February 3-16 Recap

Two weeks worth of movies and books! Not a whole lot here (it was a slow two weeks for movies, and a slow two weeks for getting to blog) but I wanted to make sure and keep things going. These may be short entries, but they'll get the job done.

Films

Kon-Tiki

Director: Joachim Roenning & Espen Sandberg
Genre: Adventure
Source: Norway (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: A-

I remember reading a book about the voyage of the Kon-Tiki in 4th or 5th grade (though I asked my students and they didn't have a clue what I was talking about, so maybe it's not in the curriculum anymore). The story is pretty incredible, and the movie shows the adventure's perils pretty effectively, in part by making Thor Heyerdahl such an unwavering optimist even in the face of so much absurd opposition. At times he comes off as naive, at times blindly faithful, and at times just dumb, and of course that's all of what the movie is trying to convince us of--that he seemed naive only because we couldn't see the truth like he did.

It's definitely a bit of hero worship, but it's a pretty fun bit of hero worship and a pretty amazing story. (And it makes me feel as though I'm pretty much completely wasting my time on the couch when I could be, you know, floating a raft across the Pacific or something.

Pretty good stuff.

Dead Man Down

Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B

It took me two tries to get into this film, but the second time I started it it really clicked for me. Colin Farrell is pretty effective as the "stoic-action-figure-with-emotion-bubbling-just-below-the-surface" and I'm excited to see Noomi Rapace getting more roles in the US (though she's far too beautiful--even with the fake scars--for the local children's taunts that she is a monster to seem likely), plus there's a nice little supporting cast here that includes Dominic Cooper and Terrance Howard. So there's a lot going for the film, and though sometimes it gets way too caught up in its own supposed gravitas, it's still a pretty effective little action thriller. 

I'm glad I gave it a second chance, even if the revenge action movie is usually done better in other countries. There's still something to like here.

The Paperboy

Director: Lee Daniels
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2012)
Rating: R

Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: F

Oh man, why did I bother finishing this? I'll admit by the end I was mostly browsing my iPad while I watched, but I still left it going.

I should have known early on. There were plenty of clues: Zac Efron hanging out in his tighty-whities. John Cusack doing a Southern accent. Nicole Kidman's weirdly sexual and obsessive character. None of it was adding up to much, and by the time time the film was over it was lost in its own eye-rolling sweat-soaked world.

So dumb. So pointless. I guess everyone was just really excited to work with Lee Daniels after Precious came out, so they missed out on using better judgment.

I Give It a Year

Director: Dan Mazer
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Source: UK (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B-

A fine but not great adult romantic comedy that isn't quite sure what it wants to be (risque? satire? standard business?) but has a few fine scenes along the way. It's easy to see this as pretty petty and a mostly negative take on marriage and commitment (the usually great Minnie Driver is stuck with a harpy for a character), but I think what it's really trying to go for is the idea that you have to find the right person to commit to, which is actually pretty old school, it just puts the "finding the right person" cliche plot as happening after the marriage rather than before.

Most of it I did enjoy, but I just do not get the love for Anna Farris. Why is she such a popular actress for these kinds of films? She's not really much of an actress, she's not particularly attractive, she doesn't even seem very likable and charismatic. So why does she keep getting these second tier rom-com leads? 

Anyway, I think I prefer UK rom-coms to US. They're as contrived and silly as their American counterparts, but at least the British accents give everything a little sheen of a more depth.

The Guilt Trip

Director: Anne Fletcher
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (2012)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C+

Who knew that Seth Rogan and Barbara Streisand are actually a kind of solid comic duo? I mean, they aren't Rogen/Franco or anything like that, but they actually played off each other pretty well for the most part. I mean, better than I expected. There aren't big laughs here, for the most part, but there were some chuckles. 

If anything, I'm surprised that they gave so much of the screen time to Streisand. Her character is supposed to be a little annoying, and at times she succeeds a bit too well.

Still, it wasn't all bad. There are worse ways to spend time at the gym.

