Ataraxia

  Everybody Knows by Asghar Farhadi – one of the best directors and writers in the world, my note on A Separation is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/11/note-on-separation-writer-director.html where you find thousands of other reviews   10 out of 10   A Separation is one of the best films I have seen, the day before yesterday I saw it for the second time, and yes, these lines are about Separation, my opinion on Everybody Knows is that albeit it is a very good film, it is not on the level of Separation, A Hero or The Salesman – I will post my takes on all three on my blog   A spoiler alert on two counts, one is that Everybody Knows is out of the picture by now, and then I may write about what happens in A Separation, towards the end, however, we will not have too many unhappy customers, for not many go beyond the first line, and then who will wants to read something on one movie and complain there are details on another, once he decides to pursue the reading beyond the

  Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin – author of Vendetta, my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/05/vendetta-by-michael-dibdin-author-of.html along with hundreds of other reviews   8 out of 10     Michael Dibdin has five books on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read and his hero, Italian detective Aurelio Zen is one we can identify with, and he fits the profile suggested in To the Hermitage https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/09/to-hermitage-by-malcolm-bradbury-author.html by Malcolm Bradbury   Novels have characters that are ‘fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound’ – at least the glorious ones, and we could not compare Zen with Lucky Jim, in my view, but he makes for one damn good protagonist, entangled in some complex crimes stories This time, he travels to Venice, to investigate the disappearance of an American citizen, born in the former Yugoslavia, alleged

  A Hero written and directed by Asghar Farhadi – nominated for the most prestigious film award, in my opinion, The Palme d’Or, The Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Non- English Language and winner of many other trophies   10 out of 10   This is one of the best movies I have seen, and Asghar Farhadi is definitely one of the luminaries of our age – and other centuries too – he is the one who gave audiences The Salesman https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/11/note-on-salesman-aka-forushande-writer.html which for the French is Le Client   In the opening chapter of the film, we see Rahim Soltani – played by the fabulous Amir Jadidi – who is The Hero, going to visit his brother-in-law, as he is out for a couple of days from prison, where he was sent because he could not pay a debt, he had taken money from a loan shark, and someone else offered a guarantee It is a rather complex story, but only in the good sense, it is not one of those overwhelming narratives, where personage

  The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway – my previous take on this is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-old-man-and-sea-by-ernest-hemingway.html where I have a few thousand other notes   9 out of 10   Ernest Hemingway was a celebrated author – I have just finished Hitchcock/Truffaut and Hitchcock makes the joke where he says he was celibated, instead of celebrated – what with a few books of his included on major lists of best 100, on The 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read he has three, including The Old Man and The Sea…   Nevertheless, he was also part of a fantastic book about the dark side of luminaries, Intellectuals https://realini.blogspot.com/2014/06/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html by wondrous Paul Johnson, who exposes Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Jean Jacques Rousseau…the latter left his children at the door of an orphanage – When that meant nine of out ten would die, and yes, Ernest Hemingway is in there, not the Hall of Fame, but if you will, the o

  Hitchcock/Truffaut by Francois Truffaut – my note on Les Quattre Cents Coups is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2018/03/les-quatre-cents-coups-aka-400-blows-by.html along with thousands of other reviews   9 out of 10   Listening to the audio version of this dialogue between two of the giants of world cinema should be a must for students of the art, and cinephiles, however much standards have changed and the criticism addressed mainly towards Hitchcock https://realini.blogspot.com/2020/04/notorious-written-by-ben-hecht-directed.html is pertinent at times, specifically in one of the best books on cinema, Adventures in the Screen Trade   William Goldman has won two Oscars, one for Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and the other for All The President’s Men, and in Adventures in The Screen Trade he writes a masterpiece about films, and one of the subjects is the auteur, a fashion which had the director as the Almighty of the movie making, and we have that refuted Alfred H

  The Time Machine by HG Wells – author of War of The Worlds, my note on it is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/03/war-of-worlds-by-h-g-wells-once-upon.html where I have thousands of other reviews   8 out of 10     HG Wells some of the best-known books in Science Fiction, and in general, five of them are on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, and on a rather new compilation, mentioned in The Economist, greatest books of all time, where there is an algorithm, and the site is taking into account relevant criteria   One of the most important is The War of The Worlds, which has caused a furor, panic, multitudes have tried to escape when it was first aired, about one hundred years ago, it was adapted as a play, directed by another, just as famous Welles, only this one had a different spelling of the name, albeit I am not sure if a different pronunciation as well The public listened to the account of the arrival of a mysterious aircraft, which turns out to be th

  The Sign of The Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle author of A Study In Scarlet – my note is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/08/a-study-in-scarlet-by-arthur-conan.html along with hundreds of other reviews   9 out of 10     The Mystery Writers of America published a list named The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time and The Complete Sherlock Holmes is at number one, somewhat strangely, The British, with their own Crime Writers’ Association have placed it only at twenty-one, on their Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time, though it is still an achievement   Sherlock Homes is quite a character, one of the most famous detectives, perhaps the best known, together with Hercule Poirot https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-secret-adversary-by-agatha-christie.html two smart men that may be unfamiliar to younger generations, who could know better film sleuths In A Study in Scarlet, we find the hero less awesome, since he is presented as knowing very little, if anything, t

  Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo – it was shortlisted for The Booker Prize for Fiction in 1982, the year when Schindler’s Ark won the top spot https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/07/schindlers-ark-by-thomas-keneally.html   8 out of 10   Sour Sweet is also included on the 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read list, for whatever reason, I am already jesting here and offering the conclusion of my encounter with this book, it was not my cup of tea, although it seemed promising, and then it is clear that others know better, and you should already look for a professional review   We have a trio of main characters here, albeit we could put Chen and his wife, Lily, ahead, with top stop going to the female, who is tough, she had been trained by her father, a fighter, to win in physical combat, and then she also has a peculiar resistance, determination, in short, she is the number one personage, if we take it that way They live in London, first the man, then he takes his wife, who had worked in

  Animal Farm by George Orwell – one of the greatest books of all time, my previous note on it is at https://realini.blogspot.com/2022/01/animal-farm-by-george-orwell-magnum.html where I have thousands of other reviews   10 out of 10   We lived in the Animal Farm here, under the communist regime, and one of the most vicious despots ever, Nicolae Ceausescu – I am proud to say that I took part in the 1989 Revolution that ended that dark age – I am mentioned in the Newsweek issue that covered the events, and the link is at the end of this note   It was just like the fabulous George Orwell wrote here, and in Nineteen Eighty Four https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/09/nineteen-eighty-four-by-george-orwell.html we have had a privileged class, the nomenclature and the apparatchiks enjoying a good life, while the hoi polloi were suffering ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’ you could put that everywhere, as the most important slogan, or truth abou

  Tasteless Jokes by Blache Knott – I have a note on the subject at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/tasteless-jokes-by-blanche-knott-6-out.html where I have hundreds of other reviews   7 out of 10   The definition of tasteless jokes is important here, well, to use a word, one has to know its significance, albeit we understand different things when using the same mot juste, as Thomas Mann has explained https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-magic-mountain-is-classic-that.html in one of his short stories, looking at love   There are people who declare with pomposity that ‘their love is beyond words, nothing can explain, describe their glorious feeling’, nevertheless, in that short story, one personage is of the opinion that you can find love only in art, literature, for when you test the feeling in real life, you find that it was just some attraction or temporary infatuation Magister Ludi Kingsley Amis https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/07/the-kings-english-gu