Review: Second Reading

Second Reading by Jonathan Yardley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



How on earth is one supposed to review a book of book reviews. If my reviews are one day collected into a printed edition (ha!) will I be kicking of some crazy infinite recursion of books of reviews of book reviews? It's turtles all the way down.

Anyway, on to the actual book review. I liked it. Jonathan Yardley is a very engaging writer, even when he basically says the same thing over and over and over again. With, I think, three exceptions, his review of a book is as follows. "This book is amazing, it's prose is magnificent, that this book has fallen out of favor amongst the literati is a crime against art and humanity."

And, adding to my cognitive dissonance, I'm not sure I even *agree* with him. I mean, I can definitely get behind hating on Catcher in the Rye (one of the three less than glowing reviews), and I do adore Mark Twain, Roald Dahl, and The Elements of Style. But calling Steinbeck a writer of limited gifts? Yikes! Furthermore, Yardley adores novels of manners which I cannot stand.

One of my personal literary pet peeves is the use of "well written" and "poorly written" as descriptors, without explanation or defense. Yardley's own personal version of this is to present the reader with a paragraph-length snippet of the novel at hand, and then proclaim that the writing's worth is evident. Well, sometimes yes and sometimes no. Everyone notices different things about a written passage, people respond emotionally to different word choices, etc. Yardley is certainly entitled to his opinions (and indeed, I paid for them...) but a little more detailed exploration of the chosen quotes would have gone a long way towards making this book more interesting and less repetitive.

A few other minor gripes: The worst reviews are the ones where we are merely given a plot synopsis, the best, like the review of Fanny Hill give some context for historical importance, underlying themes, literary merit, and cultural impact of a given book. And, although Yardley reviews a single detective story, there is not a single science fiction or fantasy pick (No, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court does *not* count). And Yardley has the temerity to accuse others of narrow mindedness. Sheesh.




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Review: Against the Wind

Against the Wind by J.F. Freedman

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The first 100 pages of this book are amazing. First off, the main character has a wonderfully distinct voice, and his almost stream-of-consciousness narrative about being a burned out, alcoholic, soon-to-be-twice divorced defense lawyer learning about and dealing with a one-night stand, his betrayal at the hands of his law-firm partners, and a set of bizarre new clients, accused of murder, that fall into his lap is giddy and unrelenting. The brief, somewhat horrifying, omniscient narration of the lifestyles of those clients, is similarly compelling.

Unfortunately, this book is 450 pages long. As we get into the meat of the book, the trial of the lawyers clients, it pretty much falls apart. For one thing, because of the omniscient narrator, we know the truth, at least in terms of the biker's guilt or innocense, so there's no tension there. And since they are really the only threatening thing in this book, and they literally spend 430 out of 450 pages locked up, there's really not much suspense.

The various subplots which seem to exist either to provide an excuse for there to be more sex, or to explain that the gang-rapist bikers really aren't so bad after all, and it's ok to be rooting for them to get off. Not exactly satisfying, that. And the deus-ex-machina ending, makes the whole thing feel kind of silly.

The worst part is, as the lawyer gets his life straightened out, so too does his voice mellow. Since that was the most engaging part of the book, it really takes a downhill slide.

Bottom line. I enjoyed reading it. It moves swiftly. It was a fun legal thriller. But, man I wish the whole thing had the energy of those first 100 pages.



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Review: True Evil

True Evil by Greg Iles

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Expectations matter. If Turning Angel and Quiet game hadn't been two of the best books I read this year, I would go easier on this novel.* Oh well. For starters, while the entire setup isn't exactly unplausible, the actual scientific mechanics behind the Sinister Plot are pretty awfully convenient. Without spoiling too much, let's just say that I doubt even someone as supposedly brilliant as the villian could get produce something biological that was anywhere near as precise as it is presented in the novel. Secondly, while the motivations of the main antagostic are pretty thoroughly discussed, the motivations of Thora are treated to about 2 paragraphs or explaination, which is just completely insufficient. And finally the mystery was really too easy to solve, I mean, the villain practically falls into the protagonists laps and all they have to do is realize it (which they do quickly, because Greg Iles main characters are blessed with super human intellect.)**

* I really did enjoy reading this novel. Eldon Traver is a great character. Andrew Ruck is an amazing foil to him and is one of the most delightfully sleazy characters I've had the pleasure of reading about lately. The plot twist about 1/2 way through ratchets up the tension amazingly well, and provides great momentum for the rest of the book, even if it does mostly take the best character out of the action.