The Croods

Director: Kirk De Micco & Chris Sanders
Genre: Animated
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B

I'd heard from several people that this was a surprisingly strong animated film, and though I really wasn't expecting much, I have to admit that I was pretty entertained throughout. The character models took a little while to get used to (I'm not sure I ever really got to like them) but there's a sense of fun and some smart bits of writing to it overall.

Nicholas Cage: genius or madman? When he's not on screen mugging for the camera, he's pretty respectable, and he develops a strong rapport with both Ryan Reynolds and Emma Stone, and the dynamic of teenage desire for change, fatherly protectiveness actually works pretty well in the changing world from caveman to whatever comes after cavemen. The film also has a lot of fun with wild character designs for the animals that inhabit this world. It further removes the film from "reality," but in fun and creative ways.

It's not the kind of animated film I will go back to again, but it was more energetic and engaging than I expected going in.

Burke and Hare

Director: John Landis
Genre: Comedy
Source: UK (2010)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C

It's not that Burke and Hare is bad, because it's not. But given the talent involved--Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Curry, Isla Fisher, and directed by 80s genius John Landis--it just should have been a better. These are really highly talented actors and directors, so why did they end up with a film that doesn't leave me with much more than a smirk?

It's possible that the film doesn't go far enough. The comedy isn't sure whether it wants to be black, or satiric, or slapstick, and so it just sort of wades a middle ground through all of them--and as a result neuters all of them as well.

It had a few chuckles, but I'd much rather see Simon Pegg go back to working more with Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. There are bits to like here, but it's not much of a whole.

Robocop

Director: Jose Padilha
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2014)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: B

I have no great allegiance to or strong feeling about the 1987 Paul Verhoeven film, though I know for some it's a beloved, gory, satiric, and classic 80s action adventure. I'm fairly sure I've seen the film, but with no nostalgia about it and not that much excitement for the satiric aspects of the original, I had no great expectations going in to this remake.

I was pleasantly surprised! There was not a lot of joy to the movie (Joel Kinnaman is not an actor who comes to mind when using that word), and the attempts at satire with Samuel L. Jackson really fell flat to me (he's become one of those actors who can't do much besides play his persona, it seems), but there was a lot to like here. Yes the film may be PG-13 and surprisingly bloodless in its portrayal of some pretty heinous acts, but it also uses its limited gore pretty effectively. When Dr. Norton removes Alex Murphy's uniform and let's him see how much of himself is left, it truly is pretty horrifying (short answer: there's not much left).

And the film has a supporting cast that can carry some weight when the film gets into some of the moral questions. Gary Oldman is pretty great as Dr. Norton, who's ethical boundaries get blurry the more he realizes what he can do--a kind of modern day Frankenstein with a little more guilt--and I'm always excited to see Michael Keaton in a movie. The family bonds may be a little two-dimensional, but they're also passable as emotional weighting for the film.

Really, I was surprisingly pleased. Sure the questions about technology and surveillance and all that kind of stuff are kind of clumsily handed, but there are still things to sink your teeth into. Not bad for a February popcorn movie.

Books

The Sociopath Next Door (by Martha Stout)

Things I learned from Martha Stout's book: 

• Apparently 1 in 25 people in the US is a sociopath
• Sociopaths have no conscience and thus care nothing for the connections and bonds that guide most of our actions
• Most sociopaths aren't big criminal masterminds, they're just people who seek to "defeat" other people in a variety of ways, since winning becomes their main focus in life
• Books written with an intensely 9/11 focused lens can seem somewhat dated even a decade later

It wasn't terrible, but even at just 250 easy-to-read pages I found it a little bit tiresome. I'm more interested now in reading Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test now, but Stout's story-telling here just seemed a little . . . trite . . . and repetitive at times to make this feel like much of an expose or compelling read. 

It didn't really do much for me. 

Grade: C-

January 27-February 2 Recap

Films

American Psycho
Director: Mary Harron
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (2000)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C

As I try to clear a backlog of films that includes literally hundreds if not thousands of movies, I try to strike a balance between movies that are important, movies that I've heard a lot about, and movies that look like fun. This film fits pretty well in the second category, but I found it a pretty unpleasant watch (despite Christian Bale's expansive performance and inherent charisma) and not as important or meaningful as I had expected.

