A jewellery company once ran a Christmas ad campaign featuring glitzy earrings and diamond necklaces accompanied by the scornful slogan “Or you could get her book tokens”.
Pricks.
Granted, jewels are easier to sew into hemlines when fleeing your country, opals may protect against curses, and a diamond ring can be used to scratch a threatening message onto a mirror hanging in your enemy’s home, but in every other way – books win out.
Especially the ones below, newly published in 2023 and chosen as personal highlights by Den of Geek’s writers. Maybe find a new favourite and recommend us your picks below.
Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart (Simon & Schuster)
Sir Patrick Stewart’s first job was as a journalist and that early training in writing really shines through in this compelling book, nearly seven decades years later. This is far from a memoir-by-numbers, as Stewart’s unique voice,...
Pricks.
Granted, jewels are easier to sew into hemlines when fleeing your country, opals may protect against curses, and a diamond ring can be used to scratch a threatening message onto a mirror hanging in your enemy’s home, but in every other way – books win out.
Especially the ones below, newly published in 2023 and chosen as personal highlights by Den of Geek’s writers. Maybe find a new favourite and recommend us your picks below.
Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart (Simon & Schuster)
Sir Patrick Stewart’s first job was as a journalist and that early training in writing really shines through in this compelling book, nearly seven decades years later. This is far from a memoir-by-numbers, as Stewart’s unique voice,...
- 11/30/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Mark Shelmerdine, the Emmy-nominated producer who remade Alexander Korda’s dormant London Films label into an independent production powerhouse behind projects including I, Claudius, has died. He was 78.
Shelmerdine died Oct. 26 in Santa Barbara after a long illness, friend and fellow producer Brian Eastman told The Hollywood Reporter. After being diagnosed with a rare form of bile duct cancer in 2016, he had a life-saving liver transplant in 2018.
In the 1980s, Shelmerdine co-founded the Los Angeles branch of BAFTA and the Association of Independent Television Producers, which helped shape the sector that now dominates British TV production. He also published self-help books written by his late wife, Susan Jeffers.
The first of three children, Shelmerdine was born on March 27, 1945, in Buckinghamshire, England. His father, Dick, worked as a police office in Singapore and the Bahamas and as a postmaster in Gloucestershire, England.
Shelmerdine started out as an accountant at Coopers & Lybrand and Taylor Clark Ltd.
Shelmerdine died Oct. 26 in Santa Barbara after a long illness, friend and fellow producer Brian Eastman told The Hollywood Reporter. After being diagnosed with a rare form of bile duct cancer in 2016, he had a life-saving liver transplant in 2018.
In the 1980s, Shelmerdine co-founded the Los Angeles branch of BAFTA and the Association of Independent Television Producers, which helped shape the sector that now dominates British TV production. He also published self-help books written by his late wife, Susan Jeffers.
The first of three children, Shelmerdine was born on March 27, 1945, in Buckinghamshire, England. His father, Dick, worked as a police office in Singapore and the Bahamas and as a postmaster in Gloucestershire, England.
Shelmerdine started out as an accountant at Coopers & Lybrand and Taylor Clark Ltd.
- 11/29/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Everyone knows the problem: there’s too much really good TV these days, and not enough time to watch it all. But if you’re a fan of gripping, adult drama that follows twisted, complicated relationships with high stakes, it’s well worth putting aside a few hours of your time to watch Sky Atlantic’s Domina.
Domina is the story of Livia Drusilla, the wife of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus. The historical Livia is a truly fascinating character. Her father fought and died with the assassins of Julius Caesar, she endured a siege with a toddler, then she ended up married for 50 years to the man whose army was on the attacking side in both cases. She had more power and influence than any other woman in Roman history and worked together with Augustus to help him rule, but his reign was peppered with the untimely deaths of multiple family members,...
Domina is the story of Livia Drusilla, the wife of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus. The historical Livia is a truly fascinating character. Her father fought and died with the assassins of Julius Caesar, she endured a siege with a toddler, then she ended up married for 50 years to the man whose army was on the attacking side in both cases. She had more power and influence than any other woman in Roman history and worked together with Augustus to help him rule, but his reign was peppered with the untimely deaths of multiple family members,...
- 9/13/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
In my other life, I am an Ancient History lecturer at a UK university, which means I am often giving my students recommendations for films and TV shows to watch about Ancient Rome. None of them are especially historically accurate (a totally historically accurate film would probably be a boring film) but as long as you don’t take anything in them too literally, they are a nice introduction to the world of ancient Rome. Gladiator might make Rome a Republic again about 1600 years too early, but it shows how the Colosseum functioned, trapdoors and all, very well. The Eagle’s history of the Ninth Legion and depiction of Iron Age Picts might be a bit iffy, but it gives you a taste of life in the Roman provinces. You get the idea.
TV shows are particularly useful for getting to grips with a large cast of characters and learning...
