Browse my book and movie reviews along with my essays on writing
Rocky and Adrian’s first kiss
Rocky and Adrian’s first kiss.
I think this is a masterpiece, not only of dialogue writing, which in few words, conveys the two characters’ immediate wants and long-term needs but which also teaches a deeply moral lesson.
‘The Witch’ by Anton Chekhov
The Witch is a short story, less than 5,000 words, from the collection ‘The witch and other stories’. Chekhov wrote 16 short story collections, totalling 233 short stories altogether. Add classics like ‘Uncle Vanya’, ‘The Seagull’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’ and to me, Chekhov isn’t just a giant of 19thC Russian literature, he’s a giant of world literature.
Dark Star
Dark Star is a 1974 science fiction comedy cult classic. It’s set in the 22nd C on the eponymous starship, now 18 parsecs from earth, and on a mission to find and destroy unstable stars. That may have once been exciting but the crew are now utterly sick of it, bored stupid and showing signs of mental strain.
It’s directed (and scored and produced) by John Carpenter, later to become famous for ‘The Thing’,
Stay In The Loop
