Monday 27 June 2011

Adding to the list.....

  The next films to find a place on my 1001 Movies To See Before You Die list are, as follows: (5) HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN, (6) THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and (7) THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE having just watched them all in the space of 1 week in time for the release of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 (the final ever Harry Potter) which is coming out in just a few months!

Why include these particular films in the series and not those I have missed out? Well, the reason is because, quite simply, I feel these are the better of the later films and the ones I have enjoyed the most. And this list is, first and foremost, a personal choice and I am not going to include movies that don't, for whatever reason, quite make the grade!

For me personally, DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 just feels like an overlong prelude to the inevitable final battle and though I enjoyed it, I preferred the other films that made the list better; GOBLET OF FIRE just feels like it is reverting back a little to the earlier films with its emphasis on the Tri-Wizards Competition and it is only the last act that really redeems the film for me; and CHAMBER OF SECRETS just feels a little to similar in style to the first film and so slightly loses its own identity! Again, these are just personal observations and I would welcome quite gladly anybody else's thoughts or opinions!

Meanwhile, a new addition at (25) to my 1001 Books And Authors list is THE ROSARY GIRLS BY RICHARD MONTANARI. This is an awesome start to an ongoing Detective/ Police Procedural series that shows plenty of echoes of the better of Michael Slade's Special X books mixed with shades of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels! This first book deals with a killer of Catholic schoolgirls and is a very strong first novel in the series which is why it goes on the list!

With that in mind, for me number (26) then has to be THE CHEMISTRY OF DEATH BY SIMON BECKETT; another cracking debut Crime thriller all about a Forensic Scientist who chooses to go back to being a General Practitioner in a small Norfolk village after a personal tragedy that leaves him bereft of his wife and child. Unfortunately, he finds his past catching up with him when he discovers a dead body in the woods and realises a killer is living amongst the locals and only his expertise can help catch them! This is the first of three novels but of them, it is also the best! The Scientific Forensic knowledge is thoroughly detailed and often quite grisly but it makes for a very compelling read!

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