OK, perhaps vanity and our ego camouflage that those who are slaves to capitalism are all monsters, and the film externalizes that by giving us a real monster in Patrick Bateman, and maybe that would be a harsh indictment of Wall Street in the early 2000s, but after the economic meltdown of the last decade and the willingness of bankers and stock brokers and CEOs to cannibalize the country as a whole, Bateman seems a lot less shocking. Yes there is some vicious glee in the way Bale plays up the narcissism and ridiculousness of the protagonist, but the dark comedy was not really enough for me to feel like I was enjoying the rest of what the film was asking me to sit through. Maybe I'm a prude, or maybe it's just a one-joke analogy that wore out its welcome pretty quickly.

Lone Survivor
Director: Peter Berg
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: C+

Is there such a thing as patriotism porn?

This is a well made action movie that does all it can (and is often successful) at pulling at your heart and asking you to be shocked and awed by the sacrifices American soldiers make. At the same time it's (despite some ham-fisted attempts to be otherwise) very xenophobic at best and racist at worse, with a deification of military culture that makes me uncomfortable.

I have family who serves in the military, I have family who died in the military. But soldier worship doesn't sit well with me. And for as visceral and bone-crunching some of those scenes are in depicting the hell of war, Berg can't resist a few Michael Bay-esque glorious slow-motion scenes that blur the line between telling an incredible story and turning tragedy into entertainment in ways I don't like. 

I can see why the film is a big hit with my Southern high school students, but I can't fully embrace it.

I, Frankenstein
Director: Stuart Beattie
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2014)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: D

Sometimes you've had a long week and when given the choice between the Oscar nominated film about AIDS in the 80s and the stupid supernatural action movie that had some sort of connection (you thought) to the Underworld movies--which are dumb but fun in a popcorny way--you decide that you can't handle something heavy right now and so the movie with demons or some sort of weird flying human morphing things wins out.

And then, a few minutes in, you realize that surely, SURELY there would be more joy in the movie about AIDS in the 80s. And that, oh yeah, a big part of why you liked the Underworld movies was Kate Beckinsale in skintight latex, which is just magnitudes more enjoyable to watch than Aaron Eckhart in a hoodie. And that it turns out Bill Nighy really can't save every movie he's in, even if he's fun when he's on screen.

This movie was bad, is what I'm trying to say. Whose idea was it to give the stone gargoyles colored eyes? Bad.

Bad bad bad.

Man of Tai Chi
Director: Keanu Reeves
Genre: Action
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B-

You know it's a bad movie week when the best movie I've seen is a somewhat-flat-Keanu-Reeves-directed-Street-Fighter-(the-video-game) riff that takes itself entirely too seriously, features Keanu Reeves hungrily chewing scenery in his chiseled maw, and has characters about as deep as a piece of paper. 

It's silly, it's cheesy, it's over the top, and it all plays out almost exactly like you would expect, but here's the other thing: it's kind of fun! Pretty good fight choreography is what the film is all about, and while this may not be breaking any new ground in that regard, it's still eminently watchable.

Keanu's not the next John Woo, but at least he's having fun with the material. I won't run to the next thing he directs, but I won't run away from it either. I could see him carving out a little niche for himself with smaller films like this, and I wouldn't be sad about that. More power to him.

(Though, as the movie teaches, it's not about power, it's about control. So more control to him?)

Books

Under the Feet of Jesus (by Helena Maria Viramontes)
Ethereal and dreamlike, Under the Feet of Jesus slides its story across your face like gossamer--a swish of love here, a whisper of coming-of-age there, a murmur of tragedy and broken dreams, a flutter of hope. Viramontes is not particularly interested in driving forward a story; she's interested in capturing a mood, a feeling, a piece of life that often slips by the rest of the world as they look the other way. She writes with empathy, she writes with heartbreak, but most of all she writes with beauty.

