Reviews – Page 4 – Andrew E. Scott

How we watch movies these days

Last weekend, we “watched” a movie. However, as I suspect will become quite typical, we watched it on DVD, at home, in snatches of 15-30 minutes, punctuated by a whisper of “your turn” then one of us attending to Harriet. (She was a little unwell, and wasn’t sleeping as well as she would normally at that time.) Despite this, and a little surprisingly, I really enjoyed the movie!

The Bank Job

Facinating retelling of the 1971 Baker St robbery

Maybe it’s just my recent enjoyment of the conmen in the UK TV series Hustle, but I really enjoyed this fictionalised take on how some real-life British criminals conducted a major bank heist in 1971. Normally you need to suspend your disbelief in watching a movie, but given that a large number of the circumstances in this movie are actually true (and more of them than you might expect), skepticism is replaced with astonishment.

So it was with a sense of astonishment at the gall, luck and intelligence of these criminals that I found myself sucked into the plot. It is quite complex, with much of the film providing a set-up for the last 30-40 minutes. Although, it wasn’t until this last part that I found myself really enjoying the film. In this way, it reminded me a little of The Thomas Crown Affair, another film I really enjoyed.

Watching the DVD in one respect was better than the film would have been, as the DVD contained a mini documentary on the facts behind the Baker St robbery. This reinforced the incredible nature of the case, showing that sometimes fact is much stranger than fiction.

My rating: 4.5 stars

Not The Bookclub Book

Last month I didn’t read the bookclub book, but I did read the book the book nominator wanted to nominate as the bookclub book. (How many chucks can a woodchuck chuck etc.?) When it came to bookclub last week, it turned out more people had finished reading that book than the actual bookclub book.

The Year of Living Biblically

A thought-provoking book about taking The Bible literally

This book is the day-by-day diary of the author, A.J. Jacobs, as he takes a year to follow as many of The Bible’s rules as literally as possible. Jacobs doesn’t just follow the ten commandments – he digs through the old testament (the first eight months) and the new testament (the last four months) and attempts to go by every proclamation or suggestion. Is Jacobs a particularly religious man? No, and this is the intriguing part. The Bible is taken as an experiment to see what following it would do to someone, in this day and age.

There are some obscure, and some would say, obsolete rules in The Bible, but Jacobs is determined to follow them all. It would take a rather obsessive personality to persevere with this, but luckily that’s what Jacobs has, and the book also provides an little bit of insight into living with obsessive compulsive disorder.

There is fun in this book in learning about strange Biblical rules, their background, and their ardent adherents. But there is also heart – it is amazing to read about how a modern day New Yorker and his family is affected by taking up the challenge of living Biblically for a year.

My rating: 4.0 stars

For the record, the actual bookclub book was the author’s previous book: The Know-It-All.

Actuaries as Heroes

One of the troubles with an insight is that when you then explain it to someone else, they find it obvious. It can be a bit disheartening, but people seem to have a knack for finding surprises obvious in hindsight. Which, of course, doesn’t make them any less of a surprise at the time.

So, coming across a book that points out that stuff that I take for granted was not taken for granted 500 years back, and in fact, enabled civilisation as we know it today to flourish, I was a bit surprised, you might say. It was interesting to try to put myself in the position of people who didn’t know about probability, to see how something so “obvious” could be an exciting insight.

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

An interesting journey through the birth and history of risk management

The author, Peter L Bernstein, puts his main thesis plainly enough at the start – “The revolutionary idea that defines the boundary between modern times and the past is the mastery of risk: the notion that the future is more than a whim of the gods and that men and women are not passive before nature.” However, it’s a good thesis, is extensively researched, and Bernstein writes about it well. Enough to sustain interest over some 330 pages.

I found it quite compelling to think that, before the Renaissance, people thought of the future as something they couldn’t control, only put up with. And, that God or the Fates dictated what would happen, or tomorrow would simply be same as today, and it was egotistical or heretical to try. This assumption closed down any thought of trying to build a science of probability, so until the assumption was broken, we couldn’t develop probability, statistics, or insurance.

Marine insurance was needed to make European colonisation economically feasible. Life insurance was sold by governments needing to raise funds to wage wars. Risk management is used by organisations to manage large projects. Home or health insurance are regularly used by prudent families to protect against disasters. Society would be a lot smaller, simpler and sadder without this elementary mathematical invention. Yes, actuaries are heroes.

