Sunday, January 22, 2012

Depressing

MELANCHOLIA
Well, it was, as one critic said "a group of unlikeable people doing implausible things in close quarters" -- I didn't really like it. Kirsten Dunst was depressing and awful, Keifer Sutherland was a jerk... the only remotely pleasant character was the little kid. And planets collide. I guess the premise arose from a dream that the writer had about depressives being calm in disaster situations. I, like Claire, would have preferred to go out on the terrace with some Beethoven and a glass of wine. Oh well, at least it is a talking point.

Relationships Theme

SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron
This book was my book club selection in November (I think) and when I finally managed to get my hands on it over Thanksgiving weekend, when I expected to get quite a chunk of reading done at the farm in NC and on the drive home, I had too much fun to sit down with it. When I finally started it I found it to be rich and dense, like an amazing chocolate cake that you can NOT eat without milk. Milk turned out to be 2 extra months of reading time, which is really unusual for me. Anyways, I finished the book on my Kindle, which was a Christmas gift from my high school roommate Becky Wang, yesterday. It was a moving and well written novel, with fabulous characters and a plot, which, although I knew its outline, still unfolded with enough complexity that I was engaged the whole time I was reading. The relationship between the narrator and the other characters was both intimate and in a certain sense, because of the retrospective tone, objective enough. The relationship between Sophie and her past was tormented, and between Sophie and Nathan was the most lovely destructive mad affair that I may have ever read. There really were vocabulary words that I had to look up throughout the novel-- which my kindle did for me, which was great! It was fun to read a book that I found both very readable and very challenging, in its language and in its content. I'm looking forward to watching the movie sometime later this week -- I love me some Meryl and Kevin!

THE PARIS WIFE by Paula McLain
This is my current book club selection. It was chosen as a counterpoint or follow up to LOVING FRANK, and instead of the first wife of Frank Lloyd Wright, it was about the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. It was good, but not great. It was a quick read, and sad in the end, because although the characters did love each other, it wasn't enough. But we've all read that story before.

LIKE CRAZY
This movie won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for a drama, and its leading actress Felicity Jones won the Special Jury Prize as well. She was good. They fell in love, it fell apart, they held on to it. The cinematography was quite lovely -- the intimate closeups and soft lighting of the third-ish date when the connection really solidifies, the comfortable shots at the bar or at home where the naturalness of the in-between-romance is captured. The whole thing felt believeable and real, and they were both kind of jerks and they both loved each other, and I was relieved when they broke up and hopeful when they got back together. Well done -- I would definitely recommend this.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Divergent topics

HUGO
M and I called ahead to reserve a couch at the Campus Theater (I can't stress enough how much I enjoy having a small local independent and well-run, not to mention beautiful, theater in our town, and how much I like being a member there). It was, as our friend Brett had warned us, a little drawn out. It was a smidge over 2 hours and could have easily been done in 90 minutes. And the guy from Borat as the guard was distracting to me because I kept imagining him in his horrible yellow onesie-swimsuit-thing, and I never even saw Borat! But the movie was fun for 2 reasons; the old film clips, and the automaton. It made me realize how little I know about old cinema, and how strange some of those earliest movies must have been, or at least must have seemed, to their first audiences. And the intricacies and delicacies of the programmed man, the design effort and mechanical precision it must have taken to build a machine that could draw (and I realize that the movie version was fantastical but they did exist in real life) sort of smote me with wonder. Once again it made me wish I could have been an engineer, if not for the math.

A PRACTICAL WEDDING by Meg Keene
I felt a little guilty counting this as one of my books, but maybe I'll get to 51. We'll see. This book is a recently published guide to wedding planning by a blogger that I really like (apracticalwedding.com) and since I'm planning a wedding and I am and want to be practical about it, I've really liked her stuff (as well as her Team Practical). I'm further along in the planning than her typical reader probably is intended to be, but her tips and ideas for ceremonies and mental health are timed just right. I would certainly recommend this book to anyone planning a wedding. Good stuff.


SECRETARIAT
When I have a cold (as I do this weekend) I like feel-good movies. So as I was curled up on the couch with Mabelle last night, her farm fuzzy puppiness going a long way to make me feel better, I figured I would watch this. I knew nothing about the real horse, and know nothing about horse racing. I think it came up in one of my Netflix lists, maybe because I like Wallace and Gromit or something. Anyways, it was just the thing when I wanted a low-brain-power-happy-ending film. It did get pretty exciting at the Belmont when the other owner conspired against our hero horse. He was a beautiful animal, and the feminism subplot was kind of a nice surprise. It wasn't an amazing film or anything but I liked it.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Head of Steam...

