Snark, Critic and Pop!

Yes, Steve Berry’s latest novel is the Jefferson Key, a.k.a. The Da Jefferson Code: National Treasure.  What is it with all these historical figures leaving various clues, riddles, secret treasures, and mysteries in their wake, it’s a wonder they had time to become historical figures in the first place. 

Anyhoo, the plot of The Jefferson Key reads thusly, as stated on the author’s website:

Four United States presidents have been assassinated—in 1865, 1881, 1901, and 1963—each murder seemingly unrelated and separated by time. (continue reading…)

Adam Sandler plays his own twin sister in Jack & Jill, who dates Al Pacino. The horror. The horror. (continue reading…)

Oh, Da Vinci, what have you wrought? This is a real book, The Mozart Conspiracy:

Who really murdered Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1790s Vienna?

Was he poisoned by a jealous rival composer? Was he killed for breaking the Freemasons’ code of silence? Or was a shadowy historical Order somehow involved in his death? Was the bizarre and brutal murder of pianist Oliver Llewellyn two centuries later somehow connected?

These are the questions facing troubled former SAS soldier Ben Hope in a breathless quest to find the killers of his friend Oliver. At the centre of the mystery lies an old letter, rediscovered after many years, which may or may not have been written by Mozart himself. (continue reading…)

It’s nice to know Antonio Banderas is still alive and getting work, even if his latest flick, The Skin I Live In, is so disgusting it sent the French running from the theater sick to their stomachs.  Jo Piazza reports from the Cannes film festival:

(The Skin I Live In) focuses on a mad but brilliant surgeon (Banderas) who kidnaps a man who raped his daughter.

The doctor’s daughter killed herself from the grief and it drives him to take very drastic measures. This is where it gets complicated and disturbing. (continue reading…)