Green power
Hulk
Stars Starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly, Sam Elliott and Nick Nolte. Rated M.
Reviewer: The Big Irish Git

I grew up on a steady diet of second-hand Marvel comics. I had many favourite superheroes. Spiderman was a way-cool kid. The Fab 4 embodied teamwork. I envied the strength and purity of Thor the Hammer God and made pathetic attempts to emulate Ironman.

Inspiring tale of survival
Our Story: 77 Hours Underground
By the Quecreek Miners. Edbury Press/Random House. 176pp. $45.
Reviewer: LS Rachel Irving

Last July nine coal miners in Pennsylvania, USA, became trapped for 77 hours. They were more than 3km underground when they tapped into an adjacent, flooded mine.

Frantic-paced thriller
Hostile Contact
By Gordon Kent. Harper Collins. 538pp. $29.95.
Reviewer: LS Rachel Irving

The first 35 pages of this book move from Pakistan, to a US aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean, to the Unimak Canyon in the Alueutian Archipelago onboard a Chinese submarine, to Virginia then Washington, across to Beijing and over the Pacific. If that’s not enough, pretty soon you’re in Jakarta too.

Ingredients for a captivating read
Mortal Allies
By Brian Haig. Allen & Unwin. 485pp. $29.95.
Reviewer: CPL Alisha Carr

US Army legal officer Major Sean Drummond has been assigned to South Korea as an advocate for a gay officer accused of murdering the son of a South Korean war hero. He is forced to work with an old acquaintance from law school – the voluptuous Katherine Carson, an attorney renowned for manipulating the media in order to help her clients.

Music impresses, movie depresses
The Piano Teacher

Stars Isabelle Huppert, Anne Girardot, Benoit Magimel. The AV Channel.
Rated MA. 131 mins.
Reviewer: By Pte Simone Heyer

French films have a reputation for being a little unusual – a little out there. Although Amelie was just beautiful, it’s not necessarily a trend. Maybe we’re just too used to US and Australian films, but after watching The Piano Teacher I’d have to slot it into the little unusual category.

Erika (Huppert) is a top-notch piano instructor. She lives with her mother (Girardot) with whom she has a love-hate relationship.

For Erika, music is her life, though we discover that she has other needs — and is indeed a sex fiend with tastes that run further than spa antics.

They say insanity is next to genius, and Erika, though a musical genius, is right up there with the odder folk. She has some special students and a very devious nasty streak.

I found myself wondering if I’d somehow missed the first 10 minutes of this film, and all the way until the end was wondering when the point of the movie would be introduced.

This film is dark and disturbing, its only saving grace is the beautiful music.