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Post by che2000 on Jul 20, 2009 22:14:17 GMT
The board's been fairly quiet of late so I'm asking the question... what's everybody at?
Seen any good or bad movies lately?
Read any good or bad books?
Anything else of note?
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 27, 2009 18:06:38 GMT
I've had very little time lately to do much more than skim some of the posts, think to myself, "I must get round to replying to that when I've got time to write something coherent," then never getting round to it at all.
Last movie I saw at the cinema was "Drag Me To Hell", which was very enjoyable, and my other half enjoyed it, despite spending huge chunks of the film either buried in my jacket or looking through her fingers.
Book reading has largely been restricted to the original Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes short stories, for the umpteenth time, for research. Good job I absolutely love them, really. I'm less keen on the novels, with the exception of "The Sign of Four", though this is mainly because the others tend to do away with Holmes for much of their length.
Could do with a rest, but my girlfriend comes back after two weeks in Romania tomorrow, so I don't see much of that on the horizon.
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Post by che2000 on Jul 27, 2009 22:14:49 GMT
I loved Drag Me To Hell - very Casting the Runes/ Night of the Demon feel about it (although, naturally, ol' M.R James didn't even get the sniff of a credit). Great stuff, and it showed that Sam Raimi can still come up with the goods. My only disappointment was that there was neither sign nor light of Bruce Campell in it, but apparently he was busy with other projects.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 28, 2009 9:39:47 GMT
Hooray! I'm not the only one who picked up on the "Casting the Runes" feel, then. And I also thought the handkerchief against the windscreen had a hint of "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" about it.
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jul 28, 2009 14:34:32 GMT
Back from holidays Read Isabella Bird the Golden Chersonese. A travel book
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Jul 28, 2009 14:35:16 GMT
Wish I could see casting the Runes again
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Post by che2000 on Jul 28, 2009 20:11:07 GMT
I love MR James. His Collected Ghost Stories is the one book that remains constantly by my bedside.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 28, 2009 22:27:25 GMT
Which "Casting the Runes", Craig? Is it the 1979 one with Iain Cuthbertson? It gets a mixed response but I'm a big fan, and wrote a highly complimentary review of it for The Ghosts & Scholars Newsletter - which probably had a few of its readers, who already think I'm too soft on some adaptations, giving up on me as a bad lot.
I have heard rumours that Kenneth Branagh may be involved in a new version of CtR, though I'm not sure if it was a new version of the MRJ original or a remake of "Night of the Demon" that was being considered.
And che2000, the Complete MRJ and the complete ACD Holmes would be my two bedside books.
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Post by che2000 on Jul 28, 2009 23:48:11 GMT
The Holmes stories are also wonderful things. I've also really enjoy ACD's other work as well: the Professor Challanger stories are great and the wonderful Brigadier Gerard tales always leave me with a big grin whenever I read them.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Jul 31, 2009 11:22:54 GMT
Aside from some of his short horror stories, I've not read any Conan Doyle outside of Holmes. I should take a look at the professor Challenger stories, I reckon - though whenever I think of Challenger I think of Claude Rains in a ginger beard and a lot of lizards with horns glued to their heads rampaging around miniature jungles.
Doyle, like MRJ, works a lot of great humourous bits into his stories, which I think is something people tend to forget. And MRJ was a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and a fair reader of detective fiction.
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Post by David Kartos on Aug 4, 2009 10:43:24 GMT
Have been reading, writing reviews, and trying to finish another idea I have had, called "The Biblical Garden" .
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