reviews – Page 8 – Pop Culture Nerd

Review: Allison Hoover Bartlett's THE MAN WHO LOVED BOOKS TOO MUCH

Though Allison Hoover Bartlett‘s reporting skills can’t be faulted—she’s more than thorough with her facts and even has footnotes—this true story of John Gilkey, the man in the title, is a frustrating one. Gilkey is an unrepentant book thief who steals rare first editions and Ken Sanders is the “bibliodick” who chases him. We learn much about the rare-book trade and there are some intriguing elements of a police procedural as Sanders tracks his prey, but ultimately this is a story without an ending.

The tale begins when a friend of Bartlett’s comes across an edition of a Kreuterbuch, or plant book of botanical medicine. Its publication is traced back to 1630 Germany and Bartlett suspects it was stolen. In researching its history, she finds the theft of rare books is rampant, with thieves seldom caught or punished. Many of the Internet accounts she reads refer to Sanders, a rare book dealer turned amateur detective to catch Gilkey. Once Bartlett hears about Gilkey, she knows she must get his story.

And get it she does. Despite Gilkey being an elusive character, Bartlett impressively manages in-person interviews with him and even gets the chance to accompany him on a scouting expedition when he goes to a store to peruse books he wants to acquire (he never actually commits any crimes in her presence). He also arranges for her to visit his mother and look around his bedroom, where Bartlett finds a stash of books in his closet, possibly stolen.

The story is fascinating when it educates me about book collecting and how to identify a rare edition. The first edition of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat would have a matte cover instead of a shiny one. A pamphlet of poetry Edgar Allan Poe wrote when he was 14 that was printed in 1827 without his name on the cover (he was simply identified as “a Bostonian”) was bought for $15 by a sharp-eyed collector and sold for $198,000.

Man is also engrossing when it details how Sanders worked with law enforcement to track and trap Gilkey. But the book thief remains a frustrating enigma. He seems intelligent enough to know about rare books and fool many dealers but can’t seem to grasp how his actions hurt others. He believes booksellers deserve to be ripped off since they’re mostly dishonest people who put such high price tags on rare editions that someone of moderate income would have to steal them.

As a former reporter, I understand how Bartlett wanted continuing access to Gilkey so she remained more or less neutral when he spouted these ridiculous claims, but I really wanted Gilkey to be asked harder questions such as, “How would you feel if someone stole one of your books? Why do you think the world owes you anything?” I don’t have to like the main character of a story to enjoy it but I do want to understand him and it’s not clear why Gilkey feels so entitled.

Because he is a sociopath, I wanted justice and it doesn’t happen. Bartlett fully explains why it’s hard to punish someone for this kind of crime and of course she can’t invent an ending to a nonfiction tale, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting one that’s more satisfying. I think all stories, whether true or not, needs an ending (which is different from closure), unless the door is left open for a sequel. That doesn’t seem to be Bartlett’s intention so this intriguing tale unfortunately feels unfinished.

Nerd verdict: Excellent reporting, though Man remains elusive

7 Comments

Review: COCO BEFORE CHANEL

I’m out of town. This review is by contributing writer Eric Edwards. —PCN

******************************************

If you’re looking for insight on who Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was before she became the fashion icon synonymous with class and style, you’re not going to find it in the French film Coco Before Chanel (limited U.S. release, September 25). Watching this is more like attending a fashion show, where we get to see the glamorous clothes paraded down the runway but none of the drama we know is going on backstage.

It’s not Audrey Tautou’s fault. As Chanel, the actress is mesmerizing. Even devoid of makeup and in dowdy clothes, she remains the most enigmatic person on the screen. Perhaps this is why director/writer Anne Fontaine chose her for the lead—it was the only way to make the movie compelling.

The movie opens with two young girls in the back of a horse-drawn wagon being dropped off at an orphanage. Young Gabrielle (Lisa Cohen) and her sister, Adrienne (Marie Gillain), are ushered by nuns into their new place of residence, with Gabrielle lingering in the doorway trying in vain to look into the eyes of their driver. We later learn this must have been her father, but we never know for sure since the older version of Gabrielle often lies about her past.