At its heart the novel is about thirteen-year-old Estrella, the daughter of migrant workers, as she discovers love, delves into her own strength, and starts to work out her identity. But beyond that it is a haunting a lyrical evocation of a life in the borderlands. In one passage Viramontes explores Estrella's experiences at school, with teachers who care little for the migrant families who will be moving through, and so don't teach her the tools she needs, she craves, and so further alienate Estrella and those like her from being able to thrive in this society. This passage is matched later as Estrella translates for her family at a health clinic where they have no money to pay for the services and so Estrella looks for other tools at her disposal. It's a powerful (but fleeting) look at life in a limbo world. 

On the other hand, it's so short, it's really more of a novella than a novel, and at times it is not even that. I love the dreamlike lyricism of Viramontes' writing, but at times I wish she'd be willing to give a few more nods towards thing like structure and narrative drive. It's beautiful and haunting, but at times it feels perilously incomplete as well.

Grade: B-

Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d'Art (by Christopher Moore)
I've been hoping for a while to find a Christopher Moore book that I loved as much as Lamb, and Sacre Bleu comes solidly into second place. Moore aims his typical sense of the absurd at the Impressionist painters gathered in Paris in the late nineteenth century, and the book works in some levels as a fascinating primer on art (if you can sift past all the Moore-ish silliness to find the kernals of reality), topped off by the inclusion of lovely color reproductions of many of the paintings discussed in the text. In addition, Moore does a nice job playing with the insanity and insatiability of some of the artists of the time, from Henri Toulouse-Lautrec to Renoir to Monet to Van Gogh to Pisarro. They are all here, united in a madcap fashion that only Moore could come up with, but as with his best work, the absurdity (donkey in a hat) is matched with a zest for life and an enthusiasm that is just plain fun to read.

I'll admit, I had no clue where he was going with the plot of the story (the ambiguous woman, the Colorman, the donkey with a hat) for a long time, and when he finally revealed what was happening it was a bit of a "Oh, duh" moment, but he had me hooked so early with his characters and his charm that I didn't really care.

It's the kind of book that makes me sad when it's over because I'm enjoying both the world and the author's voice so much. Moore's not for everyone--he has the sense of humor of a well-read thirteen-year-old at times, especially when dealing with a bunch of lustful artists and their penchant for painting nudes--but if he hits your wheelhouse there's not much that's more fun to read.

I can't wait to see what he does next!

Grade: A-

January 20-26 Recap

Films

City Lights
Director: Charles Chaplin
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1931)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: B+

I have yet to see a silent movie I love more than Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr., but City Lights comes close. Sweet, silly, and full of heart, the film makes it easy to see why Chaplin was such a beloved performer. His Little Tramp is so full of pathos and comic nobility that it's impossible not to root for him--especially when his intentions are so good.

The film has plenty to say about social strata and injustices--and about fundamental humanity that crosses all economic, racial, and other boundaries--but it doesn't really hit you over the head with those points. They just seem to shuffle themselves out of Chaplin's silly little walk: a hypocritical and drunken rich man, a bum who helps save a potential suicide, a black man who tries to share his knowledge with a white man, and on and on. All that, plus Virginia Cherrill's great performance as a sweet blind girl make this my favorite Chaplin movie so far (though admittedly, I have a lot of blind spots here--no pun intended). A pretty great little film.

Diabolique
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Genre: Thriller
Source: France (1955)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: A

What a great thriller! Diabolique works in ways like a standard Hitchcock thriller, but Clouzot ratchets up the tension in his own unique ways; this surpasses many of Hitch's own efforts and stands comfortably with the master's best. In fact, Clouzot is beating Hitchcock to the punch on several ideas that would later be attributed to Hitchcock. It's smart, it's frightening, and it is brilliant film making.

I couldn't look away from this film, and even if I suspected part of what was going on, the director found twists and turns that made it increasingly unsettling. The filthy pool, the photograph that could have been just a trick of the light, the shadows and sounds in the climactic scene--all of it brilliantly shifts ever so slightly beneath our feet, defying our expectations in small or large ways, so that we too, like Vera Clouzot's Christina, find ourselves increasingly unsure what to think or believe. It's really effective. And Christina herself is a fascinating figure. In the film's climax she is dressed in a sheer nightgown that is both old fashioned as well as sheer and revealing, and that combination serves as a great metaphor both for Christina's character and the film as a whole. 

