The Woman In Black

So remember that time when I said I wasn't going to buy any books this year? Well, I kinda went and failed that by purchasing my very own copy of The Woman In Black by Susan Hill. I originally read this donkeys ago in secondary school where we also got to watch the film adaptation from the eighty's. I vaguely remember the film being a little on the silly side (the part that really stands out in my memory is the woman in black flying through Arthur's window with a manic grin on her face... this never happens in the book and whoever decided it should happen in the film should be slapped) but I absolutely loved the book. So much so that years later when I saw that the play was coming to Edinburgh, I rounded up some friends and convinced them it would be good. You have no idea how skeptical people can be of going to see a horror on stage ("But it won't be scary!").

But there we go. It's a short book, my edition has bang on 200 pages, but it certainly packs a decent punch! In some ways, it's quite a typical ghost story; the woman in black is always kind of floating around at a distance so our protagonist can't quite decide if she's dangerous or not. A lot of the spinetingling is due to Susan Hill's writing which I found to be absolutely fantastic despite the fact that I needed the Dictionary.com app glued to my hand. At least I learnt a lot of new words!

One of my favourite aspects of this book has got to be the setting: Eel Marsh House is isolated, impressive, daunting and you get a real sense of coldness at the thought of having to spend the night there. I also love the fact that the villagers of Crython Gifford exhibit traits typical of a little farming village with their apparent suspicious attitude towards the house and the woman in black.

It's true that not much happens but I personally liked this about the tale as it added to the suspense. The only negative thing I will say about this book is the stupidly long sentences as I would get lost half way and have to restart.

The main reason why I read this book was in order to refresh my memory for the new movie which I hope to watch sometime this week!

Rating: *****

Let The Right One In

When it comes to Let The Right One In, I feel like I'm missing something. On the surface, it contains all the right ingredients of a film that I would usually rush out and buy: it's horror, it has vampires (not sparkly ones), and it's from Sweden therefore allowing me to brush up on my world cinema. Additionally, the reviews it has received are incredibly favourable! For example, Rotton Tomatoes gives it a very generous 98%!

And it's not as if this film "fell short" of impressing me; the more I watched it, the more bored, irritated and down right disappointed I became to the point that once it finally finished, I felt nothing other than relief.

Unfortunately, I'm not really able to pin point exactly what my issue is with this film. I mean, the acting was fine, the dialogue was alright and the story itself was endearing. There just seemed to be no backbone or structure to the tale. No real direction in what was happening. And let's not forget the part where a woman gets attacked by CGI cats only to fall down the stairs moments later. Actually, that was probably my favourite bit.

So yeah... I might try reading the book in the hope that it may possibly shed some light on what it is that the movie is lacking...

Although, I'm in no real hurry to do so.

Rating: */****

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Despite being an avid bookworm, my mother isn't the easiest person to please when it comes to books and I have often told her that I've never met anyone as cynical as her. That's why, when she thrust her copy of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in my hands instructing me to read it ASAP, I knew it must be good. Of course, everyone else in the whole world seemed to think the same thing and I had several other books to read last year before I could get around to this one. I took so long (have I mentioned I'm an incredibly slow reader?) that I got instructed to lend the copy to my sister. Almost a year later, I can now finally exclaim that I have read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The book tells the story of Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist hired by an elderly business man to investigate the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet from over forty years ago. Blomkvist then ropes in the help of one exceptionally strange individual by the name of Lisbeth Salander. While the investigation into Harriet's disappearance is interesting, the star is without a doubt, Salander and I thought it was a shame that she wasn't focused on as much as Mikael.

If it wasn't for the atrociously slow start to the book (200 freakin pages before anything interesting happened!), I would gladly assign 5 shining stars. However, 200 pages is a helluva lot to wade through but I still give this book a respectable 4/5.

Be warned though, there are some seriously brutal sex scenes that explain why the original Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women.

ATTACK THE BLOCK

I've been subscribed to LoveFilm for a while now and in all honesty, used the service quite frequently all the way up until I was made redundant. I'm well aware that this sounds backwards but that's just the way it goes. As a result, ATTACK THE BLOCK sat in my room, cold and alone, gathering dust.

I'd wanted to see this for a while, what with the ludicrous sounding plot: smooshing London hoodlums with aliens? Yes please. And I wasn't disappointed! In fact, I'm having difficulty trying to think of a single bad thing to say about this film. I love the fact that it's British, I love that even I found it difficult in places to understand what the hell the kids were saying (God knows how Americans will manage) and I love how a stupid alien-invasion story turned into something that I can't wait to go and purchase for my own DVD collection!

The story is simple: a gang of mid-teen London hoodlums are out one night mugging innocent passers-by when a meteorite hits. It ain't any old meteorite but in fact an alien which attacks the ring-leader, Moses, who then, in true as-seen-on-the-news style, kills the alien and parades it through the streets of London. But there's a slight problem, more meteorites begin to hit and these new aliens are slightly bigger and scarier than the one that's just been killed.