On visiting day, young Gabrielle follows perfect-looking little girls to the courtyard, hoping to be visited by her father. This never happens, setting the tone for the rest of the film: Gabrielle will always be let down by the men in her life.

The men who later disappoint her are Etienne Balsan (the wonderfully aloof Benoit Poelvoorde), the older and extremely rich man who gives Gabrielle the nickname “Coco,” and the dashingly handsome Arthur “Boy” Capel (the wildly sexy Alessandro Nivola), who represents himself as the man of her dreams until we find out he is betrothed to another.

The two men fight over Coco but the confrontation resembles nothing more than polite conversation during a game of billiards. Arthur provides the funds for Gabrielle to start her outrageously successful hat and dress-making business in Paris, but she finds that no bank will take her seriously without Arthur. That’s glossed over, too. These are only two of many potentially dramatic moments that went unrealized, which makes this as frustrating as a beautiful gown left unfinished.

Much credit is due, however, to cinematographer Christophe Beaucarne, who makes the scenery and Tautou look as striking as Chanel’s famous dresses.

6 Comments

Review: Josh Neufeld's A.D.: NEW ORLEANS AFTER THE DELUGE

This review was written by contributing writer, Thuy Dinh, my resident expert on graphic novels.—PCN

*******************************************

In A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, Josh Neufeld presents a graphic journalistic account of six survivors’ real-life experiences after Hurricane Katrina. Neufeld based his stories on first-person interviews, photos and other on-location research he conducted while volunteering with the Red Cross. Though he has a sure hand with the visual medium, his reluctance to subject his own views on the matter somehow dilutes its emotional resonance.

His visual style is poetic and powerful in rendering the horrors of Katrina: the gigantic mushroom-shaped storm rising from the New Orleans skyline like a vision of latter-day Hiroshima; the Biblical water full of rats after the levee broke; a non-functional public bathroom at the Convention Center filled with trash, human waste and broken stalls that signifies a complete breakdown of the social order. But he’s at his most eloquent when he renders his panels in virtual silence; the symbolic effects of Katrina are most deeply felt when there is little or no intrusion of verbal caption.

Before A.D was reformatted and expanded into book form (the book has 25% more story and art than its online version), it first appeared in 2007 on the SMITH magazine website (still available here). The characters—Doc Brobson, a well-off white male; Denise, a financially strapped black female; Abbas, immigrant entrepreneur; Gen-Xers Leo and Michelle; and Kwame, a middle-class high school student—were chosen to represent a cross section of the wider populace affected by the storm.

In its current form, most of Neufeld’s characters don’t quite register. To make sure Denise, an African-American social worker, can tell her own story without racial and gender bias, it seems Neufeld gave her script approval. While his need to respect Denise’s suffering is understandable, his cautious treatment of her anger and self-loathing distances us from her plight. I wish Neufeld had explored with Denise the “many things that FEMA didn’t understand” about struggling, unmarried, professional black women living in untraditional households who feel they were grossly under-compensated in the aftermath of Katrina.

Neufeld seems much more comfortable in portraying Leo, twenty-something comic book collector and publisher of the New Orleans music webzine Antigravity. In treating Leo’s loss of his valuable comic book collection as a symbol for all the random losses in his life, Neufeld captures in Leo’s story what he couldn’t do in Denise’s case—the sense that Katrina represents the sheer mystery of destruction, a godless force that irretrievably deletes one’s recorded existence.

If Neufeld had explored his connection with Leo as a way to bring in his own subjective viewpoint, it would have helped A.D. pack a bigger emotional punch. In a March 2007 interview published in Antigravity, Neufeld, a Brooklyn resident who called himself a “helpless observer” of the 9/11 attacks, said that while 9/11 had national and international impact, its physical effects were largely limited to Ground Zero. Katrina, on the other hand, as “a toxic combination of nature and government incompetence, directly affected far more families than 9/11.”

This perspective, had it been included in A.D., would have shown how poverty and apathy are both more banal and yet insidious than any planned terrorist attack. Neufeld would have brought home the dire message that in this day and age, our citizens are still living in an Old Testament world, waiting Godot-like for the coming of progress.

