Three sentence movie reviews: The Five-Year Engagement

We saw this for free and I had low expectations, but found it to be quite good and also a great example of modern couple dynamics (unlike say, He’s Just Not That Into You).  However, it is a romantic comedy written by two men not interested in holding the romantic comedy genre sacred so there are a lot of f-bombs and the sex is quite real-world graphic in places, at least for a romantic comedy.  That said, it was funny and interesting and very good all around and I think you should see it.*

*Assuming you are someone who does not find f-bombs, somewhat real-world graphic sex and the romantic comedy genre turned on its ear offensive.  (In other words, it’s a NFS (not for Sara) production.)

ps. Mad Men fans.  You MUST see this just because Alison Brie, the woman who plays Trudy Campbell is so incredibly awesome.

pps. Good date movie. Assuming both people in the couple meet the above qualifications.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2012/five_year_engagement.html

Three sentence movie reviews: Ca$h

I had to go to Netflix for this movie as the library and my local video store did not carry it.*  It was a low-budget indie, and suffered a bit from both the low budget and the indie, I think.  Though it did bring up some interesting questions, had the most screen time with Chris Hemsworth of any of his movies, and Sean Bean was quite good.

*the movie poster isn’t even on my favorite movie poster site.

Three sentence movie reviews: A Perfect Getaway

Yet another movie watched to see Chris Hemsworth, this was surprisingly good, as it has a forgettable title and a somewhat overwrought synopsis.  However, I’ve always loved Steve Zahn, finding him the male Judy Greer* of the 90s, and his presence offset my outright dislike of Milla Jovovich.**  This is a great ensemble cast (though Chris Hemsworth’s screen time is minimal) and just when I figured it all out, I got confused again.

*You know, the best friend.  In Steve Zahn’s case he was always the zany best friend.  Except for that grim turn in Riding in Cars With Boys. Rest assured he does not play the zany best friend in this movie, he gets to be the star.


**I think this dislike stems from us being pretty much the same age, but when I was a pimply, awkward 12-year-old I got to see feature stories in the teen magazines I read at the time about this amazingly beautiful 12-year-old model with an odd name.  Plus later, when she was 16, she got to hang out with all the Dazed and Confused cast despite the fact she wasn’t really a very good actress.  I wasn’t a good actress either, but I had to go to high school every day, not run off over the border and get married for two months to that odd-looking guy from the movie.  Sure, there was an annulment because she was underage, but still.  And don’t even get me started about the whole music phase.  I’ve mellowed in my old age, because despite 20+ years of dislike, I thought she was good in this.

Books read in June 2012

Ah-hah!  Only 3 YA (and younger) books this month!

Read
Gay Romance Novel #1
Jan Wilson
My friend gave me a draft of her novel to read.  I loved it!  I’ll let you know when it becomes available for all of you to read.

Pretties
Scott Westerfeld
This is the second book in the Uglies series, we follow along with Tally’s adventures and moral quandaries.  The ending had me reserving the next book in the series.  Unfortunately, there is a line, and it’s proving to be quite long.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Douglas Adams
Read aloud.
I’ve not read this since Junior High and I greatly enjoyed revisiting the story.

The Sisters Brothers
Patrick DeWitt
I did not like this book and I spent a lot of time wondering why.  I liked the main character, he was quite sympathetic.  The plot was interesting, and the writing quite good.  The San Francisco Gold Rush setting was  to my liking.  But I never took to it, though I read all the way to the end.

Chloe and the Lion
Mac Burnett & Adam Rex
Funny!  This was recommended by my friend Sara and I got it from the library even though it was a picture book and I don’t usually spend time reading them.  I read it and spent ten minutes laughing out loud alone in the house. Laughing out loud while reading by myself is always an odd pleasure for me.  There’s the laughter, which is great, but then the kind of creepy feeling that I might be a little crazy. After I enjoyed it, I insisted that Matt read it.  Now I’m insisting that you do too. It will take 10 minutes.  Laughter is good for you. Maybe you can read it aloud to someone so you can both laugh together and avoid the creepy feeling.  Just do it.

Women of the Silk
Gail Tsukiyama
Read for Kenton Book Club
This was okay.  I liked that it had a setting that was foreign to me.  I liked that it was about women.  The silk work was interesting.  Other than that, the book never grabbed me.  What was interesting was that during the book group discussion, most of the women did not like the book and most of the men did.  Several people in book group (men and women) had read Samuri Gardens by the same author and recommended that book over this one. I shall perhaps see what that is all about.

Arcadia
Lauren Goff
I greatly enjoyed the author’s earlier works, the Monsters of Templeton, and was happy to read this new novel about Bit, a child growing up on a commune during the 1970s.  The book is divided into four sections, checking in with Bit at four different ages.  I found the first two to be the most compelling.  The last two sections were not as magical as the first two, but that might have been by design.  It was still a good read, with some quite funny observations of 1970s hippie culture.

Sister
Rosmund Lupton
Gripping mystery set in London.  A friend at work read it, recommended it to myself and another friend at work and we all read it within a week of each other so we could have a mini book discussion group.

Mockingjay
Suzanne Collins
Matt and I read aloud.
As before, the gripping ending to the story.  In the end, everything works out.  It’s just rough going getting there.

Dear Photograph
Taylor Jones
This is a great concept that became popular because of the internet, but which I discovered in the book store.  The discovery in a bricks-and-mortar store over the bits and bytes cheers me.  At any rate, some of the entries are incredibly moving.  This is also one of those good books where you needn’t read much to read it, as it is mostly photos.


