Okay, so I just got back from Iron Man 2 with Shawn. As I stated on the Twitters, the early reviews were ranging from, “What a terrific film, balanced by action and intense character work,” to, “it’s like Hitler came to life and started raping babies.” I will seriously never understand the entitlement aspect to fanboys, and the concept that if a film isn’t exactly their vision, they have been betrayed and let down and I’m never reading comics again and I’m taking my ball and going home. I mean, seriously? Daredevil was a mediocre film but I got through it somehow.
Anyway, in your Kev’s humble opinion, Iron Man 2 is not only a wonderful film, it’s the best of the year. It’s got a few new characters, but it never feels overcrowded. We get deeper into Tony Stark’s neuroses, and his way of using his image as a shield to hide behind. Somehow, Gwyneth Paltrow is appealing, and Scarlet Johanssen kicks a bunch of ass, and there’s a lot more of John Favreu on the screen. This is never bad, though I would have preferred shirtlessness. Plus, Mickey Rourke is a believable bad guy, and the action sequences are delightfully actiony, and there’s exposition but it never goes on forever, and Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Furying just enough, and it’s all awesome. Just awesome!
But that’s not the main reason I loved this movie. No, I loved this movie because it’s so Disney I had like seven nerdgasms in my seat. And not obvious Disney. Not anything that will distract anyone who hates or doesn’t know Disney. But for Disnerds, you guys, this is a treasure trove. There’s a whole thing about the Stark Expo ’74, which is a near-exact replica of Disney’s pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in ’64. There’s a video showing Tony Stark’s Dad and he looks exactly like Walt Disney doing his promotional videos. And biggest of all? There’s a song associated with the expo that plays early in the movie and then again over the credits. I whispered to Shawn, “This is like a re-write of ‘A Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow,’ which was in Horizons and the Carousel of Progress.” Then the song credits rolled and I actually shouted in the theater. “SHAWN IT WAS WRITTEN BY RICHARD SHERMAN! WHO WROTE ‘A GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL TOMORROW’! AND ALSO ‘IT’S A SMALL WORLD’!”
He looked at me. “You know, I know who the Sherman Brothers are.”
Me, wide-eyed. “You do?!”
“Dude, I bought you that CD for Christmas!”
You know, I know a lot of people were crazy nervous when Disney bought Marvel, but if this is the direction? If they’re going to do things cleverly and interestingly without being obvious and stupid, I am on board. I am so excited about this movie. I want to see it again, right now! OMG and then there was a post-credits thing! SERIOUSLY STAY FOR AFTER THE CREDITS, especially you, Dave P. ESPECIALLY YOU!
OMG there was also a Spaceship Earth! YOU GUYS WAY TOO MUCH SQUEE!!!
Okay, better.
EPCOT!
Seriously, better now.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Blockade Billy, by Stephen King: A Review
A simple story, well told.
Blockade Billy tells the tale of William Blakely, perhaps the greatest baseball player ever to put on the gear, and who was summarily erased from the record books and forgotten by the world. King’s novella is primarily concerned with the questions raised by these opposing histories: why Blakely was the greatest, and what made him disappear. The answers lie in George Grantham, former third baseman coach and equipment manager for the New Jersey Titans. Grantham – Granny – spins his story of the 1957 season that introduced William Blakely to the big leagues. It’s an uninterrupted first-person narrative, the kind King used to great success in Dolores Claiborne, and that success is matched here. Only Granny isn’t speaking to fictional, off-screen listeners is Blockade Billy; instead, King cleverly inserts himself as the one taking dictation. While King’s presence doesn’t intrude (he is only mentioned by name three or four times), it adds a certain verisimilitude to a story one believes actually, tragically, could happen.
Clever, too, is the setup. King tackles old-time baseball the way he tackles prison life in The Green Mile or “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” or the way he tackles small towns in ’Salem’s Lot or Needful Things: he assumes the reader knows nothing about it, and builds from there. One of the subtle pleasures of Blockade Billy is that readers don’t have to be baseball fanatics to love the story; similarly to The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, the reader is given just enough information so that one cares about the outcome of the game as much as the characters do. Unlike in Faithful, King does not overwhelm the reader with baseball lore and stats. He is instead concerned with getting you invested in the suspense of what’s happening, and why.
That suspense lies at the heart of Blockade Billy. Stephen King has long been a master of the action sequence, those amped-up moments of intensity that make the rest of the story feel like a single held breath. Witness the dog attacks in Cujo, the painting sequences in Duma Key, or the psychic flashes in The Dead Zone. Here, the same treatment is given to Blockade Billy’s baseball games … and what happens when someone on the opposing team goes up against Billy directly. Billy’s single-minded devotion to baseball and to his team drives these scenes, spiking in what seems to be inevitable violence. It’s not whether the Titans win or lose, it’s how Blockade Billy plays the game. And the crowd eats it up.
So many of King’s fascinations are on display here, and it’s a delight for longtime readers to see them deconstructed and reassembled into this fantastic new book. Blood sport has been central to King’s imagination since The Long Walk; even though Blockade Billy focuses on baseball instead of dystopian-future game shows, blood does indeed spill. In his depictions of the crowd’s enthrallment with violence, King recalls The Running Man and, again, The Long Walk. A startling scene near the end brings to mind certain scenes in Hearts In Atlantis, and King’s ongoing interest in the William Golding book Lord of the Flies. If the technique is reminiscent of Dolores Claiborne, the voice is similar to that of Paul Edgecombe’s in The Green Mile, or even the older men describing the central mystery of The Colorado Kid.
In fact, Blockade Billy – whose cover, like that of The Colorado Kid, was painted by the amazing Glen Orbik – almost works as a spiritual cousin to King’s Hard Case Crime outing. Though the stories are wildly different, they read the same, and have the same feel. There are two essential differences here, though: first, the mystery of Blockade Billy is never asserted as a mystery. The reader has only just begun asking serious questions about the central character before the truth begins to emerge. And second, the truth does emerge. Unlike the origins of that body on the beach in The Colorado Kid, just where Blockade Billy came from and how he got there are startlingly revealed.
