I, Claudius has just made its way onto my Netlfix queue, and I can only hope that the mini-series based on the Robert Graves novels are played as a black comedy! Robert Graves has managed to write a wickedly funny portrayal of the "royal family" from the reign of Augustus Ceaser through the wanton debauchery of Caligula. All three reigns are told through the eyes of the seemingly idiotic Claudius, whom ends the book on the shoulders of his countrymen as their new Ceaser.

Graves, who is a true literary giant in his own right, colorfully fills in the blanks of the historical Roman record. Whether his interpretations of events are factual or not is left up for debate, but the genius of his narrative through Claudius is not. You'll need to draw a map of how all the various characters are related since marriage, divorce and adoption within the same family is rampant. Claudius' grandmother Livia is a real force whose product ends up being the sordid reign of Caligula. Augustus and Tiberius are "interesting" in their own way, and the stories attached to each Ceaser's reign or one part tragic and 10 parts black comedy. That Claudius is able to survive by playing the embicile shows his true genius. Can't want to see what the DVDs have in store!

I picked this book of the top of a stack that my friend was planning on giving to the library. It is the hardback version, and I simply have a weakness for free hardbacks. Yes, I know I'm a freak....
Most of my exposure to Grisham has been through the movies that were made from his books, so I'm not too familiar with his actual writing. The Partner is a very quick read, coming in around 350 pages in hardback, this is a fairly straight forward story.
Patrick Lanigan has faked his death and stolen $90 million of his former firms ill gotten gains. The story really starts at his capture in Brazil and lays out the "how he done it" over the course of the book. The problem for me was that the book devolved into characatures instead of buidling interesting people to follow. It just seemed too formulaic at times and way too many things just fell into place to be believable. In hollywood when an proven actor/actress stars in a bomb and doesn't appear to try it is generally said the actor "dialed it in". I think Grisham did the same here.
Frankly, a lot of reviews here didn't like the ending, but that was really my favorite part. Wasn't too much of a surprise, but boy did it give me some satisfaction. All in all, there are other things you can be reading for pure entertainment, but this book wasn't totally lacking some redeeming qualities.

My wife watched this documentary as a double feature along with Spellbound (another documentary). While I loved Spellbound, I was disappointed with Daughter From Danang. Actually, that is not totally true. The reason I give this four stars is that I was disappointed with THE daughter from Danang, not the film itself. The film does exactly what it set out to do: show a clash of cultures in a very emotional event. Not only is there the reunion of a mother and daughter, but it's done in Vietnam with all the politcal and social baggage that entails.

Maybe the folks filming this, or pushing for her to realize her dream of finally meeting her birth mother should have prepared Heidi for what she was going to find in Vietnam. Heidi is very "Americanized", even more so than some Americans. Unfortunatly, Americanized here seems to mean discomfort with extreme poverty and thinking that this was some kind of vacation that she could go home and not have to think about later. She expresses discomfort with the amount of physical attention she receives from her mother (who hasn't seen her since she put Heidi on the plane, go figure). But the real climax is when her half-brother brings up helping out the family with some financial assitance. On one hand, I can see Heidi not wanting to go to some of the extremes her Vietnamese family wanted her to, but on the other hand her reaction was just too dramatic for me. I found myself talking to the TV set, imploring Heidi to "Grow up!".
Kudos to those who filmed this. You accurately captured this true clash of cultures and emotion. That you picked an ungrateful child to film is not fault of yours.

Soderbergh's movies are usually hit or miss for me. I love Out of Sight, Ocean's 11 and of course, Traffic. However, Solaris and now, The Limey are misses for me. There are definite great parts about The Limey, such as Terence Stamp and even Fonda, but I just never really go into the story. I was convinced Stamp's character wanted revenge, but the scenes that were supposed to convince me of his love for his daughter fell flat.
Soderbergh's signature style is definitely there though. As an early work of his, you can really see what he turned that style into later in his better works. The Limey is probably the first movie I didn't care for that I actually bought the soundtrack to, so there's something!

I have not read other biographies of Stonewall Jackson as others here have, so I cannot say if there are others out there that are better. However, of the biographies I have read (Theodore Rex, John Adams, etc.) this biography is by far the best I have ever read.
I currenly live in Centreville, VA and Manassas Battlefield and the surrounding areas are basically part of my everyday commute. So you can imagine that it was quite interesting to me to read about those battles in particular. I also attended James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. A lot of my life as been in the same georgraphy that Stonewall and his "foot cavalry" marched over (and over, and over) during his Valley Campaigns in particular.
Roberston goes to great lengths to describe Jackson the man during all stages of his life. I especially enjoyed learning about his service in the Mexican War and as a teacher at VMI. The book is so detailed that by the time the Civil War starts, your are almost half way through the biography! The one complaint I have is that the details of the Civil War campaigns are so meticulous that I actually got tired of reading about another 50+ mile march, often back to a town retaken by the Federals (Harrisonburg, Winchester, etc). However, Roberston's style pays off in spades in his accounts of each battle, how they were fought (including troop placements and supply trains), what the outcome meant to each side, and what it meant to Jackson is particular.
At the end of the book it is very hard to feel nothing in Jackson's death.

