Pleasure Reading: "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Summary 4

1. Apart from their aunt’s unwanted arrival, the children had another difficult situation to face, because it was high time for the trial concerning Tom Robinson’s case. 2. As their father was the defendant’s advocate, he was going to have a lot of trouble with the proceedings, for Robinson was a black person and everybody was ready to condemn him no matter whether he was guilty or not. 3. Once Atticus was nearly killed or at least badly injured by a group of unfriendly disposed people, but his daughter managed to move them to pity and thus saved the man. 4. Later she together with her brother and friend went to the local judicial court to see the trial itself. 5. It was evident from the beginning that the defendant was innocent, while the girl, who was said to have been raped by him, as well as her father were both lying. 6. Nevertheless, the jury returned the verdict “guilty” to Robinson, and nobody was able to do anything with that.

Pleasure Reading: "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Summary 3 

1. Some more time passed, and Jem, who was now twelve and was going through his difficult adolescent period, nearly stopped being a good companion for his younger sister, for he was now very touchy and irritable. 2. As a result, he spent most of his time reading magazines and didn’t want to see anybody, so Scout had nothing to do and sat in kitchen with Calpurnia, their cook and household. 3. Once, when Atticus wasn’t at home, the old woman took the children to the church for black people with her to hear the mess. 4. At first some parishioners showed hostility to the brother and sister, but later became rather friendly. 5. Here in the church the children heard once more about Tom Robinson, whom the majority thought to be not guilty for what had happened with the white girl. 6. Having return at home, Jem and Scout were taken by surprise bu their Aunt Aleksandra’s unexpected visit. 7. It turned out that she had arrived here for a while to see about the children’s uprising, and soon the small Finches became bored with the woman’s constant cutting remarks concerning their behavior.

Film Review: "Method"

Method (2004)

Director:  Duncan Roy

Producers: Guy J. Louthan, Pierre Spengler
Writters: Duncan Roy, Katie L. Fetting

Stars: Elizabeth Hurley, Jeremy Sisto, Oliver Tobias

Music by: Barry Taylor
Release date: June 24, 2004

Running time: 93 min

Country: UK, USA, Switzerland, Romania

Synopsis: A well-known actress, a movie star Rebecca Fairbanks (Elizabeth Hurley), given the role of a 19th century serial killer Belle Gunness in a feature film based on real historical events, arrives to the filming location somewhere in Romania. Trying to assume this role and to understand the character, she starts living the life of Mrs. Gunness, but soon seems to have gone too far, for people around her die, and that was the beginning of her going insane.

Review:

To start with, I’d like to say that, while the film under study is a pure thriller and I don’t have anything against this genre, there’re much better examples that seemed much more intriguing and attractive to me. I like movies mostly based on psychological tension and mystery, employing some ancient legends and phantoms even, but without much blood. Here one can see a history of a maniac, first a 19^th-century one and then of our contemporary – a woman who learnt too much about different kinds of murders and who went too far in search of a clue to a serial killer’s motives and actions. Blood, luckily not real one, was literally gushing from the screen in the second part of the film, what created the sense of strong disgust.

The whole atmosphere of the film was really oppressive and gloomy, so that I could feel a kind of despair. At some moments this film reminded “Black Swan” to me, starring Nataly Portman, probably because the main heroine there also became a victim of her attempt to get deeper into the role she was just unable to keep up – perhaps because it wasn’t intended for it. Frankly speaking, I didn’t watch that film to the end, as I couldn’t bear it, and wanted to do the same with this one – only curiosity about how it all would end kept me from turning off the computer. But there also was an educational aspect in this film I can’t but mention: directly after watching the film I searched the Internet to find any information about Belle Gunness to see whether it was really possible that a woman could kill nearly 40 people, including her own children, and nobody finally found and arrested her. And I was badly astonished to learn that it was true. I can’t for the life of me see what motives such a monster could have; so it’s no wonder that Rebecca Fairbanks didn’t manage to.

My verdict will be the following: if you enjoy thrillers of this sort, having much to do with horror films, then the movie is for you; if you’re nervous and impressionable, then you should better choose something more peaceful.

Rendering 12 (Cinema)

The article we’re going to discuss is taken from The Telegraph and is entitled “21 and Over, review.”  It was contributed on 2 May 2013 by Tim Robey and analyzes the new comedy from Hangover writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore.

From the very beginning of the review it becomes evident that the author takes a critical view of the movie. First of all, it’s necessary to mention that it mainly consists of men for, as the author says ironically, a list of the roles for women would not leave this movie covered in glory and includes only of a few rather fierce sorority girls? And that’s obviously not an advantage.

Next, Tim Robey provides the reader with some information about the plot, so that the audience could see why he is so skeptical about this movie. So, the plot is about two high-school buddies, who kidnap their pal Jeff Chang on his 21st birthday, even though it’s the night before his big interview for medical school, and, in the author’s words, there’s a terrifyingly stereotypical Asian dad waiting in the wings to tan their hides. As a result of all this, the teeny Jeff Chang (it’s interesting to note that they always call him “Jeff Chang” in full, which is funnier than it sounds) gets utterly wrecked. According to the plot, Chon is comatose, or near it, for so much of the movie’s running time that it starts to resemble Weekend at Bernie’s with a stressed, unconscious Chinese medical student instead of a corpse.

Tim Robey in fact concludes by saying that this exuberant frat comedy succeeds primarily because of its likeable cast. In resolute terms he expresses the view that one of the actors, Miles Teller, is terrific, puckish and endearingly intense, and the promising Skylar Astin matches him every step of the way, so that this company can get just about any party started. Frankly speaking, I cannot quite understand this conclusion, as I don’t believe a good cast can save a badly written film, no matter how hard they might try, and there’re really some examples that I know.