The James Logan Courier

By Carrie Rickey
The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)

PHILADELPHIA — Slim as lightning, Kathryn Bigelow makes movies charged with adrenaline and electricity, action thrillers like "Blue Steel" and "Point Break." The 6-footer with the radiant presence of a Redgrave and the steel nerves of a high-wire artist is drawn to stories about daredevils addicted to the rush.

Her latest, "The Hurt Locker," about a U.S. bomb-disposal technician in Baghdad in 2004, plugs viewers directly into the central nervous system of such a risk junkie, and it's earning Bigelow the best reviews of her career. "An instant classic that demonstrates ... how the drug of war hooks its victims and why they can't kick the habit," the Wall Street Journal salutes.
"The Hurt Locker" is a topical exploration into mindful violence and one warrior's mindset: The acute focus that makes Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) such a cunning creature of war is the very quality that makes him unsuited to just about everything else.

From wikipedia:
Ann Ward Radcliffe (9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English author, a pioneer of the gothic novel. It was her technique of the explained supernatural, in which every seemingly supernatural intrusion is eventually traced back to natural causes, and the impeccable conduct of her heroines that finally met with the approval of the reviewers, transforming the gothic novel into something socially acceptable.

Read The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe, one of two of her works available free from Project Gutenberg.