Breaking Bad Season 6
Episode 11
Ozymandias

Again, to be as redundant as I possibly can about anything, every shot counts in BB.  There is nothing unnoticed, nothing left to chance, and nothing wasted in this show.  It’s as near a perfect vision and a perfect 10 as anything I’ve ever seen in cinema.

This week’s examples?  

Detail #1: Ok, I’ll start with the near end of the show.  The chess game?  The White King is in the corner, and in a defensive move takes his allowed one-square move behind a pawn.  However, on noticing the details here carefully, I see that the King is not actually threatened by anything on the board.  So maybe there is no threat, but he’s moving, in any case.  The King can move one square without being threatened.

Well, the whole story is in this shot.  It’s obvious that the King has a plan, and is still carrying it out, despite the turn of events.  It’s often an endgame kind of thing, for the King to see what’s coming and move ahead of time.

Detail #2: The dog at the end.  That was most certainly a trained dog made by the trainer to walk across the highway behind the leaving car.  There is the skinny dog, head down, whisking through the frame, trotting as it were, all by himself, and out there, obviously ownerless, alone.  Then the credits come up.  Speaking of trainers, who exactly is doing the baby training in this show?  Fantastic responses, in the fire truck, on the changing table asking for “mama”.  Wow, is this baby intelligent? Incredible moments.  So there you go, a child, and an animal, 2 things that they say are hard to work with in show business.  Right.  Not for this crew.

Detail #3: The absolutely tortured and unrecognizable face of Jesse, red, satanic almost, taking up the entire right side of the screen as Todd appears in the background.  Torture never looked quite like this.

For me, the star of this show this week is Anna Gunn as Skyler.  Her performance, especially in the street, and then on the phone with Walt, is incredible.  Her terse tone about Holly, her set jaw, we’ve never seen her like this to my knowledge.  RJ Mitte’s work on this one is appropriately strained as well.  

The twists they just keep coming.

And one more thing, when people ask, “How come the good guys never get shot in TV shows?”, you can just tell them, “Well, you haven’t seen Breaking Bad.”

Breaking Bad Season 6
Episode 9
To'hajiilee

I wanted to repair my last post, which is an emotionally hyper dismissal of my responsibility as a media critic, and so I’ve calmed down now and written the following: 

Now that I’ve gotten over the shock and emotion of episode 9 (or 605), To’hajiilee , it’s possible to do a real review.  On second viewing, when my mind is NOT turned off to what’s going on (I willingly suspend disbelief with film and TV so I can allow the show to take me where it wants to, then engage the brain later), this episode, like ALL episodes in this show’s history before it, is chock full of nuance, subtleties, design, purpose, and outright outrageous cinematic perfection.  

I’m not sure what they feed the people in that writer’s room, but they will all walk away this next year with little statues, along with the cinematographers.

Ok, for starters, there is the plot thickens.  You could not get a better plot point than Jul getting put under pressure to give up where the money was last seen.  The whole brains on the floor thing….wow.

But the scene I’m most impressed with, as usual with this show, is not one that involves guns, or squinty-eyed neo Nazis out of prison ready to do a hit, or barrels of cash in the sand, or even frantic driving by Walt.  It’s the scene where Walt visits Andrea and Brock at their home.  THIS I’m exited about.  Being a cinephile with a long history of looking at the projected/recorded image, I’ve seen a great deal of footage, but this is really good.  

Walt to Todd’s Neo-Nazi Uncle:

“ I don’t know where he is, but I know how to flush him out.”

So begins the segue into this wonderfully played scene.

Brock stares at a cereal box, Frootloops, and while eating them deciphers the kid puzzles on the back.

Mother asks a question that challenges Brock to answer well, demonstrating her commitment to her son’s relational growth, responsibility.  She comes into full focus in this shot.

The colors of the house are all yellowish, bright, full, happy, with soft white cabinets and trim, tall ceilings, comfortable, upper-middle class.  The gauzy and bright curtains have stars in them.  Andrea wears red.  She is luminous here, hair curled around her shoulders.  This is a warm and inviting home.

In comes the Devil.  Brock knows.  The interchange between them, the doubt in the boy’s face, the dismissal by Walt…this man in beige clothes, business casual, glasses, bandaged eye, and may I observe here…overly fleshy and white-looking head, does not fit in their colorful world.  He is tripping over himself, treading carefully, a bull in a china shop.

The very next shot from the kitchen perspective is set genius.  Set design, blocking, camera angle, lighting, everything, is so well done.  DETAILS.  The child’s art work on the fridge.  The brightly colored dishes on the island.  The wood floors.  But the blocking as well: Brock is in the background, but he is positioned directly between Walt and Andrea as they talk.  Walt’s threat is still looming over him.  Andrea is lower in the scene as well, and to the right, while Walt dominates the center.

Ok, all of this sounds really boring, I know (it’s not guns and brains, right), but it’s absolutely beautifully executed Breaking Bad work.  Nothing goes unnoticed, and nothing is without purpose.  There are about 50 more blocking and psychological manipulations of mise’-en-scene in this scene.  But those aside, there is Cranston and his superb acting.  He can play Satan better than the Devil can.  The Great Manipulator does his job here and is extremely believable.  Back to basics, THIS is what has made this show work from the start, the transformation of a simple, and even likable man from a Chemistry-teacher/dad….to Beelzebub.

Just stinking unbelievable how far we’ve come.

Get all the episodes.  Don’t start here.  Enjoy, if that’s the proper word.

Monday, September 09, 2013

Breaking Bad Season Last - Episode 605 "To'hajiilee"

Created by Vince Giligan

I have had a heart attack.  My daughter had to console me at my desk after the episode ended.  I actually had a small breakdown and had to recover from breathing difficulty.  This made the word "intense" seem like Easter morning.  

Ok, I just can't go into it here.  You have to just get the show, ok?  If you don't know what's going on, just start with Episode 1 and go from there.  Have fun with that.

Stephen Marks

Fiction and Truth - a NYTimes article criticism

On the NYTimes aricle, "20 Directors to Watch" - 09/05/13

Critics 

Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott

You wonder if NYTimes writers and editors ever actually step outside their own writing and read it back to themselves in a very objective manner.  This type of myopia is very revealing, however, especially in the latest review of filmmakers that are "making a difference" around the world of cinema.  Here is the paragraph I'd like to concentrate on, in full:

"The good news is that, despite occasional critical claims to the contrary, the quality of contemporary cinema is as exciting as the quantity is intimidating. Filmmakers around the world are making movies that blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction, personal reflection and social advocacy, conventional narrative and radical experimentation."

