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Movie Review: Robin Hood (2010)

May 16, 2010 in Movie Reviews

I went into the latest Russell Crowe-Ridley Scott film, Robin Hood, knowing relatively little about what kind of movie it was going to be, considering it is, after all, a “blockbuster”.

What I can say is that while Robin Hood is pretty good, it’s certainly no Gladiator.

I had heard that this new depiction of the iconic hero was panned for “pretending” to be historically accurate when it wasn’t, and the film had eschewed all the merriness that made Robin and his men were famous for.  Accordingly, compared to previous renditions of Robin Hood, this one was dull and lacking in fun.

I don’t agree with that.  Frankly, I couldn’t care less how historically accurate this new Robin Hood is, as long as it is compelling and entertaining to watch.  And why must all Robin Hood films be confined to merry men in tights who sing and dance all day?  Ridley Scott decided to deliver a more serious, gritty and “realistic” vision of the folktale hero, and I don’t have a problem with that.  He can do whatever he wants as long as the result is a good movie.

However, that’s not to say Scott and Crowe hit the bulls-eye with Robin Hood.  Don’t get me wrong, the film does have its positives, namely, the performances and the action.

Russell Crowe brings his Maximus charm and brooding presence to Robin Longstride (aka Hood), making him a sound hero; Cate Blanchett was fantastic was Lady Marion, as was Max Von Sydow as her father-in-law, Walter Loxley; Mark Strong shows once again that he can be a superb villain, and Oscar Isaac does a fine job as the surprising King John.

The action sequences are also done very well, with the best moments coming during the initial siege scene and the final climatic battle.  It’s not quite Lord of the Rings, but Scott manages to capture that epic scale battle feeling (for the most part) by thrusting you into the middle of the action.

Having said that, it still felt like something was missing.  The film is I suppose a prequel to the Robin Hood legend, in the same way that Batman Begins was for Bruce Wayne.  But with this Robin Hood, it didn’t feel like there was any character transformation — at the start he was a good archer and an honest man who believed in justice.  By the end, he was essentially still the same guy, just with different surrounding circumstances.

Furthermore, while the film didn’t feel particularly long at 140 minutes, I felt as though not a whole lot happened during the running time.  I suppose that means I wanted more.

3.5 stars out of 5!

[PS: I don't get all the hoopla about Russell's accent.  Is it really that big of a deal?  Come one, at least he tried, unlike some other Robin Hoods of the past, cough cough Mr Costner...I'd much rather everyone talk about the feral kids in the movie -- what the heck was the deal with that?]

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Book Review: ‘The Nostradamus Prophecies’ by Mario Reading

May 15, 2010 in Book Reviews

After struggling through the life of Madame Bovary, I needed something light and easy for my next book.  Enter The Nostradamus Prophecies by Mario Reading (not to be confused with The Nostradamus Prophecy by John S Powell or Theresa Breslin), one of the bargain books I picked up whilst travelling in Taiwan.

Now I will preface my review with the statement that I have nothing against Mario Reading.  I think he’s a good writer and very knowledgeable when it comes to Nostradamus.  I also read his blog and it’s actually great, and he seems like a nice guy.

But I have to call it like it is and say that The Nostradamus Prophecies was ultimately a disappointment.

I was initially drawn to the book because it looked like one of those Dan Brown-esque action thrillers with some interesting, semi-factual context thrown in (eg on the cover it says “An Ancient Secret; A Deadly Conspiracy); that and because I have always been deeply fascinated by Nostradamus and his prophecies.

It tells the story of a man called Adam Sabir, a writer who also happens to be a Nostradamus expert (and appears to be very closely based on Mario Reading himself).  Sabir responds to an advertisement that suggests someone has in his possession missing verses from Nostradamus’ prophecies, but ends up being framed for a crime and having both the French police and the henchman of a clandestine cult on his trail.  Doesn’t sound like the most original of plots, but I wasn’t exactly expecting one when I bought it.

The Nostradamus Prophecies had all the elements to be great.  An fascinating premise based around a legendary figure with a cult-like following around the world and prophecies that foretell the end of days.  An intellectual protagonist on the run.  A few interesting secondary and minor characters.  A dangerous, shadowy antagonist who will stop at nothing.

But somehow, none of those elements came together in the book.  My biggest gripe with The Nostradamus Prophecies is that Nostradamus and his prophecies don’t drive the storyline.  They become almost an afterthought during the tussle between Sabir and his chasers.  We don’t learn much about the life of Nostradamus, how he came to write these prophecies, or what they may contain (until the last couple of pages).  The Nostradamus prophecies become merely a plot device to get the ball rolling — there are perhaps one or two little riddles, but at no time do we feel like we are drawn into some deep mystery or that finding the prophecies would lead to some marvellous revelation.  And that’s a shame because it felt like there was enough there to make it a truly explosive and intelligent adventure in the vein of The Da Vinci Code.

