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Unsolicited opinions on books, movies, TV shows, consumer products
“You can’t handle the truth.” — Jack Nicholson (as Col. Nathan R. Jessep) in A Few Good Men (1992). El Norte (1983) Hey, I tried, but this film is so sociopolitically earnest I instinctively turned against it. It begins graphically enough, with Mayan peasants being brutally suppressed by Guatemalan landowners and their military lackeys, but […]
“When I began to write fiction that I knew would be published as science fiction, part of what I brought to it was the critical knowledge that science fiction was always about the period in which it was written. ‘1984’ is really about 1948. It can’t really be understood outside the historical context of 1948.” […]
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a difficult read. Difficult, at first, for mundane reasons. Names you don’t know how to pronounce (Sethe, Halle). Irritating, non-standard diction (whitepeople, blackpeople). A narrative structure that jumps without transition from character to character, time to time, location to location, leaving you to catch up as best you can. A general […]
“Round up the usual suspects.” — Claude Rains (as Capt. Louis Renault), Casablanca (1942) Easy Virtue (2008) This had promise, being that it’s based on a Noel Coward play, but it didn’t deliver. It comes across as a parody of a typical BBC drawing room comedy, minus the humor. I honestly think the movie is […]
The Color Purple, by Alice Walker The Color Purple is a story told in short letters. Letters, at first, from a barely-literate Celie to God, letters that are little more than raw observations of a brutal, degraded, hopeless life. Letters, later, from Celie’s sister Nettie, reminding Celie of their shared history, relating the progress of […]
“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!” — Margaret Hamilton (as the Wicked Witch of the West), The Wizard of Oz (1939) Sunshine Cleaning (2008) I have a hard time understanding why some reviewers put this one down. True, it comes out of the same box as Little Miss Sunshine and other […]
“It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.” J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir, by Gore Vidal Gore Vidal always was a name-dropper. A talented, even brilliant […]
“May the Force be with you.” — Harrison Ford (as Han Solo), Star Wars (1977) The Class (Entre les Murs) (2008) I don’t like teenagers and I’m not cut out to be a teacher, so I was prepared to dislike this movie. Curiously enough, I liked and disliked it at the same time . . […]