Saturday, October 1, 2016

Review of "Best Men," movie on DVD



Review of 

Best Men, DVD

Four out of five stars
 This is an odd movie, with absurd premises and an ending that is both fortunate and unfortunate. In the opening, one of the characters (Jesse) is met by the other men in formal dress as he is released from prison. They are all to be groomsmen at his wedding that is to take place later that day. Drew Barrymore plays Hope, the potential bride, but she is not in any way a star of the movie. All of the men are local boys from the small town where the action takes place.
 Billy, the son of the local Sherriff, from which he is estranged, has the bright idea that he will rob the town bank. He has committed a series of bank robberies and has been given the nickname “Hamlet” because he quotes passages from the play during the robbery. Billy feels the need for some cash so that he can give his friend a wedding present.
 The robbery goes bad when another of the friends, an ex-Green Beret, confronts Billy. In order to end the danger, Billy whips off his mask and some of the people in the bank recognize him. The other friends then take Billy’s side and a standoff develops between the friends in the bank and local and national law enforcement. The FBI agent in charge is depicted as a nasty, unprincipled man, having no hesitation in ordering his men to shoot to kill.
 There are many different aspects to this story, but the main theme is that of the depth of the loyalty that these men have for each other. The biblical phrase “Greater love hath no man that he lay down his life for his friend. “ is literally expressed in their actions. That is what saves this movie, for the other premises are absurd.  

Review of "Modesty Blaise: Live Bait," by Peter O’ Donnell and Enric Badia Romero



Review of
Modesty Blaise: Live Bait, by Peter O’ Donnell and Enric Badia Romero ISBN 9780857686688

Five out of five stars
The three stories in this collection demonstrate Modesty and Willie at their best, challenging their opponents and besting them any way they can. To emerge victorious, they must take great risks, using all their cunning expertise when battling great odds.
 The title of the collection is from the third story, where a very bad adversary from their past has kidnapped the daughter of one of Modesty’s former female associates. The name of the man is Malik and he demands a ransom to be delivered by Modesty. It is clear that Malik has no real interest in the money, his goal is revenge.  This story demonstrates the respect and loyalty that Willie has for Modesty. When she orders him to leave with the girl after Modesty is shot, Willie does not hesitate to navigate the boat to shore. All the while swearing vicious revenge if Modesty is killed.
 The second story is one that has the return of the obnoxious Guido Biganzoli, he knocks on the door when Modesty is in the act of enjoying a hot bath. At first she is ready to boot him out of her room, but when he explains that it is a case of trafficking naive young women for the making of sex tapes and an occasional genuine snuff film, Modesty is all in. Outnumbered and outgunned against ruthless killers, Modesty, Willie and Guido best the bad men and free the women sex slaves.
 The first story is one that has a light-hearted bent. Samantha is a feisty girl that invites Willie to her martial arts class. When the woman that Willie is driving back to a dinner rendezvous with her husband and Modesty is kidnapped, Willie and Modesty take it very personally. With the aid of Samantha and her gang of kids on bikes, they are able to track the kidnappers down. Samantha is portrayed as a young version of Modesty, a fact that both Modesty and Willie recognize. One of the lightest moments is when Samantha is bossing her biker older brother and he follows her emphatically delivered instructions.
 The Modesty Blaise character first appeared in 1963 at a time when women characters were generally expected to scream and faint at the first sign of danger. She was strong, intelligent, powerful and determined, a character that blazed trails for other women characters in fiction. Modesty is also beautiful and sexy, something that she exploits on occasion when she needs the advantage. This is a great book.