4 Comments

Book Buffet

Since my TBR book pile was getting so big it threatened to become a fire hazard, I decided to lock myself in until I’d made a dent in it. Well, that didn’t last long since I ended up going to the beach, eating pizza, surfing the Internet, and watching an old episode of Family Feud where Richard Dawson said “name a beverage that comes in a can” and someone said “wine” then his brother said “milk.”

But I did manage to finish four books and here’s a rundown:

New Tricks by David Rosenfelt

This is the seventh in the Andy Carpenter legal thriller series and if you aren’t reading these books already, please check them out pronto. If you don’t like them, you can come to my house and sic attack dogs on me. I can say this without fear (and making secret plans to move) because I think you’ll enjoy Rosenfelt’s ability to combine laugh-out-loud humor with deadly plots.

Carpenter is a wealthy defense attorney who only takes on cases he’s passionate about and since he’s a dog lover, sometimes his clients have four legs. This time, he’s got two clients—one dog, one human. He represents Waggy (the dog) after Waggy’s owner, a DNA expert, is murdered and his wife and son fight for custody of the puppy. When the owner’s wife is also killed and his son is charged with both murders, Carpenter decides to represent him, too.

Carpenter discovers the murdered scientist had been working on some scary, world-changing stuff and the investigation causes harm to seemingly everyone Carpenter comes across, including someone close to him. Rosenfelt manages to inject humor into Carpenter’s darkest hours without making it seem inappropriate. He never loses sight of the lawyer’s heart when it comes to relationships with his girlfriend, Laurie; his investigative team and his beloved golden retriever, Tara (she’s cool, not cutesy). Waggy is a winning addition to this eclectic bunch and I hope he’ll wreak more havoc in future installments. Nerd verdict: Funny but deadly Tricks.

Ravens by George Dawes Green

A couple of grifters named Shaw and Romeo are driving to Florida when they stop at a convenience store in Brunswick, Georgia and find out a local family, the Boatwrights, had just won $318 million in the lottery. Shaw hatches a plan to take them hostage and make them give half their winnings to him and Romeo. Things don’t work out the way anyone planned.

I had mixed feelings about this book. Green’s prose is deft and witty and his characters are well-defined. The situation is ripe with potential for suspense. Problem is, I couldn’t find anyone to really root for. We get glimpses of decency in Shaw and Romeo but ultimately, they’re delusional and sad. The Boatwrights are not very sympathetic, either. The dad is cowardly, the mom is a vapid drunk and the son is a video game addict whose big mouth got everyone in trouble in the first place. Only the daughter, Tara, shows any spunk but mostly, the family just accepts the hostage situation with no real plan to outsmart the bad guys. There’s a lot of sitting and driving around without much happening. This might be realistic (I wouldn’t fight a crazed gunman in my house, either) but it impedes the narrative’s forward movement.

This book is more a psychological study and a be-careful-what-you-wish-for warning. It’s almost as if the characters are slapped down for dreaming too big. Or maybe Green is saying it’s okay to aim high, just don’t plan on getting there overnight. After all, it did take him fourteen years to produce this novel. Nerd verdict: Ravens doesn’t quite take flight.

Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella

To lighten things up after a couple thrillers, I reached for Kinsella’s latest. She’s pretty reliable for making me chuckle with her Shopaholic series so even though I’m not big on ghost stories, I didn’t let that stop me here. The story revolves around Lara, a modern girl struggling to run her own company after her business partner deserts her. She’s also desperate to get back together with her “perfect” boyfriend who recently dumped her without explanation.

Into her life comes Sadie, the spirit of her great aunt who recently died at 105 but whose apparition appears to be in her twenties. Before she can move on, Sadie demands that Lara help her find a missing necklace that she’d owned almost all her life. Lara reluctantly agrees, if only to get rid of the pesky ghost. Along the way, Sadie teaches her a thing or two about passion, dignity and living life on your own terms.

Though the plot gets a little too incredulous at times, the book is fun, escapist fare. Sadie starts out shrill but she quickly grows on you. As her past is revealed, we realize her life was more substantial than it seemed at first. The bond she eventually forms with Lara is surprisingly poignant and my eyes got a little moist in the end, something I never expected to happen with a Kinsella novel.

