Michael Crichton published ten books -- five before The Andromeda Strain and five after -- under pseudonyms, eight of them as John Lange. This one is the one that is most like his more famous works. It begins and ends with excerpts from government documents, it plays as a race against time (the hero has 12 hours to solve the case and save the day), and the case itself begins with a techno-scientific premise: a radical who aims to kill the President (and countless innocent bystanders) through the combination of two chemicals to produce a deadly nerve gas. Why, then, didn't he publish it under his own name? Despite the similarities, Binary is Crichton lite. In his case, that has nothing to do with his characters or the complexity of his plots; it's simply a matter of research: how much he did and how much of it ended up on the page. For this reason, this stripped-down thriller might actually be preferable to some of his readers. In fact, if you think Crichton is a quick read, you'll be amazed at how blazingly fast Lange is. Binary is nothing deep, nothing even very memorable, but it's exciting, and Crichton makes it all seem absolutely effortless, like eating cotton candy.
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Michael Crichton published ten books -- five before The Andromeda Strain and five after -- under pseudonyms, eight of them as John Lange. This one is the one that is most like his more famous works. It begins and ends with excerpts from government documents, it plays as a race against time (the hero has 12 hours to solve the case and save the day), and the case itself begins with a techno-scientific premise: a radical who aims to kill the President (and countless innocent bystanders) through the combination of two chemicals to produce a deadly nerve gas. Why, then, didn't he publish it under his own name? Despite the similarities, Binary is Crichton lite. In his case, that has nothing to do with his characters or the complexity of his plots; it's simply a matter of research: how much he did and how much of it ended up on the page. For this reason, this stripped-down thriller might actually be preferable to some of his readers. In fact, if you think Crichton is a quick read, you'll be amazed at how blazingly fast Lange is. Binary is nothing deep, nothing even very memorable, but it's exciting, and Crichton makes it all seem absolutely effortless, like eating cotton candy.
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+1/2 Essentially a dramatic PSA, the "goal" of which, if you believe the opening title card, "is not to win commercial awards but to create an 'awareness of a present danger.'" That danger, of course, is the Zodiac killer (and, vaguely, others like him), who killed five people and wounded two others in late-sixties California. The killer himself, who taunted police with letters and cryptograms, claimed many times more victims, but without proof or official consensus. To this day, he has not been caught or conclusively identified. Bargain-basement effort (it's just as well that the filmmakers had no commercial aspirations) that casts the Zodiac (Hal Reed) as a bunny-loving mailman with afterlife issues and an institutionalized dad who wants nothing to do with him. The movie shows us his officially recognized crimes, then tacks on a few more, ostensibly to frighten the audience by suggestion -- since scaring them the old-fashioned way, with technical skill and a talent for cinema, was impossible. Of curiosity value only, and only to those interested in the Zodiac murders. +++1/2 Technical masterpiece that is also a clever murder mystery about a man (Ray Milland) who must think fast when his plot to kill his wealthy wife (Grace Kelly) doesn't go quite as planned. Though it will keep you guessing throughout, the film is best in the early going, when the "game" still threatens to turn serious. But, no, in the end, it's just a highly polished cat-and-mouse match. Not that that detracts from Hitchcock's precise direction, Milland's amusing urbanity, or Kelly's sophisticated charm, but it is a caution not to expect the edge of Hitchcock's Rope or Rear Window. Also with Robert Cummings as a mystery writer who tries unsuccessfully to match wits with real cop Anthony Dawson. Based on the play by Frederick Knott and originally filmed in 3D. +++1/2 Love story set deep in the tropical forests of Guyana, with Venezuelan man discovering ethereal and mysterious girl who lives there with her grandfather. Filled to the brim with rhapsodic elegies to the wonders of nature, the girl's otherworldly beauty, and the man's self-absorbed deep feelings for it all; and it would have been too much, but Hudson neatly grounds the whole thing with the more prosaic complications arising from the inhabitants of a nearby Indian settlement, who believe the girl is an evil spirit. Another complication, more to the point, is that faced by the man in trying to get close to a girl who prefers to speak in her own bird-like language and who has never learned the finer points of socialization. At some point, Hudson's aim is achieved, and we become immersed in this wild world and its problematic romance. The climax is exciting and the denouement fitting. Made into a film starring Audrey Hepburn in 1959. +++++ A movie that isn't so much an adaptation of a book as a rewrite of it. Distilling the salient portions of a novel and filtering out its irrelevant subplots, it turns out, can produce a whale of a movie. That is, if you also humanize its characters, hire terrific actors, and direct the whole thing with imagination, skill, and incredible energy. This is a movie that is, unlike Benchley's novel, completely riveting. It is, of course, about three men who, each for his own reasons, set to sea to catch or kill the huge shark that has been eating people off the beaches of a small island resort town. It's