This reveals a trend in the writing of media criticism, and media itself.  While trying to sound smart they reveal the very nascent nature of modern filmmaking, ergo social development, in that there is an ever-closing gap of style that also is closing the gap for us in reality.  Documentary and Fiction, for example.  I recently saw the teen flick Transformers 2 wherein two robots are fighting.  One complains, Hey that Hurt!  The other states quickly, It's supposed to hurt, it's an ass-kickin'!  Ok, so Documentary and Fiction are SUPPOSED to be different, otherwise, what are they then?  Please people, if it isn't a fact, don't call it one.  Call it fiction, even historical fiction, which is still fiction based on a reality.  Like the movie Perfume, no one will take that for fact, although it is surrounded by historical fact, and is a great period piece for its authenticity.  

Question: Are we "blurring the lines" because we're bored with them?  I'd say that, and the fact that it is in our nature to move the lines, to ignore them, to flout our disaffection with them, or to outright obliterate them.  The word Truth has become this social anathema.

I love Terrence Malick's work.  My new most favorite film ever is The New World.  It's a masterpiece.  Upon reflection my heart wants to say, "You know, that's probably a lot closer to the real thing in history than anything that we have written about it so far."  John Smith was more John Smith, and Pocahontas was definitely in character, as were all the others down the list.  Fantastic.  We know this based on many historical facts at our disposal.  Mallick was a Rhodes scholar and knows his history.  But I would never, ever, call this a documentary!  It's an "art" piece.  The whole thing is a giant allegorical, poetic journey into the CHARACTERS of Smith and the Indian Princess, not to be taken as a literal treatise that would lead one to re-write textbooks.  It is a romance that Mallick also cleverly uses to showcase the social and historical realities of the period as allegory.  Perfectly done.

As for boundaries existing between personal reflection and social advocacy, does this mean that it's getting harder to tell what is simply opinion and what is a statement that is political or has an agenda?  That makes no sense.  Films are always political, because life is political, and people always have an agenda, even in the most fluffy of family films.  Let's return to Transformers again, since that's fresh on my mind.  The new state department guy that is sent out to "monitor" the Autobot program confronts the big kahuna transformer Prime guy, and he states concerning the giant Transformer, to no one in particular, yet distinctly as narration over the top of all else taking place in the scene, "If God made us, complex as we are, then who made him?"  This would definitely reveal a philosophical bias on the part of the scriptwriter.

Concerning the aesthetic differences between conventional narrative and experimental film, my comments do not apply.  Someone has always tried to break the mold of both ends of this spectrum, and with surprising results have often had breakthroughs that redefine cinema.  This is a good thing, and indeed does reflect a creativity and level of fighting against tedium that is much needed for film to survive.

How about the rest of the paragraph?

"The oldest filmmakers on our list were born in 1973, on the eve of the home-video revolution, making them members of the first true on-demand generation. They have grown up with unprecedented access to movies from across the globe and from different epochs, an abundance of influences that informs their work and can make it difficult to pigeonhole them aesthetically or regionally."

Another way to look at this might be that they're confused.  I'd say simply that it makes it difficult to understand some of their work, because now, like the blurring of the documentary and fiction, we have a blurring of understanding of who we are, therefore purposelessness is a new staple of the modern script.  In fact, the more fundamentally "unfinished" a work is, the more it is adored, it seems, because along with "truth" being a word that is like the plague, there are also other words that we are crossing off the common usage and media lists: conclusion, purpose, moral, deduction, resolution, direction, the end.  You get the idea.

NYTimes writers have much in common, it would seem, with the modern filmmaker of the 21st century's beginning, having the same myopic inability to introspectively regulate their own blurring of the lines between documentary and fiction.

NYTimes article link: http://tinyurl.com/k7kplwr

The Broken

2008
Sean Ellis

There are some things about most horror dramas that take us in and keep us interested.  It can vary from the pacing and structure to attraction to an actor/a face on the screen that holds mystery, or music.  In this case, it was definitely the music as the story started.  There was NOTHING, and I do mean that, spectacular about any of the shots, or unusual, or otherwise, that would have kept me interested at all if it were not for the excellently timed music, and the great editing that knew when to cut.

To use the word slow, or "evenly paced" would be understatements.  Nothing was given away early here in this thriller, and so therefore, along with the musical buildup, there was an intense and increasing amount of conjecture called for upon the audience.  At first I thought this might be a political thriller, because the Richard Jenkins character was in an official office with a US flag.  I thought maybe they were going to hijack his daughter's personhood, literally, so they could get inside the government.  Then when the Jenkins character seemed to be under attack, because we surreptitiously meet his doppelganger, the plot expanded, and a political plot still seemed right.  It was not until the Michelle Duncan character meets....well, ok so I'm not doing a spoiler, let's just say it's an intense Bates Hotel shower scene (and here I thought I had gotten over that a long time ago).  Well, after that, it was different, I'll put it that way.

All of that to say that this film did not disappoint when it came to the suspense.  It had me in its grip, very intense, wondering, waiting, wondering some more, trying to puzzle it out.  It was indeed intense almost right up to the very end.  Problem with this film is that the story in the end did not deliver.  Not believable.  I didn't buy it, and truly did not piece together what the official plot line says it was supposed to be (which I did not read until after viewing). And I'm smart darn it!  So there's that.

This film was fun to watch if you like suspense and mystery.  Great stuff, especially in the cinematography and editing, and add the great music.  I don't think it paid off in the end, but it was till fun.  And it was not overly fraught with unnecessary gore or violence.  Those moments that had it were appropriately placed, and well done.  There was only one question that stands out: How does someone scream repeatedly for several seconds when they have a hand shoved down their throat?

Alludes to: Eyes of Laura Mars comes to mind, along with Psycho.  Also, when it started, it felt a bit like Manchurian Candidate.

6 stars of 10

Breaking Bad Season 6 (5.5?)

Episode 1

Triumph and Frustration

About the show: Wow.  This is always the word that Breaking Bad leaves us with.  Ok, that is me saying that yes, but I know I'm not alone.  The best TV Drama to ever hit media is continuing its streak of excellence.   The latest episode, the first of the final 8, although low-key in action, has set the stage, and done it quickly by bringing the plot home to roost (I don't do spoilers, sorry).  So "the plot thickens" is always an understatement with this show, and continues to be.

