2022 book 63

 Molly Gloss' Falling from Horses

 I was a good quarter of the way into this before I realized it’s a sequel to The Hearts of Horses, in that the protagonist here is the son of the protagonist in that one. Anyway, the story starts with a nineteen year old boy on his way to Hollywood in 1938, where he wants to be a stunt rider in cowboy movies. Along the way he befriends a young woman who wants to be a screenwriter. I liked the narrative voice here a lot; he’s telling the story as a much older man, looking back on his year in Hollywood, and flashing back to his childhood and to a family tragedy. I did kind of want a little bit more from the friendship, or from his older years in general, but I liked seeing the bits and pieces of it that we did get. Note that movies in the 1930s did not care about animal safety and there are some grim scenes with horses (and riders). A/A-.

2020 book 2

Margaret Dumas' Murder in the Balcony
The second Murder in the Palace mystery, about a woman who runs a classic movie theater (which has a helpful and friendly ghost!) and deals with theater stuff, her maybe ex husband the movie star, her employees and friends, and also a little bit of murder-solvin'. This time, the boyfriend of one of her employees is MURDERED! Also, a shady real estate tycoon is trying to buy all the buildings on the block! Can she figure things out and save the day? The mystery here is solid, but it’s definitely the characters I’m most into here. And all the cute fake blog entries about classic movies. There were some annoying typos but otherwise this was a lot of fun. B+.

2016 book 128

Mara Wilson's Where Am I Now
Wilson--best known for her work a child actress and (at least to me) a popular Twitter account--has written a nice little memoir/essay collection about her time working in movies, her mother's death, her family, her teenage and college years, and how she's now started to really find herself. Parts of this made me cry and parts made me laugh out loud, though a couple parts made me think like, why is someone still in her 20s acting like a wise ol' owl. Like, she is not far enough removed from like, toxic friendships to reflect on those, maybe. BUT most of this is really well-written and entertaining and uplifting and stuff. I like her narrative voice a lot. B+.


__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.

2015 book 159

Jen Chaney's As If! : The Oral History of Clueless
If any movie deserves to have a 300+ page oral history, it's Clueless. (I freaking love Clueless.) Chaney manages to keep things interesting and flowing for all those 300+ pages too, and makes an effort to five some cultural context by not talking to just the cast and crew, but to a bunch of Jane Austen scholars, the fug girls, and even Ta-nehisi Coates! Anyway, if you love Clueless like I do, or at least find oral histories of movie-making interesting, you should check this out, because it's really well-done. And thank goodness Clueless is on Netflix, because I need to go watch it right now! A/A-.

__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.

2014 book 232

Anne Helen Petersen's Scandals of Classic Hollywood
I'm a huge fan of Petersen's essays on The Hairpin, also called Scandals of Classic Hollywood, and the way she contextualizes celebrity and media, so was super excited for this book--which did not disappoint. Although a few of the celebrities she focuses on were also featured in her column, the content here is almost entirely new (disappointingly, the pictures are all at the end of the book, and not interspersed as in her online essays--very annoying if you're reading on a Kindle). I kind of miss her slightly-less-formal writing tone, but the writing here falls nicely between academic and popular history. And all the stories are great! I thought the section comparing Judy Garland and Dorothy Dandridge and the look at masculinity as embodied by Montgomery Clift/Marlon Brando/James Dean were particularly strong.  I will say that it doesn't entirely flow when reading it in one sitting (some sections seem to follow more logically than others), but each chapter is just a gem. A/A-.


__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book is available now!

2014 book 198

Cary Elwes' As You Wish : Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride 
Yes, it's true: the actor who played Westley in The Princess Bride has written a book about the making of the VERY AWESOME movie (based on the VERY AWESOME book, one of my all-time favorites), and it is just as delightful as you might imagine. So many fun behind the scenes stories! And it's not just Elwes--there are plenty of asides/anecdotes from all the other actors, as well as William Goldman, Rob Reiner, and Reiner's producing partner Andy Scheinman. I mean, you know, it's a book by an actor (with a very competent ghost writer), it's kind of cute and fluffy, but it will WARM YOUR FREAKING HEART if you love the movie like I do. Which I think most people do. Most of all, it will make you need to rewatch the movie IMMEDIATELY, so I'm just going to go ahead and do that right now. Rated A for ADORABLE.

