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"People say life is the thing, but I prefer reading." Logan P. Smith
‘The View on the Way Down’ by Rebecca Wait
It’s not often you read a book that makes you reassess your opinion on the way a whole topic has been discussed in literature until now. Before reading ‘The View on the Way Down’ my main point of reference when it came to books-about-depression was Sylvia Plath. Her novel ‘The Bell Jar’ and – in […]
Posted in: Book Reviews
‘Anna Karenina’ by Leo Tolstoy
July 31, 2013
Dostoevsky called it “flawless as a work of art”, William Faulkner declared it “the best [novel] ever written” and it has been referenced everywhere in the succeeding literary canon from Chekov to Lemony Snicket. But how does Tolstoy’s epic tragedy stand up today? Thankfully, a book this magnificent will never really fall, but, by the […]
Posted in: Book Reviews
Palme d’Or Winner: Cannes Has the Hots for ‘Adèle’
May 27, 2013
Can’t wait to see this film, it sounds wonderful.
Posted in: Uncategorized
Film: The Great Gatsby
May 26, 2013
Film: The Great Gatsby. My review of Baz Luhrmann’s wildly kinetic but distinctly Fitzgerald-flavoured adaptation of the Great American Novel.
Posted in: Uncategorized
Film: The Great Gatsby
May 18, 2013
When it was first announced that Australian director Baz Luhrmann would be helming the latest adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great American novel, my reaction was one of intense optimism. At best, I thought, the result would stand alongside Luhrmann’s other literary adaptation, ‘Romeo + Juliet’ as an idiosyncratic but arguably definitive rendition of a […]
Posted in: Film Reviews
Film: The Host
April 30, 2013
After the critical slaughtering received by sci-fi romance ‘The Host’, the movie itself proved, in some ways, a pleasant surprise. That’s not to say ‘The Host’ is a great film – it is based on a book by ‘Twilight’ author Stephenie Meyer after all, and Meyer’s unique talent for taking interesting, fantastical premises and using […]
Posted in: Film Reviews
Film: ‘Stoker’
March 7, 2013
The plot of Korean filmmaker Chan-wook Park’s English language debut is a thin one, and what there is of it seems to be a hybrid of Hitchcock’s ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ – which screenwriter Wentworth Miller cites as inspiration – and Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’, with a dash of ‘Hamlet’ thrown in for good Freudian measure. As the title implies, ‘Dracula’ […]
Posted in: Film Reviews
Film: ‘A Royal Affair’
March 3, 2013
Passionate and political, ‘A Royal Affair’ is everything the Keira Knightley period dramas ‘Anna Karenina’ and ‘The Duchess’ wish they were. Set in 1770′s Denmark, it tells the little-known (at least in the UK) story of British princess Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander – far more nuanced and natural than Knightley), who is married off to her cousin, King […]
Posted in: Film Reviews
Film: Les Miserables
February 19, 2013
‘Les Miserables’ is, without doubt, my favourite musical of all time. And I like musicals. I love it for its scope, for the breadth of human experience it captures. Name any emotion and you can bet it’s here with a rousing melody to boot. There isn’t a bad song in it. The music, by Claude-Michel […]
Posted in: Film Reviews
‘Geek Love’ by Katherine Dunn
January 8, 2013
First things first, ‘Geek Love’ is not a romantic comedy about two Star Trek fans making eyes at one another over a bunsen burner. In fact, there isn’t much in the way of romance or comedy to be had here. This title refers to the earlier definition of the word ‘geek’, which meant a carnival performer who bit […]
Posted in: Book Reviews
Rachel Mary Reviews... 
November 5, 2013
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