Review by Mike L., Adult Services Librarian
“You know the child's game: if you say your name enough times it becomes gibberish. That holds true for whole concepts, even entire bodies of thought. For example, take Nietzsche's old line: if you stare into an abyss, it also states into you. Right? Well, that has been rendered meaningless through repetition. It's a refrigerator magnet, it's a cliché. It's harmless … So the question becomes: if profound meaning can be robbed of…
Review by Mike L., Adult Services Librarian
The concept of language as a virus has been around for quite some time. First toyed with by William S. Burroughs in his 1962 novel The Ticket That Exploded, it makes a certain amount of sense. Language spreads and mutates, it changes us, shapes and reshapes the way we function on a fundamental level. The main difference is that where we tend to think of a virus as intrinsically harmful, language isn’t. It…
Review by Mike L., Adult Services Librarian
In 1971, a young filmmaker by the name of Steven Spielberg made his feature film debut with a made-for-television film called Duel. Adapted from the Richard Matheson story of the same name, Spielberg saw the film as “High Noon on wheels.” It tells the story of David Mann, a quintessential everyman, as his name implies, whom one day happens to cut off the wrong semi-truck while driving on the highway and is subsequently…
Review by Mike L., Adult Services Librarian
Often, when a film is going to introduce an outlandish twist during its third act, it will play its cards close to its chest. It will show restraint before the madness, either not wanting to alienate the audience or wishing preserve the sheer shock of how “out there” things will get. James Wan’s Malignant has no such restraint. While it treads carefully in revealing the exact nature of its paranormal threat, right from…