Coming so close on the heels of a mammoth novel like Under the Dome, Blockade Billy is refreshingly slender. It’s short enough for a reader to gulp down in one sitting, and compelling enough that he or she is helpless to do anything but. A small masterpiece of voice, pacing, and situation, Blockade Billy once again proves that Stephen King is a master of the novella.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
All In Good Time
I managed to get my hands on an early copy of the new Barenaked Ladies album today, and before you call me a thief and a pirate, know that I preordered the album from iTunes and my paid copy is coming to me next Tuesday. There were some advantages to preordering, namely that I got one track early (“Every Subway Car”), and two tracks – “All In Good Time” and “She Turned Away” – were only available if you did the whole preorder thing. Those bonus tracks didn’t come with my early copy, so I’m going to the opposite of the Bruce Springsteen message board and reserve judgment on them until after I hear them.
All In Good Time is BNL’s first album without Steven Page, and regardless of whether you like the record or not, the absence is immediately noticeable. Ed Robertson has a perfectly fine voice, but Steve had a very distinctive voice, and going a whole BNL album without it will take getting used to. Kevin Hearn, who also has a very distinctive voice (a little thin, but definitely interesting), steps up with lead vocals on three tracks. Jim Creeggan, who provided one or two odd tracks on BNL’s earlier albums, and the interesting “Peterborough and the Kawarthas” on the more recent Barenaked Ladies Are Me, offers up two lead vocals here. This democratic voicework is fresh and interesting – I like that BNL has been moving back to this since BLAM – but I’m not sure how successful it is here.
Unfortunately, because Ed’s voice is mellow and unassuming, a few of the tracks on All In Good Time sound remarkably similar. Despite different musical directions, songs like “Ordinary,” “I Have Learned,” and “How Long” border on indistinct. Even the slow-jam groove of “Summertime,” can’t quite escape the samey-ness.
Kevin Hearn’s offerings suffer a bit, too, although with only three tracks to work with, they do so less. Though “Watching the Northern Lights” is the only unlistenable song on the album, “Another Heartbreak” is sweet and sad, and “Jerome” is terrific: a slow calypso that ranks among, say, “Hidden Sun” and “Another Spin” as Hearn’s best. Creeggan’s two songs – “On the Lookout” and “I Saw It” – are perfectly fine, the latter perhaps about Steve Page’s leaving the group.
Ed Robertson, too, has some issues with Steve’s absence; Ed Robertson is most comfortable here when he’s angry. “You Run Away” is pissed-off and plaintive, and “Golden Boy” is a raging screed. One can’t help but wonder if both are about Steve Page’s decision to abandon the band. “The Love We’re In” is also good, musically recalling Stunt’s “Long Way Back Home” and lyrically romantic and devastating. “Four Seconds” sounds the most like what people expect from BNL: a fast-paced novelty song in the vein of “One Week,” but its staccato rhymes (Ed manages to rhyme “orange” not once but four times) never make the song feel rote or compulsory. All In Good Time might have benefitted from more of this sort of idiosyncrasy.
As it stands, All In Good Time is a good album, not a great one. Maybe four of its songs – “Golden Boy,” “You Run Away,” “Jerome,” and “Four Seconds” – can stand among their best work, with two or three more perfectly good songs. It’s an interesting new direction for the band, and I’m intrigued to see where they go from here; I just wish their first step without Steve Page hadn’t been as shaky.
All In Good Time is BNL’s first album without Steven Page, and regardless of whether you like the record or not, the absence is immediately noticeable. Ed Robertson has a perfectly fine voice, but Steve had a very distinctive voice, and going a whole BNL album without it will take getting used to. Kevin Hearn, who also has a very distinctive voice (a little thin, but definitely interesting), steps up with lead vocals on three tracks. Jim Creeggan, who provided one or two odd tracks on BNL’s earlier albums, and the interesting “Peterborough and the Kawarthas” on the more recent Barenaked Ladies Are Me, offers up two lead vocals here. This democratic voicework is fresh and interesting – I like that BNL has been moving back to this since BLAM – but I’m not sure how successful it is here.
Unfortunately, because Ed’s voice is mellow and unassuming, a few of the tracks on All In Good Time sound remarkably similar. Despite different musical directions, songs like “Ordinary,” “I Have Learned,” and “How Long” border on indistinct. Even the slow-jam groove of “Summertime,” can’t quite escape the samey-ness.
Kevin Hearn’s offerings suffer a bit, too, although with only three tracks to work with, they do so less. Though “Watching the Northern Lights” is the only unlistenable song on the album, “Another Heartbreak” is sweet and sad, and “Jerome” is terrific: a slow calypso that ranks among, say, “Hidden Sun” and “Another Spin” as Hearn’s best. Creeggan’s two songs – “On the Lookout” and “I Saw It” – are perfectly fine, the latter perhaps about Steve Page’s leaving the group.
Ed Robertson, too, has some issues with Steve’s absence; Ed Robertson is most comfortable here when he’s angry. “You Run Away” is pissed-off and plaintive, and “Golden Boy” is a raging screed. One can’t help but wonder if both are about Steve Page’s decision to abandon the band. “The Love We’re In” is also good, musically recalling Stunt’s “Long Way Back Home” and lyrically romantic and devastating. “Four Seconds” sounds the most like what people expect from BNL: a fast-paced novelty song in the vein of “One Week,” but its staccato rhymes (Ed manages to rhyme “orange” not once but four times) never make the song feel rote or compulsory. All In Good Time might have benefitted from more of this sort of idiosyncrasy.
As it stands, All In Good Time is a good album, not a great one. Maybe four of its songs – “Golden Boy,” “You Run Away,” “Jerome,” and “Four Seconds” – can stand among their best work, with two or three more perfectly good songs. It’s an interesting new direction for the band, and I’m intrigued to see where they go from here; I just wish their first step without Steve Page hadn’t been as shaky.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Truth Outside the Lie - A Review of "Stephen King: The Non-Fiction"
I didn’t think I could be surprised anymore.
I’ve been reading books by Stephen King since I was twelve, and reading books about him for almost as long. My first such book was The Stephen King Quiz Book, and it neatly kicked off my fascination with the stories behind the stories, and behind the man. Have I read more books about King than I have by King? I’m not sure, but it’s close – to the point at which I was convinced that the only new subject to cover would be new books by King himself.
I have rarely been happier to be wrong.
