logo
Wrong email address or username
Wrong email address or username
Incorrect verification code
back to top
Search tags: Book-to-Movies
Load new posts () and activity
Like Reblog Comment
review 2018-04-23 17:14
Insights into a cinephile
Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief - Mark Feeney

Mark Feeney's book is a difficult work to describe. At its core it provides its readers with an analysis of Richard Nixon's cinephilia, the consequences of which Feeney gleans in order to explain various aspects of Nixon's psychology. This he does in a series of interconnected chapter-length essays, the majority of which are built around a particular film Nixon watched during his time as president. Feeney uses his examination of these movies as a springboard for an extended exploration into specific aspects of Nixon's life and career, such as his relationship with Ronald Reagan or his time in Congress. Drawing upon his background as a film critic, he weaves together his examination into a study of the films themselves and their related works, which he breaks down not just to draw out the elements that relate to Nixon's life but to illuminate the America in which he lived.

The result is an engrossing read. Though Feeney provides no new details about Nixon's life or his time in office, he draws out connections that deepen our understanding of the man and provide some interesting interpretations of his character. It also has the effect of humanizing the 37th president in a way that that few other books have before, showing how, at his core, Nixon was a person who enjoyed losing himself in movies as much as anyone else. While this is not the first book people should seek out to learn about Richard Nixon, the originality of Feeney's approach and the insights it provides make it one that nobody seeking to make sense of the man can afford to neglect.

Like Reblog Comment
show activity (+)
text 2018-04-22 23:04
Reading progress update: I've read 275 out of 436 pages.
Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief - Mark Feeney

Now THIS book is hitting my reading sweet spot! It's a difficult work to describe, containing an eclectic mix of Nixon biography, film analysis, and cultural history. Whatever it is, though, I'm enjoying it immensely.

Like Reblog Comment
review SPOILER ALERT! 2016-12-26 06:53
Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park is Actually Science Porn Disguised as Dinosaur Fiction and Oh. So. Good!
Jurassic Park and Congo - Michael Crichton

 

So. Much. Fun.

 

Saying that about a book where more than half the characters get eaten by prehistoric predators brought back to life through genetic engineering might seem weird. But then, I have never kept my love for dinosaurs a secret!

 

When I first received the book from Online Books Outlet, I wasn’t expecting much from it. However, a cursory glance later, I had spotted graphs in it. They intrigued the scientist in me and I knew that I wouldn’t be waiting too long to read it.

 

Wanting to know if the book had inspired the movie or if it was the other way round, I looked up the date of publication of the book to compare it with the movie release and found out they were both released in the same year. While searching, I came across 20 Things You Might Have Not Known About Jurassic Park on Mentalfloss. Inserting the text from that article below:

Spielberg found out about Jurassic Park while working on ER.

When director Steven Spielberg and author Michael Crichton were working on a screenplay that would eventually become the television series ER, Spielberg asked the writer about the plans for his next book. Crichton told him about Jurassic Park, and Spielberg immediately tapped Universal to buy the film rights in May 1990—before the book was even published. He was so excited that he began storyboarding scenes from the book, even though there was no screenplay written yet.

Mystery solved, I started reading the book. There are quite a few differences between the book and the movie as this article, Jurassic Park: The Book and the Movie’s Differences, will tell you. Comparing the two made me realize that those changes had made for a more entertaining movie!

 

But the book wasn’t any less fun. Here are some quotes that I marked to share:

Dr. Ellie Sattler who was a paleobotanist and one of my favorite characters from the book. She was gutsy and didn’t take any shit from anybody.

jurassic-park-animated-series-ellie-sattlerFrom the cartoon that was never made

 

When Ellie shook hands, Gennaro said in surprise, “You’re a woman.”

“These things happen,” she said

tumblr_mx98m1z44r1rc7tkso1_500A cuter version by Liara K. Crane

And I loved how passionate she was about plants. I’d still have loved a bit more detail regarding prehistoric flora. If I remember correctly, there was some bit about a protocarpus tree and the fern, Serenna veriformans.

 

People were so naïve about plants, Ellie thought. They just chose plants for appearance, as they would choose a picture for the wall. It never occurred to them that plants were actually living things, busily performing all the living functions of respiration, ingestion, excretion, reproduction—and defense.

 

Dr. Alan Grant, my other favorite from the book. Unlike the guy from the movie, this Grant liked kids. I still loved how natural it seemed to him to take it on himself to save the kids. They weren’t his responsibility, yet he didn’t think twice before saving their lives.

2.jpgosd-vont‘s version

 

Grant liked kids—it was impossible not to like any group so openly enthusiastic about dinosaurs… Grant also suspected that was why even young children learned the names of dinosaurs. It never failed to amaze him when a three-year-old shrieked: “Stegosaurus!”

 

Dr. Ian Malcolm was much less fun in the book than in the movie. He was long winded and had a lot to say, which often got boring.

 

jurassic-park-animated-series-ian-malcolm.jpg

This is how he was described in the book:

 

And finally, as if to emphasize their emergence from academia into the world, they dressed and spoke with what one senior mathematician called “a deplorable excess of personality.” In fact, they often behaved like rock stars.

