Blogcritics Author: Friend Mouse

DVD Review: Children of the Stones

Friend Mouse — Sun, 4 Jan 2009 12:46:46 EST

A fun and freaky treat for fans of campy sci-fi.
Children of the Stones is a British cult favorite, a science fiction children’s television series filmed on location at Avebury, England, with its stone circle that predates Stonehenge. Combining ancient Druidic rites, brain-washing, the ouroboros, psychic phenomena, black holes, and time bubbles – not to mention a creepy soundtrack of...

DVD Review: The Devil's Muse

Friend Mouse — Tue, 2 Dec 2008 21:40:14 EST

David Lynch fans will love this movie. I am not so much a David Lynch fan myself.
The Devil’s Muse is a very independent film, written and directed by Ramzi Abed, and released on DVD in 2008 by Halo 8 Entertainment, an independent film company “specializing in iconoclastic and music-driven cult movies and their related soundtracks.” If by “iconoclastic” they mean “amateurish, disjointed, and...

Book Review: Silver - My Own Tale As Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder by Edward Chupack

Friend Mouse — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:12:16 EST

Avast, my hearties, for here be pirates!
Avast, my hearties, for here be pirates! Inspired by Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, Silver: My Own Tale As Written by Me with a Goodly Amount of Murder is the story of the infamous Long John Silver in his own bloodthirsty, treasure-hungry words: how he came to be the scourge of the northern and southern seas, from beggar boy to pirate...

Book Review: Acacia - Book One: The War with the Mein by David Anthony Durham

Friend Mouse — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 15:24:25 EST

A huge new epic fantasy series has begun and it has something for everyone.
Acacia – Book One: The War with the Mein is a vast, ambitious first foray into fantasy for professor and novelist David Anthony Durham. Durham’s last novel was historical fiction and this background has served the author well, enabling him to create a richly textured universe, deeply saturated with politics, history, mysticism, and an...

DVD Review: Rain Shadow - Series 1

Friend Mouse — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:49:32 EDT

Think James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small - except that the veterinarians are women and live in the arid Outback, not lush green England.
Filmed entirely on location in a naturally occurring rain shadow in the Adelaide Hills, the Australian television drama Rain Shadow is centered around the relationship between two female veterinarians, laid over a harsh socioeconomic situation existing in a struggling farming community. A "rain shadow" is a region on the lee side of a...

Book Review: Secrets of the Sea - A Novel by Nicholas Shakespeare

Friend Mouse — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 03:49:14 EDT

This fantastic new novel is both a perceptive and pragmatic love story and a tribute to the pristine island of Tasmania and her denizens.
Secrets of the Sea is a gorgeous new novel, set at the edge of the world in a small town in Tasmania, and focusing on the love- and life-story of two tormented people, Merridy and Alex Dove. Alex is an orphan, both of his parents killed by a logging truck accident when he was only eleven. After being brought back to England by relatives for his...

DVD Review: Silent Wings - The American Glider Pilots of WWII

Friend Mouse — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:55:30 EDT

Their planes may have been silent but their voices no longer are. This is the incredible story of the American WWII glider pilots.
According to the documentary Silent Wings: The American Glider Pilots of WWII, World War II is the most chronicled event in our human history – except for the mostly untold story of the American glider pilots. Just over 6,000 volunteer pilots flew infantry and supplies behind enemy lines in fragile, defenseless, and engineless airplanes. ...

Book Review: The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon

Friend Mouse — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 12:52:43 EDT

A compelling novel of displacement, poverty, war, and the quest for personal peace.
The Lazarus Project is the beautifully written story of Lazarus Averbuch, a young Jewish immigrant shot to death in 1908 by Chicago's chief of police, and of Vladimir Brik, the modern day Bosnian immigrant who is compelled to explore Averbuch's tale in order to come to grips with his own existence. The narrator Brik (standing in for author...

Book Review: Dizzying Heights - The Aspen Novel by Bruce Ducker

Friend Mouse — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:02:33 EDT

A satirical look at Aspen reaches for the upper elevations but falls slightly short under its own unwieldiness.
Dizzying Heights is, in fact, a dizzying book, chocked full of twisty turns and scheming characters. A satirical look at Aspen, Colorado, and her colorful denizens, this novel attempts giddy heights only to fall slightly short under its own unwieldiness.There is a lot of plot in Dizzying Heights. First, Wadsworth Brush, the erstwhile hero of the...

Book Review: The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing

Friend Mouse — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:15:06 EDT

A look inside the revolution, tea-cosies and all. As relevant and compelling as when it was first published.
Doris Lessing’s The Good Terrorist is a remarkable character study, exploring the experiences and influences that transform revolutionary dilettantes into actual terrorists. Set in London in the early- or mid-1980s (I believe, although the timeframe is never explicitly mentioned: Margaret Thatcher is running the country; millions are...