(I mean, ok, I'd love to have gotten a lot more from Robin Wright about some of the scenes they didn't share, and I kind of got all cultural-theory on things when Elwes called her a "cool girl" who "could hang with the guys"--I find the "cool girl" trope fascinating. And I mean, it's not like there were any girls to hang out with!)
__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in October.

Comic Book Column

Hey folks, I know you must be all, "Alicia, you were reading a book a day, but it's been TWO days, what happened!" And what happened is:
a) The book I'm reading right now is pretty long, and
b) Other stuff is happening! Like Wednesday I had a crazy allergy attack and spent the evening in a benadryl coma instead of reading, and tomorrow I'll be seeing THE HUNGER GAMES MOVIE instead of reading.

Expect book bloggin' to recommence this weekend. In the meantime, I've been writing a column about comic books! It appears every Friday morning--there's a link down on the right-hand sidebar, but I figured now was an opportune time to officially announce it (which I have done repeatedly on Twitter and Facebook, but whatever).

2011 book 144

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Hey, I actually have some new things to say about this one, since it still feels new and exciting to me (I still remember how excited we were for it to come out, and how much fun the midnight release party was!). Anyway, new things I want to say:

--I found out recently that the quote on Harry's parents' gravestone is actually a quote from Corinthians (no surprise that I didn't know this--I'm not at all up on my New Testament), lending more credence to the Harry-is-a-Jesus-figure theory (it makes me nuts that people try and ban these books). I still don't understand the quote though.

--I noticed on this read-through that during Neville's big awesome scene at the end, he breaks free from the Body-Bind curse--a callback to the first book?

--Deathly Hallows pt. 1 was the only HP movie I've liked wholeheartedly (they always leave out the things I think are important!!). I'm a little leery about part 2, but I think as long as they include the Snape-Lily stuff, I'll be ok with added-in exciting battle scenes (I'm guessing there will be extra battle scenes).

water for elephants: THE MOVIE

So I was lucky enough to get to see the NC premiere of Water for Elephants tonight, thanks to the kind folks at Algonquin (and can I just say that it is SO AWESOME that a great local indie publisher that puts out GREAT books has such a high-profile movie of one of said great books???? SO AWESOME). Anyway, I liked it a lot, and here are some thoughts about it!

--I cried at least five times, including during the opening scene with Hal Holbrook before a single line had been spoken.
--It looked AMAZING--costumes and sets especially. And the last bits of the movie.
--Reese Witherspoon was really good, and Kristoph Walz was very creepy (I kept hoping Brad Pitt would come in and threaten to scalp him). Robert Pattinson was mostly very good (though sometimes his face looked amused when it seemed like it should have been troubled).
--I will say that the movie seemed really violent at times. I think reading about animal abuse is a lot less harrowing than WATCHING animal abuse--at least two of the times I cried were over the elephant (who rocked).
--Lots of great humor throughout, and I didn't even mind any of the changes! (OK, I did think Marlena's backstory was better in the book, but that wasn't really important to the plot.)
--Go see it!

Thanks again, Algonquin. :)

links

Sorry for the lack of posting. I've been trying to make my way through Scruples as well as the Walking Dead books and haven't managed to finish a book in days! So here, have some links:

A new, Joss Whedon-less Buffy movie? Huh.

I can't wait for the Community Christmas episode!

How to dress like a Mad Man.

You can give Kindle books as gifts now! Hint hint!

The NYT graphic novel gift guide has some really good books (Scott Pilgrim, the Outfit) and some terrible ones (The Night Bookmobile, Superman: Earth One).

Are we running out of chocolate???? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

link roundup!

The Scott Pilgrim DVD comes out in November! YAY!!

The latest Love and Rockets came out yesterday, and I agree that it's Jaime's best work to date (unfortunately, Beto is still exploring being weird, which drags things down a bit).

Here, read an interview with Superchunk. Though I do find it odd that this interview emphasizes Laura being a mom, but doesn't mention Mac's kids at all.

A UNC professor studies college student slang. And I have no idea what a dorm storm is.

Marvelcats!

