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Unsolicited opinions on books, movies, TV shows, consumer products
“And will you, for the love of God, put on a fucking shirt?” — Steve Carell as Phil Foster in Date Night. Whiteout (2009) A cheesy movie with a made-for-TV feel. Two of its central gimmicks, in fact, are lifted directly from popular TV shows. From Law & Order: the cop characters, a US marshal […]
I’ve never liked entrapment. Not when the police do it, not when civilians do it. Not when the right does it, not when the left does it. I particularly don’t like it when people are tricked into voicing their personal, non-job-related opinions on things, then lose their jobs as a result. But you know what […]
“You failed to maintain your weapon, son.” — Michael Caine as Harry Brown in Harry Brown. The Last Station (2009) Confession time: I never read War and Peace, or Anna Karenina. I knew nothing about Tolstoy. Now I know something, and what I learned was interesting enough to make me want to know more. There […]
“Are you old?” “No. I’m only twelve. But I’ve been that for a long time.” — John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In Djibouti, by Elmore Leonard I’ve always loved Elmore Leonard’s novels, not just for the pitch perfect dialogue, but also for the inevitable presence of memorably cool characters: Chili Palmer, Ray Givens, […]
“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.” — Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great The Power of the Dog, by Don Winslow This is a big novel, epic in scope, The Grapes of Wrath of the Mexican drug empire and America’s halfhearted fight against it. The Power of the Dog is a […]
“Forty thousand years of human language, and there’s no word to describe our relationship. It was doomed.” — Ewan McGregor as The Ghost in The Ghost Writer. Green Zone (2010) Green Zone is a good war movie, a good thriller, and a great action film. And it tells some important truths about the liars who […]
These are the books that rocked me in 2010. Click any cover to read my review.
“People never explain to you exactly what they think and feel and how their thoughts and feelings work, do they? They don’t have time. Or the right words. But that’s what books do. It’s as though your daily life is a film in the cinema. It can be fun, looking at those pictures. But if […]