Sometimes when people recommend movies, I am skeptical. But then, if their recommendation complies with a ton of other recommendations, I start to assign it a little bit of gravitas.
We watch so few movies a year. Generally, we choose to assign our babysitting time to live events (concerts, plays, dinners with friends), and often we don't have the time / energy to watch an entire movie at home. But we had a stretch of time where the kids were with my mom, and we threw a bunch of it to movies.
We went to see Argo, a thriller (based on a true story) about the CIA evacuation of 6 of the US personnel who escaped from being hostages in 1979-80. I don't know (or, really care) what proportion of the movie is real or dramatized. I LOVED it. So well done, so well documented.
I'm reluctant to share my one quibble with it, given how well it was done. But I'll throw it out there.
The hero of the the actual event is Latino. Despite the otherwise meticulous attention to detail, Ben Affleck elected to replace the central character, Tony Mendez with a non-Latino actor - himself. I totally get that Affleck wanted to be the man in this amazing movie, and he did a lovely job IN the film. But after I watched the movie, I wished he'd cast it elsewhere. He's likely to win an Oscar (or maybe several). Did he need to jam himself in there?
HEY HEY ! LOOK! I WATCHED ANOTHER MOVIE!!
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
On Goals - The 3rd Edition
At the start of the calendar year, I said (alleged? posited? threatened?) that I was going to read 40 books and watch 40 movies.
Now, it is December 25.
According to the www, that's about 359 days into a 365 day year.
Let's throw down the facts, as collected:
In those 359 days, I have:
read 35 books
watched 8 movies.
The uncollected, imagined statistics are:
In those 359 days, I have:
Now, it is December 25.
According to the www, that's about 359 days into a 365 day year.
Let's throw down the facts, as collected:
In those 359 days, I have:
read 35 books
watched 8 movies.
The uncollected, imagined statistics are:
In those 359 days, I have:
unloaded the dishwasher 280 times
read 195 picture books
done 42 craft projects that didn't result in something I could use, wear or hang up
washed 5,898,623,009,237,401,912 loads of laundry
packed 642 lunches
posted 1,097,865 facebook updates
run 330 miles
NOT run 200 miles
etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.
etc.
Which is all to say this:
I am nowhere NOWHERE nowhere close to reaching the goal I set last year, of reading 40 books, and watching 40 movies.
I'm okay with this!
Book #35 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Maybe the most telling difference between novelists and film-makers is that a novelist is down with the title, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and a film-maker thinks that Blade Runner is more the way to go.
But really, neither of those are true. The novelist rarely chooses the book title; the film-maker often has little input into the movie title.
Nonetheless, the differences between Blade Runner, the movie based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, are many. I have only seen Blade Runner once, a zillion years ago. I remember rain, and Harrison Ford, and dim lighting.
I absolutely loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I thought it was weird (but not in an offputting way) and interesting (but not in an "I'm saying interesting because what I mean is bad" way) and noir (in the best possible Raymond Chandler way) and sentimental (but not in a cornball way) and deep (but not in an inaccessible way).
The protagonist is a bounty hunter who's charged with tracking down androids. It's a post-apocalyptic Earth, where most humans have emigrated to Mars, and most living creatures are extinct. The few humans (and androids) left on Earth are faced with the inevitable degradation of the left-behind Earth. The novelist (Philip K. Dick) coined the term "kipple" to describe the infiltration of crap that comes with abandonment.
Loved it. Looking forward to reading more.
But really, neither of those are true. The novelist rarely chooses the book title; the film-maker often has little input into the movie title.
Nonetheless, the differences between Blade Runner, the movie based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, are many. I have only seen Blade Runner once, a zillion years ago. I remember rain, and Harrison Ford, and dim lighting.
I absolutely loved Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. I thought it was weird (but not in an offputting way) and interesting (but not in an "I'm saying interesting because what I mean is bad" way) and noir (in the best possible Raymond Chandler way) and sentimental (but not in a cornball way) and deep (but not in an inaccessible way).
The protagonist is a bounty hunter who's charged with tracking down androids. It's a post-apocalyptic Earth, where most humans have emigrated to Mars, and most living creatures are extinct. The few humans (and androids) left on Earth are faced with the inevitable degradation of the left-behind Earth. The novelist (Philip K. Dick) coined the term "kipple" to describe the infiltration of crap that comes with abandonment.
Loved it. Looking forward to reading more.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Book #34 - The Book of Daniel
One of the most well-read people I know told me that her all-time favorite book is The Book of Daniel by E. L. Doctorow. Trusting her guidance, I downloaded the book on my Kindle.
