Please note, this review is a discussion on the film that includes spoilers if you are not familiar with the book. What Maisie Knew is a novel written by Henry James in 1897 that is meant to be a harsh criticism on a British society that had no child welfare policies, and used children, just […]
Author Archives: lisathatcher
August
25
What Maisie Knew – Scott McGehee and David Siegel take on Henry James. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
August
24
Red 2 – Dean Parisot and the boomers who kick ass. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
Warren Ellis wrote RED (Retired-Extremly-Dangerous) in 2003 and 2004 and except for the coming-out-of-retirement plot line, pretty much the rest of the film(s) based on the comic strip have steered away from the original. Ellis was quoted as saying the comic and film had to be different because the film needed far more content than […]
August
23
Romeo and Juliet – Stephen Wallace brings something old to brilliant life. (theatre review)
posted by lisathatcher
It’s difficult to see a Shakespearean play these days, if by some miracle the play hasn’t previously been seen, parts of it have been used in modern vernacular, advertising, pop-quoting and/or been read, misread and hated through studies at school. Of all the plays that fall under this banner, surely one of the most often […]
August
23
The Sydney Fringe Festival about to kick off.
posted by lisathatcher
The Sydney Fringe Festival is on from September 6 through to September 29. Get tickets and info here. Given Australia go to the election polls on the 7th of September, and our two-party system has thrown us two very right-wing choices (we actually have a candidate that makes George Bush Jnr look like the moderate […]
August
23
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones – Harald Zwart and the tweenie girl thing. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
It is with some trepidation that I approach a review of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. For starters, it is impossible to separate the film from the book and I haven’t read the book. Also, the film has to be seen in the context of its audience. There is no point comparing it with […]
August
20
Paranoia – Robert Luketic and The not-so-Firm remake. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
I’m going to be adding my voice to the heard here. Like Paranoia itself, there isn’t much that is original that I can add to the already well-worn list of complaints, except that if you are going to make a high-tech thriller about the future of the telecommunications age, you should have at least come […]
August
16
The Merchant of Venice – Steven Hopley and Shakespearean word games. (Theatre review)
posted by lisathatcher
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not […]
August
16
Lovelace – Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman tell half a tale that’s true. (film review)
posted by lisathatcher
Probably the best popular film we have to date, regarding the issue of pornography, is The People V’s Larry Flint. I’m no Larry Flint fan, but the film was primarily about freedom of speech and the right to open or close Hustler magazine being left to the individual. I’ve said on this blog many times […]
August
13
The Marrying of Chani Kaufman – Eve Harris and the worlds within a world. (book review)
posted by lisathatcher
“Therefore shall each man forsake his mother and father, and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2: 23-24) What is the value of books that teach us something we didn’t know these days? The common assumption is that the world is getting smaller with the connective power of the internet, […]
August
12
Friday – Daniela Giorgi and the tragic giggle that is politics in a democracy. (theatre review)
posted by lisathatcher
Politics was so much more interesting in the 1960’s and 1970’s because it was deep and complex. Communism, like a powerful opposition, offered genuine and radical solutions to the problems of the post-industrial age. When you fought over red wine and Camembert, beer and snags or rice and beans with your neighbor, the arguments outweighed […]
Lisa Thatcher 