Review of Duck Soup (1933)

Duck Soup was always one of those movies that I’d heard of, was even familiar with, but had never sat down to watch. Indeed, no film out of the entire Marx Brothers oeuvre had ever passed before these eyes. But finally, when presented with the “What shall we watch over dinner?” question, it popped out of the DVD binder and there we were.

It took me a moment, while messing around with TCB’s insanely complex video/audio setup, to figure out that the Marx Brothers made talkies – of course, Groucho’s delivery wouldn’t be so legendary if it all came up in supertitle, and Harpo’s silence wouldn’t have been worth comment. Let the credits roll…

Review: Stardust

It is very important (according to Douglas Adams) to annoy the fans. By which he means, some people are going to obsess about every tiny detail of your adaptation (“But the ship appeared with a ‘fop’ in the book, while that was clearly a ‘fwow'”), and these people are worthy of the author’s – indeed, everybody’s – contempt.