I love the ‘Christmas Carol’ story, and I have seen many adaptations over the years. This version can stand with any of them. It is great! The awesome and amazing Michael Caine stars as Ebenezer Scrooge. He is absolutely fantastic in the role, despite the fact that he is mostly acting with muppets. There is…
For a so-called Christmas film this has precious little to do with Christmas. However, its climax occurs on Christmas eve, so it kind of fits. The story concerns a family in St Louis in 1904. The World Fair is going to be held there the following spring, and everyone is excited by the news. The…
How often do you read a book that makes you smile all the way through? I was given this book at the age of eleven, and many years later I still love it. Tolly is a seven-year old boy who is going to stay with his great-grandmother. He has not met her before and doesn’t…
“A Graveyard for Lunatics” is the second in a series of three mystery novels written by Ray Bradbury. It is set in 1950s Hollywood, on the grounds of a film studio, and is essentially a murder mystery. The narrator is a writer of science fiction hired by the studio and loosely based on Bradbury himself,…
In 1984, before the birth of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki directed an anime film called “Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind”. Here we find all the ingredients that would go on to be the bedrock of his work – the theme of being in balance with the earth, the motif of flight, and the…
“A Ghost Story” was released in 2017 and directed by David Lowery. It starred Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara. This is not a horror movie. A man and a woman live in a house. They have some disagreement about living there – the woman wants to move, while her husband is not all that keen.…
In 1987 a small book was released by Abbey Press, called ‘Be-Good-to-yourself Therapy’. Written by Cherry Hartman and illustrated by R.W. Alley, this booklet included whimsical drawings of an elf with a candle in his hat going about his day, with thoughts and suggestions about being good to yourself. Over thirty years and multiple books…
“Ink” is a fantasy film made in 2009. It’s an independent production made on a low budget, and it contains no familiar actors. It is surprisingly good. It involves supernatural figures who give people good dreams or nightmares. The givers of good dreams are called Storytellers, while the givers of nightmares are Incubi. A mysterious…
“The Demolished Man” was written in 1953, and has the distinction of being the first winner of the Hugo Award. Bester has written a very interesting idea, and while it has not always aged well, there is still much of interest. The story is an inverted detective story, in that we know the identity of…
I’m normally quite a fan of Phillip K Dick’s work. However I am a little ambivalent about “The Man in the High Castle”. It depicts an alternative version of the sixties in America where Germany and Japan won the Second World War. Various characters are shown going about their lives in this environment. A thread…
Eclectic Assemblage 