Lost Archives Cafe: November 2012

Monday, November 26, 2012

The Great Train Robbery

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

     A friend at work lent me this book a long time ago and I finally got around to reading it. It's the perfect kind of book to read on my lunch break at work. Crichton's intelligent story telling kept me interested, and the short chapters made me feel like I was making progress.
     The story is set in mid nineteenth century London, and is full of colorful characters, scallawags and buffoons alike. Crighton's digressions are like little historical nuggets. They enlighten, inform and entertain. The story is told from the point of view of the criminals. They come across as smarter than the cops, and their victims; however they make mistakes also. The tale unfolds as a comedy of errors, although there is nothing innately funny about a train robbery.
     The colorful language, jargon and criminal slang of the Victorian period sometimes leaves the reader thing, 'What?!'. Crighton finds ways to translate so that one don't lose the thread of the story while at the same time keeping it moving forward. It's like listening to people talk in a foreign language, but that language is English.
     I would definitely like to read another Crighton novel. I picked up a copy of The Terminal Man at a recent library book sale. Now I have to return the copy of TGTR after a few years, and a little dog-eared, but I enjoyed it finally.

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

Skyfall

     Did something I haven't done in a long time last night. Went to the movies with a group of friends and felt like a kid again. One of them smuggled in food, and we were all shocked, shocked I tell you. We were all laughing and whispering, checking e-mails, texting during the previews. One day these memories will add to the nostalgic feeling the Bond 007 franchise evokes.
     One of my favorite parts of the movie was the opening credits that began rolling a short way into the movie as the theme song was cued up. Adele's voice pours over you as she begins to tell the story. Images, graphics and shadows cross the screen. The moody retro song perfectly sets the tone.
     Daniel Craig has taken ownership of this Bond. Craig's 007 is hurt, and mad, and this makes him probably the most dangerous Bond ever. He's not pretty, or even classically handsome in the sense that previous Bonds were. However, his charm and cockiness allow him to deliver his lines without seeming cheesy, or worse tongue in cheek about it. Probably the most interesting thing about this Bond is his vulnerability. He knows he's getting ...gasp...older. Women are still his weakness. Booze is becoming a problem. Some of his coping mechanisms are no longer working. And yet at the end of the movie he still has a job to do.
    Some buzz has been created by Javier Bardem's villain, Silva. Silva is a psychopath who is out to destroy M at any cost to property or life. Some people wonder if the interrogation scene between Bond and Silva has homoerotic overtones. It's more like a mind game, or a test. James Bond's comeback line is destined to become a classic and made everyone in the theatre crack up in laughter, thus relieving the tension, sexual or otherwise. By the end of the film we all understand that Silva is a damaged person, and he may have been trying to reach out quite literally and bond with Bond.
     In the beginning we think Skyfall must be a code name for a mission, perhaps a past one that went bad. As the movie progresses we learn that it is a physical place, one that has much significance to Bond. By the end we realize that Skyfall is a state of mind.

by Preston Sinclair