Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

"I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back, i found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky" - page 7

In the same vein as "The Odyssey" and "Castaway", "Gulliver's Travels" takes us on four different voyages with Lemuel Gulliver as the adventurous traveler. He's tied down by Lilliputians who bury people upside down and punish fraud with death; dressed up by Brobdingnagians where he defends himself from giant bees with a fly stinger; held hostage by crazed mathematicians called Laputians who travel the countryside in their floating diamond fortress; pitied by horse-headed philosophers whose name sounds similar to the clearing of one's throat.

I found this book incredibly frustrating. The main reason being that Swift's satire as a book just didn't work for me. I'm sure the reason being that I'm so far removed from the 18th century society Swift was mocking. I feel that the book may have worked better as a lecture.

I had so many questions about various delicious tidbits Swift doles out. For example, there was a temple in Lilliput "polluted by an unnatural murder". What exactly happened we never find out. As well, the idea of the Laputians calling people back from the dead and conversing with them was very H.G. Wells. I also liked how the floating diamond fortress only occasionally crushed people.

What I found interesting and enjoyed though, was far outweighed by what I found boring and pedantic, especially when it came to describing how the diamond fortress stayed aloft. We skip moments that might have added to the story like Gulliver's shipwreck. The reader is only given a small summary of what happened and they miss what might have been an amazing description of the storm and his survival. As well, Swift occasionally writes "I shall not trouble the reader", as if to excuse him from removing what little excitement might be found in a particular story. The sentences are convoluted, there's little description of action and the plot suffers while Swift's busy making his point about society and everything about it that he finds insufferable.

The thing I find most frustrating though is that Swift could have done so much more with the story. It could have stayed a satire while beefing up the story. Instead of spending so much time describing the silly rituals and culture of the specific peoples he meets, Gulliver could have been taking action. The part where he's attacked by giant bees is exciting and interesting but it takes up less than a paragraph before Swift moves on. The result being that if I was asked I couldn't tell you much about what happens in the book because that's exactly what happens. Not much.

Rating: 3/5

Sunday Rundown

Reading:

I'm currently working through a short story collection called "Mount Appetite" by Canadian author Bill Gaston. I've had the honour of taking a class from this wonderful author. His writing has a natural, organic flow to it and I heartily encourage you to pick up a book of his.









Watching:

This scene is one of the many reasons I love William Holden. This scene is from "Executive Sweet" and I think it should be required watching for every executives in every company. While only a movie, the message put across is even more important in today's world of recession and foreclosure.



Listening to:

This is one of the most original and, I imagine, labour-intensive music videos I've seen in a long time. It's "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie. Enjoy!

Sunday Rundown

Reading:

I finished "The Catcher in the Rye" and was a bit ambiguous about it at first before John Green and his vlogs about the book set me straight. While I feel for Holden Caufield I don't think I'd want him as a friend.

I've now moved on to "a mercy" by Toni Morrison. I've never read any of her work before and I find her writing dreamlike and ethereal. My goal of a book a week is still within sight though I'm three weeks behind already. Wish me luck.








Watching:

This is from College Humor and I loved it, being a bit of a bibliophile. My favourite part was WingDings. He cracks me up. MAILBOX! MAILBOX! MAILBOX!



Listening:

I saw "Slumdog Millionaire" this afternoon and apart from being a very enjoyable and different movie, I was surprised at how much I liked the soundtrack. I find that few of the well known composers who write for movies are writing original material nowadays. They seem to just recycle their old work and it just distracts you from the movie because you're trying to figure out where you've heard that music before.

The majority of the soundtrack was written by A R Rehman and this song is "O Saya"

Movie Review: The More the Merrier (1943)

"Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!"

It's 1943 and there's a housing shortage in Washington. Newcomers from all over the country are bunking down in lobbies and hallways, scouring newspapers for "room to let". Connie Milligan (Jean Arthur) is looking to do her civic duty by renting out her second bedroom but gets a surprise when Benjamin Dingle (Charles Coburn) barges his way into her life. Not only his he pushy, he's nosy and when he finds that her fiance is not to his liking he decides to play matchmaker. Sgt. Joe Carter (Joel McCrea) and his propeller are looking for a place to stay when Dingle puts his plan into action, renting out half of his half to the young soldier. Things go topsy turvy after Milligan's fiance gets involved and Carter is arrested on suspicion that he is a spy.