I understand this film was remade in the 90s, and I have to wonder why bother? This nearly sixty year old film stands up perfectly well to any thriller of recent days. 

Frozen
Director: Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee
Genre: Animation
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: A

People repeatedly told me this was a really good little animated film, but the trailers did nothing for me, and that little snowman looked dumb. Fortunately for me my wife wanted to see it, because people were right, the movie is pretty great, and the snowman is actually pretty funny.

I like that Disney is taking a few notes from the conversation about what harm the "princess image" can do to girls, because this is clearly a film aimed at sending more positive messages to young women. Here we have a princess determined to save her sister--not in order to win the love of a man, but because her relationship with her sister matters to her, and she thinks the world is wrong about her sister. Not only that, but even as it gets into more standard territory regarding "true love" and the usual fairy tale fluff, the film finds ways to twist it and continue to affirm the empowerment of Princess Anna in smart ways. It's Disney film that passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors, and that's a really nice thing to see.

On top of that, it's clever, comic, and engaging. The music is pretty great, the visuals are beautiful, and the humor is really funny. Josh Gad took a while to grow on me as an actor, and he's often miscast I think, but when he gets the right material he is pretty hilarious.

I just really enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to.

Glengarry Glen Ross
Director: James Foley
Genre: Drama
Source: USA (1992)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: C+

I think this film was basically designed to give each of the different actors a little set piece monologue they could run with. I get the draw of that--these are great actors who are clearly into the project--and there's a bit of an "ode to the crappiness of work" element to the thing that is appealing, but the film didn't really click for me. Jack Lemmon did, and since in a lot of ways he's our access point in to this world that's good, but the film as a whole got a little tedious, even at only 100 minutes. 

As a writer, David Mamet works for me until he exhausts me, and that's pretty much how this film felt. The story is relatable (who hasn't felt under-appreciated at a job before?), the acting is great, and so on. I just got tired of it all long before the movie did.

Big Trouble in Little China
Director: John Carpenter
Genre: Action Comedy
Source: USA (1986)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B-

Silly 80s B movie that has Kurt Russell drawling his way through a mishmash of genres--kung fu movie, monster matinee, supernatural thriller, etc. There's no real logic at play here, and at times it seems almost defiantly bad, but it's also kind of defiantly fun. As Russell (as the always cool Jack Burton, a kind of blue collar truckstop Indiana Jones) and his buddy Wang battle their way through a series of Mortal Kombat rejects to save the women they love, the film gets more and more absurd as the movie progresses, but it doesn't seem to care.

Really, it's just the kind of movie I wish I had seen when I was about ten. I would have loved it as a kind of grown up Goonies. Now I can just enjoy it for the fun it provided for me on the treadmill.

Some Like It Hot
Director: Billy Wilder
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1959)
Rating: UR
Location/Format: DVD
Grade: A-

I rewatched Some Like it Hot to teach the basic three act structure and linear storytelling to my high school Intro to Film Class, and I was pleased to say the film still works well, both for film aficionados and for students leery of anything made before the year of their birth. I primed the pump a little bit by emphasizing how this was one of those films that seemed scandalous according to the standards of the Hays Production Code, and its success helped put a nail in the coffin of that system (though it wouldn't completely disappear for another eight years). I talked about how many movies still took their cues from this early cross-dressing film comedy (White Chicks, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Tootsie all came to mind) and discussed the reasons director Billy Wilder wanted to keep it in black and white. Then I crossed my fingers and started the film.

They ate it up! OK, maybe I had to help them understand what kind of comedy to watch out for (the lines, "You must be the new girls." "Yes, very new." still make me laugh), but they bought into it pretty quickly. And why wouldn't they? Jack Lemmon is a riot here, playing a character so over the top he might be insane. Tony Curtis is doing such strange things with his voice that you can't help but be drawn in. And Marilyn Monroe? Well, I haven't seen everything Monroe has done, but I know that from what I have seen this is just one of her best roles ever. Sugar is sexy, but she's also vulnerable and sincere and a little dumb but a lot good-hearted, and it's that image of Marilyn that seems to have lived on.

