The Dreamers by Gilbert Adair
In 1968, the Cinémathèque Française in Paris stood as one of the few government-funded and operated tributes to cinema in the world. Henri Langlois, who cofounded the organization in the 1930s, still ran it. During […]
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Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
Good novels read themselves; bad novels require work. Deborah Moggach’s Tulip Fever, a bad novel, required work. In fairness to the novel, as a historical romance, it’s not the genre I often read. But I […]
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
As a new nation, America lacks a national epic. We do not have an Iliad or a Gilgamesh Epic or a Beowulf to connect us to antiquity, to a time before written language, to the […]
Book Review: The Long Day’s Evening
It’s been a goal of mine–unsatisfactorily fulfilled–to include in these pages reviews not only of novels from my own country, but also those written overseas. A culture can become myopic if it views the world […]
Video Review: The Girl with All the Gifts (2016)
In a recent review I watched on YouTube, the critic stated that we are all feeling a little “zombie fatigue” these days. In truth, I’ve never been a great fan of zombie movies. Like a […]
Video Review: The Hungry (2017)
The Hungry begins with a murder, ends with a murder, and in case you’ve forgotten what it’s about, there are several murders between. This is a bloodbath, I thought, as I watched it. It’s like […]
Movie Review: Annihilation
In my review of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, I said I felt reluctant to see the movie, because I didn’t want Hollywood’s images to override the images I imagined as I read it. It was an […]
Movie Review: Tomb Raider
Though Tomb Raider starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft, is a diversion, a simple entertainment, it gave us nothing new. It’s a competent film by competent filmmakers, who colored within the lines, stamped a MPAA […]
Movie Review: Red Sparrow
Jason Matthews’ Red Sparrow concerns Dominika Egorova. The strength in the novel lies in her characterization and in the arc she experienced. Though she always didn’t feel like the novel’s protagonist, she always felt like […]
Book Review: Red Sparrow by Jason Matthews
Though set in modern times, when Putin is president of Russia, Red Sparrow reads like a Cold War spy thriller. As Jason Matthews, the novelist who wrote it, tells us in the narration, although the […]