Rocky Wood and Justin Brooks’s Stephen King: The Non-Fiction puts the spotlight on an element of King’s writing that is woefully underappreciated. When I first heard of the title, I assumed it would be some sort of bibliographic text, a list of all the non-fiction stuff I was already familiar with. Again: wrong, and wonderfully so. The Non-Fiction can be used as a bibliographic reference, certainly, but authors Wood and Brooks take the time and effort to actually review all the pieces they talk about. Starting with the higher-profile work such Danse Macabre, On Writing, and Faithful (along with King’s Garbage Truck and Pop of King columns and introductions to his own work) they quickly move into less charted territory: opinion pieces, book reviews, website updates, and unpublished work. Included in the text is a reprint of the little-known King work, “My Serrated Little Security Blanket,” a short bit of nasty fun.
Every work listed receives an explanatory or critical note, along with instructions on how to track down a copy (especially useful for the more obscure pieces). Some are accompanied by tales of the authors’ great lengths to which they’d gone to secure copies, illustrating the immense level of dedication and care it took to craft this book. While other books on King have discussed his non-fiction as an adjunct to his fiction, this is the first book to take on the subject comprehensively. Not to mention the fact that Wood and Brooks are actually terrific writers – this book is as compulsively readable as it is meticulously researched. I was blown away by this book.
Stephen King: The Non-Fiction is an entirely new sort of book on King. If you’ve ever been curious as to King’s truth outside the lie, this book is an absolute must.
(You can get it here.)
I’ve been reading books by Stephen King since I was twelve, and reading books about him for almost as long. My first such book was The Stephen King Quiz Book, and it neatly kicked off my fascination with the stories behind the stories, and behind the man. Have I read more books about King than I have by King? I’m not sure, but it’s close – to the point at which I was convinced that the only new subject to cover would be new books by King himself.
I have rarely been happier to be wrong.
Rocky Wood and Justin Brooks’s Stephen King: The Non-Fiction puts the spotlight on an element of King’s writing that is woefully underappreciated. When I first heard of the title, I assumed it would be some sort of bibliographic text, a list of all the non-fiction stuff I was already familiar with. Again: wrong, and wonderfully so. The Non-Fiction can be used as a bibliographic reference, certainly, but authors Wood and Brooks take the time and effort to actually review all the pieces they talk about. Starting with the higher-profile work such Danse Macabre, On Writing, and Faithful (along with King’s Garbage Truck and Pop of King columns and introductions to his own work) they quickly move into less charted territory: opinion pieces, book reviews, website updates, and unpublished work. Included in the text is a reprint of the little-known King work, “My Serrated Little Security Blanket,” a short bit of nasty fun.
Every work listed receives an explanatory or critical note, along with instructions on how to track down a copy (especially useful for the more obscure pieces). Some are accompanied by tales of the authors’ great lengths to which they’d gone to secure copies, illustrating the immense level of dedication and care it took to craft this book. While other books on King have discussed his non-fiction as an adjunct to his fiction, this is the first book to take on the subject comprehensively. Not to mention the fact that Wood and Brooks are actually terrific writers – this book is as compulsively readable as it is meticulously researched. I was blown away by this book.
Stephen King: The Non-Fiction is an entirely new sort of book on King. If you’ve ever been curious as to King’s truth outside the lie, this book is an absolute must.
(You can get it here.)
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Out Where the Dreams All Hide: A Review of The Killers' Day & Age
Have you heard the new Killers album, Day and Age? Because, seriously, stop reading now and go out and buy it and then listen to it all the way through, and then listen to it again because it’s AWESOME. Seriously, AWESOME, with a capital A (or, in the case of a blog post where the HTML has gotten slack enough for me to hold down the shift key instead of italicizing, AWESOME is in ALL CAPS). Really, go buy it and upload it to iTunes and go to the gym with it or listen to it in bed as you’re drifting to sleep or brushing your teeth or something. I’ll wait.
Still waiting.
Okay, by now I assume you’ve listened to it nine or ten times like I have since getting it for Christmas. (Here I am also assuming that you are hyped up on Red Bulls and Bawls and eggnog chai from Starbucks, because this is how everyone wakes up, right? Right?)
Let’s start with the first single, “Human,” which I purchased from iTunes after I saw The Killers on Saturday Night Live a few months back and which I have since done a near-pitch-perfect version of at karaoke. (Seriously, I know when I’ve fucked up at the karaoke. Note: Alanis’s “Thank U” is not my song.) The song’s chorus has stirred some controversy – not from religious groups or from concerned parents, as most rock and roll does, but from staunch grammarians. The verbal disagreement in the line, “Are we human / or are we dancer?” has caused what can only be deemed a hilarious uproar. According to singer Brandon Flowers, the line is a paraphrase from Hunter S. Thompson … which makes the whole thing a little bit more understandable.
Regardless of all that, the song is full-textured KICK, with a side of RAWK and BITCHIN. Does it make any real sense? Of course it doesn’t. It’s The Killers, the band who made famous the line, “I’ve got soul / but I’m not a soldier.” But there’s an earnestness to Flowers’ singing, especially when he asks, “Will your system be all right / when you dream of home tonight?” As on the genius album Sam’s Town, The Killers make mythic the themes of home and youth and lost love. Nostalgia isn’t passive; it’s vibrant and sometimes violent.
That’s not to say the album is dire. After their glam-pop debut of Hot Fuss and their bid for epic Americana on Sam’s Town, they have figured out how to merge the two sounds on “Day and Age.” (This reminds me of how U2 found a way to merge the electronica of Pop and Zooropa with the soaring, ambitious rock and roll of their early albums on “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” Except Day and Age is just a little bit better than that.) Their obsession with Bruce Springsteen – an obsession I fully endorse – is on full display here (especially on the absolutely perfect “A Dustland Fairytale,” which seems like a New Wave take on something from the Boss’s “The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle,” and “Losing Touch,” which could have been on Springsteen’s newest effort, “Magic.”) But there’s also some Elton John and David Bowie on “Spaceman,” early Blondie on “This is Your Life,” and “Joy Ride” is the most Duran Duran the Killers can possibly be without becoming a straight-up cover band. It’s eclectic all the way through, in ways that neither Hot Fuss nor Sam’s Town were, and that’s this album’s greatest strength.