** Finally finally, do you really expect me to believe that a brilliant biological scientist would pick an obvious anagram of his name for his cover identity, have mail for that person sent to his primary office, and NOT expect everyone to figure it out immediately?



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Movie Review: The Warriors Way

Sometimes I think I like watching trailers better than I do watching movies. Trailers give you a complete story:  the introduction of plot, setting, and characters, the development of same and some kind of climax (although frequently this is a cliffhanger.) all with in the space of two minutes. And when those two minutes are done you are either left with the pleasant sense of anticipation, or the relief in knowing that you just saved your self 2 hours at some point in the future.

Of course, I don't just watch trailer, I also watch movies, which brings us to:

The Warrior's Way

Now, to be fair, there's a lot of good in this movie, and not all of it is on display in the trailer.* On the other hand, without a doubt the best part of this movie is the graphic design and visual presentation, which is shown in abundance in the trailer. 

I keep seeing movies that have fantastic visual design and an absolutely abominable script.** I mean, I nearly stopped watching when Tony Cox shows up and randomly introduces himself as "8-ball" (I'd say, "get it?" here, except that in the film, he has the number 8 painted on his shaved scalp, *sigh*) and proceeds to recite a lame soliloquy about himself which severs no purpose in the film except to make everyone present feel stupid.

On the other hand, the setting looks damn cool. A dilapidated western town, host to a carnival (complete with freaks and clowns galore) that sits at the foot of the skeleton of an unfinished Ferris wheel. It's creepy and cool and works really well.

On the third hand, once you get over the fact that there's so much computer generated imagery that it's difficult to think of this as anything other than an animated film with unusually good motion capture, the action is pretty damn good and lasts a long time (The action starts about 51 minutes in and pretty much lasts the rest of the 1 hour, 40 minute run time.) 

Final verdict 3 out of 5 stars. I liked it, but watching the trailer might have been sufficient.

* In particular, Danny Huston plays his villain with intensity and a gleeful malevolence that was highly entertaining to watch despite the absurdity of the surrounding plot.***

**The most egregious offenders are Rango and Avatar, but there are many others. 

*** This is all the more impressive for the fact that Geoffery Rush is obviously phoning it in completely. Very disappointing; the best actors play these horrible roles with gusto...

Odds and Ends

Actually you can sort of get the idea from this picture. Source wikipedia

Thing 1. The Rock of Ages trailer looks.........terrible.

Source: IMDB

   Thing 2. The Men in Black 3 trailer looks....well....not terrible. Will Smith's mustache on the other hand..........terrible.. 

Actually, you can kind of get the gist from this picture. Source wikipedia.
Thing 3. I get the sense that they haven't actually recorded the dialogue for Saints and Soldiers yet. Not necessarily a good sign. 

IMDB again.

Thing 4. TV Round up.
Burn Notice, Season 2 is great. (4 out of 5 stars as of 10 episodes in).
Archer Season 1 was amazing. (5 out of 5 stars!)
NCIS Season 2 was interesting, but the ending made no sense. (4 stars, but qualified: they could have done better.)

Thing 5. Very very very much not safe for work (for pervasive profanity, spoken and written), but this video is fabulous. (h/t Pitchfork Media )

Source for video is Youtube (obviously).

Review: Crossroads of Twilight

Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Hmmm. Well, the good news is it's not as bad as everyone says it is. The bad news is it's not all that great either.

In quickly scanning the last 10 or so reviews of this book, the complaints pretty much boil down to "it moves slowly" and "nothing happens."