Fifty-five years later, I'm pleased to report the film still has legs--and shapely legs at that, whether they belong to a man or a woman.

(Side note: This is a pretty solid film for teaching the traditional three act structure. The inciting incident, plot points, midpoint, and climax are all really easy to identify. I might put this one back in rotation for film class.)

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Genre: Spy Thriller
Source: USA (2014)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: B-

Standard grade thriller here. I don't find it to have the highs of my favorite Jack Ryan movies (Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger) but it's much better than Affleck's attempt at whatever brand Hollywood is determined to sell here. What is that brand, by the way? What purpose does giving this character the same name as Tom Clancy's well known hero actually accomplish? This could have been any burgeoning spy franchise. I don't quite get it.

That aside, though Branagh (even after his turn with Thor) seems like an odd choice for director, and though at times the film seems to lose track of itself in its editing, and though the story as a whole is in pretty well worn spy thriller territory, I had a nice enough time with the film (until the final act, which just felt a little silly). Pine is a solid leading man; the dynamic set up between he and his girlfriend is really great; Branagh is even a fun understated-yet-still-chewing-scenery type of villain. There are even some sequences that really work--the first major fight scene in the film is great: no choreographed martial arts, no superhuman ballet, just a gritty and rough scramble to stay alive. But my favorite part here may be Kevin Costner. After the summer's Man of Steel, I can't help but think he's better as a mature supporting actor than he ever was as a leading man.

Branagh's presence notwithstanding, this ain't Shakespeare, and it's not even a super original spy movie. But it's kind of a fun popcorn movie, and given the barren wasteland that is usually the beginning of the year, there are worse movies out there to see.

I Married a Witch
Director: Rene Clair
Genre: Comedy
Source: USA (1942)
Rating: NR
Location/Format: Blu-ray
Grade: B

Yep, crush on Veronica Lake still confirmed.

This film is several steps below the only other Lake film I've seen (the classic Sullivan's Travels), but she remains fun, alluring, and ridiculously likable. Frederic March is all right as the often befuddled Wallace Wooley (as well as a whole host of his ancestors), and Cecil Kellaway seems to be having a good time as a sorcerer (and father of Veronica Lake's Jennifer) named Daniel, but really this movie is all about Lake. The plot keeps moving forward in increasingly weird and silly directions, but Lake serves as the energetic and self-possessed center of it all. 

The movie has a few other things going for it as well: a few clever effects (the "moving" smoke, a simple double exposure, actually works really well), sharp dialogue, and a zany sense of fun. The film even even made me laugh out loud a few times (every time the singer started in to "I Love You Truly" it just got funnier and funnier). But make no mistake, this movie is all about Lake. She brings a confident but innocent sense of sex to the role (from her smoke covered but suggested nude first appearance to her repeatedly showing up in Wooley's bed) that is alluring, but she also just exudes playfulness in every scene that makes it impossible not to smile along. Maybe she can't sing (I'm not sure who thought her little fireplace song would be a good idea), but when you've got this much appeal on screen, you don't have to.

She's just great.

Books

The Good Lord Bird (by James McBride)
I'm really on a roll with fantastic books this year.

Every once in a while you get to read a book that really pushes all your buttons, and The Good Lord Bird was one of those books for me. Growing up in Lawrence, Kansas, I heard again and again (so much so that I started to tune out) about Bleeding Kansas and the border wars with Missouri ruffians over the slavery issue. Of course we focused in Lawrence on Quantrill's burning of the city in 1863, but we also touched on John Brown's time in the state. After all, there in the capitol building in Topeka is that mural of Brown--a raging lunatic with a flowing beard, Bible and gun in hand. He's a terrifying figure, looking equal parts inspiration and insanity.