EVERY single shot, and I mean every one, is a study in what you're supposed to do right in cinematography, sound, lighting, acting, scripting, and plot.  For instance, just one spot, and I will not spoil anything by saying this: late at night it's quiet, and Walt steps out of his house under the suspicion that he is being watched, or there is still a "problem" out there that is not taken care of.  He searches his car, and voila! there is a tracking device.  The camera tracks back with Walt in a vulnerable position on the screen, a slight build-up to the music, the crickets chirping, he alone there having made this discovery, standing still as the shot widens ever more.  THIS is classic cinema, vulnerability, discovery, alone, and all around the darkness, holding what he fears.  Great stuff.

About iTunes: I bought the whole final season, iTunes style, and am somewhat disappointed in iTunes' delivery.  Traditionally they send an email, which they did this time, that tells me, "latest episode is ready for download".  Turns out it was "Inside Breaking Bad, Blood Money".  Well, the "inside" edition is the cast, crew, and creators talking all about the episode.  I didn't want to watch that!! Especially 1st!  You watch that AFTER the show is over.  Where's my episode??  So I learn this 5 hours after the TV episode has aired, then it's too late, and the REAL episode never gave me a notice.  So it's Monday then, and all day I'm checking back to see if it's downloaded yet, or using the "store" menu in iTunes to "check for available downloads".  Never showed.  Finally on Monday night I get desperate and go to the actual iTunes store and go to the BB site itself, and there it is, the download button is active, and I still have to put in my password to get it to work.  So then it's another 5 hours, so bottom line....I'm watching the episode on Tuesday.  Wow, what a hassle.

Not only is this wrong, but it's also wrong of iTunes/Sony Pictures/AMC to lead everyone into believing last year that we were buying the whole season, only then to come up with another half a season, called Season 6, and make us pay AGAIN.  This is so wrong.  There is a class-action suit out there for misleading us.  Tempted to join it.

In any case, because of the intensity of the show, its huge following (5 million "likes" on Facebook), the NEED for this drama, they are getting away with it, because us "fans" are truly ravenous, and will not settle for anything less than an ending that beats Cecil B. DeMille parting the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments in 1956.   This story is incredible, and has set a new bar in drama production.  Those of us who actually work in the medium, and strive for excellence are going to have to work harder now to come up to this new standard.  It may be awhile yet before someone can top this series.

Even though we've been shown a small part of the very end in two of BrkngB's famous flash-forwards to start off the last season, we are now salivating at the idea of where the next and last 7 episodes will take us.  I just hope I can figure this download thing out a bit more quickly and stop writing desperate notes to iTunes support ala Jesse Pinkman titled: "Where's my download BITCH!?" :/     

The Master - 2012 - Movie - Paul Thomas Anderson

The Master 

2012

Paul Thomas Anderson Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

He is Jack Kerouac, he is the younger brother in Mice and Men.  He is at once Us in our most urgent and disconsolate moment, our worst in the drunken and disembodied moment, and our most ardently self sufficient and American free spirit.  Freddie Quell is the post war search for the self,  the sensate, lost, and irreducible man of the flesh.  And in this story, he is diametrically opposed to the Master, the genius, the hope and glory and promulgation of culture and Greco-Roman philosophical fulfillment, a pinnacle of humanity, and ultimately, a fraud.

The contrast and atomic co-dependence that these two characters represent make the essence of their stories so much more poignant for their differences.  The story could not have been written any more tightly woven and more intricately extruded than what has been represented here in film.  The Master, as a title, lives up to its name and delivers a master of cinema art.

Bring together a disenfranchised drifting hobo ex-seaman, a self-proclaimed prophetic Anthony, and mix in the veiled, yet powerful Cleopatra of a spouse whose truly domineering manipulations from the wings of the play are without equal, and you have the recipe for this drama.  From the very first shot, to the last, there is film orchestration here that fully realizes the medium, and could be a statement for the reason why the written work has bowed down to the screen.  This work in literature would be equal to, and in fact seems to draw some parallel from “All the King’s Men”  - Robert Penn Warren.  There is the influential demagoguery, the pandering public, followers, believers, and there is the antithesis of the Master’s persona in the person of Freddie, a brawler, an “animal”, as Lancaster describes him.  There is the real life hero Woody Guthrie to compare to, but in Freddie, there is no talent, nor an introspective need to develop one.  He’s just a hobo, a “scoundrel”, also aptly described by Lancaster.  The opening shot of the film tells his entire story, in fact.  At first we see the helmet, and what appears to be an alert soldier under it, looking around, but for what?  Where is he?  Entrenched in a bunker?  Is there an enemy near?  What is his condition?  He appears listless.  Then we realize….he is simply sleepy, and dozes off, nothing really, no substance at all.

A Kerouac kind of comparison comes from the drifting, the existential nature of Freddie, and hence our sympathies, our rooting for underdogs.  Our dislike for Lancaster Dodd may well be a sort of built-in cynical disdain for anyone who espouses curative fictions of mankind and wields them as powerful opiates to salivating acolytes.  Lancaster is our Pied Piper, his spouse Peggy Dodd, plays accompaniment, and Freddie is like some Tarzan, taken from the jungle of the world and taught how to play an instrument, like a drum, touted before them all as some kind of lab experiment.  We are privy to the conflict from the inside of the film maker’s vision, and witness to the psychological battle of the trio of players, and ultimately the truth of the nature of both men revealed, set apart, never the twain to meet.

The cinematography, the editing, the acting certainly, and the music (especially the music in this film) all create a perfect soup here of storytelling almost unparalleled.  There is a reason for the accolades from awards societies and “best of” lists.  

The music is its own character.  I have to get the soundtrack to this one.  There is really not a moment of the entire film that a music or sound-effects track is not playing along with the visuals.  That’s a 2-CD set I’m going to guess.  Musical “sounds” and atmospheres dominate the senses.  Sound is used as transition from one scene to another, in which case some scenes contain practical music, and others a background score that could be playing in the scene.  We’re not always allowed to know for sure.  The mix is fantastic.