The album isn’t without flaws. It’s a little unfortunate that the album’s final two songs – “The World We Live In” and “Goodnight, Travel Well,” are its weakest. It’s not for lack of trying, though: the former has a full string section and its lyrics strive for depth, and the latter is a brooding, spooky closer that weirdly recalls Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” By the end, when the drums and synths kick in big time and try to bring the song (and album) to a rousing close, they fall just a little short. Flowers tries to sound mournful but often comes across a little bored. It’s a terrific title, though.
But focusing on the shortfalls is a disservice to Day and Age, which is a really fantastic record. I honestly can’t get over how amazing “A Dustland Fairytale” is – especially some of Flowers’ more interesting vocal inflections, which manage to break out of his “bombast AND NOW MORE BOMBAST!” mode more than ever. And I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the fantastic “Neon Tiger,” which seems to be told from the point of view of a, um, neon tiger, looking out over the Killers’ beloved/hated Las Vegas. Lyrics you don’t expect keep popping up, keeping us all on our toes. It’s exciting and fun, which are words that can be used to describe most of Day and Age. This is the perfect third album for The Killers, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.
Still waiting.
Okay, by now I assume you’ve listened to it nine or ten times like I have since getting it for Christmas. (Here I am also assuming that you are hyped up on Red Bulls and Bawls and eggnog chai from Starbucks, because this is how everyone wakes up, right? Right?)
Let’s start with the first single, “Human,” which I purchased from iTunes after I saw The Killers on Saturday Night Live a few months back and which I have since done a near-pitch-perfect version of at karaoke. (Seriously, I know when I’ve fucked up at the karaoke. Note: Alanis’s “Thank U” is not my song.) The song’s chorus has stirred some controversy – not from religious groups or from concerned parents, as most rock and roll does, but from staunch grammarians. The verbal disagreement in the line, “Are we human / or are we dancer?” has caused what can only be deemed a hilarious uproar. According to singer Brandon Flowers, the line is a paraphrase from Hunter S. Thompson … which makes the whole thing a little bit more understandable.
Regardless of all that, the song is full-textured KICK, with a side of RAWK and BITCHIN. Does it make any real sense? Of course it doesn’t. It’s The Killers, the band who made famous the line, “I’ve got soul / but I’m not a soldier.” But there’s an earnestness to Flowers’ singing, especially when he asks, “Will your system be all right / when you dream of home tonight?” As on the genius album Sam’s Town, The Killers make mythic the themes of home and youth and lost love. Nostalgia isn’t passive; it’s vibrant and sometimes violent.
That’s not to say the album is dire. After their glam-pop debut of Hot Fuss and their bid for epic Americana on Sam’s Town, they have figured out how to merge the two sounds on “Day and Age.” (This reminds me of how U2 found a way to merge the electronica of Pop and Zooropa with the soaring, ambitious rock and roll of their early albums on “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” Except Day and Age is just a little bit better than that.) Their obsession with Bruce Springsteen – an obsession I fully endorse – is on full display here (especially on the absolutely perfect “A Dustland Fairytale,” which seems like a New Wave take on something from the Boss’s “The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle,” and “Losing Touch,” which could have been on Springsteen’s newest effort, “Magic.”) But there’s also some Elton John and David Bowie on “Spaceman,” early Blondie on “This is Your Life,” and “Joy Ride” is the most Duran Duran the Killers can possibly be without becoming a straight-up cover band. It’s eclectic all the way through, in ways that neither Hot Fuss nor Sam’s Town were, and that’s this album’s greatest strength.
The album isn’t without flaws. It’s a little unfortunate that the album’s final two songs – “The World We Live In” and “Goodnight, Travel Well,” are its weakest. It’s not for lack of trying, though: the former has a full string section and its lyrics strive for depth, and the latter is a brooding, spooky closer that weirdly recalls Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” By the end, when the drums and synths kick in big time and try to bring the song (and album) to a rousing close, they fall just a little short. Flowers tries to sound mournful but often comes across a little bored. It’s a terrific title, though.
But focusing on the shortfalls is a disservice to Day and Age, which is a really fantastic record. I honestly can’t get over how amazing “A Dustland Fairytale” is – especially some of Flowers’ more interesting vocal inflections, which manage to break out of his “bombast AND NOW MORE BOMBAST!” mode more than ever. And I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t mention the fantastic “Neon Tiger,” which seems to be told from the point of view of a, um, neon tiger, looking out over the Killers’ beloved/hated Las Vegas. Lyrics you don’t expect keep popping up, keeping us all on our toes. It’s exciting and fun, which are words that can be used to describe most of Day and Age. This is the perfect third album for The Killers, and I can’t wait to see what they do next.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Tender At the Bone: A Review
I didn’t make New Year’s Resolutions this year, and here’s why: there are so many good intentions followed by such little follow-through. If everything I promised I would do over the years had come to fruition, I would not only be competing in Strongman challenges and be rich beyond my wildest dreams, I would also have a series of twenty published novels to my credit before I turned thirty-five. Instead, I’m tubby and lower-middle-class and writing weekly columns for this place. Hooray!
If I had made a resolution this year, it likely would have been learning to cook. Had I done so, I would have probably failed miserably and gone back to eating Frosted Flakes for dinner. But because I didn’t promise myself I would take on a new skill, I’ve been cooking three to four nights a week, and baking on the weekends, and attempting stuff like mushroom bisque on special occasions. Ah, the many ways my own self-interest works against me.
When I stumble across a new interest, what solidifies it in my mind is the peripheral stuff. I love Star Trek, but review sites and message boards are what keep the interest perpetuating. I make it to Disney World as often as I can, but I’ve got website and podcasts during the in-between times. So when I got into cooking, I went casting about for interesting people talking about cooking. What I found was Ruth Reichl.
Funny but true: Reichl’s name was not unfamiliar to me. I used to work in a bookstore, and I’d often shelve Reichl’s stuff. I loved the titles – Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me With Apples, Garlic and Sapphires – all of which very evocative. So when I stepped into a bookstore this time with the intention of casting about for food writing, the very clear thought in my brain was, I need to find someone like Ruth Reichl to read.
I searched for a good fifteen minutes – fifteen minutes! – before I literally stopped myself and thought, Oh, guess who writes EXACTLY like Ruth Reichl who you haven’t read yet, Kev? Ruth fucking REICHL! My brain, I swear to God.
