War and Peace – Volume 2

This is a continuation of my previous write-up ‘War and Peace – Volume 1,’ and once again, I’m writing it some eight months after reading it , so I’m drawing a lot from memory.  They’re meant more as refreshers than reviews – and it’s important to realise that what you read here barely touches the surface of what is possibly the finest work ever written.  Also this write-up does contain spoilers. With that in mind here goes…

Kick-Ass – Designed for the big screen from day one?

Dave Lizewski isn’t the class jock, he isn’t the class geek either.  He’s just your average inbetweener.  He has good taste in movies and music, the class babe thinks he’s a dawk and he wishes his Dad could get over his mother’s death when he was fourteen.  His biggest escape in life is through comic books.  Then as exam pressure mounts he gets to thinking about what he wants to do with his life…

War and Peace – Volume 1

The latest pressing of Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece has been translated, annotated and introduced by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky.   And before you read any further, the following article does contain spoilers so stop now if you are about to make the journey.

Is ‘30 Days of Night’ a smooth transition to celluloid?

Successful movie adaptations of novels are rare.  Directorial attempts to compete with a reader’s imagination more often than not fail for obvious reasons.  But what about adaptations of comics?

Before any movie goes into production it goes through the storyboarding process, and what better way to describe a comic than a series of unfolding events detailed in a storyboard.  So if a director followed each comic ‘panel’ exactly, would an adaptation to the big screen equal the original format?

In The Blink Of An Eye – Second Edition

The Conversation, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The English Patient – all cut by Walter Murch, the latter for which he was awarded both an Oscar and a Bafta for ‘Best Editing’ in 1996.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from ‘In The Blink Of An Eye.’  I guess since I edit news footage on a daily basis and dabble as an amateur filmmaker, pearls of wisdom from an editor who’s been doing it for more than forty years.

This is a book best suited to the already practicing editor (even if your experience is limited to Moviemaker or iMovie). 

The Nightly News – Issue 1

As a broadcast journalist with a conscience ‘The Nightly News’ is refreshing.  Many of my colleagues sensationalise tragic events, not pausing for a second to think about the effect it could have on those involved.

Only last week I was reporting on a story about an old couple found dead in their home.  Two weeks passed before they were discovered, one of the bodies was in such a bad state of decomposition it’s head had come off.

The reader that afternoon sounded like she was getting off on the fact!