One scene in particular stands out right away at the start of the film, and sets the precedent for most musical effects to come, while furthering our understanding of the characters, and carrying the plot forward to its next destination .  There is “jazz”, a small ensemble, playing considerably erratic-sounding and tense lower notes and sound effects with their instruments.   This begins as Freddie escapes from his last position, running from what appears to be the 2^nd disastrous situation in the story.   One is reminded right away of the Beats, the seeming cacophony of “free associated thoughts” and behaviors.  But this jazzy, disruptive ambiance slowly gives way to a celebratory brass band of syncopated and metered, loud party music, much in the spirit of Citizen Kane’s loud and pronounced trumpets, complete with bloated negro faces straining at the mouthpieces of those instruments.  The tracking shot behind Freddie as he walks along a pier, hunched, as a cold and dislocated wanderer would be, brings a boat of revelers in and out of focus, even as the music wafts and waves between the minor key jazz and this new music from the boat, which turns out to be a wedding cruise of Lancaster’s daughter, Elizabeth.  The  genius of the shot, and it is one long tracking shot, is that the musical score trades between these two diametrically opposed musics at the same time the camera is making those distinctions, literally changing when the focus changes.  Freddie is clear at first, in the foreground, with jazz mimicking him, and then as the boat music soars, the once fuzzy atmospheric lights come sharply into focus, and then back again, like a dance, and the jazz slowly gives way as he leaps aboard stealthily on his life-changing voyage, the brass 4/4 time music then completely overwhelming.  The shot carries us from lonely wanderer in the night, to stowaway, from ether, to concrete.  So very well done.

There are many nuances to this film that bear mentioning, and at least two other most brilliant scenes.  For one thing, Joaquin Phoenix’s stance as Freddie, hands on hips, elbows thrust out to the sides like wings, an expectant kind of look, slightly on edge, combined with a hunched shoulder profile.  This makes Freddie’s character stand out as awkward, and confirms his outsider status, and his estrangement from the world of “the sane”.  There is Amy Dodd’s propensity for always being a bit higher than everyone in the room, and sitting in chairs that are very throne-like.  Her queenly nature, along with her nose in the air, confirms who it is that is really running the show (not to mention her domination of Lancaster in a bathroom scene).

One most brilliant scene I mentioned is the arrest sequence, in particular the contrast between Lancaster and Freddie in adjoining cells as Freddie, out of control, smashes his environment while the cool and collected Lancaster looks on.  And the second genius scene, I’m quite sure was difficult but also a hoot to shoot, was the interior “sing-along” where one moment we’re a gala crowd clapping and dancing to music, genteel and sophisticated, and the next we’re the vision of the same from the interior of Freddie’s mind, with all of the women unselfconsciously unclothed.  Brilliant.

There is not a wasted frame in this one.  An artistically done piece of historical fiction, well deserved accolades, and “master”ful cinematography.  Music is huge.  See it.

5 stars out of 5

Breaking Bad - again
5th Season - Last half begins:
Sunday, Aug. 11th AMC

Ok, I'm just going to say this once (more?) This is the best television drama series ever made.

And here is my favorite quote from Vince Gilligan, creator of the show:

In an interview with The New York Times, creator Vince Gilligan said the larger lesson of the series is that "actions have consequences".^[9] He elaborated on the show's philosophy:

If religion is a reaction of man, and nothing more, it seems to me that it represents a human desire for wrongdoers to be punished. I hate the idea of Idi Amin living in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years of his life. That galls me to no end. I feel some sort of need for Biblical atonement, or justice, or something. I like to believe there is some comeuppance, that karma kicks in at some point, even if it takes years or decades to happen. My girlfriend says this great thing that’s become my philosophy as well. 'I want to believe there's a heaven. But I can't not believe there's a hell.'

Skyfall
2012

Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem

A largely commercial venture that caters to the Superman crowd, I could not take this as seriously as a Mission Impossible, for instance.  There were too many panderings to Cinametique, and the whole thing was just way too long.  It stretched and stretched it seemed.  I could have edited this down and chewed off at least 40 minutes.  Plus it was all way too obvious as far as progression of plot.  The mystery just wasn't there.

Javier Bardem played his role magnificently, as would be expected.  He makes a great bad guy.  But the clownish blonde hair and the CG teeth...man.  I'm thinking as well that Javier felt a little out of his element here as he's been involved in some very serious roles in the past with No Country, Biutiful, and  To The Wonder (ok, we'll not count "Between Your Legs").  The security setup with him in the glass cage (with no potty to go in) was way ridiculous, as well as the moment with him on the ladder being shot at 5 times by Bond and evidently Bond claiming that he missed on purpose.  The explosion in the ceiling of the tunnel and the crashing of the train with its lights still on during the whole ordeal and no one on board the train in evidence was quite amateurish, no matter how much they spent on the scene.

The only delightful thing about the film, really, was the opening, and the credits were fantastic.  I think credits are becoming a category for the Oscars in themselves.  "For Best Credit Sequence in a Feature Film, the statue goes to...."  I actually like Adell's song for this movie, it was perfect for the pace of the credits as well.  Smooth baby.

Cannot say I'd ever watch again though.  Only a few fun moments, otherwise most of it lost in being filmy and Hollywoodish.  Lots of money, no results.  Oh, but at least a cool retro car in the end, and like a rock group and their guitars, they have to smash it of course.  Sorry, that's my spoiler.

1.5 stars of 5

Push

a novel by Sapphire
rel. date: June 1996

The reality of this world is too harsh for most, even in our minds mostly not comprehending the clarity with which this short but powerful work takes us to.  You imagine that it’s there, the dirty apartments, the dark halls, the cooking smells, the desperate people.  But mostly we don’t want to imagine, we don’t let enter our waking consciousness the incestuous, rapist father, the 400 pound abusive mother who would actually kick her own girl while she’s having a baby on the kitchen floor, then send the baby off to live with a grandmother because it’s retarded and she only wants the welfare money.  We can imagine the school where something/someone like this would go unnoticed, and not really be educating a child like this, but we cannot imagine what it is really like to be this person, to be this child.

Sapphire’s language choice, some critics would say, “pushes” the boundary between realism and sensationalism, a kind of Maury Povitch flavor to it.  You’d think that Precious and Mama would be guests on his show.  Precious is on stage first trying to tell Maury all about her life with this woman, and occasional man named Carl, in her broken BEV, which half the audience relates to in any case, and most understand because Maury is translating and helping along by asking pointed questions.  At key moments there are the TV monitors showing Mama’s reaction back stage, and occasional boos from the audience for the woman.  Then they bring her out to meet with Precious in front of everyone, and Mama tries to explain it away, the same way she tried to explain it to the social worker, who was horrified, and saw right through the disguise.   Near the end of the show it might be one of those scenes where both people are standing and flailing accusations at each other and security guards are keeping them apart, a spectacle for TV.

Well, that’s sensational, but it’s also very real.  This voice is real, although it is one that we do not like to hear.  These situations are real, and happen every day, in many ways that we may not imagine.  

