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Ian McEwan s symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia s childhood friend. But Briony s incomplete grasp of adult motives together with her precocious literary gifts brings about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century,
Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority th! at mark it as a genuine masterpiece.Ian McEwan's Booker Prize-nominated
Atonement is his first novel since
Amsterdam took home the prize in 1998. But while
Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece,
Atonement is a more sturdy, more ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think, and experiment.
We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama "The Trials of Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto the scene. The charlady's son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Ammo" chocolate ! bar; and upstairs, Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily kee! ps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present....
The interwar, upper-middle-class setting of the book's long, masterfully sustained opening section might recall Virginia Woolf or Henry Green, but as we move forward--eventually to the turn of the 21st century--the novel's central concerns emerge, and McEwan's voice becomes clear, even personal. For at heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains, and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative, and at times moving book that will have readers applauding. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.ukFrom the award-winning director of Pride and Prejudice comes a stunning, critically acclaimed epic story of love. When a young girl catches her sister in a passionate embrace with a childhood friend, her jealousy dr! ives her to tell a lie that will irrevocably change the course of all their lives forever. Academy Award® nominee Keira Knightley and James McAvoy lead an all-star cast in the film critics are hailing "the year's best picture" (Thelma Adams, US Weekly).Director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice) gives Ian McEwan’s bestselling novel a sumptuous treatment for the screen that should come to be regarded as one of the defining films of the epic romantic drama. Indeed, everything about this film stems from those three words: there is little here that is not epic, romantic, and dramatic, and Atonement is a film that masterfully expresses the overarching sense of adventure and emotion that such stories are meant to convey. In this instance, the story centers around the love story of highborn Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy, in a star-making turn), in England shortly before World War II. Despite their class differen! ces, they are powerfully attracted to each other, and just as ! their re lationship begins Robbie is tragically forced away due to false accusations from Cecilia’s younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan). She has a crush on Robbie, too, and after reading a private letter he sent to Cecilia, and then witnessing the first expression of their mutual love but mistaking it for mistreatment, her resentment grows until it leads to her telling the lie that will send Robbie away. Soon World War II breaks out; Robbie enlists and is posted to France, Cecilia is a nurse in London, and Briony, now age 18 and aware of what she has done, tries to atone for her actions--but none of them will be able to get back what they have lost. Knightley and McAvoy are perfectly cast as the young star crossed lovers, and the young Ronan is particularly impressive, but it’s clear that the real star of this film is the director. Wright allows Atonement to revel in every moment of its story and each scene is compelling in its own way, but that now famous extended shot ! with Robbie on the beach at Dunkirk--filmed in one take and sure to be considered one of the great long tracking shots in film history--is the most memorable moment in this remarkable film. Atonement is an excellent example of what can happen when a great book meets great filmmaking. This is one that is not to be missed. --Daniel Vancini
Stills from Atonement (click for larger image).
The novel opens on a sweltering summer day in 1935 at the Tallis family’s mansion in the Surrey countryside. Thirteen-year-old Briony has written a play in honor of the visit of her adored older brother Leon; other guests include her three young cousins -- refugees from their parent’s marital breakup -- Leon’s friend Paul Marshall, the manufacturer of a chocolate bar called “Amo†that soldiers will be able to carry into war, and Robbie Turner, the son of the family charlady whose brilliantly successful college career has been funded by Mr. Tallis. Jack Tallis is absent from the gathering; he spends most of his time in London at the War Ministry and with his mistress. His wife Emily is a semi-invalid, nursing chronic migraine headaches. Their elder daughter Cecilia is also present; she has just g! raduated from Cambridge and is at home for the summer, restles! s and ye arning for her life to really begin. Rehearsals for Briony’s play aren’t going well; her cousin Lola has stolen the starring role, the twin boys can’t speak the lines properly, and Briony suddenly realizes that her destiny is to be a novelist, not a dramatist.
