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Unsolicited opinions on books, movies, TV shows, consumer products
“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” – Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955) A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers Someone on Facebook tagged me with a literary poll. One question I couldn’t answer was: David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? I read and enjoy David Sedaris but had not read Dave Eggers, […]
“I’ll be back.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator (1984) Elegy (2008) There’s absolutely no doubt this movie is based on a Philip Roth novel (the novel in question being The Dying Animal): it’s a melancholy, self-absorbed examination of an aging man’s character, all flaws prominently on display. Ben Kingsley and Dennis Hopper are perfect in […]
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” — Gone With the Wind (1939) The Fall (2006) That movies like this can even be made is a hopeful sign that not every single miserable thing in this cynical world is about money. The film is visually spectacular, and there’s no CGI . . . it’s […]
“Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” — Groucho Marx Neuromancer, by William Gibson I’ve been working my way through William Gibson’s novels. This is my least favorite to date, but only because it’s so dated. Reading it, I kept flashing on Tron […]
“Never judge a book by its movie.” —J.W. Eagan Body of Lies (2008) Did you enjoy watching Bruce Willis bleed in the Die Hard movies? Then you’ll love Leonardo DiCaprio in Body of Lies: he suffers enough to satisfy the most hardened CIA enhanced interrogator. The real hoot is Russell Crowe as a slobby middle-aged […]
“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” — P.J. O’Rourke The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Volume !: The Pox Party, by M.T. Anderson An astonishingly rich historical novel, right up there with the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. I am […]
Resurrecting the Champ (2006) You may not be a fan of boxing — and I’m not — but like Million Dollar Baby, this movie sucks you in. Okay, perhaps a little slow to get rolling, but it gets better and better as it unfolds. The real story’s not about boxing, of course; it’s about journalistic […]
The Garden of Last Days, by Andre Dubus III. A novel about people at the ends of their ropes. The characters are well-developed, the story line vividly gritty and believable, but I felt let down and sleazy afterward, because apart from a secondary older-cop character no one is happy or good or has any real […]