The Good:

The casting in here is perfect. Jean Arthur was 42 when this movie was made and manages to pull off a young working girl. Charles Coburn played Mr. Dingle and was adorably nosy. He won a Supporting Oscar for this role. Joel McCrea was a self-deprecating gentleman and I loved the scene where he gave Arthur the traveling bag. You can really see the chemistry between them as they fuss over the thing like a married couple.

The humour in this madcap romp is mostly thanks to Coburn. Watch for Arthur to explain the morning routine to him and witness his utter failure to put it into practice. He and McCrea get along famously, presenting a united singing front against Arthur and her shy, proper personality.

My favourite scene of the movie though, was the walk home from the restaurant. Both Arthur and McCrea are obviously inebriated and they walk past several other couples, winding up on the apartment steps. Notice that even though Arthur's had a few drinks, she's still quite reserved. McCrea on the other hand, can't seem to keep his hands off her. As the emotion in the scene heightens, the camera pulls in for tighter and tighter shots.

As well, this movie was remade in 1966 set in Tokyo during the Olympics with Cary Grant in Coburn's role. He tries to engineer a relationship between Samantha Eggers and Jim Hutton.

The Bad:

Arthur's crying made me want to mute the film. Her wailing was like the screech of ungreased wheels. Cringe worthy like nails on a chalkboard.


The Ugly:

Somebody find Eli Wallach.

Rating: 3.5/5

Friday the 13!

As today is Friday the 13th, Oooohhh! I decided I would share some awesome finds that could possibly help you should you decide you're hellbent on world domination.

This find is for the tot with mad scientist tendencies. I only wish I'd had alphabet blocks like these when I was a kid. They're from a company named xylocopa

A - Appendages
B - Bioengineering
C - Caffeine
D - Dirigible
E - Experiment
F - Freeze ray
G - Goggles
H - Henchmen
I - Invention
J - Jargon
K - Potassium
L - Laser
M - Maniacal
N - Nanotechnology
O - Organs
P - Peasants (with Pitchforks)
Q - Quantum physics
R - Robot
S - Self-experimentation
T - Tentacles
U - Underground Lair
V - Virus
W - Wrench
X - X-Ray
Y - You, the Mad Scientist of Tomorrow
Z - Zombies




For the psychopath in all of us, here's Hannibal Lecter with a removable mask and a little picture of Florence from Geek Central Station.










And for the pyro in the group, this physics demonstration should be quite interesting.

Movie Review: Defiance (2008)

"We have no more prayers, no more tears; we have run out of blood. Choose another people. We have paid for each of Your commandments; we have covered every stone and field with ashes. Sanctify another land. Choose another people. Teach them the deeds and the prophesies. Grant us but one more gift: take back our holiness. Amen."

The year is 1941 and the Nazi are rounding up and killing Jews all across Eastern Europe. Three brothers, the Bielski's, manage to escape the carnage. Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael (Jamie Bell) take refuge in the forest they played in as children. They come upon other fugitives who ran to the woods for safety. Together they survive as a ragtag community. Led by Tuvia, the group takes food from surrounding farms and ambush German patrols when they can, acquiring weapons and ammunition. These raids coupled with 'roughing it in the bush' causes friction amongst the brothers, eventually leading to a power struggle. All the while the group is hunted, forced to relocate when they are discovered to avoid capture.

The Good:

Daniel Criag and Liev Schreiber are the cornerstones of this movie. They did an excellent job in roles that I never expected to see them in. Craig is less stoic and silent here then in his two previous roles as James Bond.

The accents, whether Belorussian or Russian, sounded authentic. This made the characters more believable instead of just seeing them as actors playing a part although at times, Craig's English accent snuck in.

The cinematography was well done in this piece. Very clean cut and illustrative though there was one point near the beginning that suffered from shaky cam syndrome.

I loved the various humourous tidbits throughout the film. They weren't a cheap attempt on the part of the writers as the dialogue was actually funny. It did help to relieve some of the tension and lighten the mood because the subject of the film is so depressing and painful.

It was interesting to see how the brothers diverged and yet their actions became contrary to their opinions about war and violence. The viewer also gets to witness the complexities of group dynamics and how far you can push a person before they're forced into violence or something against their nature.

The Bad:

The romantic storyline had no place in this movie and only distracted from the more exciting storyline of survival. It was an unnecessary bit of fluff for all three brothers to end up in relationships and it even felt contrived for Craig and Schreiber's characters. If I were to keep just one of the relationships, it would be Asael's. At least his storyline with Chaya was more natural in the way it was introduced and how it progressed. I don't know why filmmakers insist on adding romance to war films. Maybe they think they need to have a little bit of everything to pull in as many people as possible. Usually it just ends up cluttering the real story.

