13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI A NEW CLASSIC FILM OF MODERN WARFARE

I usually avoid doing any reviews about movies chronicling the War on Terror since I’m right in the middle of it (and most of them suck). I’m too close to the subject matter for any sort of objectivity but this review isn’t going to be objective. It’s going to be pure emotion and stream of consciousness.

Xiphos vs The Book to Movie Adaptation: The Sand Pebbles

 

I’m sure this review is going to come as shock to most readers since it deals with the United States Navy and I am on record often and vigorously shitting on the Navy but The Sand Pebbles is such a great movie and book that for the purposes of this post the Navy gets a pass sort of.

Made in Britain Special: Book to Movie- The Cement Garden

Before I start, I’d like to thank Xi for the use of his excellent Book to Movie idea. Given the content of this mega-review, I’ll return it only slightly soiled.

Ian McEwan’s novella The Cement Garden was a novel that I read at school, and stuck with me for much longer afterwards. A haunting dreamlike novel, with a consummately unreliable narrator, it is both celebrated and reviled in equal measure. Having said that, I never for the life of me thought that anyone would be nuts enough, given it’s intensely controversial subject matter, to even attempt to adapt it for the screen. Yet in 1993 Andrew Birkin (remember that last name, it’ll be important later) took a stab at it, and turned in a haunting, lyrical, sombre little film that wasn’t afraid to look at the inherent unpleasantness of the novel’s plot.

OK, here we go. Buckle up, this one’s stormy.

XIPHOS vs THE BOOK TO MOVIE ADAPTATION #2

Behold a Marine, a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity,

a man laid out alive and standing,

buried under arms with funereal accompaniments…

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience