essays
I write on many different topics: Eastern Orthodox Christianity, movie reviews, Christian life, the culture, and more. If you’d like to sort my essays by category, click here .
Entries from September 1, 2005 - October 1, 2005
Oliver Twist
Posted Thursday, September 29, 2005 in Movie Reviews
[National Review Online, September 29, 2005]
Watching Roman Polanski's diligently faithful version of "Oliver Twist" prompts the question: how did anyone ever think they could get a musical out of this material? For 40 years now children have been prancing around theater stages, grinning and shouting about "Food, Glorious Food," little aware of the relentless gloominess of the original. The darkness of Charles Dickens' 1838 novel must have come as a surprise even at the time; his only previous book was "The Pickwick Papers," a jolly diversion. Dickens' fans eagerly awaited his second work, and as they paged through "Oliver Twist" it must have been as if Dave Barry had released "The Gulag Archipelago."
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Tarzan, the Ape Man
Posted Sunday, September 4, 2005 in Movie Reviews
[Books & Culture, September-October 2005]
Ungawa! Tarzan's timber-rattling call defies transcription, so we'll fall back on this all-purpose locution to salute this fine new box set of MGM's six Tarzan films. Ungawa is the perfect choice whenever you can't think of the right thing to say. It appears to mean Come here, Go away, Look out, Jump, and There's a cobra behind you. Just think how a sharply enunciated "Ungawa!" could clear a Starbucks when you don't want to wait in line.
However, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan's inventor, did not write "Ungawa."
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