Saturday, November 24, 2007

The Week In Review(s)

What an interesting week it has been. Yesterday Jan and I actually ventured out to a theatre to preview a movie. Well the price was right $zero. Free is always a good price. Redacted, opens wide next Friday, and is a very disturbing movie on many levels. Although a work of fiction it centers around some factual events in the current Iraq war. It is made in the style of a home made camcorder documentary, rather rough around the edges, nauseatingly fast pans, ad hoc dialog, and stark footage. I recommend that you watch this one only if you have a strong stomach. It contains some very disturbing themes. You would not want to take your kids to see this one. But from a critical point of view it is excellent. It will be interesting to see how this one fares at the box office.

Unfortunately you will have to wait till next Friday to read the review, damn movie people always want everything held till the day it releases!

Week 5 of Mars Rising premieres on the Science Channel next Tuesday, this episode has the title 'Six minutes of terror', and deals with the most perilous part of sending a manned craft to Mars, getting the thing down on the planet surface and not killing the crew in the process. This series from the Discovery people is well worth a look. You can find my review here.

In the music world I found an absolute gem. There is a new 3 DVD set out The McCartney Years, over six hours of music videos and live concerts by Paul McCartney. I was never a Beatles fan, in fact I can honestly say that I have never owned a Beatles album. I have and had, no use for them whatsoever, George Harrison and John Lennon were just pretentious little pricks, and Ringo was a ho hum drummer. Paul McCartney though was, and is a great performer. You can check out more info and even sample the trailers here.

Do you remember Donovan? Mellow Yellow, The Universal Soldier, and a string of other big hits from the 60's. Well he has a new DVD coming out in January. This is a great DVD, yes he is a little older, and his voice has lost a little of its range, but he is still a spectacular performer. This is a 'must have' DVD. Unfortunately I have to sit on it till mid December. But trust me, it is really damn fine! The PR company claims they have no access to Donovan for an interview, but that doesn't bother me. I'll find a way!

Books are fun right now. I have two hot ones, and promises of interviews. Target by Kathleen Willey deals with her time at the hands of the Clintons. Yes, she was one of the people involved with the impeachment, she was also a victim of Bill's 'wandering hand syndrome'. She has nothing good to say about Bill, but what she says about our potential next woman president Hillary is even worse! I think this will make for an interesting interview.

The other hot book is the OJ book, 'If I Did It'. This one the book that Fred and Kim Goldman went to court over and won the publishing rights. According to OJ Simpson this is a book of pure fiction, a fantasy about how he would have committed the murders, the Goldman family view it as something else, a vicarious admission of guilt, a confession if you will. By sheer luck it turns out that the owner of the small PR company that asked me to review the book knows the Goldmans, and I have been invited to do an interview with them. With OJ being in the spotlight again, over an armed robbery in Las Vegas, I can't wait to do this one.

I also have a pre-release copy of Legerdemain, alas this book does not hit the streets until mid January, so I have to sit on it. But it is a wonderful read, all about the Cold War, Atom Bombs, and Morocco, better still the author was actually there! You can find my teaser here. This book is being published by a small, but influential house History Publishing Company, I had a chance to talk to Don Bracken who is the owner of HPC, the interview was quite interesting.

I have no idea how many things I have reviewed this year, but I do know the book count alone is over 80, so when you figure in the music and video side, it has to be several hundred. Most people are pretty happy with what I have to say, in fact last week the author of Landmark Status Alan Rolnick sent me a signed copy of his book in appreciation of my review.

I knew it was only a matter of time though before someone took umbrage at a review, and that happened this week. I watched a particularly insipid piece of pro Muslim and anti Christian junk 'Farewell Israel', this was garbage of the first order, and said that in my review.

The US based publicity company didn't like my review, and so sent a nasty e-mail to the editor of Blogger News Network requesting the Mr Barrett's review be taken down. Oops, I am the editor! Needless to say my response was to tell em to go pound sand! If you can't stand the heat, don't go in the kitchen!

Other than the bad Disneyland ride in the MRI, it has been a great week!

No comments: