ATTACK THE BLOCKI've seen 7 of the 13. I liked The Fall, Primer, Iron Sky, Moon, La Jette and Cube, but Sunshine had me beating my head against the wall before it was done. I'll keep the others in mind as I'm browsing the racks at Spin Street.
THE FALL
PRIMER
SUNSHINE
IRON SKY
MOON
BYZANTIUM
ANOTHER EARTH AND SOUND OF MY VOICE
SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED
LA JETÉE
THE SECRET OF KELLS
CUBE
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| image from Amazon.com |
He was dead, of course, and he knew it. How could he be anything else?This post is inspired by the Should Be Reading blog, but I break too many rules to post there. For one thing, this isn't my current read. I did dearly love this series when I read it back in 2004, and I really should re-read them.
We have disabled user registration at The Old Reader, and we might be making the website private. If we do, unfortunately your account will not be transferred to the private site, so you might want to export your subscriptions as OPML and start looking for an alternative solution. More details are in available in our blog: http://blog.theoldreader.comfrom their blog:
We started working on this project for ourselves and our friends, and we use The Old Reader on a daily basis, so we will launch a separate private site that will keep running.and it's signed, "All the love,"
...
We will whitelist everybody we know personally, along with all active accounts that were registered before March 13, 2013 — those are the people who had consciously signed up for The Old Reader rather than were simply looking for “a Google Reader replacement”. And of course, we will migrate all our awesome supporters and people who donated to keep the project running
...
Our team will stay together, and will keep working on making the private version of The Old Reader awesome.
The appeal of Despicable Me lies not in the question of whether the character and his arc are original (as other critics knocked it for), the effect lies in the strength with which it is played and the downright hilarity and sweetness of everything that comes in between.Slant Magazine calls it "a perfect, though unambitious, diversion". Rolling Stone gives it 3 out of 4 stars and closes by saying it "puts a smile on your face that will last all the way home." Roger Ebert calls it " funny, energetic, teeth-gnashingly venomous". Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 81%.
Bring a drink of water, Leroy,
Bring a drink of water,. No.
If I could get to the mercy man
He'd give me some I know.
I got a gal in Vicksburg.
Bertha is her name.
Lord, I wish I was tied to Bertha
Instead of this ball and chain.
I'm goin' to Memphis
I'm goin' to Memphis
But like a bitter weed I'm a bad seed
But when that levee's through and I am too
Let the honky tonk roll on
Come mornin' I'll be gone.
I'm goin' to Memphis
Well I've never been to Chicago,
But it must be a mighty fine place.
I couldn't get past Tennessee
With Mississippi all over my face.
I'm goin' to Memphis
I'm goin' to Memphis
Just like a bitter weed I'm a bad seed
But when that levee's through and I am too
Let the honky tonk roll on
Come mornin' I'll be gone
I'm goin' to Memphis
Well I brought me a little water
In a Mr. Prince Albert can,
But the boss man caught me drinkin' it
And I believe he broke my hand
Another boy is down.
The shovel burned him out.
Let me stand on his body
To see what the shoutin's about.
I'm goin' to Memphis
I'm goin' to Memphis
Like a bitter weed I'm a bad seed
But when that levee's through and I am too
Let the honky tonk roll on
Come mornin' I'll be gone
I'm goin' to Memphis
Yeah, Memphis bound
I'm goin' to Memphis
1) Megan Lindholm: Wizard of the PigeonsBummer. I haven't read any of these. That makes me question the list, to be honest, although the Bujold has been on my to-buy list for ages.
2) Ben Aaronovitch: Midnight Riot (aka Rivers of London)
3) Lois McMaster Bujold: Paladin of Souls
4) Kim Stanley Robinson, The Wild Shore
5) N. K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg LarssonOnes I've read are in bold print -6 out of 10.
The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz’
Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, by Ann Tyler
The Great Santini, by Pat Conroy
Faithful Place, by Tana French
Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
Oedipus the King, by Sophocles
August: Osage County, by Tracy Lett
Amelia Bedelia, by Peggy Parish
When I find out that someone hasn't seen Seven Samurai, I almost feel sorry for them. How could they have missed out on one of the biggest crowd pleasers of cinema? That fades rather fast, however, when I realize that means I will get the pleasure of introducing them to the film, that I will be making way for something that can't fail to be a positive stop on their movie-going journey.Slant Magazine says,
The great irony regarding Akira Kurosawa's seminal masterpiece Seven Samurai is how much it reveals about this widening rift between classic and modern action films. Seven Samurai's plethora of once-groundbreaking action aesthetics have now become seamlessly and organically ingrained into mainstream genre filmmaking, yet its strikingly pure themes of sacrifice, friendship, and camaraderie seem downright radical by today's action-film standards.Roger Ebert has it on his list of Great Movies. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 100%. There is some background historical information here. CNN.com has an article on "How 'Seven Samurai' was saved".
The great geek works of fiction inspire engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs to dream their biggest dreams — or at least to muster the courage to light the way toward the future. These great books deserve to be celebrated. If you haven't read all of them, you should.Here's their list:
1. NeuromancerI've read the ones in bold print and loved each one. I've added Shockwave Rider to my Amazon list. That list is reaching astronomical proportions!
2. The Shockwave Rider
3. Stranger In A Strange Land
4. The Fountains of Paradise
5. Hyperion
6. I, Robot
7. Cryptonomicon (Begun 3 times, I never finished it. I recently gave it away.)
Hondo is the most domestic of Wayne’s Westerns and director John Farrow brings out gently nuanced performances from the two leads.Slant Magazine concludes, "Put your feet up, open a beer, and enjoy Al Bundy's all-time favorite movie." DVD Talk calls it "a terrific movie, and perhaps the perfect non- John Ford Wayne western". Time Out notes it was "John Wayne's favourite John Wayne movie." Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 86%.
Determine the gallery level. ... a rule of thumb is to go by the eye level as determined by the height of the property owner or gallery owner. When you hang the painting, the focal point should be at gallery level. If the painting is off balance to the right or left, the focal point can be moved slightly to the right or left to make up the difference.Even the Wall Street Journal weighs in on the subject:
To a certain extent, there is an intuitive aspect to picture hanging. Don't let it hang way, way up by the ceiling, and don't let it hug the floor—unless you are extremely tall or extremely short, in which case you are justified in your extreme choices.I eye the space and put the art work where it looks best to me. I've never been too concerned about decorating rules, and my family has not complained.
"I incline to think that there are no bad. Indifference to the good is all that is needed."from the back of the book:
The Misalliance is one of those rare books -both highly praised by the critics and an immediate best-seller in England.
As in Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner has created a wonderfully eccentric heroine. Blache Vernon is one of those discreet, smart women one sees alone in restaurants. Recently divorced, she considers it a matter of honor to keep herself busy,scrupulously carrying out ordinary tasks as if they mattered, until darkness falls. She will then open a bottle of good wine (which she does with increasing regularity) and cook herself a simple, nourishing meal. She can still expect the occasional visit from her husband, Bertie, who a year ago defected to a capricious, childishly demanding computer expert called Mousie.
Blanche is convinced that it is her own misguided sense of stability, gentility, and fair play that has led to this state of affairs, and that things might have turned out differently if only she could have cultivated a more voluble, petulant nature. Oddly, mutual friends do noy see it this way: rather than considering Blanche "too sensible," general opinion has it that she has recently been insupportably eccentric -overly fond on literary allusions and piquant non sequiturs- and, most irritating, she doesn't allow anyone to properly pity her.
Just as some women turn in loneliness to drink, to food, or to shoplifting, Blanche notes with some irony that she has turned to other lives, to good works, and to uplifting pastimes. Here is a memorable portait of a woman living alone -a woman with the wit and the means to step forward and grasp what has previously eluded her but who is puzzled by the prospect. Anita Brookner's beautifully crafted novel is raw and painful, yet as graceful and perceptive as anything she has written.
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| Still Life with Teapot, Cup and Fruit, by Émile Bernard, 1890 |
First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.to 11:
Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.and he concludes:
It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.Douglas Adams explains "The Americans are all mystified about why the English make such a big thing out of tea because most Americans have never had a good cup of tea. That's why they don't understand" and has much simpler advice that begins with this:
Go to Marks and Spencer and buy a packet of Earl Grey tea. Go back to where you're staying and boil a kettle of water. While it is coming to the boil, open the sealed packet and sniff. Careful - you may feel a bit dizzy,People can be serious about their tea!
People get ready, there's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
People get ready for the train to Jordan
It's picking up passengers from coast to coast
Faith is the key, open the doors and board 'em
There's hope for all among those loved the most.
There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
For there's no hiding place against the Kingdom's throne
So people get ready, there's a train a comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
Serkis helps turn The Hobbit into everything you wished for – a fantasy with the power to haunt your dreams. Too bad it takes the movie so damn long to get there.Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 65%, but the audience score is 82%.
1963 — The Bell Jar, Sylvia PlathThe few I've read are in bold print. Some on this list are collections of essays or short stories, and I prefer novels.
1964 — Herzog, Saul Bellow (begun but never finished)
1965 – The Autobiography of Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley
1966 – Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag
1967 — The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (I've seen part of a TV series based on it.)
1968 — Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion
1969 — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
1970 – Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
1971 – The Complete Stories, Flannery O’Connor
1972 – Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
1973 – Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon (It's on my to-be-bought list.)
1974 – The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin
1975 – The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux
1976 – Speedboat, Renata Adler
1977 – The Shining, Stephen King (I liked the movie.)
1978 – The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch
1979 – The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
1980 – Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
1981 – Outside Over There, Maurice Sendak
1982 – The Color Purple, Alice Walker
1983 – Cathedral, Raymond Carver
1984 – Money, Martin Amis
1985 – The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
1986 – Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman
1987 – Beloved, Toni Morrison
1988 – Bad Behavior, Mary Gaitskill
1989 – Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
1990 – The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
1991 – Possession, A.S. Byatt
1992 – The Secret History, Donna Tartt
1993 – The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx
1994 – The Ice Storm, Rick Moody
1995 – Sabbath’s Theater, Philip Roth
1996 – Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace (on my to-be-bought list, it's #10 on the list of longest English-language novels)
1997 – Underworld, Don DeLillo
1998 – Birds of America, Lorrie Moore
1999 – Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee
2000 – Pastoralia, George Saunders
2001 – Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald
2002 – Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
2003 – The Known World, Edward P. Jones
2004 – The Epicure’s Lament, Kate Christensen
2005 – Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link
2006 – The Road, Cormac McCarthy (much over-rated, imo)
2007 – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz
2008 – Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser
2009 – Lit: A Memoir, Mary Karr
2010 – A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
2011 – Pulphead, John Jeremiah Sullivan
2012 – Building Stories, Chris Ware
2013 – The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner
Sword of Doom really excels in a number of areas, including a well woven story, interesting character development, excellent acting which is complimented by equally impressive cinematography, and topped off by Masaru Sato's interesting score for the film.Japan Cinema says, "It’s plot will easily slip past inattentive viewers, so prepare to be tested." DVD Talk rates it "excellent". Slant Magazine concludes, "The Sword of Doom proves itself a film defined by its meticulously precise construction." Time Out calls the climax "astonishing". Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 71% and an audience score of 89%.
the aggressive stupidity of this movie is impressive. It’s not just that it’s an ugly fantasy of masculine dominance aimed at 11-year-old boys – or, more precisely, at adult men who wish to cling to the 11-year-old joy with which they first encountered this kind of movie – it’s also a fantasy that rests on the idea that you’re better off not knowing anything about the outside world because there’s nothing to know.Roger Ebert says, "A quarter-century later, McClane has been stripped of any real traces of an actual three-dimensional character. We feel as if we're watching Bruce Willis in a Bruce Willis movie". Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 14% critics score, and the audience score is 42%.
John Cheever’s “The Country Husband”
John Updike’s “The Happiest I’ve Been” (New Yorker subscription required)
J. D. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”
Herbert Gold’s “Death in Miami Beach”
John Barth’s “Lost in the Funhouse”
Delmore Schwartz’s “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities”
"It has never happened!" cannot be construed to mean, "It can never happen!" -as well say, "Because I have never broken my leg, my leg is unbreakable," or "Because I have never died, I am immortal."
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| image from Amazon.com |
Returning to her hometown of Fjallbacka after the funeral of her parents, writer Erica Falck finds a community on the brink of tragedy. The death of her childhood friend, Alex, is just the beginning. Her wrists slashed, her body frozen in an ice-cold bath, it seems that she has taken her own life.Euro Crime calls it "a comfortable, cosy read" and says, "I shall definitely read the next one and maybe the personal relationship side between Erica and Patrik will have moved to the background a little and the mystery angle will be to the fore." Kirkus Reviews calls it "rather formulaic" but "Still, good reading for the beach, if not the sauna."
Erica conceives a book about the beautiful but remote Alex, one that will answer questions about their own shared past. While her interest grows into an obsession, local detective Patrik Hedstrom is following his own suspicions about the case. But it is only when they start working together that the truth begins to emerge about a small town with a deeply disturbing past....
Already a sensation across the globe, Camilla Lackberg and her penetrating portrayal of human nature at its darkest are sure to place her alongside Scandinavian greats like Henning Mankel and Stieg Larsson.
Way down south I know a girl who is blind.
She walks alone along a lonely highway each day.
She dreams that one day a man will pull up in a car.
He'll open up the door, she'll climb in and he will say:
"Hey babe, whatcha know? Hope you're ready to go...
'cause today's a perfect day
to chase tornados."
Yeah when the wild wind whips around your head you know,
that you have found a perfect day to chase tornados.
And what about that preacher man on the run from the law?
He killed a girl in Memphis and ran 'till the dogs tracked him down.
They shot him by the river and as he lay dying in the mud,
well someone asked him, hey Preacher, where's your soul going now?
And Preacher said, "Well, I do not know, but wherever it is I'll gladly go...
cause today's a perfect day
to chase tornados."
Yeah when the wild wind kicks around your head you know,
that you have found a perfect day to chase tornados.
Sometimes I think that the sky is a prison and the earth is a grave.
And sometimes I feel like Jesus, in some Chinese opera.
And sometimes I'm glad I built my mansion from crazy little stones.
But sometimes I feel so goddamned trapped by everything that I know.
And I wish it wasn't so, cause the only thing that anyone should ever know
is that today's a perfect day
to chase tornados.
Yeah, when the wild wind whips around your head you know,
that you have found a perfect day to chase tornados. © 1995 Mike Pratt/Jim White
It features 15 new and unique exhibitions including Personal Ephemera from Al Goldstein, The Rocks and Tools from Tom Sach's Mars expedition, Objects Made For Prisoners or by Prisoners in US Prisons, Fake Vomit from Around the World, Tip Jars collected by Jim Walrod, Surf and Turf Potato Chips, and more.The NY Times has an article on it. Apartment Therapy noticed it.
A beautiful, grief-stricken woman has vanished without a trace. So has the detective hired to find her. And a lot of money. Enter saavy, tough-nosed private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Rooted in the no-nonsense streets of Boston's blue-collar Dorchester, they've seen it all —and survived. But this case leads them into unexpected territory where nothing is sacred —a land of lies and corruption where trusting anyone could get them killed . . . where taking any step could be their last.It gets good reviews. Kirkus Reviews says it "packs enough beatings, betrayals, unmaskings, resurrections, smart talk, and untrustworthy people for the most jaded palate." Spinetingler Magazine describes it as "an over the top jaunt that is told with tongue planted firmly in cheek" and calls the story "solid".
That Jesse James, brazenly affected and acutely interested in investigating the notion of personal and collective myths, doesn't resound with full, heartbreaking intensity until its climax and coda will likely prove too long a wait for those less enamored than Dominik with the seminal, plaintive, demanding westerns of Robert Altman and Terrence Malick, among others. To this impatience, the film has an apt reply, courtesy of Schneider's Dick: "Poetry doesn't work on whores."Rolling Stone gives it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars and says, "this quiet wow of a Western sneaks up as one hell of a satisfying surprise. Artfully exciting and compulsively watchable even at a butt-numbing 152 minutes". Slate titles their review, "You Can Give a Movie a Long Title but That Doesn't Mean It's Good". Empire Online gives it 5 out of 5 stars and calls it "An extraordinary and visionary study of a legendary murderer’s famous fate". Time Out calls it "stunning" and closes by saying, "it’s a journey of immense emotional foreboding and, flabby coda aside, a red-raw classic." Roger Ebert gives it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars, opens by commenting on the "homosexual undertones" and closes by defending its length: "Yes, it is long, at 160 minutes. There is a sense that an epic must have duration to have importance." The Rotten Tomatoes critics score is 76%.