I felt manipulated by the director when it came to how I felt about the plot and the characters. It was obvious from the start that a power struggle would occur between the two eldest brothers. As well, the marriage scene was too perfect. The way the snow fell, the wedding clothes, everything wasn't grungy enough for me. It was all too nice overall, within this woods where everyone was living hand to mouth, going days without food.

It would have been nice to see even more of the struggle in the woods or raids on German patrols. The time spent on the romantic storyline could easily have been taken up with illustrating more of how this ever-growing group of people survived or how word of the Bielski brothers managed to spread.

If you're not a fan of violence then I would be wary of this movie. There are a few graphic cringe-worthy scenes.

The Ugly:

Somebody find Eli Wallach.

Rating: 4/5

The Sunday Rundown

Reading:

My apologies for the lateness of this. I've been dealing with some car problems as of late.

I've just started "Catcher in the Rye" after a long and tiring search for the book. I have no idea why it's one of the most stolen books but I think Holden Caufield is very interesting though weaselly.








Watching:

This adorable short found its way to me by accident and explains a question I used to have as a child. I can tell you that I've lost many a balloon over the years and felt badly about it.




Listening:

The Four Preps weren't just a musical group. They also happened to be comedians. In "Big Draft" they imitate a variety of other popular groups of the time. I find it amusing but I believe those born in this era would find the song even funnier as they'd be familiar with all of the groups mentioned.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to." p - 11

It's Christmas Eve and Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly businessman, is visited by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Marley. Marley tells him that he must change his hard-hearted and curmudgeonly ways or else he will pay for these sins after death. Scrooge is told he will be visited by three ghosts to show him the error of his ways. What follows is a redemptive journey into the past, present and future of Scrooge's world where he learns his long-held contempt for love, friendship and the Christmas season is unfounded.

The Good:

I wasn't sure what to expect, having never read Dickens before. What I found was quite pleasing. The book is peppered with a variety of vivid descriptions of settings and characters. For example, Scrooge was described as "a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire, secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster." p - 13/14 Dickens manages to create these original images that breathe life into what might have been a very bland character. Scrooge himself is well-developed. We see this in his interactions with his employees, his nephew, strangers and Marley. I loved when he checked his dressing gown for persons unknown after seeing it hanging in a suspicious attitude on the wall. I also enjoyed how he tried to explain away Marley's presence by calling him a blot of mustard or an undigested bit of beef.

I also enjoyed how he created a dense setting using weather and architecture."The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale." p - 16 The description even creates a fullness in the mouth when read aloud.

Here are some of my favourite descriptions from the book. "The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed." p-28 "Secrets that few would like to scrutinize were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchers of bones." p 171.

Having finally read the book after seeing so many movie versions I saw a lot of correlation between the story and "It's a Wonderful Life". A man with the aid of a supernatural being, goes back in time and is made to realize truths about himself. I would definitely recommend this book for holiday reading. It has so much more packed into than the various movie versions floating out there.

The Bad:

I didn't appreciate the random and many authorial intrusions throughout the book. I could have done without the narrator directly speaking to me and interrupting the flow of the plot.

Also, while there were some beautifully evocative descriptions in this book, they were few and far between. Dickens is typical when it comes to the Victorian style of writing in terms of various long and convoluted sentences. I saw so much that could have been edited for efficiency and conciseness.

As well, I had a lot of questions that weren't answered in the book. For example, why did Scrooge move into Marley's old house? Did he inherit it after Marley's death? In any case it seemed more than creepy to move into your dead partner's house. Also, the Ghost of Christmas Present talks about his "brothers". I wanted to know more about this ghost world that Dickens had populated and yet he only provided the reader with snippets here and there.

Some of the diction and sayings were archaic enough that their full impact was lost on me. For example, there was a simile "like a bad lobster in a cellar". I was intrigued but stumped as to its meaning. Some of the humour as well is outdated and would probably have been far more amusing to someone reading this in the 1840s when it was first published.

The Ugly:

Somebody find Eli Wallach.

Rating: 3/5

Movie Review: Gunga Din (1939)

Sgt. Ballantine: "I'm leaving the service."
Sgt. MacChesney: "Leaving the service?!"
Sgt. Ballantine: "That's right. I'm getting married and I'm going into the tea business."
Sgt. MacChesney: "Married!"
Sgt. Cutter: "Tea business!"