Started and did not finish.
I finished everything I started this month.

Cougars, Coeds and Chick Lit.

I am here to tell you that I reject the following terms and
will not being using them: Cougars, Coeds and Chick Lit. I invite you all to
join in my campaign.
Cougars.  This has
come into fashion in the last few years, its name even graces(graced) (ahem) a
TV show.  A Cougar is an older woman who
is dating—or married to—a (much) younger man. 
They have now split, but the Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher union comes to
mind.
Coeds.  For years, I
read books that included the term Coed and I assumed it meant college student,
either male or female.  I assumed that
once colleges opened their doors to both men and women, the education was
coeducational and thus the students were called coeds.  I can still recall the feeling of horror I
felt my senior year in high school when the sentence structure I was reading
did not support this definition and I was forced to consider that the term only
applied to females.  I refused to believe
this, at first, but double checked with my mother who confirmed the grim news.
Chick Lit.  First of
all, this is an awful term because when it is said it aloud, a large percentage
of people think you are discussing gum (Chiclets) and then there is usually a
weird cognitive dissonance moment.  Chick
Lit is a novel written primarily for women and it usually contains some
elements of a romantic story and happy ending, though it should not be
considered the same as a “romance novel.” 
There is often something of one of these elements:  zaniness, work drama, conversation with best
friends.  Sometimes there is great
tragedy to overcome.
Why do we need to end our use of these terms?  I reject them all because they are all terms
focused on women that have no equivalent
for males.  What do you call an older
man who dates/marries a much younger woman? 
There is no term, as it is an accepted practice in our society.  If you are channeling your inner frat boy,
you might call the man in question “lucky” and snigger after saying it.  What do you call a male student at a
college?  A student.  There is certainly no term that suggests that
they are added on to the scene and maybe it is okay they are there, they are
pretty and all, but they are not real students.
As for Chick Lit, are there no novels of fluff written for
men?  Of course there are.  What do we call them?  There is no term.  There are many genre specific terms of kinds
of fluff novels that are primarily read by men: 
science fiction, fantasy, spy thrillers, etc.  Though those genre specific books aren’t
looked upon as great literature, they are also not dismissed out of hand with
an overarching title:  Sperm Lit,
perhaps?
Language reflects our values and beliefs and none of these
three terms reflects an equality between women and men we pretend we have in
society.  Granted, our language
concerning gender is at a disadvantage from the get-go as the common terms we
use to describe the not-male part of the population (women, woman, female)
cannot be used without summoning the male part of the species.  Undoing this would be quite a feat and it is
not what I am here to do today.  Today, I
am just asking you to think before you use the above three terms.  If you chose to use them, what are you saying
about women’s place in the world?

Three sentence movie reviews: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

This movie was awesome in that it was entirely unbelievable and since it was not tethered to anything resembling real life, it totally worked.  As a passing bit of fluff, it is also fun to describe to people who won’t bother to see it.  I was also confused as how the actor playing Abraham Lincoln could morph from “nerdy” to “hot” from one scene to the next.

Lessons learned from PBS mini-series.

I have just discovered Downton Abbey and am in agreement with
all the fawning reviews I have been reading. 
It is fascinating, watching a social system that does not exist any
longer, and the contrasts between the upstairs and the downstairs.  The characters are wonderfully drawn and
shaded and I’m hooked on the plot.  But
this is not a fawning essay about a PBS show, it is an essay about discipline.
Watching the special features that accompany the DVD, I was
struck by someone’s comment that the life both the servants and their employers
lead takes a lot of discipline—and not imposed from above, but
self-discipline.  Self-discipline is
something I feel I could use more of, in more areas of my life and it’s
interesting that it doesn’t seem to be in vogue.
I think when we do mention discipline, it is in relation to
diet and exercise.  We are to be
disciplined eaters—firmly pushing away whatever food is “bad” for us and
regimentally heading out of doors for our daily—mostly punishing—exercises to
keep us toned and fit.  I think
discipline in this context is why we are nation of fat people.  It’s just so grim, and there are so many
other enticing offers—say a season of Downton Abby on DVD complete with extras
and a bowl of popcorn—that it is easy to throw that discipline out the window.
To me, discipline means setting up a routine that works for
you, and then doing it.  I’m pretty good
at this at work: the checks get written on Monday and Wednesday, Tuesday is for
data entry, Thursday I do the lunch order and manage the lunch program and
Friday I clean out the staff refrigerator. 
I don’t always feel like doing these tasks, but they all (except for the
refrigerator, which I notice I abandon around February every year) get done and
I feel the better for it. 
Home is another matter. 
Home is entirely ruled by the whiny, sullen teenager, especially of
late.  “But I don’t wannnnnnttttt to do
that,” the lazy teenager whines when it is time to cook, to clean, to
shop.  The lazy teenager wants to spend
her life in bed, reading books, watching movies and the occasional worthy TV
series.  The problem is that if the
teenager takes over, there is no one to procure the food, cook and clean the
house as well as plant the garden and do all those other things that make life
worth living.  So the lazy teenager finds
herself jangly from lack of exercise, living in filth and with an empty
refrigerator.
I think this is one of the tasks of adult life.  Finding a way to get things done so you can
live in comfort with a sense of accomplishment as well as time for rest and leisure.  It’s a difficult task, at least for me.  It’s also probably one of the reasons there
are so many self-help books on the market.