I have to be nitpicky and mention something which made me cringe, though it’s not Kinsella’s doing. Referring to Sadie’s lack of concern for Lara’s problems, the following sentence appears on the dust jacket: “Sadie, however, could care less.” Arghh! I know it’s hard to catch every typo and grammatical error buried within a book’s hundreds of pages, but this is on the jacket right inside the front cover. And it’s copied verbatim on Amazon! Please, someone, change it to “couldn’t care less” for the next printing. Nerd verdict: Girl has some substance.

Holly’s Inbox by Holly Denham

I kind of cheated when I picked up this book because I knew it would be a fast read. I also knew that once I removed the 665-page tome from the pile, I’d be able to see my windows again.

The story is crafted entirely out of e-mails, 99.5% of which are from Holly’s inbox (towards the end, we get to read a few from a couple of her co-workers). She’s the new receptionist at a London bank, starting over after some implied recent trouble. Though this view into Holly’s world is limited, she comes across as multidimensional: loving towards her family though they frustrate her, protective of her co-receptionist though the woman is obviously hiding something, patient with her promiscuous friend, and flirtatious with an exec in the company. She’s also been devastated by someone/something in her past and trying really hard to prevent it from happening again.

Though I’m not a snoop—you could leave your diary open on your front stoop and I wouldn’t read it out of fear you’ve got some weird fetish I don’t want to know about—I found scrolling through Holly’s e-mails addictive. The pages fly by when there’s not a lot of exposition but this is still a well-rounded story with fleshed-out characters. Holly’s combination of strength, vulnerability and sense of humor make her a charming lead and Denham’s writing is cheeky and breezy. Wait, make that Bill Surie‘s writing because the author is actually a man using a pseudonym! I’d have to go back to Arthur Golden and Memoirs of a Geisha to come up with another male who wrote from a female POV so convincingly. (No, he’s not gay; read his NY Post interview here.) Luckily, Surie says he’ll continue to write as a woman and Holly is expected back in a sequel. Nerd verdict: Check out Inbox‘s contents.

11 Comments

Review: Stieg Larsson's THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

When I read the first book in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (see my review here), I finished it in a two-and-a-half-day marathon. I beat my own record when I swallowed Fire in 34 hours minus 6.5 hours for sleep.

The books’ heroine, Lisbeth Salander, might appreciate these details since she’s some kind of mathematical savant who enjoys working with numbers. But that’s only one of her talents. She’s also a genius computer hacker, boxer, and master of disguise, a skill which, in this latest adventure, helps her elude a massive police manhunt after she becomes the prime suspect in a triple murder. The only person who believes in her innocence is Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist from Tattoo whom she helped crack a case. He comes to her aid this time by hunting down clues which might lead to the real killer(s).

As the investigation progresses, details from Salander’s past slowly come to light, specifically about incidents she calls “All the Evil.” I was already captivated by her in the first book though she was maddeningly opaque at times, behaving in ways I couldn’t understand. After much of her attitude and unique code of ethics are explained in this book, I’m more deeply drawn to her, though pity is not amongst the emotions I feel since Salander would never want that from anyone.

As with Tattoo, you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck here. This book is a thriller, police procedural, exposé on sex trafficking, and psychological study. The exploration of Salander’s psyche makes Fire an even more compelling book than Tattoo, The Empire Strikes Back to Tattoo’s Star Wars in more ways than one. Unlike Star Wars, though, the bad guys in Larsson’s books tend to be one-note evil (even Vader was cool to Luke in the end). I’m talking super nasty, the most depraved bastards you could possibly imagine with no recognizable human traits. Then again, that makes it much more fun and satisfying when they have to face Salander’s wrath. This girl doesn’t just play with it; she’s on fire.

Nerd verdict: Raging hot Fire

Want a copy of this book plus some dragon tattoos? Enter my giveaway here.

6 Comments

Review: David Mazzucchelli's ASTERIOS POLYP

This review was written by contributing writer Thuy Dinh, an editor of the webzine Da Mau and my resident expert on graphic novels. —PCN

**************************************************************

As children, my cousin Allan and I would spy on Mrs. Seven, the mean lady who lived next door to our grandparents. She would pray to God then curse at children and beggars. We drew comic strips about Mrs. Seven, putting her in situations that literally exposed her hypocrisy, like having the wind blow away all her clothes on her way to church, leaving her naked, or her long wig snatched and eaten whole by another neighbor’s giant German shepherd.