got humor, suspense, excitement, and an evocative and apropos soundtrack. It also has one of the most memorable monologues in the history of movies, as Quint, the crude but colorful fisherman hired to lead the shark hunt, recounts one of his experiences from World War II. With Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss, and novel author Peter Benchley in a cameo as a reporter on the beach. Followed by three sequels, ranging from bad to deplorable. +++ Set in 1917, this threadbare story of prostitutes in the famous Storyville district of New Orleans is nevertheless compelling thanks to its unusual -- and unusually frank -- focus on 12-year-old Violet Marr (Brooke Shields), who becomes the mild obsession of a dandified photographer (Keith Carradine). Even so, it's only a couple rungs up the ladder from pure prurience, and that because, technically, it's a fine film: everything from the costumes, sets, and props to the fine acting from Shields, only 12 herself, and Susan Sarandon as her working girl mom to Malle's direction looks authentic. But Malle is really directing another, better film, one in which his long takes are filled with the feeling this over-romanticized film lacks. Never has being a 12-year-old prostitute looked so non-threatening and homey. Controversial, of course, due to Shields' nude scenes. It isn't porn, but it's worth noting that no porn director could do what Malle does here and get away with it. +1/2 By the author of Dracula. Believe it or not. Insanely ridiculous tale of a snake-woman hell-bent on marrying a kite-flying cuckoo, and the band of God-fearing people plotting to kill her instead. Written as poorly as it is constructed. Mercifully short at less than 200 pages*, yet rushed in every respect, as though Stoker couldn't be bothered with trivialities like story and character development. The bizarre kite flyer stands at the intersection of both deficiencies: he is a major player, he is laughably weird, and he serves no purpose other than to muddy the waters; in terms of the plot, his kite is more important than he is. Complete nonsense, but harmless. Stoker's last novel. Adapted for the big screen (sort of) in 1988 by Ken Russell. * This, the most commonly available version of the book (the text, not the edition pictured), is actually an abridgment from 1925. Click here for the original. ++ Early 19th century French soldier (Jack Nicholson) refuses to accept a supernatural explanation for the strange woman he sees about the castle of an old, solitary baron (Boris Karloff). Is she a real woman or the ghost of a murder victim? Ultimately, Corman, and writers Leo Gordon and Jack Hill, refuse either to validate or to refute his skepticism, leaving us with a nonsensical and unsatisfying have-it-both-ways sort of story. Slow-moving and monotonous. Sandra Knight, Nicholson's (pregnant) wife at the time, plays the mysterious woman. ++++ Grit, like any other admirable human quality, comes with a price, and the truer it is, the higher the cost. That's what Charles Portis seemed to say in the book on which this film is based. But that's not what Hathaway and screenwriter Marguerite Roberts say, and perhaps that's what's wrong with this movie -- if indeed there is anything wrong with it. This, from start to finish, is a wonderful film. Kim Darby shines as young Mattie Ross, a girl whose strength, determination, and moral fiber won't let her take the murder of her father sitting down. John Wayne is so perfectly cast as the toughest, most trigger-happy Federal Marshall Mattie can find to track the killer that he won the Best Actor Academy Award for his performance. Glen Campbell, better known as a singer, of course, is just fine as a Texas Ranger who is after the same man for reasons of his own. With great dialogue (often lifted straight from the novel), lots of humor, and plenty of action. But, for what it's worth, this is a softer version of Portis' book, one with, ironically, a bigger heart that may be, deep inside, the littlest bit hollow. Also with Dennis Hopper and Robert Duval. Remade in 2010 by the Coen brothers. +++1/2 She is not a funny book, but one priceless scene involves a proud Englishman who has been summoned, along with a high-ranking slave, before the ruler of a lost and now-degraded civilization. The slave falls immediately to his hands and knees, creeping forward ever so slowly. The Englishman, refusing his companion's undignified advance, chooses to walk. But what a walk! Following the slow-moving slave, he can either pause between each step or raise one leg and wave it about until given room to put it down again. Either way, he realizes, he looks almost as silly as the slave. This is the charm of She. It is not the most exciting adventure you will ever read, but its characterizations are sharp and believable and unapologetic. The adventure begins when three Englishmen, one of whom might be related to an ancient Egyptian, set out to discover the truth of tales passed from generation to generation about a strange city and an even stranger woman said to rule there with an iron hand. The good stuff, on the other hand, begins when they arrive, literally finding much more than they ever believed possible. And that's because it is only then that the characters really begin to shine -- not as archetypes but as real people who act and react not perhaps as we would want them to, but refreshingly as people really would under similar circumstances. As you might expect from a book about a woman known to her people as She-who-must-be-obeyed, Haggard also provides an intriguing take on the issue of male and female dominance. Adapted several times for the screen, including one silent film for which Haggard himself wrote the intertitles, but perhaps most famously in 1965, in a film starring Ursula Andress. |
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