other

The Other
$14.98
THE OTHER works because it is put together like some dark engine, where every little piece is essential. Tom Tryon (I Married A Monster From Outer Space) wrote the book and screenplay w/ intricately devilish precision. The Perry twins, Niles and Holland (Chris and Martin Udvarnoky) are not what they appear to be. There is something very wrong going on. Something just beneath the surface. Something spiteful, malicious, and deadly. The rest of the family is either oblivious, or pretending not to notice. That is, they are mere fodder for an evil that threatens to consume them all. An evil draped in childhood innocence. What REALLY happened to dad? The cousin? The neighbor? What WILL happen next? Watch closely. Every scene has some small puzzle-piece. Some hint. THE OTHER is like watching a horror / nightmare version of THE WALTONS! Everything looks fine, but as the story unfolds, nothing is fine. Never has been...

The Lives of Others
$14.94
I watched this movie when it came out and it's one movie I had to own. I recommend it to all my friends all the time.

The Others (Two-Disc Collector's Edition)
$14.99
A well acted, spooky movie, but once you have seen it there is no need to see it again. All the action is based upon what is revealed at the end of the movie, so a second viewing leaves one wondering why they are wasting time watching the movie. Unless you just like the acting. Rent first, then decide if you want a copy in your library.

The Other
$12.95
If you are looking for another book of Kapuscinski's global travel writings with those perceptive observations on all that he saw especially in rapidly developing or changing countries, then I fear this slim item is probably not for you.

Sadly it seems with his recent death (2007) and a seeming lack of unprinted travel writings, this book may evidence a danger of our seeing books printed that are at risk of ruining the man's hard earned lifetime reputation.

The book is a collection of lectures given by the author to different Central European forums, the earliest one being 1990 but the majority being from late 2004. The subject of all the lectures is the same and an interesting idea, being the impact of how we have interacted in our approach to people from other continents and cultures throughout history. The dangers of the European attitude especially, to other cultures (the "Other" of the book title) and how in a more easily traversed globe having a colonial "centrism" mindset wastes opportunities for interaction and mutual improvement is well made.

The problem is the same point is made repeatedly in the different lectures and by the end of the 80 odd pages, the repetition gets as frustrating as it is enlightening. The book is also not helped by having a lecture style that is very formal and intellectual, one assumes in part driven by the audience the author was addressing. Continual references to certain writers and anthropologists most of whom are one suspects not well known, in turn suffers from repetition especially in the cases of Levinas and Malinowski.

The main benefit of the book is to make some very simple perceptive observations on the subject which get the reader thinking but as a fully conceived and structured body of arguments, it was frustrating to read.