You cannot come away from reading this without a heightened sense of awareness of the plight of the poor and the inner city life of the underprivileged.  The descriptions even of simply walking through neighborhoods, the broken tenements and dives of Harlem, are haunting.  This is a voice that while difficult for us to turn our face to, we need to continue to do so.

I’d like to “rate” this book, or compare it, but I cannot at this time.  What “scale” does one use to “rate” something like this?  What criterion?  What frame of reference?  All I think I can tell you is:

Not for youth or light reading.  Please be of a mature mind and solid heart if you undertake to read this book.

Home

a novel by
Marilynne Robinson
rel: 2008

Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishers

Home

An almost unutterably and grievously sad tale of longing, heartbreak, and their attendant truth.  This is the sequel to Gilead, Robinson's novel of a small town by that name, and 2 ministers who polarize yet orbit one another, much like the necessary bond of an Oxygen molecule, sharing an equal number of electrons.  But Home is another step, the polar perspective to Gilead.

Home winds us not through history or the townspeople, except for those necessary to the central tale, and not through a miasma of family ties either, like old scrapbooks that are simply interesting to the family members, and neither does it give way to narrative by way of events that keep us in suspense by their interweaving, as some fiction does.  It does have history, people, family, and a narrative that is definitely present, and leaning towards mystery, yet without any of those structures being the main support beam.  Instead, it takes us through the intricate, interwoven, and sometimes broken tapestry of the relationships that are born in a home, hence the title.  The other goal that this work so masterfully achieves is the unraveling of the mystery of faith in the individual, the nature of it, the impossibility of it in the face of our condition, and the inevitability of it only because of grace, and our ultimate submission to it.

Jack Boughton, the scion of the first book, the truly prodigal son of Reverend Boughton, comes Home, and this is the story from inside his house, a reversal of the perspective of Reverend Ames in the novel Gilead. For Jack to return, it has required a great deal of time away, and effort of will, battling the most supreme enemy of them all, destitution.  Purposes and motives are revealed, peeled back, one paragraph at a time, at times seeming to plod, and bringing us to a place of repetitiveness it would seem, but only for a moment, and then we realize that we're not reading the same thing again, with the same people, but it's delightfully different, deeper, sometimes darker, yes, but more intriguing than what we were expecting, more exacting, more closer to….home.

That's the scary thing really.  This painstakingly careful work of literary genius is surgical in its insistence that we face the human, ourselves, and although few of us might actually be in the exact relationships that these 3 people find themselves, that is only a stage and a backdrop to the play that we face when we put the book down for awhile and allow the haunting of the work to echo in our own reality.  I guarantee you that you will at some moment in the reading of this novel find a relational resemblance to something in your own life that bears bringing out from its possibly closeted inner sanctum for examination.  I also guarantee that because of the grace of the work that you will find a solace in it that will make it worth the effort.

Read this novel after Gilead.  If you have not read Gilead, or my review of Gilead, the Pulitzer Winner, please feel free to find it here: Gilead Review

Prometheus

2012

Ridley Scott

Charlize Theron, Logan Marshall-Green, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender

You'd think Alien would have run it's course as a three time film franchise.  It's been since 1979 since the first Alien popped out of a stomach and into a man's birthday cake, and today we still have acid blood that eats through helmets, and snake-like creatures that dominate men and seem to like esophegii.

But what we do not have in this film is cheesy effects and off-screen suspense as style.  We have instead the great visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott, author of Bladerunner and Gladiator, both stories having different epic proportions.  He was the perfect choice to bring this story line back to life, and as he's said in an interview, "re-open that book".

Story is oftentimes everything, but here in Prometheus, it is story and look and feel, just as cinema should be.  Film is show, and not tell.  The showing does the telling, and we are offered a great feast of first rate special effects, practical sets mixed with digital artistry, and wonderfully orchestrated mise-en-scene.  That would have been Roger Ebert's vernacular.  But what would Gene Siskel then say?
"Basically, for a scary movie, it's beautiful."

As for myth, Prometheus was a progenitor, Greek mythology, making man from clay, so it's appropriate to show the self-sacrifice of an "Engineer", allowing his own genes to be utterly destroyed in order to populate a virgin planet with the genetic makeup of a god.  Am I giving away too much?  He was a Titan, so you'd think this would draw some superhero fans, ok maybe not.  But this Titan evidently obtained Fire for mankind as a sort of blessing, yet for it, was given a curse by the gods.

In this story one is prone to associate Prometheus with the Engineers, but we need to remember that name was the name of the ship.  Considering the ending, it's quite possible that the name Prometheus sticks very closely with the mythical tale in proving that anything like an attempt at improving mankind ends up in tragedy somehow.

So the Engineers made us.  Well, ok, but then the pertinent question does get asked somewhere in the story,"So who made them?"  Yes, tricky.  Seems destined that we're off to a Prometheus II in some future day, given the end does lead us trailing off to somewhere else.  Everybody wants to get to the core, right?  And still the questions dangle, why the Aliens?  Why the escape tactics?  Questions begging to be answered in a sequel, we still don't really know.

My own personal theory is that the Alien species exists as an antithesis to the Creation.  Creation/Destruction, much like the balance of Yin and Yang.  It would seem they are a pet creation of the Engineers themselves, as their ship is brimming with enough ephermeral goo to....well anyway...we all know, however, that this balance in theology is not a theology, but rather a lack of one, and there is no real beginning, or at least the beginning is unknowable.  As  the astronaut/archeologist played by Noomi Rapace places the cross necklace back around her neck, the AI, David, by Michael Fassbender, asks her, "After all this, and you still believe?"

Yes, yes of couse she does. All the answers have not been given.  Only a robot would ask such a question.  Shh David, you just shush up until the sequel.

Many critics have cited the numerous "science" flaws and lack of professionalism by the crew, and the ability at the end for the inept captain and remaining crew to just give their lives completely to stop the alien ship.  There were quite a few inept and inappropriate moments afield, not to mention that you don't just get up from an operation that cuts open your gut and walk around.  But Scott knows that science is not all there is to the sci-fi.  It's mostly fiction, and you can get away with quite a bit with a compelling mystery and narrative.

4 stars of 5 for beauty and cinematography
4 stars of 5 for the editing, pacing, but not the music really (maybe a 2 on that)
5 of 5 for directing and 3.5 for acting - incredible "operation" scene by Noomi - just un-reeeeel.  But most of the acting was nominal.  Fassbender was terrific.