Check out this fascinating article on the trial over Kafka's papers. I think this about sums it up:

Etgar Keret, a best-selling Israeli short-story writer who considers Kafka to be his greatest influence, proposes that Brod had no idea that Hoffe would sit on the papers for so long. “Half of us are married to people who say, ‘I’m just going to buy a pack of cigarettes,’ and never return,” he told me. “I think this is the literary version of that, with this Hoffe chick.” Keret characterizes Brod as “a good judge of texts, for sure, but a very bad judge of human characters.” If Brod could see what was happening now, Keret says, he would be “horrified.” Kafka, on the other hand, might be O.K. with it: “The next best thing to having your stuff burned, if you’re ambivalent, is giving it to some guy who gives it to some lady who gives it to her daughters who keep it in an apartment full of cats, right?”

girl with the . . .

football team?

I'm extrapolating just a little bit here, but: LISBETH SALANDER OWNS THE STEELERS!!!!!!

SCOTT PILGRIM!!!

So tonight I saw the Scott Pilgrim movie--which I have been eagerly anticipating since Edgar Wright signed on to direct back in like 2004 or 2005 or whenever it was. And obviously I love the books. So yes, I was SUPER EXCITED about the movie!! And it lived up to my high expectations. Now, it wasn't perfect--it compresses 6 books' worth of action (almost a year of story, I think) into what seems like a small period of time. But honestly, story isn't really the whole point of this movie--the visual stimulation is just INCREDIBLE. Tons of hilarious jokes and graphics and even pieces from the books. I saw it with a friend who hadn't read the books and only knew about the series from my frantic blogging and twittering and jabbering and all that, and she thought it was a lot of fun (though I'm not sure it made a lot of sense to her). Our theater wasn't very full but the audience reaction was really enthusiastic--lots of laughing.

Actually, the best laugh may have come during the previews. There was a preview for some sort of elevator-themed horror movie that just looked AWFUL, and then on the screen came the words: "A Film by M. Night Shyamalan". The entire audience went "OHHHHHHHH" and then the entire audience laughed at everyone saying "OHHHHHH". Good times.

Anyway, go see Scott Pilgrim. I'm buying the soundtrack tomorrow and seeing the movie again on Sunday! And now you're like, Alicia, what are you going to do with yourself when the Scott Pilgrim hype dies down?

Well, there's still Mockingjay to look forward to. :)

more stuff i've shared

I haven't posted a link round-up in forever, but here are a few noteworthy things I've shared on Google reader:

I love this bad review of Still Missing (scroll down a bit to see my comments).

Suzanne Collins talks about the books she loves. I am SO EXCITED for Mockingjay to come out. Less than two weeks! And Collins has great taste in books.

Here's an interview with Edgar Wright. I am also SO EXCITED for the Scott Pilgrim movie, which I get to see tomorrow! In the meantime, check out the interactive trailer, where factoids pop up when you click on stuff, and here's the trailer recreated with panels from the books!

Did you know that Brian from The Broken West (one of my favorite bands) guested on Mad Men this past week? Now you do.

Speaking of awesome tv shows--check out the trailer for the upcoming season of VENTURE BROS!!!

2010 book 183

J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Christina and I went to see the Sorcerer's Apprentice today (which was surprisingly entertaining) and there was a trailer for the movie version of this--I know I'm always disappointed by the movies, but it looks like they're including all the important stuff this time (for a change). Anyway--yay Harry Potter!

robert duvall

In a great example of synchronicity, I discovered that TMC was playing the movie of "To Kill a Mockingbird" tonight for Father's Day (b/c obviously Atticus Finch is the best dad ever, excepting mine). Of course I was extra eager to watch it, having just read the book this week, though it's always worth watching. But not just for Gregory Peck and the amazing kid actors--did you know Robert Duvall played Boo? (I didn't till John Lithgow told us afterward, whcih was random, but whatever.) No wonder I cried at his slightest facial expression. He conveyed so much and didn't have one line of dialogue. Just a brilliant movie.

Such a good movie, in fact, that I almost forgot to say how great Toy Story 3 was! (Though perhaps a little too scary for the younger ones--but don't worry, it's Pixar, and I was laughing hilariously at more than a few parts.)

more scott pilgrim trailers

Here is the international trailer. To quote Kim Pine, this movie looks epic .I am seriously going to see it the day it opens and probably like 8 more times after that.

best movie ever?

I think it might be.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG X100000000000000

Scott Pilgrim movie trailer.

It looks AMAAAAAAAAAAAAZING.

jewy movies

As an Oscar party last weekend, Lisa and I were discussing Jewy movies, but had a hard time thinking of more than a few. Luckily Heeb* has stepped in with the 100 greatest Jewish movie moments. It's a pretty awesome list!

___
*I HATE the name of this magazine/website.