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| photo from Amazon.com |
She reminded herself that his name was Jorge and he had a grandmother who loved him. That seemed impossible; he could have popped from a gliss-wrapped package like the holiday gifts of her childhood, brightly colored and smooth all over. Surely he had not been born in blood and mess like real children.from page 7 of Remnant Population, a science fiction book by Elizabeth Moon. Just 2 sentences is hard, though, and doesn't seem enough to be much of a "teaser". It seems more like an orphan text to me, so I took 3 sentences, which is clearly cheating. It's also not one of my current reads -I read it back in 2005- but it was close at hand. I'm just breaking the rules right and left here!
I feel as lonely, as anybody
As crying on the Friday night,
Once in a while, on my radio dial,
I accidentally get it right.
Chorus:
I’m thinking I might be tempted to slide on over,
Slide on over!
I’m thinking I need a little something to tide me over,
Tide me over,
Till Memphis!
You know that lonesome whipporwill
I know a girl who is bluer still
It’s that a jukebox altar call?
Or just a soft, smoking place to fall?
[Chorus]
Cause the king knows how
to take me all the way!
Yeah the king knows how
(the king knows how)
To take me all the way
To Memphis!
I feel as lonely, as anybody
Who's crying on a Friday night.
I’m not laughing,
Because it’s funny,
Hank is laughing cause he’s always right!
[Chorus]
You strike a match boy
But do you know how
To burn it all the way
Down to Memphis
Cause the king knows how
The king knows how
To take me all the way
Yeah the king knows how,
To take me all the way
To Memphis!
...
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| from Chapter II: The Open Road |
Forty-four-year-old Reta Winters, wife, mother, writer, and translator is living a happy life until one of her three daughters drops out of university to sit on a downtown street corner silent and cross-legged with a begging bowl in her lap and a placard round her neck that says "Goodness."Salon.com says,
The final book from Pulitzer Prize-winner Carol Shields, Unless is a candid and deeply moving novel from one of the twentieth century's most accomplished and beloved authors.
“Unless” is this writer’s way of rooting around in her life and her life’s work, querying, however obliquely, the choices she made and the culture that shaped them, contemplating a dynamic that isn’t as simple as brute oppression, but remains achingly unfair: What does it mean to be “great”? Anything at all? Perhaps not, and perhaps something worth making a fuss about at the very least.The Guardian calls Shields "elegist of the everyday." January Magazine says it "brims with all that is human, the hell-bent good intentions, the brokenness, the stumbling imperfection, and the gallant struggle towards anything even resembling the light". Kirkus Reviews calls it "a tale about existential disarray that’s spiked with feminist outrage and leavened with womanly wit."
As the bombs of the Blitz rain down on Britain, one young girl is evacuated to the countryside. She is struggling to make sense of her new life, who dark, war-ravaged days feel very removed from the peace and love being preached in church and at school. When she is given a book of ancient Norse myths -beautiful, terrifying tales of the gods meeting their cataclysmic end- she glimpses a parallel with her own suddenly precarious reality. Rapturously acclaimed, Ragnarok is a landmark piece of storytelling from the inimitable and brilliant A.S. Byatt.The Guardian describes it this way: "Ragnarok is a clever, lucid, lovely book. But it isn't a novel, or even a story in the usual sense. It's a discourse on myth..." The Telegraph says Byatt "has entwined the epic stories with her memories of childhood reading and her love of the natural world" and that "Byatt’s writing, impassioned and liberated from the strictures of the novel, has never been so beautiful."
An' here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice
Oh, Mama
Is this really the end?
To be stuck inside of Mobile
With the Memphis blues again
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