In the midst of the long hot afternoon, Briony happens to be watching from a window when Cecilia strips off her clothes and plunges into the fountain on the lawn as Robbie looks on. Later that evening, Briony thinks she sees Robbie attacking Cecilia in the library, she reads a note meant for Cecilia, her cousin Lola is sexually assaulted, and she makes an accusation that she will repent for the rest of her life.
The next two parts of
Atonement shift to the spring of 1940 as Hitler’s forces are sweeping across the Low Countries and into France. Robbie Turner, wounded, joins the disastrous British retreat to Dunkirk. Instead of going up to Cambridge to begin her studies, Briony has become! a nurse in one of London’s military hospitals. The fourth and final section takes place in 1999, as Briony celebrates her 77th birthday with the completion of a book about the events of 1935 and 1940, a novel called
Atonement.
In its
broad historical framework
Atonement is a departure from McEwan’s earlier work, and he loads the story with an emotional intensity and a gripping plot reminiscent of the best nineteenth-century fiction. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, the novel is a profoundly moving exploration of shame and forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.From the award-winning director of Pride and Prejudice comes a stunning, critically acclaimed epic story of love. When a young girl catches her sister in a passionate embrace with a childhood friend, her jealousy drives her to tell a lie that will irrevocably change the course of all their lives forever. Ac! ademy Award® nominee Keira Knightley and James McAvoy lead an! all-sta r cast in the film critics are hailing "the year's best picture" (Thelma Adams, US Weekly).Director Joe Wright (
Pride and Prejudice) gives Ian McEwan’s bestselling novel a sumptuous treatment for the screen that should come to be regarded as one of the defining films of the epic romantic drama. Indeed, everything about this film stems from those three words: there is little here that is not epic, romantic, and dramatic, and
Atonement is a film that masterfully expresses the overarching sense of adventure and emotion that such stories are meant to convey. In this instance, the story centers around the love story of highborn Cecilia Tallis (Keira Knightley) and housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner (James McAvoy, in a star-making turn), in England shortly before World War II. Despite their class differences, they are powerfully attracted to each other, and just as their relationship begins Robbie is tragically forced away due to false accusations from Cecilia’s y! ounger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan). She has a crush on Robbie, too, and after reading a private letter he sent to Cecilia, and then witnessing the first expression of their mutual love but mistaking it for mistreatment, her resentment grows until it leads to her telling the lie that will send Robbie away. Soon World War II breaks out; Robbie enlists and is posted to France, Cecilia is a nurse in London, and Briony, now age 18 and aware of what she has done, tries to atone for her actions--but none of them will be able to get back what they have lost. Knightley and McAvoy are perfectly cast as the young star crossed lovers, and the young Ronan is particularly impressive, but it’s clear that the real star of this film is the director. Wright allows
Atonement to revel in every moment of its story and each scene is compelling in its own way, but that now famous extended shot with Robbie on the beach at Dunkirk--filmed in one take and sure to be considered one of the ! great long tracking shots in film history--is the most memorab! le momen t in this remarkable film.
Atonement is an excellent example of what can happen when a great book meets great filmmaking. This is one that is not to be missed. --
Daniel Vancini Stills from Atonement (click for larger image).
