Get them off! Get them off!

Movies:

Monty Python and The Holy Grail
I can't believe it took me so long to see this movie. I already know everything about it. I have quoted it before. I recognise other people referencing it. Best bits: The horse-shoes of course, the peasant being oppressed, Michael Palin, John Cleese being caught up in his Launcelot idiom, Tim the Enchanter, hat with giant horns. Heh.


Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa)
An adaptation of Macbeth in Japanese. I see how it's done, it's made beautifully. He's incorporated the the techniques of Japanese traditional theatre brilliantly. I did wonder why they were moving so stiffly, but then I realised that that was the whole point. The way he's used mist is really haunting, and the scenes in the forest during the "foul and fair" weather, made me want to go bushwalking in a storm. Weather is really the whole point of this movie. The exploration of the facets of the personalities of the characters is not great but it is made up for in mood.


Books:

If on a winter's night a traveler - Italo Calvino
Yes, brilliant, it's so deep. Not only in the intellectual sense but also in the spacial, if that makes sense. Each of the chapters reminded me of a classic that I had read before, which I suppose is the point. You are drawn down and in with the protagonist, but then at the end you haven't moved at all. It's very clever.

The Machine Gunners - Robert Westall
This is just like Lockie Leonard, the main character is anyway. It's very visceral, I could see how adults would be disturbed by this book. It almost completely excludes them from the child's world. Ultimately left me grief-stricken