I purchased the book and dove in immediately. Sometimes there’s a barrier between me and new writers, one I have to dissemble bit by bit in order to start falling under their spell. It’s that self-interest thing again: I always want something new to read, but I have psychological blocks that prevent me from enjoying new stuff, at least at first. At all events, that didn’t quite happen with Reichl. Instead, her writing acted like a Space Invader, one of the really nasty ones that blast your forcefield away far quicker than you can shoot them back. Reichl didn’t just break down my silly reading barriers; she obliterated them:
“Most mornings I got out of bed and went to the refrigerator to see how my mother was feeling. You could tell instantly just by opening the door.”
She had me hooked by the first paragraph.
I had expected something like a cookbook with anecdotes about how these recipes came to her. What I got instead was a memoir of a fascinating, schizophrenic childhood and adolescence, and how food and cooking served as one of the very few constants in Reichl’s life. It might not have worked so effectively if Reichl’s life weren’t fascinating – or if she had allowed herself to get lost in the fascination – but just as food is Reichl’s anchor throughout her weird journeys, she is ours. We relate to her because she seems like an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary situations.
The best portion of the book – and it’s hard to choose, really, because almost everything in here is “best” – is her recounting her first excursion to France. The excursion had not been her idea, but rather that of her bipolar mother. For a time, Ruth resents the trip … until a friend of hers invites her home for dinner. The description of Reichl’s first fine French meal is worth the cover price alone – you can almost taste the soup sliding down your throat. It’s moments like these – high points among the high points – that make Reichl’s writing so extraordinary.
As the recipes become more complicated – and there are plenty of recipes, despite my insistence that it’s not a cookbook – so, too, does Ruth’s life, and we as readers are richer for it. Tender at the Bone hurtles toward its anxious cliffhanger finale (yes, anxious cliffhanger finale; if you didn’t think a cooking memoir could have one of those, you’re wrong), and we hurtle with it, identifying not only with Reichl’s ability to find solace within chaos, but also with her sheer storytelling genius. Anyone can write a cookbook or a memoir; it takes a special sort of writer to combine them into something greater than either.
If I had made a resolution this year, it likely would have been learning to cook. Had I done so, I would have probably failed miserably and gone back to eating Frosted Flakes for dinner. But because I didn’t promise myself I would take on a new skill, I’ve been cooking three to four nights a week, and baking on the weekends, and attempting stuff like mushroom bisque on special occasions. Ah, the many ways my own self-interest works against me.
When I stumble across a new interest, what solidifies it in my mind is the peripheral stuff. I love Star Trek, but review sites and message boards are what keep the interest perpetuating. I make it to Disney World as often as I can, but I’ve got website and podcasts during the in-between times. So when I got into cooking, I went casting about for interesting people talking about cooking. What I found was Ruth Reichl.
Funny but true: Reichl’s name was not unfamiliar to me. I used to work in a bookstore, and I’d often shelve Reichl’s stuff. I loved the titles – Tender at the Bone, Comfort Me With Apples, Garlic and Sapphires – all of which very evocative. So when I stepped into a bookstore this time with the intention of casting about for food writing, the very clear thought in my brain was, I need to find someone like Ruth Reichl to read.
I searched for a good fifteen minutes – fifteen minutes! – before I literally stopped myself and thought, Oh, guess who writes EXACTLY like Ruth Reichl who you haven’t read yet, Kev? Ruth fucking REICHL! My brain, I swear to God.
I purchased the book and dove in immediately. Sometimes there’s a barrier between me and new writers, one I have to dissemble bit by bit in order to start falling under their spell. It’s that self-interest thing again: I always want something new to read, but I have psychological blocks that prevent me from enjoying new stuff, at least at first. At all events, that didn’t quite happen with Reichl. Instead, her writing acted like a Space Invader, one of the really nasty ones that blast your forcefield away far quicker than you can shoot them back. Reichl didn’t just break down my silly reading barriers; she obliterated them:
“Most mornings I got out of bed and went to the refrigerator to see how my mother was feeling. You could tell instantly just by opening the door.”
She had me hooked by the first paragraph.
I had expected something like a cookbook with anecdotes about how these recipes came to her. What I got instead was a memoir of a fascinating, schizophrenic childhood and adolescence, and how food and cooking served as one of the very few constants in Reichl’s life. It might not have worked so effectively if Reichl’s life weren’t fascinating – or if she had allowed herself to get lost in the fascination – but just as food is Reichl’s anchor throughout her weird journeys, she is ours. We relate to her because she seems like an ordinary person thrust into extraordinary situations.
The best portion of the book – and it’s hard to choose, really, because almost everything in here is “best” – is her recounting her first excursion to France. The excursion had not been her idea, but rather that of her bipolar mother. For a time, Ruth resents the trip … until a friend of hers invites her home for dinner. The description of Reichl’s first fine French meal is worth the cover price alone – you can almost taste the soup sliding down your throat. It’s moments like these – high points among the high points – that make Reichl’s writing so extraordinary.
As the recipes become more complicated – and there are plenty of recipes, despite my insistence that it’s not a cookbook – so, too, does Ruth’s life, and we as readers are richer for it. Tender at the Bone hurtles toward its anxious cliffhanger finale (yes, anxious cliffhanger finale; if you didn’t think a cooking memoir could have one of those, you’re wrong), and we hurtle with it, identifying not only with Reichl’s ability to find solace within chaos, but also with her sheer storytelling genius. Anyone can write a cookbook or a memoir; it takes a special sort of writer to combine them into something greater than either.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Stephen King Goes To the Movies: A Review
At current, Stephen King has released seven collections of shorter works, give or take. That “give or take” addendum has to be in there because of the nature of King’s writing. The Gunslinger, the first of the Dark Tower books, can technically be considered a short story collection – after all, the tales came out one at a time in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. But are they stories or are they chapters? The verdict remains foggy. Same goes for The Green Mile, whose chapters were released in chap-book format over a period of six months. The collection is absolutely a novel … but there are some who would disagree.
Then there’s the curious conundrum of Hearts in Atlantis, whose cover categorizes it as “new fiction,” thereby avoiding the question of its nature. It’s a volume of five interlocked works, most of which can be taken alone (with the exception of “Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling”), but gain a certain resonance when taken together. Personally? I think the thing’s a novel.
