Bookazine Book Review: Tragedy in Paradise
Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone By Poppy I have always been a kid at heart; I love children’s movies, and this one will go onto my list of favourites. Dan Radcliffe as Harry has the look, the mannerisms and the charm exactly right. Emma Watson plays Hermione in an endearing fashion. Rupert Grint has comic timing way beyond his years, hitting Ron’s lines perfectly. The film begins with Wizard Dumbledore (Richard Harris), Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) and Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) leaving a small baby on a doorstep. This is no ordinary baby, as he bears a very special mark on his forehead. The baby’s name is Harry Potter. Harry will spend the next 11 years of his life with a family that doesn’t love him, abuses him, and makes him sleep in a cupboard below the stairs. As Harry reaches nearer to his 11th birthday, he realizes that he is not ordinary. He has magical powers that abruptly appear whenever he feels angered or scared. Though he may not understand who or what he is, the day comes when magic visits him. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, an invitation is brought to Harry’s home. Though his Aunt and Uncle do all they can to make sure Harry never reads the invitation, the powers of magic prevail. The special effects throughout are first rate and magical. Another great scene is the Quidditch game. From Harry’s look of worry before walking onto the field, to the unbelievable flying broomstick scenes, the audience immediately gets caught up in the match between Gryffindor and Slytherin. The feel of the whole movie is everything fans could have hoped for. I recommend it for anyone between the ages of 3 - 100 years. Directed by Chris Columbus Starring: Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
David Bowie - The Rise & Fall Of The Spider From Mars by Mott the Dog *****5 Star Rating When this album was released in 1972, it was nearly the cause for this Dog to dye his hair fluorescent orange and effect blue eye shadow. Fortunately a stout collar and lead were put in place before this manifestation took place. But none the less this album had a profound effect on the history of Rock ‘n’ Roll. In soccer parlance, this album took Bowie from a relegation candidate in Division Three to Premier League Champions in the blink of a massacred eye. When Bowie created Ziggy Stardust, he created a monster that would take him on one of the most exciting roller-coaster rides in the history of the entertainment industry. The songs that Bowie wrote for this album were his strongest so far. Also, by taking the heavy rock from the previous year’s, “Man Who Sold The World” and the power pop of “Hunky Dory”, which was only six months old, he created the perfect concept album. With the band standing satin-trousered beside Bowie, Mick Ronson tore every ounce of emotion from his guitars. This pushed Bowie’s songs into another dimension. Listen to the gut wrenching savagery of “Moonage Day Dream”, the glittering riffs in the title track, and the sheer unadulterated, irresistible boogie of “Suffragette City”. This makes you realize that Bowie could never have done this without the platinum haired spider from Hull. The lyrics are thrust in your face and rammed down your throat. Then there are Bowie’s excursions into the future, such as the image heavy “Star Man” (he’d like to come and meet us but he thinks he’d blow our minds). This is followed by the album’s final number, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”, which also closed the live set, with the vocalist entreating the audience to ‘hold’ him before he’s taken away. Nevertheless, Bowie would soon tire of the Ziggy Persona (splitting up the Spiders at the peak of their powers). This dramatic music with its swaggering saxophones, rough edged guitars, tinkling piano, bombastic drumming and it’s crisp production cut a swath through the music industry. It created its own category of glam rock and also changed fashion forever. The concerts were amazing but you had to have the music and this album was full of cutting-edge songs that hold up decades later.
Track Listing 1. Five Years
Updated every Friday Updated by
Chinnaporn Sangwanlek, assisted by Boonsiri Suansuk. |
This
was a most interesting period in S.E. Asian history, after the Geneva
Accords of 1962 which required that all foreign troops be withdrawn from
Laos. Which in theory they were, but which in actual fact they were not.
When Dr. Weldon arrived he was flown out to one of the camps where medical
care consisted of dressing wounds and little else. In Dr. Weldon’s
words, “This was the only medical care available to the several hundreds
of thousands of people in Northern Laos harassed and displaced from their
homes by the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao.” The clandestine
nature of the whole operation could be summed up by one of the US
personnel who had just given Dr. Weldon some local currency to pay Laos
medics and others and then counselled him with the words, “For
Christ’s sake, Doc, don’t keep any receipts. And when you need more,
just let me know.”
Mott’s CD review:
Climb
into your platform boots, shake out your spandex and, as the Leper Messiah
preached, “let your imagination soar”.