Z/Web

Author: Enid Blyton

This is the second Famous Five book I ordered from England, though I did it backwards and this is the first in series. This one is about how the cousins meet and how they find treasure on George’s island. The treasure aspect is questionable (it was not particularly well hidden, so I can’t figure out how no one else found it), but I enjoyed the set up of the characters and how everything worked out well for everyone in the end.

What is the point of this film? It’s quite violent and brutal, but there’s no point to anything. The “plot” is a young kid watching his family slaughtered by a bad guy and then he grows up into a hulk warrior who’s on a quest to find the bad guy and kill him for revenge. That’s pretty much it. It’s ugly and pointless and the character of Conan is nothing more than an angry boy who strikes out blindly. Some of the sets are interesting and one or two of the deaths are creative, but the whole thing is so dreary and depressing. Even the action isn’t compelling. Very sad because I like this genre.

I vaguely remember this 80s movie but somehow never got to see it, I’m not sure why since movies with aliens and flying saucers should have been on my radar. It’s pretty neat. It stars Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn as an elderly couple trying to stay in their little apartment building which a land developer wants to tear down for a new development. There’s an eclectic collection of oddballs living in the apartment who also don’t want to leave — a pregnant Mexican girl, an artist, a retired boxer, etc. A punk comes by and damages their diner that’s on the ground floor of the building and tells them they must sell. Then the old woman discovers some tiny flying saucers. I couldn’t really tell if they were robots, living creatures, or had tiny aliens inside (it was never made clear), but the bottom line is the saucers help the people (they repair the damage to the diner) and through their help the people rally to fight the developer. It’s a little uneven and the film definitely weakens toward the end, and the mystery of the aliens is never really explained, making them seem like a generic solution — it could just as easily have been magic or the supernatural that helped them. But it’s still a pleasant and unusual film, and I loved the relationship of Tandy and Cronyn.

Aspects of this looked like it might be funny (i.e. the cast, the premise of being forced to rob a bank, etc.), but I dreaded some of the raunchiness. It’s definitely there (mostly foul language) and most of the time it’s pointless and doesn’t even do anything useful such as establishing character or being funny. But the core story is actually pretty neat, and I liked a lot about two main characters. I was really surprised by how much I liked this. I laughed and it was fun. Silly, but definitely entertaining, and there are enough surprises in the fairly basic story to make it interesting.

Author: Enid Blyton

I read some of these “Famous Five” books as a child and I remembered them fondly, though I didn’t remember the author or titles — I only knew they were British and they were kids who solved mysteries. Recently I searched on Amazon and rediscovered the books. I ordered a few from England (about $4 each used, including shipping) and this was the first one I read. I somehow got mixed up — this is actually the second in the series — but that didn’t really hurt anything. I found the writing style to be remarkably well-written (though she uses too many exclamation marks) and it’s clear Enid understands what children like. The adventure involves the children finding a secret map that tells them of a secret passage that they use to stop a thief. Slightly far-fetched but just believable enough, but what I really liked was the way Enid blended the adventure with the children’s day-to-day life. For instance, there’s a whole side plot about a tutor the children are forced to have during the holidays and how George takes an instant disliking to the man because he doesn’t like her dog. The two have conflict throughout the story and it seems like it might just be a meaningless side story, but when George figures out he’s a thief no one believes her and her anguish at not being believed makes for compelling reading (and all children can relate to not being believed by friends or adults). Excellent, slightly dated, definitely British, and quite wonderful.

Author: Ernest Hemmingway

I “read” the audio book version of this which may not have been the best idea. I didn’t realize it was short stories and those don’t always work quite as well as novels in the car (where I listen to audiobooks). If you miss hearing a sentence in a novel, you haven’t missed much, but in a short story, just one line can be critical. Because of that I found a few of these stories difficult to follow. Like the very first one, “Snows of Kilimanjaro,” I didn’t even realize was a story and thought it was the beginning of a novel (which seemed odd, since it’s about a guy on his deathbed, which is an unusual way to begin a novel). I wasn’t paying full attention, either, and suddenly the “novel” ended and I realized it was just a short story. Because of all that I’d like to go back and relisten to these at some point: I think I’d get more and more out of them over time. That said, I did enjoy the stories, and actor Stacy Keach did a surprisingly good job reading them. Some I liked more than others, though I can’t say that any are particularly memorable. I did enjoy the writing style even in stories I didn’t get (like in the boxing story, which I didn’t really follow or understand). Probably my favorite was the story about the lion hunter in Africa. I need to read more Hemmingway.

I was really hopeful of this one as I loved the concept (humans make apes smarter and apes take over), but after the disappointing Cowboys and Aliens and the CGI apes looking questionable in some of the trailers, I kept my expectations low. To my surprise, this was really good. I worried that it would be mostly an apes-versus-human battle, but instead the film is mostly about the development of the apes. Our scientist has a human side, as he’s searching for a cure for Alzheimer’s to help his ill father, and it’s that drug that he develops that spurs the apes rise to power. There are weak aspects, such as the girlfriend role which is just wasted, but I really appreciated the slow, realistic development of the apes. This isn’t the “ape gets injection and a week later apes have taken over” which I feared. Instead, the main ape is very human: we seem him slowly go from loving humans to being mistreated and misunderstood and learning to prefer his own kind. It’s actually quite extraordinary that a big-budget Hollywood scifi movie would take that sort of realistic character development. I also didn’t have any problems with the CGI monkeys — they looked amazingly good throughout. Some shots in the trailers looked fake, but maybe they were early cuts before the special effects were finalized. Ultimately I’m not sure if this is a classic — it’s certainly not as ground-breaking as the original — but it’s a terrific restart of the series and I’m looking forward to more.