Book Log 02/2015 - Lisa Shearin: Wild Card

This is a prequel novella in Lisa Shearin's Raine Benares series detailing her first meeting with Tam Nathratch, the one-time dark Goblin mage turned casino owner. Raine is a magical seeker, finding goods and people that have gone astray. Between them Raine, Tam and Raine's piratical cousin, Phelan, get involved with reclaiming jewels that have been used to store the stolen souls of children.

It's a fairly straightforward plot, but Shearin's strengths are character, pace and voice and this has all of her trademark quirks in good measure. It serves as a good intro to her world and a nice revisit for those of us who have read all of the Raine Benares series beginning with Magic Lost, Trouble Found. A quick read. Recommended.

Movie of the Week: Birdman

We'd planned to see Into the Woods, but on a whim went to see Birdman instead. Wow, what a movie! Intense, funny in parts (though not a comedy) and gruelling at times it's the story of Riggan Thomson, an actor who twenty years previously was a movie star playing superhero 'Birdman' and who is now trying to redeem his flagging acting career by sinking all he has into a serious Broadway play. Don't whatever you do, assume this is a one-man version of Galaxy Quest. Nothing could be further from hard reality. On the edge of losing it, Riggan is plagued by the voice of Birdman in his head and superpowers that manifest sporadically when no one else is around (or do they?). (The voice and the character costume are a serious echo of Keaton's Batman.) Michael Keaton's self-referential performance as Riggan is little short of brilliant. Edward Norton as the talented but destructively egotistical actor who comes in at the last minute to 'save the play' is powerfully played. Kudos also to Emma Stone as Sam, Riggan's daughter. It's a small cast and all the performances are excellent. One of the stars of the show is the cinematography. Fluid hand-held camera work captures the grim claustrophobia of backstage: scruffy dressing rooms, labyrinthine corridors, peeling plaster and bare brickwork, compared to the frightening openness of the stage itself where suddenly every flaw is in the spotlight.

It's already being tipped as an Oscar contender*. I thought it was brilliant with strobe-like flashes of deeply uncomfortable truthfullness. My cinebuddy, H, hated it from beginning to end. Take your pick.

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*
And right after I wrote this it picked up nine Oscar nominations and won Best Movie