Classical rocks

[Andy Gilham]

On Tuesday, January 06, 1998 6:57 PM, J Strobridge
[SMTP:eset08 at HOLYROOD.ED.AC.UK] wrote:
> Andy Gilham writes:
>

> well I work in the English Literature dept (secretary, admittedly), have
> read a fair number of what are euphemistically called "the classics" in
> literature and also listen to Hawkwind.

Well there you go :) - I tend to assume that everyone on the net is a
computer person unless I know different!


>
> > ObMovie - _Starship Troopers_!!!
>
> you jest(?)   For about 10 mins I thought there was going to be an
> intelligent film interwoven among the dross but I gave up that hope
> soon enough and my sympathy is entirely with the stick insects!

No, I thought it was superb.  I know Verhoeven brings out strong feelings
both for and against, but I think he is a much more intelligent film-maker
than he is often accused of being.  His penchant for graphic violence does
bring accusations of voyeurism - even I didn't see _Showgirls_, and I'm
generally a big fan of his - but if you're making a film where one of the
themes is the horror of war, then I think you have to show some of the
horror.  Verhoeven himself isn't, I think, necessarily militaristic himself
- but the film does pose the question, can you be a pacifist when your life
is on the line?  And the Californisation of world culture is one of the
film's many little jokes.  It's got a lot of parallels with his earlier
_Soldier of Orange_, where Hauer and Krabbe started off as student pals and
ended up as embittered resistance fighters.

What was there not to like about it? (Unless you're a Heinlein fan who
doesn't like liberties being taken with the original? :)

-Andy

--
mailto:Andy.Gilham at btinternet.com; http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.gilham