TV shows are particularly useful for getting to grips with a large cast of characters and learning...
- 8/22/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
When Ridley Scott’s Gladiator hit the big screen in 2000, it captivated audiences worldwide with its thrilling tale of honor, vengeance, and redemption set in ancient Rome. The film’s grandeur, stunning visuals, and gripping performances made it an instant classic, so much so that nearly a quarter of a century later a sequel is finally on the way. However, what many might not know is that Gladiator drew inspiration from a real-life story, one that is equally as captivating, though with its own unique twists and turns. Sometimes reality is much stranger than fiction, so let’s find out What Really Happened To Gladiator?
In the film, Maximus (played by Russell Crowe) is a legendary general in the Roman army. The aged Emperor Marcus Aurelius decides to appoint Maximus as his successor over his own son Commodus. This angers Commodus, who orders Maximus to be put to death, but...
In the film, Maximus (played by Russell Crowe) is a legendary general in the Roman army. The aged Emperor Marcus Aurelius decides to appoint Maximus as his successor over his own son Commodus. This angers Commodus, who orders Maximus to be put to death, but...
- 8/2/2023
- by Bryan Wolford
- JoBlo.com
Queen Cleopatra is a Netflix documentary directed by Tina Gharavi and Victoria Adeola Thomas, starring Adele James, Craig Russell and Jada Pinkett Smith.
Do you remember the Joseph L. Mankiewicz movie, Cleopatra, starring Elisabeth Taylor? Well, absolutely nothing to do with it.
A documentary series that follows in the footsteps of African Queens: Njinga in its treatment and approach to dramatized documentary.
Queen Cleopatra About the series
To say it with (much) subtlety: the series is not a ten, nor a seven… from there, let’s go down and let everyone places it where they want. A series that undoubtedly lacks the means to recreate the grandeur of Ancient Egypt and that, without the actors or the imagination of I, Claudius (the mythical BBC series) pretends to do something similar, but with not enough resources for the choice of a subject so… grandiose.
And with such a brutal and imperial...
Do you remember the Joseph L. Mankiewicz movie, Cleopatra, starring Elisabeth Taylor? Well, absolutely nothing to do with it.
A documentary series that follows in the footsteps of African Queens: Njinga in its treatment and approach to dramatized documentary.
Queen Cleopatra About the series
To say it with (much) subtlety: the series is not a ten, nor a seven… from there, let’s go down and let everyone places it where they want. A series that undoubtedly lacks the means to recreate the grandeur of Ancient Egypt and that, without the actors or the imagination of I, Claudius (the mythical BBC series) pretends to do something similar, but with not enough resources for the choice of a subject so… grandiose.
And with such a brutal and imperial...
- 5/10/2023
- by TV Shows Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid - TV
Director William Nunez describes why he focused on a time when the poet Robert Graves – best known for a memoir Goodbye to All That and historical novel I, Claudius – left his wife and family in pursuit of creativity at any cost
How do you make the life of a poet work on screen? It helps if they had scandalous personal lives. Robert Graves was last seen on the sidelines of Terence Davies’s biopic as the friend of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon (Benediction). Now the tables are turned, with a cameo of Sassoon in a film about the early career of the man who would go on to become professor of poetry at Oxford and to win the Queen’s gold medal for poetry.
Graves is an unfashionable figure today, known chiefly through I, Claudius, the TV serialisation of two of his novels, starring Derek Jacobi as the Roman emperor.
How do you make the life of a poet work on screen? It helps if they had scandalous personal lives. Robert Graves was last seen on the sidelines of Terence Davies’s biopic as the friend of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon (Benediction). Now the tables are turned, with a cameo of Sassoon in a film about the early career of the man who would go on to become professor of poetry at Oxford and to win the Queen’s gold medal for poetry.
Graves is an unfashionable figure today, known chiefly through I, Claudius, the TV serialisation of two of his novels, starring Derek Jacobi as the Roman emperor.
- 4/28/2023
- by Claire Armitstead
- The Guardian - Film News
Over a decade after the first Avatar movie set records at the global box office, sequel Avatar: The Way of Water is about to finally hit theaters on December 16. It seems like a long time since we first met Jake Sully and Neytiri on Pandora as they fought off the moon’s human colonizing forces together, but this kind of delay is not without precedent for the film’s director James Cameron, as he had originally intended the first movie to be released back in 1999 as his next project following Titanic. However, the technology just wasn’t up to scratch for Cameron’s vision, and it would be a decade later in 2009 that Avatar arrived on screens, many of them utilizing big advances in 3D viewing.
It may be true that Avatar has made an eye-watering amount of money since its original release – almost 3 billion to date – but the long-in-development...
It may be true that Avatar has made an eye-watering amount of money since its original release – almost 3 billion to date – but the long-in-development...
- 12/7/2022
- by Kirsten Howard
- Den of Geek
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