Ah, but then there are even wackier cases. The Bachman Books? Those were five individually-released novels before collected into an omnibus edition. And what of the Octopus Press collection that includes Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot, Night Shift, and The Shining? There’s no way anyone’s going to sit back and tell me that The Shining is a short story.
So: conundrums, and plenty of them, but at least we can agree on some definites. Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Everything’s Eventual, and the new Just After Sunset are definitely short-story collections. Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight are King’s two novella collections … forgiving the fact that every piece in Four Past Midnight is longer than Carrie, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Dolores Claiborne.
But now in marches Stephen King Goes to the Movies, and I have to tell you, I have no idea what to make of it. It’s comprised of five stories, and taken in this context, I suppose we must refer to them as stories: “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (made into the film The Shawshank Redemption), “Low Men In Yellow Coats” (made into the film Hearts In Atlantis, which continues to strike me as odd, since there is a story called “Hearts In Atlantis,” and it has nothing to do with the movie), “Children of the Corn,” “The Mangler,” and “1408.” Two of these come from Night Shift, and one each from Hearts In Atlantis, Different Seasons, and Everything’s Eventual.
So I reiterate: I have no idea what to make of this.
Each story is preceded by a short introductory note – a page or two, in general – regarding King’s feelings on the stories and the movies that eventually sprung from them. The Amazon.com product description raves: “This collection features new commentary and introductions to all of these stories in a treasure-trove of movie trivia!” I need to make this point quite clear: there is no movie trivia in this book. At all. The closest the book comes to insider gossip is that King alludes to the fact that one of the movies needed a reshoot. Maybe.
There is some fiction trivia here, though, and it’s pretty good. King talks a little – and I do mean a little – bit about where the genesis of his stories come from, along with some writing-process tidbits (I liked his assertion that, despite “Shawshank” pointing to the contrary, he’s usually very good with titles.) There’s also a very, very exciting mention of the fact that Hearts In Atlantis, as a collection, is not quite finished. Here, sir, there are always more tales.
But what else? Unfortunately, not much … and I can’t seem to figure out who this collection is for. New readers who like King’s movies and want to try out the fiction? It might just be easier to hand them Different Seasons and tell them two amazing films and one pretty good one came out of it. Maybe it’s for completists like me who need to own everything by King that’s been put between two covers? Could be, and for a paperback at $7.99, it’s not really a huge investment (although if you’re a lunatic collector, like I was in the mid-90s, you can always pick up the Subterranean Press hardcover for $75. But … really?)
As a book, Stephen King Goes To the Movies just doesn’t make any sense. There are three outright horror stories, one Dark Tower story, and then “Shawshank,” which is neither. It’s a hodgepodge of ideas spread across an entire career. It can’t even rightly be called a “greatest hits” collection, because while most of these stories are terrific, “The Mangler” is merely very good. Among these giants, it can only look small in comparison.
For a collection like this to work, you would need (a) longer, more in-depth introductions to the tales, and/or (b) a different line-up. How about “The Lawnmower Man,” and a discussion about the controversy surrounding that? “The Woman In the Room,” maybe, which was Frank Darabont’s first King adaptation. Maybe a look into why Different Seasons has yielded pretty terrific results, but Four Past Midnight hasn’t given us any films that rise above mediocrity. Or what about “Trucks,” from which King’s own Maximum Overdrive sprang, or some of the more interesting “dollar babies,” like “Paranoid: A Chant,” or “The Last Rung On the Ladder.”
I love Stephen King, I really do. I am looking forward to Under the Dome with a palpable fervor. But putting out a collection of recycled stories without much in the way of new material (a Top 10 list of King’s favorite movies based on his work is the best of the new stuff) just isn’t something I can recommend. The new stuff in Stephen King Goes To the Movies took me all of fifteen minutes to read, and for eight bucks, that’s just not enough.
Then there’s the curious conundrum of Hearts in Atlantis, whose cover categorizes it as “new fiction,” thereby avoiding the question of its nature. It’s a volume of five interlocked works, most of which can be taken alone (with the exception of “Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling”), but gain a certain resonance when taken together. Personally? I think the thing’s a novel.
Ah, but then there are even wackier cases. The Bachman Books? Those were five individually-released novels before collected into an omnibus edition. And what of the Octopus Press collection that includes Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot, Night Shift, and The Shining? There’s no way anyone’s going to sit back and tell me that The Shining is a short story.
So: conundrums, and plenty of them, but at least we can agree on some definites. Night Shift, Skeleton Crew, Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Everything’s Eventual, and the new Just After Sunset are definitely short-story collections. Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight are King’s two novella collections … forgiving the fact that every piece in Four Past Midnight is longer than Carrie, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and Dolores Claiborne.
But now in marches Stephen King Goes to the Movies, and I have to tell you, I have no idea what to make of it. It’s comprised of five stories, and taken in this context, I suppose we must refer to them as stories: “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (made into the film The Shawshank Redemption), “Low Men In Yellow Coats” (made into the film Hearts In Atlantis, which continues to strike me as odd, since there is a story called “Hearts In Atlantis,” and it has nothing to do with the movie), “Children of the Corn,” “The Mangler,” and “1408.” Two of these come from Night Shift, and one each from Hearts In Atlantis, Different Seasons, and Everything’s Eventual.
So I reiterate: I have no idea what to make of this.
Each story is preceded by a short introductory note – a page or two, in general – regarding King’s feelings on the stories and the movies that eventually sprung from them. The Amazon.com product description raves: “This collection features new commentary and introductions to all of these stories in a treasure-trove of movie trivia!” I need to make this point quite clear: there is no movie trivia in this book. At all. The closest the book comes to insider gossip is that King alludes to the fact that one of the movies needed a reshoot. Maybe.
There is some fiction trivia here, though, and it’s pretty good. King talks a little – and I do mean a little – bit about where the genesis of his stories come from, along with some writing-process tidbits (I liked his assertion that, despite “Shawshank” pointing to the contrary, he’s usually very good with titles.) There’s also a very, very exciting mention of the fact that Hearts In Atlantis, as a collection, is not quite finished. Here, sir, there are always more tales.