I rather disagree with the latter.* The former, unfortunately, is pretty spot on. The actual problem with this book, as I see it, is not that nothing happens (see A Path of Daggers, which was great) or that it moves slowly (See The Fires of Heaven, which was really great), it's that a couple of small problems dominate the attention of the reader and obfuscate the actual value of the story.

Here's what I mean. Throughout the Wheel Of Time there are a couple of things that happen fairly consistently in each of the books: 1) The prologue visits a few minor or semi-major characters and gives updates on their stories, and usually there's at least one major event that takes place here, which gives momentum to the rest of the book. 2) The book is composed of vignettes that further the viewpoints of a few co-located characters, and these vignettes have a beginning, and middle, and an end (usually a cliffhanger, of course.) 3) There is a major, dramatic, world-changing ending (that usually takes about 80-100 pages).

Here's what happens in this book. 1) The prologue covers 7 characters, and a whole bunch of the characters covered are either showing up for the first time, or have been very rarely featured. After the absolutely breathless conclusion to Winter's Heart, I don't want to know what @#$%ing Rodel Ituralde is doing in $%^&ing Tarabon, I want to know whether Saidin is actually cleansed! So this deals an immediate blow to the momentum of the book.

Then, as indicated in 2) we continue with the mini-novels advancing the story lines or Perrin & Faile, Mat, Elayne, Egwene, and Rand. And most of these aren't bad. Perrin's story moves briskly along, he figures out where the Shaido are and he galvanizes as a leader. Moreover, the fantastic So Harbor sequence shows that Robert Jordan still has some surprises up his sleeve. Mat's story line is equally compelling,** mostly because of his blossoming relationship with Tuon (which is handled much more interestingly and delicately than Nynaeve and Lan's: "oh, by the way, we're in love, too bad we're doomed" from book, uh, 1? 2?) Rand's section is great as always, no worries there. And even Elayne's political wrangling, although short on actual outcomes does a reasonably effective job of discussing pregnancy, leadership, politics, and how the three interact.

The real problem here is Egwene and her storyline. For starters, it's a bad sign when the first thing that happens in your storyline is that someone (in this case Gareth Bryne) says "If you act now, which you have the capability to do all your problems will be solved." and you (in this case Egwene) responds "No, that wouldn't be in character. Let's dither for 200 pages." Now, to be fair, I respect Robert Jordan for this. It certainly is true to Egwene's chracter, and I've even complained (what was I thinking!) about some of the rapid fire decisions made by the characters (well, Rand) leading up to the finales. (Books 5 *AND* 7 both end with what amounts to "suddenly, Rand decided to challenge one of the forsaken...".) But the way it's presented, right at the beginning of the Egwene's storyline, really kills the momentum of the book***, so much so that I left off on page 500 for something like 4 weeks.

And finally, remember how I mentioned 3)? The great endings that change the world and leave the reader breathless and wanting more? Well, that's here all right. And it even comes from Egwene's storyline. The problem is, the part of it that's worthy to be called a finale is two paragraphs long. On page 818 of the paperback (out of 822) I still had no idea what was going on, or why I should care. Seriously unsatisfying, especially compared to....any of the other books.

I repeat, there is still a lot of good in here. And there are some remarkable things about this book. For example, both Elayne and Egwene's story lines feature almost no male characters whatsoever. Robert Jordan has blown the Bechdel test out of the water. Moreover, by slowing down the pace of the story, the challenges facing the characters seem more difficult, and thus their struggles feel more epic. I like all this very much. I genuinely think that if the prologue had featured a little more action, if Egwene's storylines had been structured in the novel a little differently, and if the finale were better constructed, that this would have been much more comparable to any of the last, each of which I enjoyed more than this.

* I stand by this statement, however, having started book 11, I was forced to comment: "More happens in the first 39 pages of Knife of Dreams than happens in the entirety of Crossroads of Twilight."


** Except for one minor detail. Remember how in Fires of Heaven, Elayne and Nynaeve join the circus and it's freaking maddening becauwe Nynaeve can't stop thinking about her scandalous low cut dress and Elayne's too tight trousers? Well, guess what, Mat joins a circus too. THE SAME @#$%ing CIRCUS. I would hold this more against Robert Jordan if I wasn't convinced that this was an intentional self parody...