Manchester Orchestra

Manchester Orchestra
Simple Math Video - 2012

I discovered this band via a friend, and instantly sacrificed real cash and bought Simple Math, the album.  That was first, but then I discovered their earlier works to be just as potent.  A must listen/try them and see thing.  Was so excited I actually laid out cash again and bought the album for my friend Jim Spiegel.

Here is the Vimeo link to the song simple Math (they won the 2012 Vimeo music video award with this).  https://vimeo.com/22379296

And then there is the Letterman appearance.  They were on Letterman one night with a song from the Simple Math album called Virgin.  They had a backup chorus of some very special middle-schoolers.  Fantastic. https://vimeo.com/27108856

4 Duds and 1 Winner

Ok, it's one of those nights when I can't sleep and, very reminiscent of my Netflix trial, I start going over my list of films that I want to try, but this time from Amazon Prime, with free streaming for members.  I started to watch 5 different movies.  Only 1 of 5 was not a dud.  But one good result emerged...it made me sleepy.

So here goes, the 4 duds, and quickly why they dudded me, and the one that I finished.

American Meth: Documentary where people's faces were way too close, they were colored greenish, possibly to go with the subject matter, and no one with recognizable authority was in evidence.  I shut it off because I got the gist 10 minutes into the thing: "Meth: It's Bad".

7 Days In May: Albeit an award winner in its time, it's time has past.  Talkative "tell all" including your personal thoughts.  Slow.  Straight narrative.  Not even good acting really.

YES Acoustic: Fan of the band big time.  YES was the group in the late 60's early 70's labeled "smart rock", or rock for smart people.  Their album work was fantastic, and their album art made great posters.  This was a recording of their live event in 2007 which was broadcast nationwide to special theaters for attendees. They are still adroit and brilliant in their older age.  One of the more fantastic guitarists alive and all around perfect musicians.  But attempting to re-create the original music with a slightly different format just didn't cut it.  Great musicianship, wrong format.  Please go back to the studio.  They're still good, mind you, but not without some electronic backup and SFX.  Stopped after 3rd song.

High Tension: Right.  That was it.  You just got the summary of the movie in the title.  Sexy girls travel to French countryside where homicidal maniac with a straight razor beheads people for no apparent reason while calmly stomping through their house while no one can put up any reasonable resistance and also do not get awakened despite the tumultuous racket until it's their turn to die .  One sexy girl fights back.  Cecile de France was incredible in Hereafter, with Matt Damon, but this was 7 years before that.  You've come a long way baby.  Quit watching after small boy gets shot in corn field by same big thug guy with a shotgun.  No taste.  Essence: "boo!  ssssslit".

And the winner is: Two Lovers, with fantastic performances by Joaquin Phoenix, Vinessa Shaw, and Gwyneth Paltrow.  Great stuff.  Very personal and up close look at disappointment and wrong decisions, people not knowing themselves very well, values misplaced, and picking on the one guy that should be the hero.  Great screenplay and execution.  Oh, and Isabella Rosellini with that fantastic accent and her cutting eyes.

Silver Linings Playbook

2012 - Weinstein bros.

The fashion in film of the last decade has been culminated here, yet no matter how fashionable a film style is, it’s how well written a story is that pays off in the end, and that’s why this film got into the oscars.

We have hand-held and personal, up-close action, authoritative directing in a situation shoot resulting in dynamic personalities being created on screen, not to mention incredible tension caused by the timing of what people are saying to one another.  We have originality in design, with the separate apartment in the back of the house, the dance studio, the upstairs we never see of that apartment, and the well-chosen location shooting around a typical house and neighborhood.  We have super, super tertiary characters (Weaver, Tucker, Kher) and subplots, like the obsession of DeNiros’ father with the Eagles, the betting wars, and the ever-tightening circle of close friends and relatives whose layers get pulled back a little at a time to draw them farther away from normal.  This effectively strengthened our disturbed protagonists by giving them great people to bounce off of and to live in comparison to.  So of course we have to mention great casting.  All of that comes together to make a seamless kind of story flow, in what could otherwise be a mess if left in the wrong hands.

Tension is what this film is all about.  Sexual tension, mental tension, and also manipulation.  It’s about the breaking down of what we truly believe in ourselves, and peeling back layers to reveal what we really mean, what we really want.  The confrontational style brought out by Jennifer Lawrence’s character Tiffany, really a shrouded defense mechanism that she is truly finding tiring by the time we meet her, and by the time she meets Pat, is routine.  She is almost bored when she completely opens herself up for sex to him at the first opportunity.  She is testing his waters while rehearsing her well-worn personal path of degradation.

   

Pat is the oblivious dreamer, the do-good man with no “filter” as he says it.  His adherence to a hope is to a fault, and of course, it is this fault that keeps the dynamic tension rolling through the story.  We sympathise and identify with his frustation, most likely because we would like to have his kind of "purity" of heart, if that's what you could call it.  Pat says what we would want to say, so there is something to admire about him and his struggle.

There is just nothing like great character development, along all lines: the writing, the casting, the directing, the acting.  Even DeNiro’s character got him an Oscar bid.

There are plenty of great laughs, but this is not a comedy.  There are many a dramatic moment that could leave one crying as well, and again, what is fashionable in film is this kind of raw and unadulterated expose of the self, put it all on the table, and leave nothing to doubt, get right down to the facts.  This is a very straightforward story of people struggling for genuine love and acceptance, and fighting an inner illness of congenital personality failure.  It’s great chemistry that you should experience, weather you’re into counseling, or just good movies.

4.5 stars

Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

Gilead
Marilynne Robinson
2004

Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead is a severely contemplative work of great complexity and beauty.  Reading this was like looking at a frosted window.  You know that all of the frosted patterns are completely original, and not one part of the pattern is like another, and not one part of it is exactly like any other that has ever been before, and it is a wonder, one you wish would stay as it is, so you may study it again at will.

This is the life reflections of a Preacher, the Reverend John Ames, in the form of a long, and un-interrupted letter to his son.  It is the attempt to leave some sort of an explanation for his self, and to expunge ghosts. But it is also a letter to clear up any mysteries about his life events, while simultaneously adding weight to the mystery of the weight of who God is, and the fact that mystery is good.  I’ll paraphrase here a passage I remember: “I hate what radio, and especially TV has done to theology.  You spend all your life working up a theology and position that make mystery not only acceptable, but good, and to be accepted, only to have some radio preacher come along and undo the whole thing in a single broadcast.”

Gilead is also the story of a struggle, main bulk of the book, with Ames' alter-ego, Jack Boughton.  As a child Jack bewildered Ames with pranks and pratfalls, which eventually turned into adult misbehavior.  This story is about how John Ames comes to work that out.