As a result, The Nostradamus Prophecies runs through to the end never having that “wow” factor or that unputdownable feeling.  Yes, most of the short chapters end on a minor cliffhanger, but the tension just isn’t there.  I kept waiting for that moment where I would really get into it and want to keep reading deep into the night, but unfortunately it never came.

A big part of the problem lies with the antagonist, who has the silly nickname of the “eye-man”.  He is no doubt a dangerous and violent villain, but for some strange reason he instilled little fear in me.  Perhaps it was because his intelligence or craftiness never shone through.

The most fascinating part of The Nostradamus Prophecies ended up being the things we learn about France’s gypsies.  It’s an amazing world, an oft-misunderstood culture that most people would have trouble believing still exists today.  The story’s two main gypsy characters, Yola and Alexi, turn out to be the most interesting in the book.  So from that perspective at least, I can say the book did very well, but I wanted to read the book because of what I might learn about Nostradamus, not gypsies!

However, to be fair, I don’t think the misleading title or blurb is entirely Reading’s fault.  The original title was The 52, but it was changed for promotional purposes to reign in readers with a fascination for Nostradamus.  Sadly, if the novel was advertised as a story about gypsy culture, I don’t think it would be the international bestseller is has become today.

Reading The Nostradamus Prophecies gave me a new appreciation for The Da Vinci Code.  For all the criticism Dan Brown’s writing as received, he is a master at blending fact and fiction into an exciting story with break-neck pace.  So many people out there think it’s an easy thing to do and requires no great skill, but as the plethora of similar books in recent years has proven, it’s much harder than it looks.

So maybe I am being too harsh on The Nostradamus Prophecies.  After all, a poor book wouldn’t be translated into multiple languages and sell more than 150,000 copies (and rapidly increasing).  I just found out that The Nostradamus Prophecies is the first book in a Nostradamus “trilogy”, and the second book is being released in the UK in August 2010.  I hope this one will focus more on Nostradamus and really make us think about what his prophecies mean for the world in the next few years.

I think Reading’s biggest obstacle stems from the fact that he is such a knowledgeable expert on Nostradamus that it becomes hard for him to distill that knowledge into a story that is both educational and exciting for the casual reader.  Make us believe in the prophecies.  Teach us more about Nostradamus and the third Antichrist he foretells.  If he can do that then the second book could be a ripper.

I sincerely hope he succeeds.

2.5 stars out of 5!

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Poetry and Sylvia Plath

May 15, 2010 in On Writing, Study

 

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

 

[Update: A new Ted Hughes poem, 'Last Letters', has apparently been discovered.  It tells of the night of Plath's death and looks like a cracker.  For more info and excerpts read my new post.]

Poetry

Admittedly, up until a few days ago, I was not a poetry kind of guy.  I’m still not, not by a long shot, but at least now I can finally see why some people swear by it, and why it’s actually very useful for a prose writer to read.

In my writing theory class, we recently studied poetics, and in particular Sylvia Plath and her husband and fellow poet Ted Hughes.  Needless to say, I was initially less than thrilled with the prospect of reading pages and pages of poetry.

The last time I read any “proper” poetry was in high school, and it was not voluntary.  I was probably too young and lacked the maturity and appropriate grasp of the English language to appreciate the poems we studied.  Besides, most of the students that proclaimed their love for poetry during my school years tended to be the biggest knobs/snobs who thought they were better than everyone else (with the exception of a few genuine geniuses).

But anyway, now that I am older and slightly more mature (just a little), I must admit the Sylvia Plath poems blew me away, especially “Daddy” and “Lazy Lazarus” (the latter of which is perhaps her most famous poem).  I know it’s a horrible cliche, but there’s no other way to describe it — it’s powerful stuff.  Her choice of words, sometimes seemingly the simplest of words, somehow manages to conjure up images more striking and vivid than most prose I have read.  It just shows you don’t necessarily have to have a broad vocabulary or a thesaurus to come up with writing that connects emotionally with readers.

Sylvia Plath

Another thing we looked at in class was the issue of authorship — that is, to what extent does authorship affect the way we read a piece of writing?  Does our understanding of an author’s life and story influence how we perceive the work?

Well, in the case of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, the answer is definitely yes.  The more I looked into the life of Sylvia Plath, the more haunting her poems became.

Before last week, the only thing I knew about her was that she was a famous poet and there was a film made about her starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig a few years back.  Little did I know about the crazy melodrama behind her poetry that is more gripping than any movie or novel.

Plath was born in 1932 during the Great Depression and her father died when she was just eight following complications from an amputated foot (due to diabetes).  She suffered from depression and first tried to commit suicide at around age 20, though she was unsuccessful.  She was later awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Cambridge University, where she met fellow poet Ted Hughes at a party.  Hughes apparently had a girlfriend at the time but Plath decided she had to have him, and they ended up marrying in 1956.