 

Tim was actually the older sibling in the book.

jurassic-park-animated-series-tim

His love for dinosaurs is evident from this scene from the book:

 

His father had looked at a skeleton and said, “That’s a big one.”

Tim had said, “No, Dad, that’s a medium-size one, a camptosaurus.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Looks pretty big to me.”

“It’s not even full-grown, Dad.”

His father squinted at the skeleton. “What is it, Jurassic?”

“Jeez. No. Cretaceous.”

“Cretaceous? What’s the difference between Cretaceous and Jurassic?”

“Only about a hundred million years,” Tim said.

“Cretaceous is older?”

“No, Dad, Jurassic is older.”

“Well,” his father said, stepping back, “it looks pretty damn big to me.”

 

There were some sciency bits that I really loved. Here are some of my very favorite ones:

 

“Actually, dinosaur DNA is somewhat easier to extract by this process than mammalian DNA. The reason is that mammalian red cells have no nuclei, and thus no DNA in their red cells. To clone a mammal, you must find a white cell, which is much rarer than red cells. But dinosaurs had nucleated red cells, as do modern birds. It is one of the many indications we have that dinosaurs aren’t really reptiles at all. They are big leathery birds.”

 

“Reptile eggs contain large amounts of yolk but no water at all. The embryos must extract water from the surrounding environment.”

 

“Many birds and crocodiles swallowed small stones, which collected in a muscular pouch in the digestive tract, called the gizzard. Squeezed by the muscles of the gizzard, the stones helped crush tough plant food before it reached the stomach, and thus aided digestion. Some scientists thought dinosaurs also had gizzard stones.”

You can see the amount of research that the author has put into the book and I enjoyed it immensely!

 

Another thing that I loved about this book was how nature — and dinosaurs — found ways around Wu’s precautionary measures. This:

“We don’t want them to survive in the wild. So I’ve made them lysine dependent. I inserted a gene that makes a single faulty enzyme in protein metabolism. As a result, the animals cannot manufacture the amino acid lysine.”

was countered by escaped velociraptors feeding on lysine-rich sources i.e. agama beans soy, and chickens.

 

Then, there was:

“All the animals in Jurassic Park are female,” Wu said, with a pleased smile.”

Which the dinos took care of through gender transition. I mean, how smart are they?!

 

raptor

Okay then, I will stop sounding so surprised!

 

By the way, the kitchen scene was as scary in the book as it had been in the movie!

 

 

Just cuz:

 

 

I am going to end this review with a different version of Jurassic Park i.e. one that includes kittens!

 

jurassic-park-kittens-12

 jurassic-park-kittens-5

Like Reblog Comment
review 2014-05-27 23:22
My First Blog Post EVER!
Beautiful Creatures - Margaret Stohl,Kami Garcia
Beautiful Darkness - Margaret Stohl,Kami Garcia
Beautiful Chaos - Margaret Stohl,Kami Garcia
Beautiful Redemption - Margaret Stohl,Kami Garcia

I LOVE book series, I feel like you really get to know the characters and I enjoy watching my favorites grow and change throughout the series. I decided that since I just finished the 4th book of The Caster Chronicles, that I would start by reviewing the series as a whole.

 

The books center around Ethan Wate; mortal, Wayward, high school student and his Caster girlfriend Lena Duchannes.  Poor Ethan, that guy was really put through the ringer in this series, yet he always seems to come out on top. At times I felt he was a little too nice and too sweet for his own good, but he really looked after everyone he loved. I loved his devotion to Lena, his friends and his family. Lena often times bordered on the edge of emo that was just this side of annoying. I really enjoyed this series, it had a great love story and wonderful cast of supporting characters. It was a little PG for my taste, but it's a great series if you are looking for something you can read with your kids. I am really looking forward to reading the spin off series, Dark Creatures which centers around Ethan’s best friend Linc and his “girlfriend”, siren Ridley. I’m hoping for a little more darkness from this series, which I think will be lots of fun.

 

The thing that I probably love even more than book series, are movies based on books. We tend to have a love/hate relationship, but I can’t help myself even if I know that movie is going to be horrible. I give this movie 3 stars and I give that only for the fact that they did an amazing job casting these characters.

 

In general, I try to read the book before I watch the movie, however this was one series I did the opposite. I really enjoyed the movie...until I read the book. I find it so unbelievable annoying when Hollywood makes changes that are just so unnecessary. I get that some things in a movie have to edited. It is next to impossible to fit all of the details that an author can include in a novel into a 90 minute feature film. However, when the screen writer just butchers someone's work, it is infuriating to me. Why change things? They completely changed almost half of the book. I would have loved to have this series done all the way through, but not if it's going to be picked apart. Instead of being called Beautiful Creatures, the movie should have been titled, Gatlin, A Movie Loosely Based on the Novel Beautiful Creatures.

 

And that is just my opinion.

More posts
Your Dashboard view:
Need help?