It's 1880 in the Northwest of India and the British have lost contact with their outpost in the village of Tantrapur. A small detachment of the British Indian Army is sent out to investigate. The company includes three long-time friends, Sgt. MacChesney, Sgt. Ballantine and Sgt. Cutter. Upon arriving in Tantrapur, they find the village deserted. While making repairs to the telegraph they find themselves surrounded by an angry mob. During their water escape, Sgt. Cutter grabs a pickaxe that is later identified at British Headquarters as belonging to the Thugee, a group that murdered people through strangulation.

Meanwhile the trio seems to be splitting up, Ballantine's due to leave the army in a few days to get married and Cutter is determined to find a temple of gold with the help of a water carrier named Gunga Din. Din dreams of being a soldier in Her Majesty's service one day, practicing lance drills and salutes in private. Through a series of circumstances involving a fly in a punchbowl, an elephant and snakes, the British army confronts the Thuggee, Cutter finds his gold temple and Din rallies to save the day.

The Good:

Based off of the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name, this film stars Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Victor McLaglen, Joan Fontaine and Sam Jaffee, made in arguably the best year for movies, 1939. Each role is perfectly cast. You might be interested to know that Grant originally read for Ballantine but liked Sgt. Cutter's character better and I think he made the right choice. If it feels like you've seen this movie before then go watch "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". Some ideas were directly inspired from "Gunga Din".

There are a variety of humourous scenes and general tomfoolery between Grant, McLaglen and Fairbanks that really added to the plot. You actually felt the camaraderie between the three and believed they'd been friends for a long time. Maybe they'd saved each others necks several times. My favourite parts included the fly in the punchbowl scene as well as Grant's exuberant comedy.

The battle scenes, especially the fight at Tantrapur were adrenaline-filled though some looked silly as they were sped up. We see a variety of fighting with individual battles to create a connection between the viewer and the three Sgts. For example, Grant tosses around sticks of dynamite that Fairbanks has thrown him from the ammo wagon to humourous results. As well, the final battle has so much going on, infantry, cavalry with flags on their lances and artillery on elephants that you wonder how director George Stevens ever organized everyone. Sam Jaffee is amazing as Gunga Din though. He wasn't a young man when he made the picture but his optimistic grin and willingness to aid others when there are bullets flying around, makes me like the guy.

I also really appreciated the casting of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. If you're searching for eye candy in this movie then look no further. Le sigh.

The Bad:

This movie is a nostalgic romantic look at the British in India. In truth, it seemed to celebrate the imperialist policies of the British Empire in occupied India. The main villains, the Thuggee are the only Indians not involved with the British Indian Army in this movie. As well, it portrays the Thugs as cult members who worship Kali, reinforcing a warped idea of this Hindu goddess. Kali is actually one of many deities within the Hindu religion and while known as "The Destroyer" she is also seen as a mother goddess.

There are some racist remarks within the movie. Din is occasionally referred to as a "beastie", apparently a nickname for water carriers. There isn't an overabundance of these but it is occasionally grating, especially because the fact that this takes place during the British occupation. It was interesting though to see how McLaglen and Grant differed on their views of seeing Din as a soldier.

While this movie is definitely a "buddy" picture, Joan Fontaine gets the raw end of the stick. While I feel that both she and Fairbanks' characters were unreasonable in their arguments, Fairbanks' reply that she wants a coward for a husband and that he's a soldier/man first rather than husband was not believable. I didn't buy into his decision in the end and didn't agree with his reasoning. Also, while Grant is amazing in his part, at times his accent and acting feels forced, grating on the viewers.

And guys, sometimes a pick axe is just a pick axe. We're told that the Thuggee used them to dig the graves of their victims but really, why would they use a pick axe when they could use a shovel? It makes no sense. Also, watch for the snakes on strings.

The Ugly:

Somebody find Eli Wallach.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Sunday Rundown

Reading:

I've started on Toni Morrison's, "a mercy" that I received from LibraryThing. I'm already behind in my reading though as I'm trying to read one a week. Grr-Argh!







Watching:

This is "Damn You Batman!" from ThoseArntMuskets. I couldn't laughing after I saw this so I hope you enjoy it too.



Listening:

This is an absolutely amazing song by The Axis of Awesome called "4 Chords". Prepare to feel cheated.