It is mystery and faith that John Ames wishes to contrast so well with his real life, aptly setting himself apart from any semblance of saintliness.  The text as a whole offers up the greatest of contrasts of the sinful condition of man and the far reaches of the personhood of God, and how grace is the only relieving channel through which we receive anything.

It is also, though, an intimate portrait of a small town; one that amounts to next to nothing, but could also be our small town, or one that you know.  He has accepted his position in it, despite that his preacher father, and mother with him depart the small town, bending his ear to hear that he should move as well and broaden his experience with the rest of the world.  They tell him that there is no shame in shedding the likes of a place like Gilead for a broader experience.  Ames finds grace and peace in just such a place, however, cutting through the thickly veiled world of opportunity and advancement that so easily persuades most of us.

This book is filled with many gems, of which I hope to find again on another reading in the near future.  Here are a couple that I marked along the way, marveling at their simplicity, yet profundity at the same moment:

“…they want me to defend religion, and they want me to give them “proofs.”  I just won’t do it.  It only confirms them in their skepticism.  Because nothing true can be said about God from a posture of defense.”

“Harm to you is not harm to me in the strict sense, and that is a great part of the problem.  He could knock me down the stairs and I would have worked out the theology for forgiving him before I reached the bottom.  But if he harmed you in the slightest way, I’m afraid theology would fail me.”

“…putting the Lord to one side, so to speak, since I knew perfectly well at that time, as I had for years and years, that the Lord absolutely transcends any understanding I have of Him, which makes loyalty to Him a different thing from loyalty to whatever customs and doctrines and memories I happen to associate with Him.”

 I would highly recommend tackling this book if you like a challenging text that will force you to reflect on the totality of life.  There are moments of reality, and moments of great wonder and reflection on beauty, and where it can be found.  It is also a treatise for facing that which we normally would hate in another, carrying prejudice or bitterness or superiority, blame, retribution, and judgment, and doing the exact and superlative opposite of those natural responses.

Great book.  This needs to be on your Must Read list.  Published in 2004, it won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Life of Pi

Ang Lee 2012

Multiculturalism, multireligion, multiadventure, multifable, multifact.  The twists and turns in the emotional and fantastic voyage of the life of Pissence….er, Pi Patel go beyond the imagination.  And then in the end we get an “alternate ending” provided by Pi himself, and the question that is posed for us is, “Which story do you prefer?”  Which is also a way of saying, “Which story to you believe?”

This film lived up to every expectation and more.  The SFX, the acting, music, the pace, the sheer beauty, CG or no, was incredible.  My children and I were captivated, moved, and yes, even frightened.  I must confess, this is the ONLY film that has actually made me yell out loud in fear.  I usually jump, take in a breath of air sharply, tense up, grab the chair arm, grab the knee of the person next to me and almost spill their pop or popcorn, but I’ve NEVER yelled out loud.

   

I refrain here from telling you at which point that happens because I am solidly against spoilers.  (I believe in craftily writing my way around spoilers in an attempt to make the story even MORE enticing - if I think it’s worth watching - and I write about very few films that I don’t like).  But yes, it was emotionally incredible, although that word does not really describe the filmed version of this story.  Although there are multiple effects and green screens and animations in the film, the story, the effects, and the outcome of the whole is totally believable, credible.  As Joanna Langfield of The Movie Minute has said, “Ang Lee has accomplished the impossible”.  Not only for making the incredible credible, but for making visual and realistic what would normally be impossible except via the imagination of the fable, the written story.  Visual feast is good. A magazine review stated, “The CG tiger was so real that it makes the Narnian Aslan look like a cartoon.”

The pacing was judicious as well, with plenty of time given to help the story develop via the dialogue with a would-be novelist in search of a story.  Great setup.

That’s the filmic part of it.  What of its dialogue with the heart?  Christianne Amanpour is currently presenting a series of biblical history shows entitled, “Back to the Beginning”, made for TV that are multi-religious, adroitly encompassing the crossover of 3 major faiths via the story of Abraham.  In the Life of Pi we are given such a tour and in such a way, seen through the eyes of a child and young man, that we cannot help but agree that God is a great wonder who is humbling, and real, but also not easily pinned down by our religious assertions.  In fact, Pi proves to us that the best approach to God is humility, and openness, with the eye towards being truthful and transparent.  Yes, and not just stopping there, as he discovers, but completely dissolved of the self, and absorbed.  The VietNam Veteran in Forrest Gump comes to mind as he yells from the top of the mast of the shrimp boat during the storm, only to discover that he still has a place in God, and comes to peace.  The difference between the Vet and Pi would be that Pi starts his journey from a seeking and submitting position, whereas the Vet in Gump is belligerent doubt.  Pi, himself, comes to peace and complete absorption in a great storm, welcoming the beauty of it, while the Vet in Forrest Gump yells into the wind of that storm, shaking his fist, “Is that the best you can do?”

Pi will shock you, enrapture you, and take you on his journey in such a way that you are compelled to leave your reality and join his for the brief period of 2 hours and 7 minutes, and you’ll not regret it.

5 stars

Hugo - 2011

Martin Scorsese

This one felt quite a bit more like a Spielberg film than anything Scorsese ever made.  Good to see that a director with the depth of Marty can begin to stretch into areas that don’t have guns and Italians.  There was very little bloodshed in this one.

Hugo, like the awards, most likely invites just such an award.  Originality, quality, depth of insight into the characters and backgrounds all check out.  Special Effects?  ILM.  This was a roller-coaster of a ride through many layers of models, maps, and meticulous re-constructions from historical reality in order to bring to light one of the most ingeniously creative and innovative minds of the modern era.  Melies was indeed way ahead of his time, and Mr. Scorsese did more than a bang-up job of creating a work that highlighted that life, without it being a “fictumentary”.  Yes, I am inventing that word as we speak.  So if it becomes a meme, let it be known that this day, Friday December 21st, 2012, I created it!  Hah!

Hugo put me in that kind of mood, in any case.

But how much did Martin have to do with all that SFX and scenery and fantastic falderal?  Well, advisedly I’m sure he stayed on top of it.  But let’s talk about the acting.  That’s what directors do you know.  They direct the actors.  He had an automatic gem here in Sacha Cohen, and not because of his loony roles in his 2 mocumentary satires (mocumentary is NOT a word that I have made up, that was already invented some time ago), and especially in Chloe Grace Moritz, whose effervescence is so unique and mystical she could probably act on screen while sleeping.  But what of Asa Butterfield?  He “looked” the part, certainly, with that urchin chin and grin, and naturally falling loose black hair, the street urchin deluxe.  But what of his work?  