Movies: 3/50
I saw THE IRON LADY this weekend. Meryl Streep is amazing as always. I've heard that some people are upset that so much of the film is spent on her old age, watching and experiencing her as she is phasing in and out of the present time and her memories of her life, and that some Brits have seen this as disrespectful. I was so entranced by the performance that I hardly noticed that the oldest version of Margaret Thatcher makes up about 60% of the movie -- I would have guessed more like 35% -- the memories of her political career interspersed with the vivid relationship with her husband were, in my mind, well balanced and equally compelling. Two thumbs up.

Books: 1/50
I finished LOVING FRANK. I was surprised by the ending. I can't say that I loved it, but it made me want to a) return to Oak Park and tour the houses there again b) visit Taliesin in WI - I can't remember if I have been there or not but I think I went with my family as a child, c) visit Falling Water which is only about 2 hours from me in PA and d) read more about Frank Lloyd Wright. There were a few houses of his in the neighborhood where I grew up and I loved them as a kid, because they were so unique (each one!) and stood out so starkly against the bland and oversized mc-mansions everywhere else around them. It was a story about Frank's lover Mamah (May-ma) as much as about their relationship, and it was reconstructed from the sketchy historical documents of the time. She was greatly influenced by the women's movement and European feminism (which was a ways ahead of American if you believe this book) but I found her sort of confusing. The ending was a shocker. And then fell flat... I was really dissatisfied with the ending.

I also bought my first Kindle book... because Sophie's Choice is too big to want to prop the sides up while reading in bed. Thanks Becky -- I'm excited to see how the Kindle works out. I imagine I'll tag team electronic and paper reading. I love me some paper.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

On a roll

Movies: 2/50
I stole a page from Lilly and watched Timer. A company makes computer programmed "timers" that can be implanted in people's wrists at puberty and which count down to the day they meet their soul mate. Assuming their soul mate has a timer they will count down to the same moment, when their eyes first meet... if one half of a star-crossed pair is timer-less, then the implanted half of the set remains blank.

Being the planner-oriented type that I am, I immediately assumed that I would get one... and would therefore know when I met the "one" (although M is of course my "one" so it is, as they say, moot). I liked the characters, and I liked the relationships. However, at the end, one of the characters removes their timer, and I felt that rang a little false. Of course the choice to get a timer or not is interesting and fraught, but the way I bought into the setup, once you have a timer, especially for several years, that due date has got to be burned in your brain. It's not like taking it out would make you forget the date that had been imprinted in your timer for years. So you'd eventually get to that date, sans timer, and be all hyped up or nervous, or whatever... I can't really see it playing out any other way.

So, thumbs up. Oh, and Quinn from Dexter plays the hottie "Dan the Man" which was a nice bonus too.

Monday, January 2, 2012

Jan 1, one movie down

MOVIES (1/50)
M and I saw The Muppets movie last night (Jan 1) at the Campus Theater. We got there early enough to snag a couch. I cried several times, including at the whistling. It's cheesy, but self-aware enough to be funny, and corny in all the right ways. I loved it. And I'm on a roll with movies already... yay! There's lots of good stuff coming to the Campus and it's such a great little theater and we're already members, so if I just make a point to commit to regular movie nights with M (maybe movie nights should fall on allergy shot nights as a compensation) I should be golden.

BOOKS (0/50)
That said, I am about half way through Sophie's Choice (can't wait to see the movie when I'm done with the book, b/c Kevin & Meryl are 2 of my favorites of all time) but I am struggling with the book. Trying to read it while stranded in Denver between one hellish travel day in Wyoming and another through Miami and Baltimore didn't help. The language is lush and I love it... like my friend Kerry attested with her list of words she had to look up, there's fabulous vocabulary coming out the wazoo... but I have to work hard enough to get through it that I fall asleep sooner to it than I'd like. Then again, maybe that's just the jet lag and bus ride weariness. I have also started Loving Frank, b/c it's my bookclub's choice due next week. Enjoyable... a much easier read.

Also, since my lovely Becky Wang got me a kindle for Christmas, so that will help while travelling or in the allergy doctor's office. I can keep a real book at my bedside and an electronic one in my purse or car -- LOVE IT!