The two continued to write poetry, though Hughes did it full time while Plath also had to take care of all the chores of a housewife.  They had two children but the marriage was difficult, partly due to Hughes’ affair with Assia Wevill, a beautiful married woman who once rented their property.

Plath and Hughes separated in 1962 and she moved into a flat where WB Yeats once lived.  Plath committed suicide in 1963, at age 30, by gassing herself in the home oven while her infant children slept in the next room.

The best poems Plath wrote came just before her suicide, and you can really sense the pain and loathing in her writing.  Knowing Plath intended to kill herself when she wrote these poems really amplifies the raw emotion already contained in them.

But that’s not the end of the Plath saga.  Assia Wevill was apparently pregnant with Hughes’ child when Plath committed suicide, and she terminated the pregnancy soon after.  Wevill eventually gave birth to Hughes’ daughter in 1965 while she still married to her old husband.  However, the stigma of being the woman who broke up Plath’s marriage and Hughes’ later affairs with other women was too much for Wevill to handle, and in 1969, she killed their daughter then herself with the home oven — in the same way Sylvia Plath had seven years ago.

Ted Hughes didn’t comment on his marriage to Plath until almost 30 years later in 1998, when he released a poetry collection called Birthday Letters, which had some real whoppers too that seemed to be a direct response to his complex relationship with Plath. He died later that year from colon cancer.

Nicholas Hughes, the son Ted Hughes had with Sylvia Plath, committed suicide in March 2009 following a bout with depression.  He was 47 years old.

Tell me that isn’t one insane story!

Now thanks to YouTube, you can listen to Sylvia Plath recite her own poems, which, due to her powerful voice, makes them even more haunting.  I’d recommend listening to “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” (preferably with the text of the poems side by side)– they still give me the chills, every time.

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So THAT’S what it feels like to write all day!

May 10, 2010 in On Writing, Study

What a killer of a day.

For the first time in a very long time, I managed to write all day, practically from 9 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon, with only a couple of short breaks in between.

It wasn’t like I had much of a choice.  Today was the deadline for this writing competition that I wanted to enter.  I only found out about it last Wednesday, and the intention was to write the short story over the weekend, but as usual, I was only half way through by Sunday night.  The story needed to be between 1,000 and 3,000 words, but my target was roughly around 1,800 so that I could re-use the story for one of my workshopping sessions in a couple of weeks (and hand it in for assessment at the end of term).

And so I got cracking, and by the time I finished with the draft story at around 1 in the afternoon, it was 2,800 words.  If the story (tentatively titled “The Smell”) was the masterpiece I had been hoping for, then that would have been fine for the purposes of the competition entry.  But it wasn’t.  There was something about it that just didn’t feel right.

So I went back to work, rewriting, altering the plot, and chopping entire chunks out.  When I finally keyed in the final word, it was down to just over 2,000 words.  Good enough.  But then I realised it was 5pm, and as I recalled, the final mail run was around 5:30.  In a mad panic, I had to reformat the story into the correct parameters for the competition, complete the entry form, print out two copies (on an inkjet!), fill out the envelope and whack on the stamps.  I made it to the post box with 6 minutes to spare.

In retrospect, it was most probably a waste of money (because there was an entry fee) to enter this competition, because even I recognise that the story wasn’t very good or well written.  But I’m glad I did it.

For starters, I finally submitted something I wrote that wasn’t compulsory, and I even made the deadline!  Secondly, I experienced what it feels like to write for a full working day.  Honestly, it felt great.  It wasn’t easy, but it was extremely rewarding.  My only complaint is that the day went by way too fast.  I only really wrote around 2,000 words today (and deleted probably 1,000!), but hey, I got the job done in the end.

Okay, now back to uni work.  I’m really starting to shit bricks over how much stuff is going to be due soon!

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The Fortnight of Pace!

May 8, 2010 in On Writing, Study

In the tradition of “The Summer of George”, I had proclaimed the last two weeks “The Fortnight of Pace”.

It was my two-week mid-semester break, and it was a time for me to thrive, to pound out those writing assessments, to enter into writing competitions, to submit articles to publications, to finally make some progress on my novels.  It seemed so perfect.  No classes, no disruptions.  There was nothing that could stop me.

But alas, The Fortnight of Pace turned out much like The Summer of George.  I tried, I really did, but the time just came and went like I was in some kind of time warp.  I remember just a couple of months ago when I was working, time seemed to crawl.  I wondered why the days would take forever to finish, and the week felt like it would never end.  Now, I have the opposite problem.  I do a couple of things here and there, and all of a sudden the day is over and my ‘to do’ list remains almost untouched.

So now, instead of having all the time in the world to work on my novels and accumulate writing credits, I still have 7 assessments due in the next 5 weeks.  Looks like I’m going to be busy!

Serenity now!

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