Because I had so much fun drawing these strips with my cousin, I never thought they touched on anything serious. Later, when I grew older, I felt traditional comics—with their static panels of images and silent dialogue encapsulated in bubbles—were poor relatives of multi-sensory moving images in films.

And yet, I was completely blown away by Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli’s latest “comic book,” a pull-out-all-the-stops package that’s funny, poignant and deep, with panels of thoughtfully shaded images that form a visual novel, a paper movie, and finally, an existential meditation on things that matter to us: religion, art, science, love and memory. In other words, Asterios Polyp manages to embody Up; Synecdoche, New York; and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button without losing its fluid eloquence or sly sense of humor.

At the beginning of the book, Asterios Polyp’s apartment is struck by lightning and, like ancient Troy, goes up in flame. His beloved wife, Hana Sonnenschein (whose Japanese-German name means Flower Sunshine), is nowhere to be found. The book, with flashbacks interspersed with the present, shows Asterios’s progress from hell and back. He is both Ulysses and Orpheus, someone who has to find his way home.

For a work presumably focused on images, Mazzucchelli has a lot of fun with words. Asterios is of Greek descent. His fancy name suggests a polarized nature: star and anal wart (“asterios” means “star, “polyp” can mean a rectal cyst). His dead identical twin, Ignazio, narrates the book and constantly reminds us that our hero is physically and metaphysically divided. Asterios, an arrogant and famous architect, creates buildings that are only models on paper because they have never been built (thus, he’s not unlike a comic book artist, whose world is rendered in two-dimensional images).

via Comic Book Resources

Mazzucchelli’s graphic novel is also a cosmic quest for beauty. The book is full of contrasting visual shapes, text fonts and color tones, with each form/palette tailored to the personality and philosophical outlook of each character. Asterios is often drawn in linear, geometric form, awash in cool blues. His wife Hana, on the other hand, is often depicted in softer, rounder lines and in warmer coral or pinkish tones.

Another character, Ursula Major (a pun on the constellation Ursa Major), who is like Ceres in Homer’s epic, is often rendered in bright yellow or deep purple squiggles as she represents a mystical earth mother type. This traditional cartoon technique of employing form and color to denote character was most recently seen in the movie Up, where the rounder, more exuberant form of the boy Russell is contrasted with the blocky, rigid lines that make up the old man Carl.

In essence, a story told by Asterios to Ursula Major serves as the main theme of the book: A wooden Shinto temple in Ise, Japan, originally erected in the 7^th century, has since been ritually torn down every twenty years and rebuilt, and yet the Japanese would tell tourists the temple is 2000 years old. The riddle suggests that human existence, like a building that’s constantly being destroyed and recreated, must yield to larger forces in the universe.

Asterios, in his lofty reach toward the stars (toward perfection and permanence), doesn’t realize that stars, though lasting thousands of years, can also self-destruct. His search for the meaning of life, like his search for Hana, resonates via the myth of Orpheus—presumably, Asterios must go forward and never look back. The controversial ending of the book makes one wonder if Asterios has indeed gone forward.

Similarly, David Mazzucchelli’s ambitious effort, while shredding the comics/cosmic barriers, is a look back toward the traditional purpose of comics, the ability to wield simple lines and forms to capture—or destroy—everyday reality.

7 Comments

Review: JULIE & JULIA–The Movie

Columbia Pictures/Jonathan Wenk

Even though I’d eaten a perfectly good dinner right before the screening of Julie & Julia (opening August 7), I went home after the movie and ate some more. Talk about a gut reaction.

The film—based on Julia Child’s book, My Life in France, and Julie Powell’s memoir, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen—is a delectable treat starring the unstoppable Meryl Streep as the famous chef and the adorable Amy Adams as the contemporary woman who attempts to make every recipe in Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One in a year.