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- It s been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard) were the bad boys of their college campus. Ben has settled down and found a job, wife, and home. Andrew took the alternate route as a vagabond artist, skipping the globe from Chiapas to Cambodia. When Andrew shows up unannounced on Ben s doorstep, they easily fall back into their old dynamic of macho one-upmanship. Late into the night at
It's been a decade since Ben (Duplass) and Andrew (Leonard)
were college bad boys. Ben is living contently with a good job and a great wife, until his old buddy Andrew shows up on his doorstep late one night. Andrew, who lives as a vagabond artist, invites Ben out to a wild party. Excessive drinking
combined with the irrational need to oneup each other, leads to a mutual dare that locks them into entering an
amateur porn contest together.A bromantic comedy par excellence,
Humpday push! es the concept of male bonding and male competition (so often intertwined) to its end point. Two old buddies, Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Joshua Leonard), reunite after a few years' time. Mark is living the bourgeois life in Seattle, with a home, a wife (Alycia Delmore), and a responsible job. Andrew's just blown in from vagabonding around Mexico, and his bohemian cred is as thick as his beard. When the buds drunkenly vow to participate in a local amateur porn-movie contest with themselves as stars, the stage is set for a game of staredown: neither guy wants to be the first to blink and admit he isn't quite open-minded or free-swinging enough for the stunt. (One large roadblock: Ben needs to actually convey the information about the film project to his wife, a dilemma that leads to some of the movie's funniest scenes.) Director Lynn Shelton works in an improvisatory style, figuring out the dialogue with the actors and creating a loose, frowzy atmosphere within scenes. Th! at sense of verisimilitude helps sell the whopper of a premise! , but wh at's even more impressive is Shelton's laser-like sense of male insecurity and rivalry (also on view in her previous picture,
My Effortless Brilliance). Duplass (from
The Puffy Chair) and Leonard (a
Blair Witch trekker) play this to the hilt, particularly in the gloriously uncomfortable climatic scene, when push, shall we say, is going to have to come to shove.
Humpday was a Sundance breakout in 2009, coming out of nowhere (i.e., Seattle, Shelton's home base) and snagging a summer release. And why not? If the specific plot isn't exactly a universal experience, the movie's underlying anxieties certainly are.
--Robert Horton
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This 3CD box with a slipcase and extended booklet features: 17 career-spanning Enigma hits, 12 highly sought after remixes, The Lost Ones: 11 never before released tracks created by Michael Cretu over the entire Enigma career!Reissue of Enigma's double platinum & top 10 debut from 1990 with a six track bonus CD shrinkwrapped on top of the CD album and featuring three mixes apiece of 'Sadeness - Part I' (Meditation Mix, Extended Trance Mix and Violent US Remix) and 'Mea Culpa -So much unnecessary fuss was made over Enigma's juxtaposition of the sexual and sacred. After all, Prince had been doing it for years, and his take on it was far more interesting--and a lot more daring. But Enigma's
MCMXC A.D. did manage to work a lot of people into a lather, both on the dance floor and behind the pulpit. Their inclusion of chanting monks in "Sadeness," over wooshy ambient n! oises and a slower hip-hop-appropriated beat was a sensation. "Callas Went Away" promised more than it could deliver, although "Mea Culpa" stands as one of the few shining moments on the CD. The idea of mixing new age aural wallpaper with beats that you can do a slow grind to is actually rather intriguing. Spicing it up with controversial religious chants isn't a bad idea either. But there's got to be something personal to it. After the initial novelty wears off, there's nothing to
MCMXC A.D. other than bland, cold, impersonal repetition. Now, that might be what most people are used to, but what's so sexy about it? --
Steve GdulaSeven Lives Many Faces is Enigma's seventh album. This album expands the sound catalogue of previous releases and it is expected to lead to a new Omni-Cultural wave. The lead single "Seven Lives" is a powerful fusion of modern and classical elements. Enigma is an Electronic musical project founded by Michael Cretu, David Fairstein and F! rank Peterson in 1990. Cretu is both the composer and the prod! ucer; hi s former wife Sandra often provided vocals on Enigma tracks. Jens Gad co-produced and played guitar on three of the Enigma albums.17 tracks.
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Haunting, evocative, mysterious, and magnificent, Enigma's
Cross of Changes offers nine musical ex! plorations of sound and sensation that dazzle and amaze. The s! ongs unf old in rolling waves, each more complex and richly layered than the last, yet each fully capable of standing alone as a musically satisfying experience. The standout track on this disc is "Return to Innocence," which combines Native American chanting, Celtic harmonies, and a deceptively simple lyric to devastating effect. At once esoteric and elemental,
Cross of Changes is a fine example of the best the genre has to offer.
--L.A. Smith
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