I only know Benchley from the likes of The Deep and Jaws, so expected a pretty taught and bloody thriller. Instead, Q Clearance is a light-hearted political farce and I thoroughly enjoyed my surprise.
It follows a scriptwriter in the White House who, pretty much by accident, gets noticed by the President… and the Russians. It’s difficult to say too much without revealing some of the plot. It is a little “by numbers” and the ending is a bit too swift, almost rushed, but other than that I found it a great books and very hard to put down.
The writing’s superb with at least a chuckle on most pages. I don’t know if there are any deliberate likenesses to any real-life characters in there, so I could be missing out on some satire.
I’m now not sure if I want to read his better-known works. After zipping through this in a couple of days because I enjoyed the humour I don’t know if I’ll enjoy something more “thriller-y” as much from the same author.
I picked Phantom Leader up, I think, in Myanmar. It was the only English-language book I could find in the hostel’s bookswap. After sitting down and getting through it, I’m glad I did.
Berent was a pilot in the Vietnam War so he certainly knows what he’s talking about, and it shows in the writing. Here and there, the narrative is put on pause as he details everything about an aircraft, a procedure or a point in history. I just let the cannon sizes and firing rates wash over me, but I’m sure those with more of an interest in the statistics will lap this lot up.
By his own admission at the beginning of the book, he has tinkered with history for the sake of the story too. Many of the major events in the novel happened, but not perhaps in the same order or within the same timescale. That’s the writer’s prerogative – after all, you can’t have the characters twiddling their thumbs because the next major event is six months down the line.
A handful of plots are interwoven, but not unbelievably so. One follows a black POW, another a decorated front line soldier, another a couple of fly-boys and also the situation back in the US in the White House. The overall impression is that Berent was and is fully in support of the troops out there, but highly critical of the administration and rules of engagement the forces were limited by. He certainly doesn’t make the Vietnamese come across as any better or worse than they have been made out to be elsewhere and he pulls no punches criticising either side.
There’s a small romantic interlude with one character that just doesn’t seem to come to anything, but I think there’s a sequel where a few statements made may become clearer. But the main thrust of the novel is the war, the tactics and so forth. There’s plenty fo blood and guts and some excellent action sequences that would look amazing if a film-maker could do them justice. The dialogue’s generally well-written too with only that romantic chapter being a little off-kilter, perhaps just old-fashioned.
I don’t know how heasy his books will be to find, but I’ll keep my peepers peeled for more of his other stuff. For those who like their war books fairly technical and quite bloody, this is a good read.
Well the whole world seems to be watching the Watchmen. So I went to watch it. On IMAX in Melbourne. And the first thing I’d say is “save your cash – if you’re going to see it, then see it in normalvision”. It’s good, but it doesn’t make as much use of the screen as, say, The Dark Knight or Spiderman 3.
Mind you, seeing Malin Akerman pretty much naked on a screen the size of a house… She has just taken Alicia Silverstone‘s crown for “most fit bird in a superhero film that I’d really, desperately like to shag”.
Sex rating of the top totty aside, how is it? Well… it’s OK. I remember loving the graphic novel all those years ago (damn, I’m old) but the film didn’t quite conjure up the same magic. It’s not that it’s bad. Far from it. It’s an excellent adaptation and I understand why some of the original story had to be dropped. 2 hours 40 minutes is long enough – a full adaptation would be nearer three times that.
The story’s good, the pacing’s spot on, the cast really couldn’t be better, the visuals are superb, it’s nicely grisly in places, the sex scene had me wishing I was in a darkened room at home with a pause button… all well and good. But it just didn’t tingle my spine like Superman Returns or make me sit in awe like the previously mentioned Dark Knight.
It is nice and dark, though. Whereas the return of Batman took us down dimly-lit alleyways, Watchmen splashes through the sewers and digs for the secret stuff in underwear drawers. We all know Batman’s little secrets – it’s what makes him so much more interesting than any other superhero. What Watchmen does is expand that out to encompass all costumed crusaders. And it asks the questions of what happens when it all goes wrong?