Bernstein drew me into the successive insights produced by keen minds over the recent centuries that has taken us to where we are today in economics, finance and gambling. Some of the people he profiled were more interesting than others (but others may have their own favourites) – the initial Renaissance thinkers and the behavioural finance guys were pretty cool. It would seem to be a rather complete set of the important contributors.

If you have any interest in modern history, economics or mathematics, you’ll probably find this book a worthwhile read. And it also made me reflect on what other basic assumptions we might hold that could be overturned in order to advance society.

My rating: 4.0 stars

Christmas Traditions

We all have our Christmas traditions – the Santa stockings, the bad jokes over the Christmas meal, retelling embarrassing stories about a distant relative – but my favourite tradition is grabbing a book that I received as a present, and submerging myself in it for as long as it takes. Surfacing only to eat chocolate and ham (not necessarily in that order). Kate took a punt, and bought me the latest Neal Stephenson (I couldn’t get into his previous series) which I’ve spent most waking hours with since.

Anathem

Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose meets Carl Sagan’s Contact

This is a long one. You’ve got to want it, and Stephenson doesn’t make it easy. He has created a whole new lingo for his futuristic world, a bit like Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange, but admittedly does help a little by scattering dictionary entries throughout. There are also mini-essays at the end that you need to read in order to follow some of the plot. It is hard-core speculative fiction, with a particularly academic bent. If this is not your thing, I’m pretty sure you’ll be hating it before you even need to worry about its length. If you like sci-fi novels with big ideas, then keep reading..

The main characters belong to a cloistered order, and we get a feel for what monastic life might be like (I was reminded of The Name of the Rose). This is contrasted with the futuristic world outside the walls of their self-imposed prison, which gets a satirical treatment ironic for a sci-fi author. But, the sci-fi take on monastic life is pretty cool.

It takes about a third of the book before the plot picks up in pace, and we’ve got a mystery, some puzzling philosophy and characters that we care about. It takes about this long to get used to the lingo as well, so be prepared.

I already knew a lot of the philosophy, math and science that Stephenson draws upon in this book, and I really appreciated his explanations and clear analogies as provided by the characters. Part of the fun was in seeing how many different strands of knowledge could be pulled together to service the plot.

It’s probably 10% story and 90% academic discourse, but I liked it.

My rating: 4.0 stars

After I read the book, I also checked out the website of the Clock of the Long Now, which relates in a tiny way to the book, and is a pretty ambitious idea. Worth a look.

Bond Begins – The Sequel

I loved the new style Bond, so it was a given that I’d see the current one, at least to see if Daniel Craig could do it again. Luckily, we’d recently re-watched Casino Royale, so it made some modicum of sense…

Quantum of Solace

Fasted paced action flick with an English guy in it

Named after an obscure Ian Fleming short story, this film begins mere minutes after the previous film ends, and drops you right into the action. If you want to follow the plot, it’s best to be familiar with the earlier film, but if you don’t care about plot, then no fear – this film jumps from action sequence to action sequence with minimal explanatory dialogue. You get multiple chase scenes, fight scenes (apparently Daniel Craig got real bruises), beautiful people and sinister villains.

However, it’s not really a spy film. In fact, it hardly follows the James Bond formula at all – for example, there is no trip to the exotic weapons laboratory. Frankly, our Bond couldn’t have managed to fit it in, given all the chasing and fighting that he has to do. I suspect that, with a few tweaks, this could have been a Steven Seagal or Will Smith movie.

But Craig’s bond is more of that ilk than the “snooping around the lair” style hero, and there is plenty of edge-of-the-seat excitement to make it an enjoyable 1:45 hours.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Not much like my schooldays

It’s a bit dull waiting for the baby to arrive now. We’ve watched a lot of DVDs. On the weekend we took a break from the TV to go watch a film.

Son of Rambow

A bit like The Wonder Years crossed with Jackass

Set in Britain in the early 80s, this is a film about kids, and the power of their over-active imaginations. Don’t expect much in the way of special effects, or cloying nostalgia. Just wacky kids. I laughed a lot, but I think I was laughing more than most others in the cinema.

Will is a boy growing up in a fundamentalist religion. Lee is a ne’er-do-well kid of the same age. Both turn out to have a few things in common. Both are well acted. In fact, all the acting is pretty good.

This film might be considered anti-religious. Well, anti-fundamentalist-religion, more precisely. But although that’s there, it isn’t what the film is about.