The narrative moves back and forth between Child’s experiences as she learns to cook at Paris’s Le Cordon Bleu and Powell’s progress in her self-imposed project. Parallels are drawn between the women as it becomes clear they’re both trying to forge an identity for themselves, to do something meaningful in the world and perhaps even change it with their cooking. It’s no spoiler to say both succeeded in becoming published authors with a movie based on their books but the fun comes from watching how they got there.

Columbia Pictures/Jonathan Wenk

When Streep first appears on screen, looking like a giant (Child was 6’2″; apple boxes must have been used because Streep’s feet are rarely seen) and speaking in that voice, there was a round of hearty laughter in the audience. You will laugh, too; there’s no point resisting. But as the movie unfolds and Streep’s magic takes over, you’ll get used to the voice because the actress has fully embodied the chef and that’s just how Child talked.

In lesser hands, the performance could’ve easily devolved into caricature but Streep somehow makes every big gesture believable and endearingly quirky. Her gift of complete transformation into every role is remarkable and she will undoubtedly receive Best Actress nominations from all the major outfits come award season.

Adams does her usual sparkly work as Powell, making her an accessible Everywoman who’s a little sweeter than the author comes across in her book, where her language is saltier. Meanwhile, I don’t get the appeal of Chris Messina, who is as bland playing Powell’s husband, Eric, as he was in Made of Honor and Vicky Christina Barcelona.

Columbia Pictures/Jonathan Wenk

As Child’s husband, Paul, Stanley Tucci fares better, generating sweet, sensual chemistry with Streep. This is especially noteworthy considering the last time they appeared together onscreen, he played a gay underling cowering from Streep’s nightmare boss in The Devil Wears Prada. Jane Lynch is so winning as Child’s sister, Dorothy, I wish she had more screen time. And Mary Kay Place pulls off several moments of hilarity as Powell’s mom though she’s only heard on the phone and never seen.

Director/screenwriter Nora Ephron did an impressive job keeping the pace zippy, the dialogue tart, seasoning each scene perfectly and never letting it overcook. Alexandre Desplat (The Queen, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) turns in another memorable score, and cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (Charlie Wilson’s War, Angels in America) made me want to book a trip to Paris immediately with the way he captured the City of Light, as golden as the perfect dishes Julie & Julia pull out of their ovens.

Nerd verdict: Julie & Julia is a delicious feast

12 Comments

SUMMER Lovin'

Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

(500) Days of Summer is a fresh comedy that defies categorization. It’s not a rom-com exactly because it doesn’t fit into that formula of boy and girl hating each other until they realize they don’t. The titular Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and greeting-card writer Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) get along right away. He falls in love with her at first sight upon meeting at work (she’s his boss’s assistant). She likes him a lot, too, but as a friend with benefits since she doesn’t believe in commitment at her age, something she tells Tom upfront.

The movie zigzags in non-linear fashion through the different stages of their relationship, showing how something can be cute and funny on day 40 but annoying on day 400. It’s a clear-eyed anatomy of a courtship, not quite a love story but not without romantic notions about soulmates and fate. And no matter what day it’s on, the relationship is engaging because of the chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel.

We’ve seen Deschanel do the quirky thing before but her aloofness is perfect for Summer. She also gets to show off her lovely singing voice a little. And who knew the little kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun would grow up to be such a handsome, charismatic leading man? I’ve seen his impressive work in The Lookout and Brick but he was still playing awkward, on-the-cusp-of-adulthood characters then. Here, he’s full-grown and full-blown movie star.

One of the things I like most about Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber’s mold-breaking script is how every character is funny but in a distinctive way. Tom’s friends, McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler), his boss Vance (Clark Gregg) and his sister Rachel (Chloe Moretz) all have moments of hilarity while staying in sync with who they are. This is different from a movie like Juno, which bugged me with all the characters, from parents to teens, speaking in the same hip dialogue.

Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

Credit must also be given to first-time feature director Marc Webb for adroitly bringing this script to screen without destroying its originality. Cinematographer Eric Steelberg reminds me that L.A. can be romantic when viewed through a certain perspective. The soundtrack, which includes tunes from the Smiths and Regina Spektor, will make you feel cool whether you’re falling in love for the first time or not.