But what else? Unfortunately, not much … and I can’t seem to figure out who this collection is for. New readers who like King’s movies and want to try out the fiction? It might just be easier to hand them Different Seasons and tell them two amazing films and one pretty good one came out of it. Maybe it’s for completists like me who need to own everything by King that’s been put between two covers? Could be, and for a paperback at $7.99, it’s not really a huge investment (although if you’re a lunatic collector, like I was in the mid-90s, you can always pick up the Subterranean Press hardcover for $75. But … really?)
As a book, Stephen King Goes To the Movies just doesn’t make any sense. There are three outright horror stories, one Dark Tower story, and then “Shawshank,” which is neither. It’s a hodgepodge of ideas spread across an entire career. It can’t even rightly be called a “greatest hits” collection, because while most of these stories are terrific, “The Mangler” is merely very good. Among these giants, it can only look small in comparison.
For a collection like this to work, you would need (a) longer, more in-depth introductions to the tales, and/or (b) a different line-up. How about “The Lawnmower Man,” and a discussion about the controversy surrounding that? “The Woman In the Room,” maybe, which was Frank Darabont’s first King adaptation. Maybe a look into why Different Seasons has yielded pretty terrific results, but Four Past Midnight hasn’t given us any films that rise above mediocrity. Or what about “Trucks,” from which King’s own Maximum Overdrive sprang, or some of the more interesting “dollar babies,” like “Paranoid: A Chant,” or “The Last Rung On the Ladder.”
I love Stephen King, I really do. I am looking forward to Under the Dome with a palpable fervor. But putting out a collection of recycled stories without much in the way of new material (a Top 10 list of King’s favorite movies based on his work is the best of the new stuff) just isn’t something I can recommend. The new stuff in Stephen King Goes To the Movies took me all of fifteen minutes to read, and for eight bucks, that’s just not enough.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Milk & Doubt
My obsession with Philip Seymour Hoffman knows no depths. Not only is he one of the greatest actors ever, he’s also stone-cold sexy. That strawberry-blond hair. Those searching, blazing eyes. The fact that he frequently appears in his underwear…
Okay, wait. I’ll get back to the point in a second. Hold on.
The POINT is that when I first saw ads for the upcoming film “Doubt,” I was all over it. A morally complex movie with religious overtones that may or may not have a gay subtext starring Meryl Streep and the sexiest man on the planet? I’m there!
Except then it was Christmas Day, and I realized (quite rationally, I think), that maybe “Doubt” wasn’t the best kind of film for that particular day off. We all remember last year’s “Sweeny Todd” debacle and how depressing that was. No, for this holiday, I would leave the choosing of the film up to my friend Mark, upon whom I forced the throat-slicing barber last Christmas. I knew he wouldn’t want to sit through a depressing period film that dealt, at least in part, with gay persecution.
He called me Christmas Day: “Let’s go see ‘Milk’!” So much for my theory.
Mark, his boyfriend Ben, and I all settled down in the back row of the theater to take in the story of Harvey Milk, the true story of California’s first openly gay elected official. I knew three things about the movie going into it: 1. I knew Harvey Milk was assassinated. 2. His killer used something called The Twinkie Defense – blaming his violent tendencies on junk food – to try to get off, and 3. That Sean Penn was likely to irritate me. I have liked Penn in the past, but my bafflement as to why people enjoyed “Mystic River” in general, and Penn’s hammy overacting in particular, has left a stain on my moviegoing psyche.
As such, I really had no interest in seeing this movie. It struck me as Important, and Necessary, and I usually delve into those waters when it’s Oscar season. As the credits began to roll, I wished for the relatively simple year when I went to go see the “King Kong” remake on Christmas.
And then … something changed. I was unprepared for the movie to explicate right at the beginning that Milk was shot. Having that information right up front should have bogged the film down, but instead it renders Milk’s assassination as a fact that we understand and absorb, so that we can better focus on the story.
It’s a terrific story, too, one with which I have only had a passing familiarity. I’ve never been a particularly political fellow, and growing up in the 90s with Barney Frank in Congress, it never really sunk in to me how important and revolutionary Harvey Milk was to gay rights. There’s a point early in the film when a gay man is killed and the cops, who seem to care, refer to the dead man’s companion as his “trick.” (Because cops know the lingo, see.) Milk explains that no, that was his lover of many years, not a trick. And the cops sort of shrug that off.
That resonated with me, as did the way Harvey Milk sort of stumbled into politics. He did it because to not do it was intolerable. Sometimes I forget what a damn struggle it has been – even in my lifetime – to simply be who you are if you happen to be gay. The movie takes on these issues but never gets lost in them. The story remains about the man more than the message, and as such never gets the chance to be preachy. Sean Penn, to my amazement and delight, disappears into his role. He’s so effective that at points it’s easy to forget his tragic end; the film is so oddly uplifting that the assassination seems almost beside the point. (The fact that it’s not comes crashing down in the final violent minutes of the movie, and by that point, you’re conditioned enough to be actually shocked.)
My friend Alonso has commanded that I now see the documentary, “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk,” which is now on my forefront of Things To Watch. I’ve never been all that into gay politics, but given the current state of political homophobia, maybe I should be.
Along the same lines of things you’re not supposed to discuss at dinner parties, we move from politics to religion. The Saturday after Christmas, I journeyed downtown, bought popcorn and a sodapop, and treated myself to “Doubt.” Based on the trailers, I was expecting a movie entirely centered around Philip Seymour Hoffman’s priest character and his inappropriate dealings with an altar boy under his tutelage. Instead, what I got was a morally complex story that may or may not have to do with the priest and the boy at all.
At the heart of the movie is Meryl Streep as the Mother Superior of a school she rules with an uncompromising hand. She is used to being right, or at least she is used to being considered right. Her students and the teachers under her watch follow her rule unquestioningly, which she likes just fine. She might never admit that – she would explain that she is simply following her faith – but being right is at the core of her character. She is unused to being wrong, and unfamiliar with changing her stance once she takes one.
This proves dangerous for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s priest character, whose entire being represents change. She doesn’t like him from the start, and as the film progresses, we wonder more and more whether Streep’s character is actually holding true to her convictions, or whether she simply cannot stand to be wrong.