In The Good Lord Bird, James McBride brings Brown to vivid life, a prophetic madman who is driven by God or folly to try and end slavery by waging a one man war against it, no matter the cost. In McBride's incredibly skilled hands, we see Brown through the eyes of Henry/Henrietta Shackleford, better known as Onion--a slave boy mistaken for (and then disguising himself as) a girl, freed by Brown and accompanying him from his Kansas days and through Harper's Ferry, able to testify to the Old Man's derangement as well as his determination, his psychosis as well as his passion. The novel is funny, rich, and often poignant, and in less skilled hands it could have been to self-serious or too wild, but McBride finds a perfectly Twain-like balance between the two. Onion him/herself isn't quite sure what to make of Brown, and so she sees identifies his deficiencies with a deft eye. But she also respects this man who trusts so fully in his cause and in his God that his faith makes his defeats into victories and his victories into divine will. Onion's adventures sometimes take him/her away from Brown, and buried in the narrative is an equally compelling coming-of-age story of a young black man in the worst of times, when anything you need to do to save your skin--even denying your identity by putting on a dress--seem to make sense.  McBride writes with a sense of the hypocrisy surrounding the slavery question, both of the whites and of the African Americans themselves. Frederick Douglass may be taken down a peg or two, even as Harriet Tubman is elevated. In the end, those who do nothing but talk are exposed for the pretense and false virtue, while those who act--in whatever way they know how--are elevated and celebrated. 

There are elements of the novel that I'm still working through. I'm not sure, for example, what the opening set up for how Onion's story came to be told really serves any particular purpose, other than to set up the possible unreliability of the narrator (an idea further confirmed by a few of the details that don't quite match up within the narrative), and perhaps a second read through would help me see why having an unreliable narrator might be a boon to this book instead of a detraction. But on the first time through I just loved the journey, the voice, the characters, and the contemplation the book inspired. It's quirky, but it's also one of the best books I've read in a long time--and I like a lot of books.

What a great way to start the year.

Grade: A

January 13-19 Recap

Films

Europa Report
Director: Sebastian Cordero
Genre: Sci-fi
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: PG-13
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B

A solid pseudo-documentary about an international mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, Europa Report really surprised me. I tried to watch the film once a couple of months ago and must have been distracted, because this time through I couldn't tear myself away. The documentary hook works well (especially as you start to realize who's not being interviewed) and the nonlinear narrative works well in building suspension and emotional weight. 

Mostly I loved that the film seemed to be a bit of a love letter to sci-fi films. I caught pointed references to both Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssy, and I'm sure a second viewing would reveal even more homages. I've never heard of writer Philip Gelatt before, but the deftness with which he handles the pacing (and particularly the climax) of the film makes me want to seek out more of his work. This was a pleasant surprise. I'm glad I gave it another shot. 

Nebraska
Director: Alexander Payne
Genre: Drama/ Comedy
Source: USA (2013)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Georgia Theater Company
Grade: A

Do you have to be from the Midwest to really appreciate Nebraska? I'm not sure. Maybe there's a plainness, a sadness, to small towns and working class people everywhere that crosses geographical boundaries. I've heard Payne be accused of not having much sympathy for his characters before, but that's not at all what I saw in this film. I saw an honesty and an optimism that, while perhaps at times misguided (like Woody's belief that he has won a million dollars) also has a kernel of heart and sweetness to it that gets at something genuinely human. It may be sad, but there's also heart and sweetness, if you can get past the rough surface. Just like Bruce Dern's Woody Grant.

There's a lot to like here. The acting really is fantastic. Payne doesn't seem to be afraid of pauses, or of letting his actor's speak in awkward cadences, much like real life. I didn't love June Squibb (nominated for Best Supporting Actress), but I was blown away by Dern (nominated for Best Actor), Will Forte, Bob Odenkirk, and several of the minor characters. Angela McEwan's Peg Nagy (who runs the local newspaper), for example, seems to be genuine, a woman who has seen a lot and done a little and is thoroughly pleased with her life. She's got a grandmotherly sweetness to her that reminds me of my own grandmother. Scenes of awkward gatherings, where there's really not much to say to family you rarely see, so you find something else to do to distract yourself (like watch a football game, which decreases the opportunities for awkward small talk) remind me of times visiting my family or going to friend's houses.

The film is funny as well. Cousins Bart and Cole--and their determination to talk to Forte's David about what kind of car he drives, despite his utter lack of interest in the discussion--reminds me of so many conversations I've had since moving to the South. Payne finds comedy in age and even in dementia that manages to recognize the humor while refraining from being too cruel. 

