Ministry of Propaganda - 18/May/2003: "Recent entertainment"
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Recent entertainment
Some offline watching and reading:
Yesterday evening I watched James Bond 007 - Die Another Day on DVD. It was good but not outstanding. James Bond movies don't usually have a strong story anyway, but I think this one was weaker than others. The action scenes were good, especially the surfing scene at the opening. What I didn't like was some of the digital trickery, some of it was just so obvious. Especially the kite surfing scene where Bond uses the brake parachute and part of the glider to surf through the icebergs and huge waves is ridiculous: It looks like a badly animated video game. To me that's not the standard I expect from a Bond movie. Overall may be 6 out of 10 points.
Oh, before I forget: I think John Cleese as the new Q replacing the late Desmond Llewelyn is excellent. I hope he will have a slightly more prominent role in the next Bond.
This morning I finished reading The White Lioness by Henning Mankell, the latest book translated in the Inspector Wallander series. I don't know who plans the translations at the publisher and I don't think they will read this, but the order they are translated in is annoying to say the least. In one of the books I read previously (and I read them as soon as they come out in English) his father dies. And now I read one where his father is just about to get married again to his housekeeper. Characters in series usually develop over time, so how about translating them in the right order?
But back to the book: I think I can give it 8 out of 10 for crime fiction. It's not crime fiction in the usual way with the detective hunting the criminal and the reader trying to guess who the murderer is. Quite early in the book you know what happened, the story develops much more about the hunt for the killer and the thoughts and developments both the killer and Inspector Wallander face and go through. Henning Mankell also pulls off to combine the plain crime fiction of Inspector Wallander hunting a killer with the story of a conspiracy in South Africa at the time of Nelson Mandela and President de Clerk bringing an end to Apartheid. A very good read, thoroughly recommended.
End of entry
Entry trivia
When writing this entry the weather was: Mostly cloudy, quite strong wind. Mostly dry so far.
When writing this entry I was listening to: Rude Boy Revival (CD 1)
During the last hour before I wrote this entry I visited this website: The Shamrockshire Eagle (he's blogging again)
End of entry trivia