This film might also be considered anti-French. It was made with the assistance of the French, so perhaps they didn’t know what the film was about ahead of time.

But this film should not be considered a kids film. Sure, they could go see it, with it’s kid-friendly classification, but adults will get much more out of it.

It was the best thing I’ve seen for weeks.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Unexpected, black comedy

I guess it’s our own fault that we weren’t expecting this film to turn out like it did. We saw 10 seconds of a preview for it on TV while channel flicking, and remembered enough of the name to pick it out when buying tickets. It wasn’t a light-hearted comedy about dwarves.

In Bruges

A rather black comedy-drama set in Bruges

If Quentin Tarantino had instead been raised on a diet of European art-house film, then this would have been a film he made. It’s about an odd couple, both hit-men, who have escaped to Belgium after completing a job in London. However, Bruges turns out to be a lot more interesting than either expect.

Outside of the violence that you’d expect from a film involving hit-men, and some laugh-out-loud moments, there are also points where the film ponders philosophies of ethics and honour. And all of the main characters develop in interesting ways as the film progesses.

An amusing game to play during this film is to spot all of the actors who were also in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It seems that casting was done as a job lot.

My rating: 3.0 stars

Another UK Cult Classic?

I’m a bit of a fan of Simon Pegg. The star of Shaun of the Dead is one of the legends of UK cult classics. This was an easy selection from the video store…

Run Fatboy Run

More charming UK rom-com and less cult classic

This is the story of boy meets girl, boy leaves girl knocked-up at the altar, girl hates boy. Actually, that’s just the set-up. But don’t think it’s a gritty, black comedy. Although it’s About A Boy crossed with Rocky, it’s more the former than the latter.

Simon Pegg is both a writer for and the lead actor in this film. However, his co-writer from Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, Edgar Wright, is not a co-writer this time. And it is David Schwimmer’s film directing debut. All of which might explain the lack of edginess.

However, it’s still a lot of fun. Pegg’s character Dennis is a hopeless buffoon and an endearing athlete. The rest of the cast is excellent also. I laughed a lot. And you can’t ask for more than that, really.

My rating: 3.5 stars

The Knights who say

Director Christopher Nolan is a long, long way from Monty Python. There’s hardly a laugh at all (for the audience) in the latest Batman film. And whether you think it’s a metaphor for George W Bush’s war on terror, or a vehicle for delivering the second only post-humous Oscar for an actor, it’s still a film worth seeing.

The Dark Knight

Less epic but more angsty than the previous one.

When Christian Bale burst onto the screen as the latest incarnation of the Batman franchise in Batman Begins, I was impressed. The film was awesome, moody and epic. This sequel, bringing in Heath Ledger as The Joker is actually pretty good, as sequels go.

Probably the most disappointing thing is that it tries to pack too much in. The film is a little long, or could have been two films. It probably should have been, as some scenes felt like they’d been cut a little short, but the film still comes in at 2 1/2 hours long.

Unlike the first film, which was rich in character, this one is rich in philosophy. There are moral quandries, issues of duty, principle, and the greater good. This is the sort of stuff a character like The Joker is brilliant at kicking up, and every opportunity is taken to do so. I enjoyed that, but it was at the expense of a sense of epic-ness that the first film had in spades.

My rating: 4.0 stars

Flash-back to Grade 10

I was introduced to this book back in highschool, where my English Literature teacher (who was an American) used this as one of our set texts. Despite this, I really enjoyed it, and now, near 20 years later, I picked it up in some second hand book shop for $1.50 and got engrossed in it all over again.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Both a wry observation of 19th century America and a classic adventure tale.

Mark Twain (not his real name) sailed the Mississippi river as a riverboat pilot early in his career, and the truth of his depiction of people and way of life in this novel shines through, despite the fanciful nature of the adventure. I couldn’t help but get caught up in the crazy tale of Huck Finn, hopeless trouble-magnet that he is, as he struggles to get free of his troubles with the less-than-helpful assistance of a large cast of characters.

The language is a joy to read. The characters are fun to follow. And although the plot isn’t the most complex, the characters themselves do a fabulous job of making the simple into convoluted mayhem. Several times I had to laugh out loud at the absurdity.

Even though I picked this book up cheap, it’s well worth hanging onto. I can easily see myself re-reading this again – hopefully before another 20 years pass!

My rating: 4.5 stars