Don't get me wrong here. I am a fan of Anderson's work in general, especially Boogie Nights and Punch-Drunk Love. But I just could handle Hard Eight. Usually Anderson's slower pace is a welcome change for me as I really enjoy character driven dramas. The acting was pretty good, but I just thought the script lacked anything of interest. Maybe next time, but I can't recommend actually buying this one unless you want a complete Anderson collection.

I really don't understand why I enjoyed this movie. I'm not a huge Trek person, but I have more than a passing knowledge of it. I've seen most of the series, but I gave up with Voyager and the new Enterprise series. Still, I usually will go to see a Trek film in the theater. Not this time though. I had heard that Nemesis was terrible and avoided spending money on it. I finally broke down and rented it from Netflix (hey, I pay the monthly fee, why not).
I guess since I went into it with such low expectation, I was actually entertained. I was less disappointed with this than I was with the Matrix 2&3 (although, to be fair, being in the sci-fi genre is about the only thing those to franchises share in common). It may also be that I'm so far removed from my days of watching TNG that I'm not enamored with the characters anymore. Either way, I was surprised I enjoyed this as much as I did.
I can understand why hardcore Trekkies (by the way, that is an awesome documentary!!) might hate this film though.

I'm not giving this book one star because it has NO redeemable qualities. In fact, for 3/4 of the book I was totally won over and could not wait to whip the credit card out to purchase the Da Vinci Code. I'm glad I waited until I had completed the book though.

My profound disappointment in the ending is what drives me to one star. Unfair probably, but I could not believe that a plot that had me hook, line and sinker could totally unravel at the end. It seems that many books, movies, tv shows today try and "get" you with the surprise twist ending. This generation is too savvy for that now. All one needs to do to figure out "whodunit" is look for the most unlikey character, besides the hero, and there is your bad guy. Angels & Demons does the same thing. Worse, as brilliant as some of the writing, plot and characterization is in the first 3/4s, it's almost like reading a totally different book in the end. How many "Luke I am your father" moments can I have in one lifetime? The ending is too spastic, too contrived and too superficial for a book that prided itself on making you read between the lines at first.

Finally, this book is a cliched mess. Now maybe real life Harvard professors of religion iconography are also J.Crew models, but would it be too much to ask for Langdon to be less than handsome. . .maybe even a little socially awkward. We already have Indiana Jones, and he did it way better than this. Sorry Mr. Brown, you write one heck of a premise, it's your endings that need a lot of work.

Tombstone manages to finds its way into my DVD player on a monthly, if not weekly basis. Certainly during poker games. Kilmer as Doc Holiday is one of my favorite characters in movies. Now, I'm aware that this is not the historically correct portrayal of the Earps and their encounter with the Cowboys, but I really don't care.
So why the four stars and ominous heading. Well, this review is really about the Vista Series release of the movie. Looking at the extras before this came out, I had to own a copy. I even sold my other version to make room for this copy, which, of course, was going to knock me dead. I mean, it has commentary and extra scenes. . . I could die and be happy.
Well, I'm alive. . . very much alive. While I was really happy with Cosmatos' commentary (although I wish the some of the actors would have also been available), the added scenes did nothing for me. Actually it's worse. They really ruined the movie for me. Not for all time! Just during that viewing.
The extra scenes attempt to fill in some of the "blanks" that were missing from the original. Such as, what happened to Kate in the second half of the movie? How did one of Earp's "Immortals" get captured and dragged by a Cowboy behind his horse? Where was Doc the night the Earps were attacked?
Well, I've seen the answers, and they stink. They are simply not needed, which, you guessed it. . . is probably the reason they were cut from the original. The scene between Kate and Doc that was added was the worst. It simply did not fit in with the personalities of the characters up to that point. In fact, it almost ruined Kilmer's performance for me.
Cosmatos, in his commentary, discussed a scene that did not make it in the original or this release. It was actually an expansion of the Josephine and Wyatt scene in the valley after riding their horses. Apparently, there was more of a "connection" than just the obvious attraction the two have in the version that made the film. Actually, if you watch the trailers for the movie, you see a brief second where Wyatt and Josephine are kissing. Cosmatos cut that scene to save time, and because he wanted to leave it up to the viewers imagination as to what really happened. I wish the same had happened with the scenes they did decide to put back in.

I friend bought this CD for me because he knew that I enjoyed the handful of Oakenfold songs I had heard over the years. I did not listen to thid CD with much of any expectations based off of Oakenfold's previous work, so I can't say that I feel cheated compared to his past works. There are only a few CDs that I own where I can say I like every song, and this has been added to that small collection. Each song is different, yet has the Oakenfold imprint. I highly recommend this CD for those who are not looking to hear the usual trance from Oakenfold.