Contents of "Journal of Recreational Mathematics" Volume 12, 1979-80



Contents of Journal of Recreational Mathematics Volume 12, 1979-80

Number 1
Editor’s Page, by Harry L. Nelson
“L-Play is a Draw,” by Karl Scherer
“Repdigit Polygonal Numbers,” by Michael Keith
“Exploring the Planiverse,” by A. K. Dewdney
“The Magic of Pi,” by Monte Zerger
“Mama-thematics,” by Charles W. Trigg
“On ‘LEGO’ Towers,” by P. J. S. Watson
“Ratios of Sequential Digit Numbers,” by Se June Hong and Daniel L. Ostapko
“Magic Math – A New Dice Toy,” by Benjamin L. Schwartz
“Fibonoid Sequences Modulo m,” by Henry A. Kierstead
Alphametics and Solutions to 11(1) Alphametics, edited by Steven Kahan
Problems and Conjectures, edited by Friend H. Kierstead, Jr.
Solutions to Problems and Conjectures, edited by John Brinn and Romae Cormier
“The Persistent Difference,” Israel Cohen
Solvers List
“Occasional MatheMADics,” by Charles W. Trigg

Number 2
“Treating 1978 in an Orderly Manner,” by C. S. Metchette
“An Acute Analysis of an Obtuse Problem from a New Angle,” by Henry A. Kierstead
Errata
“Rational Geometric Dissections of Convex Polygons,” by David M. Collison
Letter to the Editor, by Henry A. Kierstead
“Subdividing a Box into Completely Incongruent Boxes,” by William H. Cutler
“The Duffinian Numbers,” by L. Richard Duffy
More Errata
“Generalization of the 64/16 Problem,” by R. P. Boas
“Some Related Prime Sequences,” by Charles W. Trigg
Book Reviews, edited by Charles W. Trigg
“Some New Results on a Shuffling Problem,” by James O. Achugbue and Francis Y. Chin
Alphametics and Solutions to 11(2) Alphametics, edited by Steven Kahan
Problems and Conjectures, edited by Friend H. Kierstead, Jr.
Solutions to Problems and Conjectures, edited by John Brinn and Romae Cormier
“Solutions to Two ‘Old’ Problems,” by Paul Erdös

Number 3
“Problem Editor’s Page,” by F. Kierstead
“Inside Out Dissections,” by David M. Collison
“The Icosahedron and Tangled Tetrahedron,” by Henry Lulli
“Queen Squares,” by David A. Klarner
“On the Problem of Reflecting Queens,” by Yukio Kusaka
“Tell All the Lies You Want – Liars Never Win,” by Paul Hartung
“The Powers of 37,” by Charles W. Trigg
“Island of Five Color Tribes,” by Makoto Arisawa and Takeshi Nakajima
“The Fibonacci Series in the Decimal Equivalents of Fractions,” by Charles F. Winans
“Some New Results on Y-Pentominoes,” by Karl Scherer
Letters to the Editor
Alphametics and Solutions to 11(3) Alphametics, edited by Steven Kahan
Problems and Conjectures, edited by Friend H. Kierstead, Jr.
Solutions to Problems and Conjectures, edited by John Brinn and Romae Cormier
Solvers List
Plus: Filler Fun on pages: 176, 178, 181, 185, 191, 194, 200, 204, 217, 221, 224, 237

Number 4
“The Duke Checker Program,” by Tom Truscott
“Magic Squares Composed of Consecutive Odd Prime Numbers,” by William H. Benson
“Scrabble Problem,” by Harry Nelson
“A Search for N-Pentacube Prime Boxes,” by David Klarner
“Pirates of Penzance,” by Frank Rubin
“Sharing the Lore,” by John McClellan
“Integers Closed Under Reversal-Subtraction,” by Charles W. Trigg
Quickies
“On the Digital Root Series,” by V. Sasi Kumar
“A Theorem Concerning Octagonal Numbers,” by William J. O’Donnell
“Generalized Fractured Fractions,” by Michael Keith
Letters to the Editor
“Togetherness,” by Charles W. Trigg
Book Reviews, edited by Charles W. Trigg
Alphametics and Solutions to 11(4) Alphametics, edited by Steven Kahan
“Digit Sums of Powers,” by Herman Nijon
Problems and Conjectures, edited by Friend H. Kierstead, Jr.
Solutions to Problems and Conjectures, edited by John Brinn and Romae Cormier
List of Solvers