"But mind you," said Alan, "it's no small thing. Ye maun lie bare and hard, and brook many an empty belly. Your bed shall be the moorcock's, and your life shall be like the hunted deer's, and ye shall sleep with your hand upon your weapons. Ay, man, ye shall taigle many a weary foot, ere we get clear! I tell ye this at the start, for it's a life that I ken well. But if ye ask what other chance ye have, I answer: Nane. Either take to the heather with me, or else hang." The above statement is made by Alan Breck Stewart, an historical character who figures prominently in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel Kidnapped, which is set in 18th century Scotland sometime after the 1745 Jacobite uprising. In it, the protagonist- young David Balfour- and Alan Breck Stewart are in the wrong place at the wrong time when Colin Roy Campbell is murdered (this is an actual historical event and Stewart was indeed one of the main suspects. Campbell's men assume that they are guilty of the crime, but David is naively convinced that if they tell the truth and explain their presence, their innocence will be proven. Alan, much more aware of the danger of their situation, points out that they are on Campbell land; if they are arrested and charged, their judge will be a Campbell and the men on the jury will be Campbells, and all of them will be out for blood. He tells David that their only hope of survival is to go on the run through the highlands, trying to evade their pursuers until they can escape into the lowlands. He warns David that it won't be easy, but it's their only chance.
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"But mind you," said ----, "it's no small thing. Ye maun lie bare and hard, and brook many an empty belly. Your bed shall be the moorcock's, and your life shall be like the hunted deer's, and ye shall sleep with your hand upon your weapons. Ay, man, ye shall taigle many a weary foot, ere we get clear! I tell ye this at the start, for it's a life that I ken well. But if ye ask what other chance ye have, I answer: Nane. Either take to the heather with me, or else hang." Related Posts: I'm not exactly the target audience for the Marvel movies, which isn't to say that I haven't seen any of them. I have, though only a few here and there, in no particular order. One of the films I hadn't seen was Doctor Strange which was released in 2016. Now, I know next to nothing about the character and history of the comic book hero Doctor Strange... I don't think that my older brother- whose comics I occasionally borrowed when out of my own reading material- collected Doctor Strange comics or, if he did, I never came across any. So I can't talk with any degree of knowledge as to whether or not the movie character is an accurate representation of his comic book counterpart. The film was fine... thankfully, as a stand-alone movie, it could be watched without it being necessary to see the other films in the Marvel franchise. Which is a good thing because as mentioned, there are a lot of them that I haven't seen. On the downside, I thought that the plot was a bit thin, the villain's character was under-developed, and the film had some timing issues: some parts which didn't need much time spent on them lingered considerably while others which were skimmed over rapidly which would have benefit from having more time spent on them. I can't say that I was particularly interested in the explanations of the magic and mysticism from the Ancient One and found my mind wandering a bit whenever these were occurring, but that might just be me. Whatever problems that the movie has with story it compensates for with spectacle: the special effects are amazing. This is one film- and you won't hear me say this often- that I might actually have enjoyed seeing in 3-D. Benedict Cumberbatch is also very good in the role of Doctor Strange... you can see touches of Sherlock in the arrogant genius. There are the typical Marvel humorous moments- and dialogue- in the movie which mostly works, although sometimes it seems a little at odds with the more serious tones of the first part of the film, when Strange has his hands crushed and his life destroyed. Amy McAdams does a good job as Christine Palmer, fellow doctor and sometimes girlfriend of Doctor Strange, though the role is somewhat limited. In addition, I thought that the climax, in which Strange uses something he learned earlier in the film to defeat the baddie made a refreshing change from the usual city-destroying punch-up that usually is the culmination of this type of movie. So to sum up, I think that Doctor Strange was an entertaining spectacle, in some ways a typical Marvel movie, but with enough differences to be worth watching on its own merits. The plot wasn't amazing, but it was amazing to look at, and all in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend an evening with family. Oh, and Dr. Strange's cape reminded me of the magic carpet in Aladdin. Related Posts: Olivia de Havilland, one of the last actresses from Hollywood's Golden Age, has died at the age of 104. Many will of course know her from Gone With The Wind (she played Melanie) but my favourite of her roles was in 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood. In it she plays a feisty Lady Marian opposite Errol Flynn's Robin Hood. Flynn and de Havilland had such great chemistry that they starred in eight pictures together, starting with Captain Blood (1935). It really does seem as though it's the end of an era and we've lost our last, tenuous connection with the Hollywood of yore. I feel a bit like I did a couple of weeks ago when Vera Lynn died; just as I had listened to a lot of Lynn's music in my formative years, so I watched a good number of de Havilland's films growing up, frequently on the Saturday afternoon matinee. It's comforting to know however that she's left a rich body of work to remember her by... we are indeed fortunate in that regard.
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