FILM 1687: CIRCLE

TRIVIA: Writers/Directors, Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione, previously worked together on the award winning web series The Vault (2011). A few of the actors from the series can also be seen in Circle.

Circle was filmed in Los Angeles in just over 10 days, shooting at the unusually fast rate of 11-13 pages a day.

FILM 1491: A MURDER IN THE PARK 

In 1999, just hours before his scheduled execution, convicted killer Anthony Porter's life was saved by a journalism class from Northwestern University, led by renowned Innocence Project pioneer, Professor David Protess. The class seemingly found the real killer, Alstory Simon. Porter was released, becoming the poster boy of the anti-death penalty movement. Because of his case, Illinois eventually abolished the death penalty. The filmmakers present strong evidence that Northwestern's investigation led to the release of the real killer, and imprisoned an innocent man. In October 2013, due in part to this film's investigation, the Cook County State's Attorney's office reopened this case.

(IMDB)

BOOK 115: INVITATION TO A BEHEADING: VLADIMIR NABOKOV

Invitation to a Beheading is a novel by Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov. It was originally published in Russian in 1935-1936 as a serial in Contemporary Notes (Sovremennye zapiski), a highly respected Russian émigré magazine. In 1938 the work was published in Paris, with an English translation following in 1959. The English version was translated by Nabokov's son, Dmitri Nabokov, under the author's supervision.

The novel is often described as "Kafkaesque," but Nabokov claimed that at the time he wrote the book, he was unfamiliar with German and "completely ignorant" of Kafka's work. Nabokov interrupted his work on The Gift in order to write Invitation, describing the creation of the first draft as "one fortnight of wonderful excitement and sustained inspiration." Some scholars have argued that the central plot of Invitation has its roots in Chernyshevski, a character from The Gift.

While Nabokov stated in an interview that of all his novels he held the greatest affection for Lolita, it was Invitation to a Beheading that he held in the greatest esteem.

MY VERDICT: I found this book a little hard to read.  It seemed lacking in something to me and I feel like it could be the fault of the translation.  I know Nabokov to be an astounding writer and Lolita is proof of this but there seemed to be something less tangible, easy to grasp, in this novel.  I didn’t dislike it completely, there were still little hints of the unique visual descriptions that I admire Nabokov for, but they are a few precious jewels in an otherwise hard to look at scene.  This is just my opinion, some believe it’s a great book maybe even his best.  Lolita will always be the one for me.  I think it’s because Humbert Humbert is so human and Cinncinnatus (the protagonist in this novel) is almost the very opposite, he is indifferent and wholly unlikeable (which seems to be why he ended up in prison in the first place) but I didn’t really care for him and so I was not particularly concerned about the outcome of the book.