I do recommend going to see the film. It’s not really a superhero film in the traditional sense. The plot is much deeper than anything else similar you’d like to compare it to. And aside from The Punisher you’re not going to see as much graphic violence. However, I do think that the best way to film it would have been as a high-budget 10-episode TV movie or similar. The original comic has a plot that really does deserve that.
In the meantime, though, this is as good an adaptation as could have been hoped for.
Rambo 4 is written and directed by Stallone, who’s wringing the last drops of headband sweat out of the second of his major franchises. After the sob story that was Rocky Balboa, he’s followed it with the imaginatively-named John Rambo. Rambo’s back and he’s still not a fan of being pushed. Not by inbred sheriffs, not by the Commies, and this time not by Burmese drug-manufacturing, Christian-kidnapping, young boy-buggering dictators.
The plot’s thinner and more see-through than a separated sheet of toilet paper that’s been dipped in water. Stallone’s performance is really pushing “special needs” and his diction’s just gone completely. I’m surprised it doesn’t include subtitles.
However, the action sequences (about half the film’s length) are about the goriest battle scenes I’ve seen since Saving Private Ryan. Obviously, as this film’s not “educational” or “historic” it gets a higher rating. And a jail term of 5 years for watching it, if you’re a citizen of Myanmar. I mean, it’s a bad film but it’s hardly criminal.
The stereotypes are all there. Thai people who play with snakes. Nice village people who run around and die. Bad soldiers who kill people for ***** and giggles. An evil warlord who never fires a shot, but wears sunglasses and smokes a cigarette as he watches his minions do all the work for him.
Oh, and just for good measure we have a scene which implies he shags teenage boys up the bumhole. In case he’s not evil enough for committing genocide.
The climactic scene where Rambo kills him is about the cheesiest thing I’ve seen on a video screen. Seriously, it could have been filmed in Glorious Gorgonzola-vision. Wallace and Gromit would be drooling over it. It’s so gut-wrenchingly awful that it’s as if I’d stepped through a dimensional warp and I was watching a parody of the self-same film I was currently viewing. In fact, it’s so bad that Weird Al’s Rambo piss-take scene from UHF is completely bland in comparison.
But somehow, I don’t know how, I watched the whole thing. Time passed. I stayed awake (it was late and I was tired) and I got to the end thinking “I could watch that again” though preferably with Dolby Surround and a bigger screen than my laptop. It’s just so bad it’s in the “few beers and some crisps” pile for another time.
Although what, I think, edged it was watching it in Myanmar. Where it’s banned. And yet everyone I’ve talked to has seen it.
The Catcher in the Rye is, apparently, a classic of (American) English literature. It appears on reading lists in schools all over the world. Will someone please explain to me why?
The writing style is – I suppose – not too bad. It’s written very conversationally in the first person from the viewpoint of a young man who’s just been expelled from his umpteenth private school. He’s obviously short of a few brain cells as well, judging by his attitude to a lot of things.
Set in, I guess, the 1950’s means the language is a little archaic but I don’t mind that – I’m currently ploughing through more Conan Doyle and loving it. It’s the repetition, and the rambling nature of the prose that gets so tiring after a while. Oh, and the fact that bugger all really happens.
It’s “a day in the life” of someone I really don’t care about. I didn’t at the start, and I still don’t now I’m finished it. Had it been much bigger, it would have been discarded by the time I got past the mid-point.
Mind you, I guarantee my old English teacher likely got a hard-on reading it. But that guy was a ******* freak who seemed to love everything that you’re “supposed” to love – Shakespeare, Chaucer and the like.
If you want to read a classic, check out the Sherlock Holmes stories – although even they get a little tired after a while, around the time Doyle himself was writing them purely for cash. I’d only read this if I had to as part of an English course. And even then I’d shop around to see if there was another tutor with a different reading list.
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