The Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes books are always fun. They are thickly plotted and the real villain is never exactly who it first appears to be. Garment of Shadows is no different. My only real complaint about these wonderful books is that they star Mary Russell and not Sherlock Holmes, who is always relegated to a supporting role. I should be used to this by now, but I would still like a little more of super genius Sherlock Holmes and a little less of super genius Mary Russell. But then, what writer can ever love another’s creation more than her own?…
Tag: villain
Drive
There’s a lot to like about Drive: we have a hero, a villain, and a running time of about an hour and half. That’s about as long as you really want to hang out with the people you meet in Drive-any longer and one of them will turn around and kill you. The previews for Drive made it look like a film about a getaway driver, which is why some nutjob sued because there was not that much on the getaway driver front. The opening scenes follow along as our hero drives a getaway car and does a pretty good…
Water for Elephants
The story of a college dropout who falls in love with a married woman. The only trouble is that her husband happens to be a homicidal maniac. He gets away with constant murder by running a circus that is always on the move. Water for Elephants is a so over the top that I found myself waiting for the clichéd ending a good thirty minutes before it happened. The madman/ring master abuses his wife, kicks dogs, beats an elephant bloody, murders countless people, and yet no one ever even thinks of trying to stop him or reporting him to local…
X-Men First Class-Damn that Was Good
You just gotta love a movie that opens with our hero as a small boy in a Nazi death camp. Of course, Erik is not really the hero, but then, he’s not exactly the great villain either. At about the same time, we find Charles at home at stately Wayne Manor, well, stately Xavier Manor. Little Charles meets little Raven and they are happy to find that they are not alone in being ‘special.’ And so starts X-Men First Class. We jump forward to 1962 where most of the action…
Never Let Me Go
British Sci Fi never ceases to amaze me-the same people who bring us Doctor Who and Space:1999 also bring us The Prisoner and Outcasts. From the very silly to the simply baffling, British Sci Fi is never predictable. Never Let Me Go was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, best known for his love song to the serving class in The Remains of The Day. Like that film, Never Let Me Go starts out slow, and pretty much stays that way. The film opens with a little slug card telling us there were some serious advances in medicine in 1952 and that…
Food Rules by Michael Pollan
One of the first books that really got me thinking about what I eat and how I eat it was Micahel Pollan’s In Defense of Food. His mantra for this book was simple-Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants. Michael doesn’t care about Carbs or Fats-he cares about the chemical and the artificial hiding in plain sight pretending to be food. The villain in his stories is The Western Diet-lots of processed food, lots of the holy trinity of fat, salt, and sugar, and not too many vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Food Rules contain a list of 64 guidelines…
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
Clocking in at about 3 hours-counting the mega dose of Coming Attractions-HP7.1 doesn’t feel like that long a movie. There are only a few breaks in the action-and then there is that whole Long Goodbye feeling that permeates the whole experience. Harry looking longingly at his former room under the stairs. Hagrid reminding us that he brought Harry into this magical world all those years ago. References to the other times that Harry has done battle with The Dark Lord. I began to loose my way in the Harry Potter world right after Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. …