Nerd verdict: Memorable Days of Summer

18 Comments

Review: BRÜNO

Here’s what you need to know about Brüno: you will laugh and you will see lots of full-frontal penis. Will you be offended? Depends on your sensibilities. I wasn’t (I expected the raunchiness) though I’ll admit to some squirming and groaning.

Sacha Baron Cohen plays a flamboyant fashionista from Austria who’s obsessed with fame. After becoming persona none-gayer for literally crashing a fashion show, Brüno goes to Los Angeles seeking stardom despite having no marketable skills. He looks for an agent by (atrociously) reading scenes from Jerry Maguire, tries adopting an African baby to use as accessory, attempts to trap Ron Paul (the 2008 presidential candidate) into making a sex tape with him, and even travels to the Middle East, begging terrorists to kidnap him so he’d receive worldwide attention.

It’s hard to review this movie because it’s difficult to pin down. It takes aim at many targets—homophobia, gay “converters,” vacuous celebs—with varying degrees of success. The casting session Brüno holds for a photo shoot of hot babies reveals the parents’ disturbing willingness to subject their kids to anything, even liposuction on a 30-pound baby, just to get the job.

But this kind of desperation for fame—and Brüno is no different from the parents—is old news. People like this are all over reality TV these days. It’s hard to satirize them when they’re doing a pretty decent job humiliating themselves. So, while some of the bits are very funny, they don’t exactly feel fresh. And the surprise superstar cameos don’t have as much punch as I’d like.

My feelings for the movie may have fluctuated from scene to scene but one thought remained constant: Cohen is a brilliant actor. His transformation into Brüno is as impressive as Sean Penn’s into Harvey Milk, though I’m hardly suggesting an Oscar for Cohen since his performance is a one-note gag instead of a complex human being.

Still, doing what he does requires total commitment and a large dose of bravery because he puts himself in real danger at times. While in the Middle East, Brüno confuses Hamas for hummus and tells a very unamused terrorist that “your king Osama looks like a dirty wizard and a homeless Santa.” In Arkansas, he pushes a mob almost to the rioting point by doing something extremely inappropriate at a cage fight. Brüno may never get any respect but I had to give some to Cohen for his all-out approach to making a point or just making us laugh.

Nerd verdict: Brüno is full-frontal funny if not completely fresh

Editor’s note: The question of how much this movie is staged vs. real has been oft-mentioned in other articles. Check back next week for my interview with Lloyd Robinson, the agent in the movie whom Brüno wants to represent him. Robinson gives a detailed account of how he was approached, what he knew and when he knew it.

13 Comments

Review: Richard Lange's THIS WICKED WORLD

Every once in a while, a neo-noir writer comes along who’s so exciting, he/she turns me into an annoying evangelist-type fan with a fervent need to spread the word. Five years ago, Charlie Huston had this effect on me with his first novel, Caught Stealing. Gillian Flynn did it to me in 2006 with Sharp Objects. This year, the honor goes to Richard Lange and his debut novel, This Wicked World.

Former marine and ex-con Jimmy Boone is a bartender on Hollywood Boulevard, trying to repair his life after a horrible mistake cost him a luxiourious lifestyle and landed him in prison. One day, he goes with a friend as a favor to look into an illegal immigrant’s death and quickly becomes obsessed with the case, even after his friend has dropped the investigation. Boone’s probe into the matter gets him involved with an attractive ex-cop neighbor, a vindictive stripper and her drug-dealing brother, and a deadly criminal mastermind who runs a dog-fighting ring in the Twentynine Palms desert. Things go violently awry and Boone finds himself in a situation that puts his life—and those of his friends—in mortal danger.

There are many things to praise about this novel: the tight yet expressive prose; the hip, witty dialogue that almost needs to be read aloud so you can hear how good Lange is with banter; the compelling plot which slowly reveals why Boone went to prison; and the unexpected moments of black humor (a bad guy’s profane internal monologue is cut off mid-sentence when he gets shot).

But the most striking thing about this book is the cast of characters. In this story, no one is completely heroic and no one is pure evil. Everyone lives in a gray area, surviving the only way they know how, searching for the same thing: redemption. The good guys have done some questionable things in their past but somehow you don’t judge them. More surprisingly, Lange made me understand and empathize a little with the nastiest characters, even as I was horrified by their actions. One of the crime boss’s henchmen, for example, can kill a man in cold blood but also subjects himself to painful tattoo-removal procedures so he can look more respectable in court while fighting for custody of his young daughter.

