersects with the historic, exemplifying the complexities of the narrated self. "Who Has the Right to Complain? Grete" questions if the memories of others can be appropriated. In "Dreams, Fragments," the poet asks, "May one loose one's Holocaust memories on another, or must one keep them oneself?"

The detailed reality of the poetry glows. Yes, there is a real place in London, near the village of Golders Green, "between a crematorium and a Jewish cemetery," but it is also a metaphysical place suspended between two finalities: the choice described in "Sex, Death, and Bad Taste in London."

"Bus Ride to a Blue Movie" is a book meant to be taken from the shelf and slowly read - and read again. This reader hopes Anne-Marie Levine continues to compose poetry and does not "give it a rest."

As to say Spike Lee is one-of-a kind director and a good follower. I luv him from the top since he been out. I would actually like to hear more from him 'cuz he's still my top director and mentor. Now back to the movie, I know everybody have love for this flick that Spike Lee created it talks about the life and times of civil rights leader Malcolm X (played by my main man Denzel Washington) which begins on reading the screenplay, the talks about it, the stars who played on the film and to those that believe that believe it out, etc. This is one of my all-time favorite books to read 'cuz it tells it all right here from this movie I like. Anyway it's still my #1 favorite movie of all-time. I look forward for Spike Lee putting out a memoir of his life and where he started his film-playing career into a higher level which drops in Sept or Oct of this yr. Specially look forward of hearing it.

"By Any Means Necessary" is an excellent book on the making of the film "Malcolm X" by director Spike Lee. Not only do we get a chance to see the film from the director's eye, but we also get to read all of the hassles he had to go through in order to come out with a film in Hollywood.The whole tone of the book, like all of Lee's books on his firms, is that of a diary. So what we're reading is random notes, scribbles, and just little lines that he will remember down the line. It almost seemed like a match made in hell: Spike Lee, considered to be a "controversial" film director, does a film on the line of Malcolm X, considered to be a controversial human rights figure. Throughout the book, Lee has to remind himself that despite the nay-sayers, the film will be done, even at times when he doubts his own creative genius.There are also thoughts from some of the actors (including Denzel Washington, who also played Malcolm X in his early years), but the best words come from Lee

candy was one of the fabrica community with his special character she became popular in warhol nation...and this book is a gate to his colorful life and you have to pay for it.....but stephen dorff' s performance as a candy darling was a real absurdity....buy this book for a covered joy.

With lips red as blood (thanks to Revlon)and hair as white as the clouds, Little Jimmy from Long Island knew he was a very pretty and special boy, from the time he was little.

Fawning over glamour mags and film rags he adopted a very andrgynous quailty about him and eventually thanks to Cher's pioneering efforts, was transformed into a woman, and and undeground film legend. " Shouldres back, head held high...you aren't just a star..you're a superstar!" she would coo to her comrades Holly Woodlawn and Jackie Curtis as they sweated their demi god poses at Max's Kansas City before and after the gay rights movement (Stonewall).

With a breathy voice, you can almost hear her rambling on about all things important to her as she shares them in this little book of hopes, dreams, and stories. Too bad she never sat down and wrote a book before she passed away, she gave a great gift to the transgender community. She helped open the door for them within Hollywood cinema.

Though this book will only be understood and appreciated by Die Hard Warhol fanatics, it is also a mildly valuable piece for gender studies, at a minor level

In this story, Nancy Drew must find a restaurant saboteur (more like a vandal). When Nancy goes to Arizona House, River Height's hottest restaurant, the manager, Shawn Morgan tells her about "problems" in the restaurant -things like the books being ruined, the kitchen being set on fire, and others. Nancy gets herself a job as a waitress in the restaurant to find out what's going on.

It's not too long before Nancy finds one of the culprits - but the mystery isn't over yet. Why? Who else is involved? Could the restaurant staff have anything to do with it? Is there a connection with a valuable gem owned by some rich lady who lives nearby? You're going to have to read the book to find out! I love mystery books and I enjoyed this story very much. It is a children's book, but adults will definitely enjoy it too. Everybody loves a good, captivating mystery!

Weird happenings are starting to occur at River Heights's hottest restaurant. Nancy has been asked to go undercover as a waitress there so she can check them out. No one would have counted on things such as people's foods being poisoned, Nancy being drugged out, and other incedents. It is obvious that someone is deliberatly trying to get her off the case. Nancy is more than stumped when she realizes that all of this has something to do with art and a Dragon's Eye Ruby?? One of the main suspects confesses, but that is only part of the crime that is explained. There is still much more to find out!

I loved the case of the Game Show Mystery! It is really good, it is one of my favorite books in the series! Here is a summary of the book. Mary Kate and Ashley have just won a chance to play on their favorite game show Double Trouble. They are really excited, but when they get there they have yet another case to crack. Someone seems detirmened to make sure Mary Kate and Ashley lose. Mary Kate and Ashley have to figure out who is causing all the trouble before it is too late! I hope you decide to read this book! It is great!

This book wasn't like other "New Adventures" book. The Case of the Game Show Mystery actually had an interesting story line.Plus, what made it a good read was that it was both fictitious but realistic in a way. This book is about when Mary-Kate & Ashley are picked to be contestants in their favorite TV show, "Double Trouble". But there is someone who wants them to lose...BAD. Well, that's all I can say;cuz if I say more, I'll give you too many clues that when you'll be reading it, you'll have the mystery solved before the famous Trenchcoat Twins have! :-)