When watching this film, it's important to not take it too seriously. In fact, don't take it seriously at all. It's not a hard-hitting drama about "youth today" (despite nudging you slyly in the ribs every now and again as these kids are left to their own devices). Nor is it a fully fledged comedy. The balance teeters quite precariously between comedy and sci-fi and the result is an incredibly enjoyable, humourous and yet scary flick that I am looking forward to watching again.

Rating: *****

SHAME

It's definitely not often that I feel compelled to write two posts in one day but I've literally just come back from watching Steve McQueen's SHAME at the Filmhouse here in Edinburgh. I'm always up for a trip to the cinema but this wasn't my choice (and I probably won't be seeing it again). When a friend asks me if I'm interested in seeing such-and-such-a film and I've never heard of it before, I will often say yes simply for the pleasure of watching something with a blank slate.

Overall, I would say that, yes, this is a "good" film but I was left feeling quite... odd. I don't have a problem with sex scenes and I understand that the protagonist, Brandon (Michael Fassbender), has an addiction to sex (and how else can a film portray such an addiction if not through multiple sex scenes, masturbation, porn and prostitutes?). I guess I just got a bit bored. Add to that the distinct lack of dialogue. Again, I understand that he's been left damaged in some way by some un-mentioned horror from his childhood, but again, I have the attention span of a fish so a big screen with not much happening means I get a bit fidgety.

What I did appreciate, though, was the character of Sissy (Carey Mulligan), Brandon's sister who has also been left damaged from the same un-mentioned horror. Yet, while Brandon is an attention seeker in the form of physical and sexual attention, Sissy is desperate for companionship which she doesn't get from Brandon as he insists on trying to push her away. And the ending was pretty much perfect as far as I'm concerned.

Basic gist, I do recommend this film if you like your arty, independent films with long gaps in dialogue and plot for some graphic shots of nakedness or running or sitting on the subway... I just get bored way too quickly.

50 Book Challenge 2011 [FAILED]

Me again!

As promised, this is a round up of the final six books that I read in 2011. Nothing to get massively excited about, except perhaps The Hunger Games which sees the film release later this year. As I've said before, I read the first two books in the trilogy and found them them to be somewhat of a let down, especially Catching Fire (the second one) which was just -painful- in places. But go watch the trailer! It looks like they've taken all the good parts, mainly the idea, and I'm dead serious when I say I'm looking forward to it.

A Kestrel for a Knave

Kes, 1969

I also read A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines, a hard hitting British classic that I think everyone should read. It's what the film KES is based on and I'm well aware that the film is far more popular than than the book (and another essential for anyone wanting to brush up on their British films). The dialogue in the book is written in Yorkshire dialect which means at some times, I had no idea what was being said but that doesn't detract from how emotionally powerful this little book is.

The final book that I read last year was We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. I don't think there's much else I can really say about this book considering the film came out at the end of last year amid much media hype. The book is heavy in the most literal, metaphorical and physical sense and I loved it. The film did a brilliant job of translating Shriver's sinister tale to the silver screen. Read/watch it.

The Book List 2011

#9 - 14

9. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins ****/*

10. Catching Fire [The Hunger Games Trilogy] by Suzanne Collins ***/**

11. Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin ****/*

12. A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines ****/*

13. One Day by David Nicholls ****/*

14. We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver ****/*

50 Book Challenge 2011

So there's this thing called the 50 Book Challenge in which people try their damnedest to read 50 books in one year. On the surface, it sounds like an extremely achievable challenge, even if you're a slow reader like me, just so long as you choose your books wisely and aim to spend no longer than roughly 7ish days on each. For the record, I am an incredibly slow reader (hence why I have a volcano of unread books and a new years resolution to not buy any more this year... starting from today... as I miiiight have bought one yesterday.... but that doesn't count.... cough)

ANYWAY.

I think it was through Falletron that I first heard of such a thing but only decided to "give it a go" last year. And by the by, when I say "give it a go", I knew I had no chance so in a way, I kinda gave up before I'd even started! On top of being a slow reader, I don't actually spend that much time reading unless perhaps I'm on a bus or the book is particularly gripping.

This video is actually a mashup of eight videos that I intended to make last year, i.e. a review video for each of the books that I read, but ended up being too lazy to make at the time.

The Book List 2011

#1 - 8

1. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson ****/*
2. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards ****/*
3. Witch and Wizard by James Patterson with Gabrielle Charbonnet */****
4. In Sarah's Shadow by Karen McCombie ***/**
5. Secret Window, Secret Garden [Four Past Midnight by Stephen King] ****/*
6. The Library Policeman [Four Past Midnight by Stephen King] **/***
7. The Sun Dog [Four Past Midnight by Stephen King] ***/**
8. The Langoliers [Four Past Midnight by Stephen King] ***/**

The next video will be along the same lines and be a mashup of the remaining six books that I read last year. Like I say at the end of the video, I promise to read more this year!