This dual nature extends to the novel’s L.A. setting as well. The city can be a glamorous place but Lange prefers hanging out in the grittier neighborhoods, capturing the feel of places and people who usually have police searchlights instead of movie spotlights on them. “Wicked” can mean either evil or wonderful so the title is appropriate because this story is both.

Nerd verdict: Wicked World is wicked good

24 Comments

Review: Margot Berwin's HOTHOUSE FLOWER AND THE 9 PLANTS OF DESIRE

You know how sometimes when you go on vacation, you want something light to read but don’t want it to be so trashy as to elicit condescending looks from people sitting next to you on the plane? Well, I’ve got the perfect holiday read for you: Margot Berwin’s Hothouse Flower and the 9 Plants of Desire. I just road-tested this theory and received only glances of interest and curiosity. I mean, look at that eye-catching cover. And here’s an instance where you can judge a book by its cover because the story inside is just as colorful and full of life.

Berwin’s debut novel is about Lila, a newly divorced New York ad exec who decides to buy some plants for her new apartment. In the process, she meets a handsome plant vendor, David Exley, and Armand, who owns a magical laundromat set up like a tropical jungle, with plants everywhere (the steamy air is good for them), moss on the floor and butterflies flying free. Armand tells Lila about the nine plants of desire, each representing a quality such as fortune, love at first sight and magic. The plants can only be found if they choose to reveal themselves to someone they deem worthy. Once a person possesses all nine, his/her desires shall be granted.

Lila goes searching for the plants in the rain forests of the Yucatan Peninsula, where she encounters snakes, an enigmatic jungle guide, lots of scorpions and a black panther which shadows her. While looking for the plants, she finds something even more important—her spiritual strength.

The story has a little bit of everything—adventure, humor, romance, magical realism, interesting plant facts—so no wonder a movie is in the works with Julia Roberts attached. Even with all these elements, Berwin manages to keep the pace breezy. Her vivid description of the extraordinary laundromat made me wish I had one in my neighborhood and her account of cannabis sativa in the form of sinsemilla—the plant of female sexuality—is incredibly sensual. Unlike the potent marijuana this plant produces, however, this novel will take you on a wild ride without killing any of your brain cells.

Nerd verdict: An exotic, sexy Desire

3 Comments

Review: THE PROPOSAL

The poster is unexceptional and the trailer is generic so I had no grand expectations going into The Proposal. Anytime you see a studio romantic comedy, you pretty much know what you’re going to get: boy and girl hate each other until something happens that changes their feelings and there’s a last-minute rush to the airport to declare their love.

That’s all here, but this movie is enormously elevated by the impeccable comic timing of Sandra Bullock, still one of the most charming actresses around, even when her character is supposed to be a nightmare. She makes physical comedy look easy, including a nude mishap that I wish hadn’t been spoiled in the trailer because it’s horrifyingly funny.

Bullock’s character, Margaret Tate, is a high-powered New York City book editor who’s about to be deported to her native Canada so she blackmails her long-suffering assistant, Andrew (Ryan Reynolds), into a fake engagement. The couple then fly to Alaska to break the news to his family. They bicker until the Alaskan atmosphere ironically starts to thaw her ice-queen demeanor, they begin to see each other in a different light and…well, you know the rest.

But what you may not know is that the movie also veers into some wonderfully odd territory, like a dog-snatching eagle and an Alaska resident who inexplicably seems to have every job in town. Extra credit must be given to Oscar Nunez, normally seen as the quietly frustrated accountant on The Office, who is a revelation (literally) in this movie. He did some brave things that made me cringe and gape at the same time. Reynolds, whom I usually find to be frat-boy bland, raises his game here to keep up with Bullock.

Director Anne Fletcher directs with a light touch, encouraging uninhibited behavior from her actors. Everyone seemed to have a good time making this movie and that sense of fun should spill over onto audiences as well.

Nerd verdict: An engaging Proposal

9 Comments

Older Posts

Newer Posts