rehna October 25th, 2008
Chicago police on Saturday asked the FBI to help find the missing seven-year-old nephew of Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson whose mother and brother were found shot to death a day earlier. Continue Reading »
rehna October 25th, 2008
“Why would anyone want to see a film about one of the most, if not the most unpopular men in the world?” So asked the chairperson at a debate about the plethora of movies at this years London Film Festival which are about real people.
He was referring of course to W the Oliver Stone biopic about George ‘Dubya’ Bush. Continue Reading »
rehna October 23rd, 2008
A few weeks ago I wrote an article in which I commended John McCain for having chosen Sarah Palin as his running mate. I was sure it was a political coup for the Republicans because she could appeal to two segments of the voting public that McCain had yet been able to reach – women and working class whites. With her ultra-feminine appearance, and her insistence that she was just an ordinary hockey mom who also liked to hunt and play sports, it seemed certain that she would bring in millions of votes. Continue Reading »
rehna October 21st, 2008
The London film festival has delivered its first dud. And whattaya know it’s the Hollywood movie with big stars; Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow.
It’s called Two lovers and that’s the first lie. The story is actually about 4 lovers, none of them even particularly likeable let alone loveable. Then there’s the issue of ‘love’. No amount of emoting by the actors and snot dripping from noses when they cry can disguise the fact that the so called love is simply unbelievable. Continue Reading »
rehna October 20th, 2008
If you see a more powerful piece of cinema this year than WALTZ WITH BASHIR I’d be surprised. Don’t be put off by the idea of animation (it changes at the end to real life with devastating effect). Don’t be put off by the heavy subject matter. This is a film you really should see. Continue Reading »
rehna October 19th, 2008
The London Film Festival 2008 is in full swing and I’ll be bringing you reports from it regularly. Continue Reading »
rehna October 19th, 2008
If you’re movie fan it seems you can’t move for film festivals these days. As a journalist you soon start to distinguish them by the press packs you pick up at the start. You open them excitedly wondering what the quality of freebies you’ll get might be.
I jest.
Each festival has a character all its own. The Raindance festival is all about independent movies, small films that might not see the light of day even though their makers have sweated blood and tears getting them to screen. Continue Reading »
Peach October 18th, 2008
Last year I went to a writers convention . What sticks in my mind is the phrase “The Readership Market is Shrinking, yet the number of writers and publishers is growing. What does that mean to you and me? It means we have a lot of books to wade through before we can find a really good book.
Once a genre becomes popular suddenly we become deluged with that type of book. Case in point Harry Potter was a mega hit and now we have children fantasy falling off the shevles. For adult women, if you want to get published write a paranormal romance. Vampires - not since Bram Stoker’s Dracula have Vampires looked so desirable.
We already know why the readership market is shrinking, we no longer have to depend on books and magazines to keep us entertained. We long ago entered the world of electronic age, PDA’s, DVD’s, CD’s, HDTV’s, XBOX all keeping our mind entertained. In some cases there is the “why read the book when I can watch the movie”
With writers on the rise and publishers out there just hoping for another Julie Garwood or J.K. Rowling you would hope for some high quality product as well. Thing is I don’t see it. Where are the editors, the impartial tweekers, the voice of reason that doesn’t mind the use of the red pen?
I want to talk about fluff. Nothing looses me like fluff. I start mentally editing a book when I see line after line of flowering prose, puking adjectives as if the writer was in love with the writen word rather than taking the reader down the shortest path to get to the intended purpose. J.K. Rowling, her first book started out with a mere 309 pages, her last 749 pages she seemed to fall in love with her ability to write more than for what she was saying. Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix was filled with so much fluff you could have easily shaved off half of the 1,616 papes. Lord of the Rings is 1,137 pages for 3 books thanks to good editing, a masterpiece. My first boulder sized tome (905 pages) was Centennial, a novel by James Michener. It spanned one hundred years. No fluff.
Don’t get me wrong one mans fluff is another mans literary treasure. I just finished a series by Stephanie Meyer. A very popular paranormal romance series. When she wrote the first book “Twilight” a lofty book of 563 pages she had no idea it would become popular, with a bit of editing it was called a “teen romance”. It seems books for tweens and teens are filled with fluff, the Twilight series totals 2,444 pages (4 books) and believe it or not the Harry Potter series has a total of 4,097 pages (7 books).
Whats my point? If the books are selling well who cares how many pages? I think publishers are rushing books to get them out on the market without doing a good job of editing them first. There is to much fluff in modern books. Homers Odessey 331 pages, War and Peace 1,400 pages spanning 8 years. Order of the Phonix spanning one year 869 pages… using more words to say less.
rehna October 14th, 2008
While everyone has heard that blonds have more fun, there has been no real proof of that. Until recently. Charlotte Feeney of Connecticut is suing L’Oreal over a box of hair dye. She thought it was blond, but brunette coloring had mistakenly been placed in the box. She is claiming her new brown locks have caused her to be depressed, put on anti-depressants, and made her social life suffer. L’Oreal rebutted had she followed the directions on the box and done a strand test, she could have avoided it, and the judge prociding over the case has thrown the case out. Although better minds might wonder why she simply did not simply re-dye it blond a few weeks later, the moral of this story is to follow the directions! Continue Reading »
rehna October 4th, 2008
Don’t say we don’t spoil you. I know many of you love the stars of yesteryear so here’s a chance for you to win a fabulous prize: The ‘Inside the actor’s studio’ box set featuring 4 of the biggest Hollywood stars ever; Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, could be yours.
Just answer these simple questions: Continue Reading »