Grape And The Grain, The - Leo Abrahams

Of grapes and gripes

Advantages: Exceptionally delicious
Disadvantages: Hard to find in Britain, and impossible to find in British supermarkets

One of the pleasures of visiting France is that there one can walk into any supermarket and buy fruit that is both tasty and ripe. This is in marked contrast to shopping in Britain, where the main retail chains seem to make it a point of principle to stock only the varieties with the least flavour and to sell them so under-ripe that any potential for flavour will have no chance to reach fruition. Anyone who has only ever eaten fruit bought from British supermarkets can have no notion of how good it can actually taste. Indeed, they will probably have grown up under the illusion that fruit is essentially tasteless. Of no fruit is this truer than the grape. I am just back from a short visit to France where I have been enjoying grapes of the muscat variety, which are universally on sale there at this time of year. Admittedly ...

torr 28.10.2009 (29.10.2009) · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Muscat grapes

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Advantages: A masterpiece
Disadvantages: A very long masterpiece

Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is an incredibly popular story. Well known and loved by many it has survived the passage of time and is as beguiling and popular now as it has ever been. I say story rather than novel as this has been the subject of many film and TV adaptations, from Greta Garbo in 1935 to Sophie Marceau in 1997 the IMDb website lists no less than 24 different adaptations, from all over the world. How popular the novel itself is is questionable, weighing in at over 800 pages it is quite daunting but if you've only seen the films you really have missed out. The novel is a masterpiece of literature and covers characters and themes far beyond the reach of film. I'll be honest and say that I've never seen any of these adaptations but from the synopsis' and commentaries I've read it seems that they focus almost entirely ...

brereton66 18.02.2008 · Read full review
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Review of Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

Advantages: Characters, Story.
Disadvantages: A little slow to begin with.

It's quite easy to dismiss What's Eating Gilbert Grape as being another clichéd love story if you choose to judge the film purely for its tagline "a film about the love you find... in the last place you look." If you choose to venture deeper, beyond the fairytale publicity, you will find that this film is actually a lot more realistic than the headlines attempt to make out. What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a family story with plenty of surprises, based on the novel by Peter Hedges. Gilbert (Johnny Depp) is in charge of caring for his mentally handicapped brother, Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio), while his sisters cook and clean for their 500-pound Mother (Darlene Cates). After the death of their Father a number of years ago, Gilbert has (reluctantly) been promoted to the male head of the Grape family. He also has to work at a local food store ...

andycarrington 02.07.2009 · Read full review
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Review of What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (DVD)