This looked dumb and I was so embarrassed to rent this movie I got it from the anonymous Redbox, instead of supporting my local video store. However, it turned out to be a fabulous movie, interesting and compelling. Both leads were quite good at getting across the difficulty of recovery from head injury, and the movie never sank to a schmaltzy level.
poster from:
Hah! Only 7 books read this month despite being on vacation for a week. Could some sort of balance be returning to my reading schedule? Let’s hope so. Maybe next month I will only read five books.
Read
Bossypants.
Tina Fey
I’ve been staring at this book in the Lucky Day section at my library for many months and I just last week noticed that the hands on the cover are man hands and not hers at all. I would make a horrible FBI agent as noticing is not my thing.
This is a very funny book, which I read at the same time I read Sleepwalk with Me by Mike Bribigla and while reading both books my laughter echoed through the house often, causing much commentary by Matt. I spared him the reading aloud of multiple pages, but he would have been the better for it.
The thing I liked about this memoir was that it was full of great stories, but Tina Fey still keeps her secrets. Her reasons why she does not talk about the attack that gave her the scar on her face was one of the most brilliantly reasoned passages I have read in a memoir and I admired how we continually heard about her ongoing state of virginity, but she never tells us the details of when she crossed that milestone. Tina Fey is a classy lady and proof that feminists and funny are not exclusive.
Sleepwalk with Me
Mike Bribigla
This was sitting on the shelf of the library right next to Bossypants and I grabbed them both. Both were laugh-out-loud funny. Some of this book were things expanded from bits I heard of Bribiglia’s act, some were stories new to me. I loved reading his response to review published in student publications and his tour of college campuses of the northwest. Matt got to hear that one read aloud.
Plain Kate
Erin Bow
This falls into the “YA strong female protagonist” genre that is publishing like mad right now. The story was compelling, but perhaps a little too dark for me.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
Douglas Adams
Read aloud.
The saga of Ford Prefect and Arthur continues as they bring along Trillian and Zaphod Beeblebrox. High-jinx ensue, pithy observations are made and funny things happen.
Wonder
R.J. Palacio
Thanks to Sara, I read one of the best books of the year. This is the story of a deformed child entering a middle school after being home schooled through elementary school. It’s the awkward middle school transition we all got to experience, but times one-thousand. The writing is wry and compelling and the characters were very multidimensional. I am hoping this will win some prizes.
Giovanni’s Room
James Baldwin
Read for Book Group
Eh. The prose was dry, the forbidding sense of doom became annoying really quickly and I didn’t really like any of the characters. That said, it was an interesting glimpse into homosexuality in Paris in the 1950s. And I was the only one at book group who didn’t like it.
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle
Haruki Murakami
So I’m still not sure about Murakami. As with 1Q84, I enjoyed reading the book, it sort of put me in an altered state. But when I finished I was again wondering if that was all there was. I’ll read another of Murakami and maybe that will help me decide if I like him or not. Or maybe I’ll read all of his books and still have the same feeling.
Started and did not finish.
The Horse and His Boy
C.S. Lewis
Oh god, this series is boring. Stay tuned to see if I make it through all the books.
So now I’ve experienced the cultural phenomenon that is the Hangover (thank you library and your free rentals.) Maybe it was Channing Tatum withdrawal, (the last five movies I have watched have featured him) but I found this movie only passably amusing in places, and generally okay. I’m pretty sure I can skip the Hangover II.
“Sweetheart, this movie has Ryan Phillippe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt AND Channing Tatum, why I have I not seen this before?” said I. It also has Abbie Cornish, who I like despite not liking her character in
. This was a pretty good movie, full of drama and tough choices, marking this as a “good” MTV films production.*
*Matt thinks he hates MTV Films, but I argue they can make some darn good movies when they set their minds to it. Check out a
. Despite the presence of
Jackass 2.5
and the like, there are some darn good movies on that list. They are especially good a capturing moments in adolescence. (
Varsity Blues
,
Election
,
Napoleon Dynamite
.)
Also, I really like this movie poster. Well done, unknown designer.
poster from:
Having seen
, I was aware that Channing Tatum can dance and rented this film for more evidence of the fact. The plot was predictable, but I wasn’t watching it for the plot, so I can report that the acting was good, and the dancing was fabulous. I also rarely see movies featuring children in foster care, and Channing Tatum played a nicely rounded foster kid.
poster from:
Due to the
and our timing not quite coming together, we missed seeing Portland Actors Ensemble’s production of
,* but handily had this adaptation at the ready. Amanda Bynes’ comedy was quite broad throughout, which was annoying at first, but grew on me eventually. Surprisingly, Channing Tatum was quite good as Duke making this a great evening of movie “theater.”
poster from:
http://www.impawards.com/2006/shes_the_man.html
*Don’t worry, there are multiple performances and we will see it eventually.
Things I absolutely cannot stand about the Olympics:
Sadly, the things I cannot stand about the Olympics outweigh the things I like about them. So I will not be watching the Olympics this year, but I send well wishes to all, especially that woman from Bulgaria who isn’t even going to place in the finals, but is going to have a lot of sex with a lot of different guys. Well done, lady!
While the TV series I grew up with was a drama-fest, and this was a comedy, I still liked it.* Though not as much as Matt who was set to “low chortle” for most of the movie. This movie is worth seeing just for the cameos and also now that it is on DVD, you can see the deleted scenes, one of which (the discussion of the inappropriate nature of sleeping with one of the high school girls) was my favorite part of the movie.
*Favorite interchange:
-Run!
-I’m wearing tights! I can’t run!
-Well, I’m wearing skinny jeans and it’s the exact same thing!
poster from:
http://www.impawards.com/2012/twenty_one_jump_street.html
Also, a slight Channing Tatum obsessing uncovered this video which is amusing, though not hilarious, as the title overstates a bit. I do feel bad for the reporter trying to get a story out of that interview. It’s eight minutes. No commercials.