*** Which is too bad, because there's again a lot of good in Egwene's storyline. There are murder mysteries and Age of Legends-esque discoveries! There is intrigue and subterfuge! And the relationship between Egwene and Halima is the creepiest thing in the entire series so far.



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Movie Review Roundup

I have delusions that I'm someday going to review all the movies I watch the same way I have been reviewing the books that I read. Fortunately, those delusions don't extend as far as thinking I'm going to go back to do lengthy individual reviews on the all the movies that I watched in the last month or too.

So......let's do them lightening round format, starting from the movie I watched most recently, proceeding in reverse chronological order until I can't remember what movie I watched before.

Picture from IMDB

1) A Fistful of Dollars -- a re-watch, with the in-laws because my wife had never seen it. Completely awesome! Action ahead of it's time; Clint Eastwood owns the steely eyed gunslinger, Sergio Leone is the master of making the desert town feel desolate, dangerous, and lonely. Only real misstep is the awkward dubbing, but what do you expect from a movie by an Italian director, an American star, filmed in Spain. 4 out of 5 stars but a bonus point for being ahead of it's time and aging very well.

What did the in-laws think? Wife seemed to like it; Brother in-law said, at minute 5: "I'm not seeing any explosions or robot fights." but he stayed to the end, so something must have kept him watching. Mother in-law was favorably inclined, but then, it was her idea to watch it.

 

(Picture from IMDB, where else)

2) Crazy, Stupid, Love. Also watched with the in-laws, this time at my request. I really enjoyed this movie as well. I thought the characters were very strong, I liked that it didn't shy away from lots of relationships, and types of love some very natural, some very awkward. I also thought it was pretty funny. I have a few complaints, mostly about the dialogue--I thought a little editing to get the pithy phrases just right would have gone a long way, and I am very curious about the rating. It was clearly PG-13, but I wonder if it was cut down from an R? If so, I'd love to see the directors cut with the jokes they weren't allowed to tell re-included. 4 out of 5 stars.

What did the in-laws this? Wife liked it (thankfully) but everyone else thought it was "not what they expected." Apparently this is a very bad thing. *Sigh*

You guessed it: IMDB!

3) Bridesmaids. Watched on an airplane. A very funny movie, completely disgusting. I wish there had been more substance to the plot and theme, though. 3 out of 5 stars.

IMDB again!

4) Senna. Also watched on a plane. In case you needed positive proof that I"m interested in cinema independent of subject matter (this is not necessarily a good thing). I'm sure I wouldn't have given this a second look if it hadn't been a Sundance winner or some such. As it happens, I'm really glad I watched it. Senna was a fascinating character. Still don't much care about Formula 1 Racing, though. Objectively, 4 of 5 stars, but if racing is your thing I'm sure it would be off the charts.

Image NOT from IMDB. Image from hrgiger.com

5) Alien III. 6) Aliens. 7) Alien. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but until last month, I had never seen any of the Alien movies. We fixed that right up, didn't we, and just in time for Prometheus (although I suppose I need to watch Alien: Resurrection, now....). I actually thought they were all good. Aliens, of course, is the best being: terrifying, exciting as all hell, and masterfully plotted, designed, and filmed. Likewise, I agree with the whole entire world that Ripley is a fantastic character. I even liked Alien 3. I was prepared to hate it, but actually it's a pretty interesting exploration of morality, life, fear, and death. Also, *spoiler alert* it takes some kind of chutzpah to kill off in the opening minutes of Alien 3 all the characters that you worked so hard in Aliens to keep alive. Damn. Alien 3: 3 stars, Aliens: 5 stars, Alien: 4 stars.

8) Moneyball. I thought the movie was great! (4 out of 5 stars!) I also thought it didn't make a whole lot of sense in the details. See my review of the book for more details.

9) Bull Durham. For some reason, I have been on a huge sports movie kick lately. So I watched Bull Durham! It was great! (4 out of 5 stars)