Tomorrowland (2015) – Brad Bird

  Hope. It’s something in short supply in today’s films, television and books. We as a culture of become cynically and intellectually lazy (not all of us mind, but that can-do spirit seems to have been diminished, flickering like a guttering candle), gone are the heady days of Mercury and Apollo when creativity, dreams and…

The Princess Bride (1973) – William Goldman

  William Goldman’s ‘abridged version of S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure” has been long overdue for a read. It should come as no surprise that the movie follows the book very closely, as Goldman adapted his own book to the screen, but it was still fun to dive into the…

The Imitation Game (2014) – Morten Tyldum

Benedict Cumberbatch turns in a masterful performance as Alan Turing in Moreten Tyldum’s Biopic/WWII Thriller, The Imitation Game. Based on the book by Andrew Hodges, with a screenplay by Graham Moore, the film follows the life story of brilliant mathematician, Alan Turing, slipping back and forth through his life, centering on his youth in school,…

The Maltese Falcon (1941) – John Huston

  Humphrey Bogart stars in this classic film noir that is the first recommendation from the Great Movies – 100 Years of Film book for my screening of The Big Sleep. Dashiel Hammett’s book comes to life under the direction of John Huston, who also penned the adapted screenplay, with gumshoe Sam Spade (Bogart) finding…

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) – L. Frank Baum

  While I was laid up in hospital a couple of weeks ago for my hernia operation, I decided I would read a children’s book that I had never looked at before. So my Kindle was happy to add the 15 Oz novels by L. Frank Baum to their library, and I had a look…