The movie is full of strong performances. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are at the top of their game – I would be stunned if both didn’t garner Oscar nominations. But maybe it’s because the movie is based on a play that they seem to KNOW they’re at the top of their game. The performances are never over the top or Oscar-grubbing, but it often seemed to me that these were Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman delivering knockout performances. Whereas Amy Adams (in the role of a young nun who looks up to Streep’s character) and Viola Davis (playing the mother of the young boy in question, whose role is contained in a single, brilliant scene) never seem to be performing. They steal the movie with acting that never seems like acting, raising the movie up from An Oscar-Worthy Triumph to a watchable, engaging film that is still lingering with me. There’s some obvious stuff in it – light bulbs break and winds gust in at important moments, and the film’s final line seems awkward and too Broadway for a movie – but on a whole, “Doubt” impressed me almost as much as “Milk.”
If you’re a fan of quality films – or just seeing stuff before the Oscars are nominated so you can brag about being a Serious Film Buff – go see both of these movies. You won’t regret it.
Now, when’s that new “Wolverine” movie coming out?
Okay, wait. I’ll get back to the point in a second. Hold on.
The POINT is that when I first saw ads for the upcoming film “Doubt,” I was all over it. A morally complex movie with religious overtones that may or may not have a gay subtext starring Meryl Streep and the sexiest man on the planet? I’m there!
Except then it was Christmas Day, and I realized (quite rationally, I think), that maybe “Doubt” wasn’t the best kind of film for that particular day off. We all remember last year’s “Sweeny Todd” debacle and how depressing that was. No, for this holiday, I would leave the choosing of the film up to my friend Mark, upon whom I forced the throat-slicing barber last Christmas. I knew he wouldn’t want to sit through a depressing period film that dealt, at least in part, with gay persecution.
He called me Christmas Day: “Let’s go see ‘Milk’!” So much for my theory.
Mark, his boyfriend Ben, and I all settled down in the back row of the theater to take in the story of Harvey Milk, the true story of California’s first openly gay elected official. I knew three things about the movie going into it: 1. I knew Harvey Milk was assassinated. 2. His killer used something called The Twinkie Defense – blaming his violent tendencies on junk food – to try to get off, and 3. That Sean Penn was likely to irritate me. I have liked Penn in the past, but my bafflement as to why people enjoyed “Mystic River” in general, and Penn’s hammy overacting in particular, has left a stain on my moviegoing psyche.
As such, I really had no interest in seeing this movie. It struck me as Important, and Necessary, and I usually delve into those waters when it’s Oscar season. As the credits began to roll, I wished for the relatively simple year when I went to go see the “King Kong” remake on Christmas.
And then … something changed. I was unprepared for the movie to explicate right at the beginning that Milk was shot. Having that information right up front should have bogged the film down, but instead it renders Milk’s assassination as a fact that we understand and absorb, so that we can better focus on the story.
It’s a terrific story, too, one with which I have only had a passing familiarity. I’ve never been a particularly political fellow, and growing up in the 90s with Barney Frank in Congress, it never really sunk in to me how important and revolutionary Harvey Milk was to gay rights. There’s a point early in the film when a gay man is killed and the cops, who seem to care, refer to the dead man’s companion as his “trick.” (Because cops know the lingo, see.) Milk explains that no, that was his lover of many years, not a trick. And the cops sort of shrug that off.
That resonated with me, as did the way Harvey Milk sort of stumbled into politics. He did it because to not do it was intolerable. Sometimes I forget what a damn struggle it has been – even in my lifetime – to simply be who you are if you happen to be gay. The movie takes on these issues but never gets lost in them. The story remains about the man more than the message, and as such never gets the chance to be preachy. Sean Penn, to my amazement and delight, disappears into his role. He’s so effective that at points it’s easy to forget his tragic end; the film is so oddly uplifting that the assassination seems almost beside the point. (The fact that it’s not comes crashing down in the final violent minutes of the movie, and by that point, you’re conditioned enough to be actually shocked.)
My friend Alonso has commanded that I now see the documentary, “The Life and Times of Harvey Milk,” which is now on my forefront of Things To Watch. I’ve never been all that into gay politics, but given the current state of political homophobia, maybe I should be.
Along the same lines of things you’re not supposed to discuss at dinner parties, we move from politics to religion. The Saturday after Christmas, I journeyed downtown, bought popcorn and a sodapop, and treated myself to “Doubt.” Based on the trailers, I was expecting a movie entirely centered around Philip Seymour Hoffman’s priest character and his inappropriate dealings with an altar boy under his tutelage. Instead, what I got was a morally complex story that may or may not have to do with the priest and the boy at all.
At the heart of the movie is Meryl Streep as the Mother Superior of a school she rules with an uncompromising hand. She is used to being right, or at least she is used to being considered right. Her students and the teachers under her watch follow her rule unquestioningly, which she likes just fine. She might never admit that – she would explain that she is simply following her faith – but being right is at the core of her character. She is unused to being wrong, and unfamiliar with changing her stance once she takes one.
This proves dangerous for Philip Seymour Hoffman’s priest character, whose entire being represents change. She doesn’t like him from the start, and as the film progresses, we wonder more and more whether Streep’s character is actually holding true to her convictions, or whether she simply cannot stand to be wrong.
The movie is full of strong performances. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman are at the top of their game – I would be stunned if both didn’t garner Oscar nominations. But maybe it’s because the movie is based on a play that they seem to KNOW they’re at the top of their game. The performances are never over the top or Oscar-grubbing, but it often seemed to me that these were Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman delivering knockout performances. Whereas Amy Adams (in the role of a young nun who looks up to Streep’s character) and Viola Davis (playing the mother of the young boy in question, whose role is contained in a single, brilliant scene) never seem to be performing. They steal the movie with acting that never seems like acting, raising the movie up from An Oscar-Worthy Triumph to a watchable, engaging film that is still lingering with me. There’s some obvious stuff in it – light bulbs break and winds gust in at important moments, and the film’s final line seems awkward and too Broadway for a movie – but on a whole, “Doubt” impressed me almost as much as “Milk.”
If you’re a fan of quality films – or just seeing stuff before the Oscars are nominated so you can brag about being a Serious Film Buff – go see both of these movies. You won’t regret it.
Now, when’s that new “Wolverine” movie coming out?
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