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Movie/Book Recs, as of 1/17/14
Friday, January 17th, 2014 09:54 amAt the Movies:
American Hustle: Some movies are linked in my head with the experience I had in the theater when I saw them; for AH, it's going to be forever associated with being unable to get seats far enough back and feeling sick during the disco sequence. Also, everyone's faces were magnified, like, seemingly a million times larger than normal because of the close seats, and after a while, that gets really, really weird. Anyway, it's a good movie, and even though I didn't like feeling nauseated, I really enjoyed it as a portrait of some profoundly shades-of-grey, no-moral-absolutes people. Whenever I watch a heist movie/story, I'm waiting for the denouement, and AH's does not disappoint. It was just a little hard to root for people who were so completely deluding themselves (even though the narration of the story acknowledges that very fact.)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Redux: I went and saw this with my Dad, who thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to nitpick every detail when it was over. I am sorry to say that when that spider popped out, even though I knew it was coming, I still jumped and made a little squeak of surprise. Dammit, Peter Jackson! On a second viewing, the pacing of the story seemed even more glacial, but I was to better look at the beautiful design work that's largely hidden in the background. The elves of Mirkwood have a slightly different sensibility from Rivendell, and seeing that again, checking for details and so forth, was highly pleasurable. And Tauriel is still amazing and kickass.
In Books!:
Bossypants, by Tina Fey: What a fun, likable book! Fey writes as if she were sitting across from you at the dinner table, recounting stories of the history of SNL/30 Rock, celebrity culture, and parenting with equal weight and it's just lovely, like discovering you have a tremendously funny cousin you didn't know existed.
The Impostor's Daughter, by Laurie Sandell: As a counterpoint to Fey's book, I read this book in one sitting, unable to stop myself. Then as I was adding it to my GoodReads profile, I went through some of the comments, and, well, OUCH. A lot of people think this work is selfish and shallow, and that the author shouldn't have written about her father's actions, or brought her family's turmoil into public discourse like this. I'm of very mixed minds about this. It's a crazy-amazing story and Sandell's father is a highly flawed but compelling figure, a man who lied his way through life and destroyed his family's and friends' financial stability, yet Sandell remembers him fondly, too, as the man who told her wonderful stories and encouraged her in her artistic and academic endeavors. This book also details Sandell's own response to uncovering this story as an adult, and her prescription drug abuse that eventually leads her to rehab at the end of the story. This work strongly reminded me of This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolfe (which also deals with a destructive father figure), and I began to wonder if people would have been as hard on Sandell if she were a man writing about his relationship with his mother or father. The only major difference is Sandell's choice to include her own, present-day struggles with drugs. I think her inclusion of this part of the story is a highly brave act that allows her to reclaim the narrative from her father's reach, and tell her own story, even though that story is one that's been told more than a few times. As she says in an interview that functions as the book's afterword: "My hope is not to reconcile with my dad, but to emerge from this experience relatively unscathed." To even reach that conclusion strikes me as a strong and brave choice, and I commend her for putting these words and pictures on paper.
American Hustle: Some movies are linked in my head with the experience I had in the theater when I saw them; for AH, it's going to be forever associated with being unable to get seats far enough back and feeling sick during the disco sequence. Also, everyone's faces were magnified, like, seemingly a million times larger than normal because of the close seats, and after a while, that gets really, really weird. Anyway, it's a good movie, and even though I didn't like feeling nauseated, I really enjoyed it as a portrait of some profoundly shades-of-grey, no-moral-absolutes people. Whenever I watch a heist movie/story, I'm waiting for the denouement, and AH's does not disappoint. It was just a little hard to root for people who were so completely deluding themselves (even though the narration of the story acknowledges that very fact.)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Redux: I went and saw this with my Dad, who thoroughly enjoyed it and wanted to nitpick every detail when it was over. I am sorry to say that when that spider popped out, even though I knew it was coming, I still jumped and made a little squeak of surprise. Dammit, Peter Jackson! On a second viewing, the pacing of the story seemed even more glacial, but I was to better look at the beautiful design work that's largely hidden in the background. The elves of Mirkwood have a slightly different sensibility from Rivendell, and seeing that again, checking for details and so forth, was highly pleasurable. And Tauriel is still amazing and kickass.
In Books!:
Bossypants, by Tina Fey: What a fun, likable book! Fey writes as if she were sitting across from you at the dinner table, recounting stories of the history of SNL/30 Rock, celebrity culture, and parenting with equal weight and it's just lovely, like discovering you have a tremendously funny cousin you didn't know existed.
The Impostor's Daughter, by Laurie Sandell: As a counterpoint to Fey's book, I read this book in one sitting, unable to stop myself. Then as I was adding it to my GoodReads profile, I went through some of the comments, and, well, OUCH. A lot of people think this work is selfish and shallow, and that the author shouldn't have written about her father's actions, or brought her family's turmoil into public discourse like this. I'm of very mixed minds about this. It's a crazy-amazing story and Sandell's father is a highly flawed but compelling figure, a man who lied his way through life and destroyed his family's and friends' financial stability, yet Sandell remembers him fondly, too, as the man who told her wonderful stories and encouraged her in her artistic and academic endeavors. This book also details Sandell's own response to uncovering this story as an adult, and her prescription drug abuse that eventually leads her to rehab at the end of the story. This work strongly reminded me of This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolfe (which also deals with a destructive father figure), and I began to wonder if people would have been as hard on Sandell if she were a man writing about his relationship with his mother or father. The only major difference is Sandell's choice to include her own, present-day struggles with drugs. I think her inclusion of this part of the story is a highly brave act that allows her to reclaim the narrative from her father's reach, and tell her own story, even though that story is one that's been told more than a few times. As she says in an interview that functions as the book's afterword: "My hope is not to reconcile with my dad, but to emerge from this experience relatively unscathed." To even reach that conclusion strikes me as a strong and brave choice, and I commend her for putting these words and pictures on paper.
