Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                      The Theory of Everything.        Film Review. "To be told you are going to be dead in two years, and to be still alive now and to have done the things he's done is absolutely amazing." (Lisa Bruce/Producer.) Stephen Hawking is 75. When he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease he was told the maximum life expectancy would be two years from the diagnosis. He was a PhD student in 1963. He beat the odds and probably owes his life to Jane Hawking, his first wife. He is still seeking theories of everything possible to explain our existence. Eddie Redmayne's performance as the physicist Stephen Hawking won him his first Oscar in the Best Actor category for such an outstanding performance: "Eddie's performance is amazing. About half-way through you forget that someone is acting." (Bruce) It's hard to imagine that urchin all those years ago appearing in Oliver wi...

                               The Sea. Film Review. "Solitude is a thing you learn, the knack of being alone. Time is relentless, that helps." This was Stephen Brown's directorial debut based on John Banville's 2005 Booker Prize winning novel. The film is a British-Irish collaboration filmed entirely in Co. Wexford, Ireland and premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June 2013. It boasts of renowned actors such as Ciaran Hinds, Sinead Cusack, Charlotte Rampling, Rufus Sewell and Natasha McElhone. The film explores grief and abandonment over three different time lines using frequent flashback techniques to connect with the distant past, the recent past and the present. We see the young Max Morden as a 12 year old during a vacation spent in Ballygarrett, a middle aged Morden (Hinds: Road to Perdition, Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrow Part 2) when his wife Anna ( Sinead Cusack) is diagn...

                    The One That Got Away by Simon Wood. "She wanted to see fear and terror in his eyes, the same fear and terror that she and all his other victims had suffered at his hands. She wanted him to know the misery he'd put her through." If you enjoy reading thrillers this will not disappoint you. The suspense will keep you riveted throughout. With a dramatic opening and a thrilling finale which takes a lot of beating it's an enjoyable read from a well-established author. This is one for the boys. Two young girls have been abducted after having replicated a Thelma and Louise Las Vegas, doing the works: gambling, drinking to excess and partying temporarily abandoning their respectability and studies. Zoe was a PhD student just needing to let her hair down and have fun. Girls behaving badly. So how come Zoe Sutton was still fighting for her life after the two girls were abducted and drugged even 15 months later? ...

                      Magic in the Moonlight. "The world may or may not be without purpose but it's not totally without some kind of magic." Whether you're interested in science or logic is there a place in your heart to believe that magic can and does exist? Sophie Baker (Emma Stone The Amazing Spider Man  2012) quotes Nietzsche as saying that we need our illusions to live. Stanley's response is categorical: We can't go round deluding ourselves." More importantly, what about deluding others? "Magic" is regarded as being a lightweight American romantic comedy by Woody Allen. It is not considered one of his finer films although it has been described as being accomplished and worth watching for the two main characters when they are sparring. Imagine chalk and cheese. It's just like that. Insults bounce off each other like a ball constantly hitting a brick wall. Meagre attempts at philosophising which just skirt around th...