Paris Review

Happy birthday to Hui Qian today. : )

Anyway, here is a link to a website which is tangentially related to our lit stuff, a repository of information and archives on authors from the past fifty years, The Paris Review. (Though we are generally focusing on the first half of the twentieth century for our lit paper, it will help give an idea of the contexts of the authors of the earlier years.)

Are people reading this?

Hi everyone, how was your holiday?

I thought I'd draw everyone's attention to V for Vendetta, the film starring Natalie Portman and a masked Agent Smith (i.e. Hugo Weaving) which is based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore of the same name.

It can be a tad bit violent and dark for some of you out there, but it's generally quite entertaining, drawing on the tradition of dystopian ideas and literature along the likes of 1984, Brave New World, etc, exploring the situation where freedom and individuality are compromised under the iron fist of a power-hungry totalitarian leader.

Alan Moore's graphic novel is based on Thatcherite England back in the 1980s when he was mad at the Conservatives, but the Wachowski Brothers (the guys who brought you The Matrix) has tried to update the film to fit more recent contexts (i.e. terrorism).

By the way, the hero is psychotic and spouts lines from Shakespeare.

So here's something to consider watching when you're at the cinema.