Reviews - page 3

By Blanka Šustrová

Our hero lives in a small cottage somewhere in Warwickshire. He has to feed and clothe his old, grumpy parents together with his wife (eight years older) and their three children – a mopey teenager that only speaks in grunts and twins whose only interests are sweets. He commutes to London every week to work as an actor in a horribly understaffed company and when he snatches a bit of time for himself, he writes. Because, you know, he is a poet, an unappreciated genius of his time, an innovator of language… How is it possible that he is not famous yet? Well, his best friend steals his verses, his wife needs his humble wage as “she has a cottage to run”, his London servant Bottom makes fun of him but the worst of all – his nemesis publicly calls him an upstart crow.
This could be anyone’s story, so why not William Shakespeare’s?

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By Tereza Walsbergerová

Chuck Palahniuk is not by far the only one who realises that being in one’s twenties can be extremely tough. In fact, there is one comedian in Australia who based his entire livelihood on this notion and even created a TV show around it. Josh Thomas’ Please Like Me is about a young Melburnian named Josh who has to take care of his bipolar mother while struggling with being perpetually single, awkward, and generally lethargic. Having developed from Thomas’ stand-up routine of the same name, the show contains the lightness of the stand-up genre combined with raw honesty of a social drama – a fusion that sets the show up for instant success which has not quite yet reached mainstream audiences outside Australia. This article’s goal is to not only introduce and review Please Like Me for the Re:Views reader, but to also possibly get the reader to (please) like Please Like Me.

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By Martina Krénová

What could go wrong when a handsome, charismatic vicar partners with a police detective to solve crimes? The duo of a flawed vicar loving cricket, whiskey, jazz, and women, battling his inner demons, and a highly practical police detective, who has a strong sense of duty to make the society better, stumble upon many interesting cases, which bring them the enjoyment of solving crimes in a good company but also get them into a lot of trouble.

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By Anna Formánková

Three years after the 50th anniversary of James Bond on screen, the franchise continues with what is expected to be the most successful Bond movie yet: SPECTRE. The embodiment of what Ian Fleming always desired to become returns on silver screen in the 24th instalment, the fourth adventure starring Daniel Craig as the iconic MI6 agent.

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by Anna Formánková

Ian Fleming, the man who introduced the world to one of the biggest British heroes: Bond. James Bond. Though best known as a successful author of the Bond novels, Fleming drew inspiration for 007’s adventures from his own experience which he gained while working at the British Naval Intelligence Division. His life before Bond, including the WWII espionage period, is now uncovered in the four-part dramatisation ‘Fleming’, starring Dominic Cooper as the iconic personage.

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By Lucie Horáková

Butler’s Severance is an unexpected take on the format of a short story collection. It contains sixty one very short texts that all adhere to some rather specific rules. Each short story has exactly 240 words. Why? Because Butler used some interesting facts as his starting point. First, “After decapitation, the human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes.” And second: “In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute.” This suggests that a decapitated head should be able to deliver a 240-word-long inner soliloquy and this is the content of Butler’s short story collection – sixty one 240-word-long inner monologues inside various severed heads. Keep Reading

By Lucie Horáková

At the end of 2014, Neil Gaiman published a new book, called The Sleeper and the Spindle, and many Gaiman fans rejoiced. Because some of them are also in our editorial board, the candidate for the spring Re:Views issue suggested itself. As a piece to review, The Sleeper and the Spindle is quite problematic – how to review a book only few pages long, whose message cannot be analysed without revealing a substantial part of the story? So instead of a classic review, the editorial board of Re:Views decided to share the views of three of its members about the book itself.

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Drama from the Victorian England

by Sára Dobiášová

In Victorian England, the independent and headstrong Bathsheba Everdene attracts three very different suitors: Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer; Frank Troy, a reckless Sergeant; and a prosperous and mature bachelor William Boldwood. The classic story, created by Thomas Hardy and published in 1874, is coming into the Czech cinemas in July 2015. Keep Reading

By Anna Formánková

One of the highly anticipated films of the year telling the story of one of the most unjustly mistreated man in the British history is coming into the cinemas. The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the lead role, arrives to uncover the life of the man who broke the Enigma code, Alan Turing.  Keep Reading

by Lucie Horáková

When the interwebs announced that there is to be a new TV series called Outlander, taking place in 18th century Scotland, there seemed to be no reason whatsoever to pay it any closer attention. The series, produced by American cable network Starz, promised nothing out of ordinary. Based on a bestseller by Diana Gabaldon, it tells the story of Claire Beauchamp Randall, a nurse serving in WWII, who meets her husband in Inverness for their second honeymoon after five-year separation caused by the war. On the eve of Samhain some magic gets to work and Claire is transported back in time to the period of the Jacobite risings. Immediately after the unearthly experience, Claire is almost raped by a rough English soldier and saved by a handsome highlander who then makes use of her nursing skills.  Keep Reading