I tried to read it four or five times, but each time, I got bogged down and my interest flagged, and I moved on to something easier. Recently, though, I've been sick in bed with the plague for (what seemed like) weeks at a time, and I realized what the problem was: The Book of Daniel is not a novel to enter into lightly; it's dense and insubstantial, chewy and elusive. You have to make a commitment to the Book of Daniel, and, as with most commitments, dedication pays off.
Daniel is the son of Paul and Rochelle Isaacson, who were charged with conspiracy to sell nuclear secrets to the Soviets in the 1940s. (It's based loosely on the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and though I gathered that it was related to that historical event, I really didn't care about how faithful or not it was to that story, because this novel itself was so gripping.) The novel swerves around in time - from the present, where Daniel is going to visit his sister in an insane asylum, to the near past - or is it the early future? - where Daniel is sitting in the library at Columbia trying to write his dissertation, to the far past, where his parents first met.
This was the most thoroughly well-written book I've read in years and years, and my feeble summation won't do it justice. If you need a review, there are smart reviews on Goodreads. Or, you can assume that my incredibly well-read friend has great taste in books, and go read it. Worked for me.
I tried to read it four or five times, but each time, I got bogged down and my interest flagged, and I moved on to something easier. Recently, though, I've been sick in bed with the plague for (what seemed like) weeks at a time, and I realized what the problem was: The Book of Daniel is not a novel to enter into lightly; it's dense and insubstantial, chewy and elusive. You have to make a commitment to the Book of Daniel, and, as with most commitments, dedication pays off.
Daniel is the son of Paul and Rochelle Isaacson, who were charged with conspiracy to sell nuclear secrets to the Soviets in the 1940s. (It's based loosely on the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and though I gathered that it was related to that historical event, I really didn't care about how faithful or not it was to that story, because this novel itself was so gripping.) The novel swerves around in time - from the present, where Daniel is going to visit his sister in an insane asylum, to the near past - or is it the early future? - where Daniel is sitting in the library at Columbia trying to write his dissertation, to the far past, where his parents first met.
This was the most thoroughly well-written book I've read in years and years, and my feeble summation won't do it justice. If you need a review, there are smart reviews on Goodreads. Or, you can assume that my incredibly well-read friend has great taste in books, and go read it. Worked for me.
Book #33 - The Spiderwick Chronicles
My best friend sent my daughter, a great reader, the first book in the Spiderwick Chronicles, and then, post facto said, "Mmm...maybe not for a first grader. You should read it first to test it out." So I read The Field Guide, the first in the Spiderwick Chronicles and was totally hooked.
I ran to the library to get the rest of the series (there are five in the first series, but there's a follow-on series called "Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles" which I think I'll be checking out shortly), but only books 3-5 were available. I inhaled them. Today, weeks later, I finally got book 2 from the library, so I can close this series down.
Jared, his twin brother Simon, his older sister Mallory, and his newly-divorced mom have left the city and moved to Great-aunt Lucy's creepy and ramshackle house in the country. They've left partly to have a fresh start after the divorce, and partly because Jared has been getting into a lot of trouble in school. As soon as they arrive at Spiderwick estates, Jared senses there's something really weird going on, and before too long, he learns what it is: there are faerie creatures all over Spiderwick. The kids work together (though not always harmoniously) to deal with the brownies, boggarts, elves, hobgoblins, goblins, trolls, etc. and, as you might imagine, things turn out OK at the end.
Fun, bright, and interesting, but also a pretty true-to-heart representation of the emotional life of post-divorce kids. I loved the series!
(Because each book was about 60 pages including illustrations, I'm counting all five as one installment, even though it would take a huge whack at my forty-book goal if I didn't!!)
I ran to the library to get the rest of the series (there are five in the first series, but there's a follow-on series called "Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles" which I think I'll be checking out shortly), but only books 3-5 were available. I inhaled them. Today, weeks later, I finally got book 2 from the library, so I can close this series down.
Jared, his twin brother Simon, his older sister Mallory, and his newly-divorced mom have left the city and moved to Great-aunt Lucy's creepy and ramshackle house in the country. They've left partly to have a fresh start after the divorce, and partly because Jared has been getting into a lot of trouble in school. As soon as they arrive at Spiderwick estates, Jared senses there's something really weird going on, and before too long, he learns what it is: there are faerie creatures all over Spiderwick. The kids work together (though not always harmoniously) to deal with the brownies, boggarts, elves, hobgoblins, goblins, trolls, etc. and, as you might imagine, things turn out OK at the end.
Fun, bright, and interesting, but also a pretty true-to-heart representation of the emotional life of post-divorce kids. I loved the series!
(Because each book was about 60 pages including illustrations, I'm counting all five as one installment, even though it would take a huge whack at my forty-book goal if I didn't!!)
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