And it's really beautiful. I don't know the last time (if ever) I saw a black and white movie on the big screen, but there's something beautiful about it, a reminder of just how many shades of grey there are in the world. The cinematography fits the bleak Midwest winter landscape, but it also finds beauty in a sunrise, or in a cold breath, or in a truck driving down an empty road. I'm not afraid of black and white film the way I was as a kid, but I hadn't expected to see it move me so much when projected on a big screen.

This is one of those movies I can see a lot of people enjoying but being ultimately apathetic about (despite the Oscar nods), but I really found it an honest and heartfelt film. Really great.

Books

Jim Henson: The Biography (by Brian Jay Jones)
Who doesn't love the Muppets? I know I do, and clearly author Brian Jay Jones does as well. While I was interested enough in Henson's life, ups, and downs to keep reading, however, I wish Jones had as much creativity in writing about Henson as Henson had in writing about, say, coffee advertisements. It's not that this was a bad book. It was just much flatter than I expected it to be. 

Granted, I'm much more of a fiction than a biography kind of guy, so perhaps I just came at the story of Henson's life and work from the wrong angle, but I got bored much more often than I expected to. Jones writes about every detail of Henson's life with little regard for what details are interesting and what are somewhat bland. He waxes philosophical on Jim's rather generic childhood for nearly a hundred pages and spends nearly as much time writing about how who he hires to decorate his house as he does about much more interesting elements such as Henson's disagreements with Roald Dahl. I think the problem is he likes Jim and the Henson family (both literal and professional) so much that he's not really as interested in exploring Jim's complexities and contradictions as he is praising and celebrating him. Which is fine, it's just that it gets a little dull.The book becomes a chronicle rather than a story, and the peaks and valleys that should be there eventually all get evened out and flattened.

Which is not to say there's not great stuff here. Jones clearly drives home several aspects of the "What made Henson tick" question: his love of creativity, his desire for positivity, the pleasure he took in work. All of those elements are explored--and explored well--at several points throughout the book. And though the book could and should have had more pictures (Jim was, after all, a visual storyteller), reading the biography was still fun in that it drove me to the Internet repeatedly to look up film clips (like Henson's short film "Time Piece" on YouTube) or to find scenes with individual Muppets. And it also made me wish I had some Muppet movies/tv episodes in my own collection!

In the end, the book isn't bad, it's just not as dynamic or compelling as it should have been, given the creative genius at its heart.

Grade: C+

Eleanor & Park (by Rainbow Rowell)
I devoured this book like Saturday morning breakfast cereal.

Rainbow Rowell captures about as perfectly as I could hope that feeling of teenage love--the consuming, overwhelming, enveloping feeling of wanting and needing and feeling hungry to consume another person that anyone who had a relationship that mattered to them in high school is sure to recognize. 

And in Eleanor and Park, she creates the kind of misfits that so many teenagers can identify with. Not so much the idealized wunderkind who other YA writers celebrate, but the mostly average kid who is passionate about a few things and lost about a lot of things and feels broken much of the time and doesn't know she (or he) needs someone who helps her (or him) feel found. Kids who love music and comic books and are smart, but they're not savants, and they're not about to change the world or save the world, because they're just trying to survive. Because sometimes high school can be the loneliest place on the planet.

And then someone says something like, "You can be Han Solo. And I'll be Boba Fett. I'll cross the sky for you." And if your little heart doesn't melt a little at that, then you're not the kind of person I probably have much in common with, because damn, that's fantastic. And that's just the tip of the iceberg for Rowell's millions of metaphors about trying to capture that feeling of love. 

There is drama here. One of the two lives in a hellacious and abusive home. Teenage cruelty, and parents who don't understand, and figuring out how to get time alone. All that drama is here, and more. 

But at heart, it's about being an outsider, and finding someone who makes you feel like you're a part of the only inside circle that matters. 

I loved it.


(PS: On Spotify Rowell has listed a killer soundtrack to the novel. A mixtape from Rowell to us--a kind of "Best Of" of Park's mixes for Eleanor. It's fantastic.)

Grade: A