Well, I can’t imagine Marin Scorsese having a hard time with children, even though they say that animals and children are the most difficult.  But for some reason Asa did not carry the part on screen.  It was a dismal failure.  Sorry Asa.  It’s not just looks we’re after here.  He does not have the maturity of Chloe.  Beside her he looked like a high school play actor working on a first run of Les Miserables.  I can imagine in scenes like the activating of the automaton as it begins to write that there were many takes.  He still didn’t get it right.  No matter how he threw those bottles around or how he tramped into the chair and attempted the pouty look, or waited between shots as they squirted fake tears into his eyes as the camera rolled, Martin Scorsese’s eyebrows were probably a bit knit together, and there were a few calls for lunch, and dinner, and….to be continued the next days.  He did a lot more with a lesser name, Christopher Serrone, in Goodfellas, than he got out of young Butterfield.

Well, all in all it was still an effectively good story about the great old film master.  It’s quite possible that there should have been a re-write however in this case, to place more background and emphasis on Melies and less on the little boy in the train station. 

I was never quiet sure how the backstory of the station master tied in with him being either/both cruel then sympathetic with orphans.  Cohen brought the very best action and comedy to the film however, and played his part superbly, even though it was all a necessary side-plot.  Wonderfully done.  The station scenes were completely convincing, and all of that side-plot worth the price of admission.

But for some reason I have found myself almost wishing now that someone would take another crack at Melies from a different direction entirely, exploring the fire, the war, the background of the man who bought the automaton at a museum auction, etc.  Those were all very interesting “side stories” here that did not get the attention that they deserved. 

Artistically this was a magnificent feat, but seeing as how it was not the best work produced by Mr. Scorsese, it must be viewed as a foray into a realm that he is simply not as comfortable with as of yet.  If I viewed this without knowing who directed it, I would have said it was by the director that brought us Percy Jackson, and Harry Potter, which would be Chris Columbus.

[As a side note:  It’s also quite possible that somehow in the politics of things that Sacha Cohen and Ben Kingsley worked out some kind of deal in the background of this one, after that horrible film “The Dictator” (I liken that to “Porky’s a la Politics”), that because Ben Kingsley, the great actor that brought us Gandhi, was forced to play a hideous secondary role in that film, they agreed that this time in Hugo, Mr. Cohen would be the idiot, and Ben the center of attention.]

2.5 stars only, sorry Mr. S, try again please?  Maybe a B/W Italian love story?  Hm

The Beaver - 2011

Mel Gison, Jodie Foster

Jennifer Lawrence, Anton Yelchin

Jodie Foster wins again with another tragicomic lighthearted serious drama.  If you find that statement convoluted, it’s because the film conjures up all of those things, yet is itself a single whole piece.  Much in the tradition of Little Man Tate, you cannot take the facts as facts, and seriously, however, the story left me personally with quite a bit of hope, even though in the end our hero father/CEO/puppet-master ended up in an institution.  It proved to be that what he really wanted was more important than his infliction.  What he wanted was more potent than a sometimes malevolent, possessive Beaver.

Mel Gibson was so good.  The native accent was spot on of course, a natural pick for Mel as an alternate voice for his Beaver voice, which consumes the bulk of the film anyway.  He managed somehow to upstage everyone, even Jodi, which she judiciously allowed, in fact purposefully gave to him “on stage”.

   

Jodi’s directorial skills have been sharpened in so many ways, and she has developed her own style, which is highly effective.  She knows how to share and give screen time, how to handle a second story and tertiary characters, and top actors.  Jodi of course was raised in the business, and she knows her way around, so I would expect no less at this point.

This one has so many good feelings about it, despite the undergirding dark content, which in my estimation is one of the best ways to handle a dark subject like this.  People who need hope from this crippling affliction of depression need light and effectively meaningful perspective.  She delivered.

   

The use of the contrasting second story of the son was a perfect story device, and carries the theme, in fact mirrors it, from another angle.  The vulnerability of youth and beauty and intelligence, “top of the class”, but without a real clue, is exactly the dilemma that the father finds himself in.  Both our CEO dad and our Valedictorian cheerleader find themselves needing a voice to express what they really feel.  He uses a puppet, and so does she, a paid one.

Put this one on the must rent list for this season, if you haven't seen it.

**** 4 stars.  Some slightly cheesy predictability, but not enough to distract.  Easy on the language and the eyes, good thematic material for young adults as well and mid-lifers.  Calls on us to love and care for the one next to us while we have them.  No overtly religious content, simply a moral story.
Stars Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, the highly versatile and busy-now Jennifer Lawrence, the newer and fantastic face of Anton Yelchin, great for his subdued style in this one.  He's been even busier than Jennifer it seems with 5 film in post right now.  Yikes, go to bed man.

White Teeth

a novel by Zadie Smith

2000 Hamish Hamilton

Zadie Smith is KILLING ME!!
Killing me softly with her words, unravelling with unabashed bravado across the page, and I'm asking myself again...Why is it that everyone else seems to find these great books before I do????  I had to hear about it in Interview Magazine, way after it was written of course, in an article that was revisiting it a "2nd time".

I'm only 2/3 of the way through the book, and I want to write about it.  This is now on my must read and must obtain list - because I've only borrowed it and don't own it.  I know I'm going to read this again, the way I know I'm going to read Middlesex by Eugenedes again.  But this novel...wow, it has hit so many funny bones, as well as understood sentiments and realistic scenarios.  It's so rich and (no pun here) colorful.

What really impresses me is the way that she has written about men, being a woman.  I want to scream, "Ah!  She sees right through us! Ah! I am naked!"  Her ability to switch in and out of body between the male and female views is astonishing.  If I did not know who wrote the book to begin with, I would be hard pressed, no, it would be impossible for me to guess the gender of the writer.  She has gone so many steps further in writing into the male life than Brett Lott did writing as a woman in "A Song I knew by Heart".  And that attempt was really good and convincing.

But I do love her twisted and flourishing wit amidst all the seriousness of the lives of these characters.  There is just no stopping it.  My favorite is still pgs 76-77 about the McDonough clan, I believe is the name, and how they have this propensity to find the most violent parts of wars and get involved in them.  It was somewhat reminiscent of Forest Gump's lineage, only way funnier.  Her words are masterful.

You MUST read this if you like great literature.  All 5 screaming stars.  But not with bacon.

Agitatus