Finished another Dick Francis— Driving Force. Not among Francis’ best, in my opinion. It’s about a former jockey who runs a transport service for race horses. He discovers somebody’s been smuggling something under his trucks. This is one of those books where the hero could have probably saved himself a lot of unpleasantness if he’d just gone to the police with what he knew in the first place.
Viking news! Mel Gibson says he’s still working on his Viking movie, in spite of losing Leonardo DiCaprio (what a loss!) as the star a couple years ago. He’s working on the script with Randall Wallace (Braveheart). That all sounds good, except that he now tells us his attitude toward Vikings: They are “very unsympathetic characters and these guys will be bad.”
I know a guy who was actually approached to find reenactors to be extras in the early stages of this project. I contemplated trying to bring my outfit up to code, just to be part of it. I probably won’t lose any sleep about not participating now.
Braveheart? Good? Braveheart?!!!
*sputters in incoherent English Medievalist rage*
“Braveheart” is a good movie. Not good history, but a good movie. Randall Wallace is a serious Catholic and a fine writer.
I will with great reluctance admit you may be right.
As long as you promise never, ever to mention “King Arthur” to me…
I lost count of historical errors in the first 5 minutes…
I have refused from the first to see “King Arthur.” And that deeply disappointed me, because the essential concept was one I’d been looking forward to.
Yes. Early Medieval British history is my specialty, so I am interested in anything set in that period. And I wrote my Undergraduate thesis on the Arthurian Legend, and will read any version of it that crosses my path. So I was interested in the first major film dealing with the “historical Arthur”. But when the film starts with a caption reading “Britain, AD 452”, then zooms in on Hadrian’s Wall with Roman soldiers marching along it, and 30 seconds later Germanus comes on the scene… The legions pulled out of Britain in 410. Germanus’ visit was in 429 (IIRC) and he died in the 440s, in Rome…
Of course, for sheer so-bad-its-almost-good humor, there’s the Texan White Supremacist Biker-gang Anglo-Saxons…
I take particular offense at that, as I was born on St. Germanus’ Day.