Book Review: Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl

Reader #529 wrote: Great book for food lovers - interesting memoir with mouth-watering food descriptions and recipes. Grade: A.

Book Review: My Guy Barbaro by Edgar Prado

Reader #74 wrote: A very touching story about a very special horse, but what really makes the book worth reading is the endearing story told by the jockey who loved Barbaro the most and his "rags to riches" story, from poverty in his homeland of Peru to the USA where he went on to win the Kentucky Derby with Barbaro. A must for any horse racing fan, too! Grade: A.

Book Review: Rock On by Dan Kennedy

Reader #74 wrote: A very funny book about life in the music business and the record industry. It is filled with hysterical inner monologue from the main character who wonders how he landed in the dying music industry, but rejoices in his chance at success and basks in the image of his hip self. Hilarious! Grade: B.

Book Review: Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon by May Pang

Reader #74 wrote: A lovely photo tribute to John Lennon from May Pang, Lennon's girlfriend from 1973-75. Many of these photos are rare, never before seen images of a much loved icon. An absolute must for any Beatles or music fan. You will discover a private side to John Lennon and his relationship with May Pang as well, seldom seen before. Enjoy! Grade: A.

Book Review: Simplexity by Jeffrey Kluger

Reader #82 wrote: SIMPLEXITY: WHY SIMPLE THINGS BECOME COMPLEX AND HOW COMPLEX THINGS CAN BE MADE SIMPLE by Jeffrey Kluger (ISBN-13 978-1 4013-0301-3, ISBN-10 1-4013-0301-3) has such chapters as "Why is it so hard to leave a burning building or an endangered city?", "How does a single bullet start a world war?", "Why is a baby the best linguist in the room?", and "Why are your cell phones and cameras so absurdly complicated?" But while Kluger generally covers these topics, he often leaves out key information, while at the same time adding digressions. For example, in the chapter on leaving burning buildings, he talks about how difficult to was to evacuate the World Trade Center towers, not just because of psychological reasons, but because the four of the stairways were 44 inches wide, and two were 56 inches wide, designed in 1970 for two people to walk abreast. The problem is that people in 2001 were much wider than those in 1970, and this disrupted the flow. Interesting and important, certainly, but not a question of simplicity versus complexity. And in his chapter on "How does a single bullet start a world war?", he never actually says what he is referring to. (I assume it is the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip that started World War I.) Even with these flaws, the book is thought-provoking. And perhaps complexity can best be summed up by this paragraph of Kluger's:

"The act of buying nearly any electronic product has gone from the straightforward plug-and-play experience it used to be to a laborious, joy-killing exercise in unpacking, reading, puzzling out, configuring out, testing, cursing, reconfiguring, stopping altogether to call the customer support line, then calling again an hour or two later, until you finally get whatever it is you've bought operating in some tentative configuration that more or less does all the things you want it to do--at least until some error message causes the whole precarious assembly to crash and you have to start all over again. You accept, as you always do, that there are some functions that sounded vaguely interesting
when you were in the store that you'll never learn to use, not to mention dozens of buttons on the front panel or remote control that you'll never touch--and you'll feel some vague sense of technophobic shame over this." Grade: B-

Audiobook review: Murder is Easy by Agatha Christie

Reader #82 wrote: I listened to MURDER IS EASY (a.k.a. EASY TO KILL) by Agatha Christie read by Hugh Fraser (ISBN-13 978-1-572-70490-9, ISBN-101-572-70490-X) on a recent trip. Or rather I listened to most of it, and then finished it in book form after I arrived. However, this was a bit confusing, as the audio version refers to the old woman as Lavinia Pinkerton (even with a reference to the name-sharing with the detective agency), while in the book she is Lavinia Fullerton. I cannot seem to find any indication of when the change was made, or why. As for the story, there may be one level too many of mis-direction for the story to be considered elegant--or maybe not. Grade: B.

Book review: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Reader #83 wrote: Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, but writes English well with a simple, pure writing style. His first novel was THE KITE RUNNER, a favorite with reading clubs across the United States. That book tells a power story of two boys who are close friends growing up in Kabul. The main character in a moment of cowardice betrays his friend to save himself. It is a sin that he carries with him all his life, eating at him until he reluctantly submits to doing a dangerous and selfless mission to atone in part and to expiate his sin. The boy, like Hosseini himself, left Afghanistan to live in the United States and to write. The character's mission of self-redemption takes him back to an entirely different Kabul under the barbaric rule of the Taliban. The main character is much like Hosseini himself and the book is about the relationships of male friends and of fathers and sons. In particular it shows the destructiveness of the Taliban to males. As bad as that is, Hosseini recognizes that the plight of women under the Taliban is far worse. That situation is explored his second novel, A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS.

First, the bad news about A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. Because this story is not autobiographical he could tell any story he wanted. He chose an apparently borrowed framework. His story is at base a retelling and amplification of Alice Walker's THE COLOR PURPLE. It is much broadened and the setting is very different, but the situation and even the plot is much the same. Each is the story of a young woman who is forced into a loveless marriage with a much older man who uses her as a slave and as a target for abuse. The situation goes on for years and just when it seems it can get no worse the husband brings another more attractive woman into the household. The two rivals conflict and fight for the number two position in the household until they realize they have more in common than they have differences. The hatred turns to a solid friendship and genuine affection as well as a shared hatred for the offensive husband. They team up against the abusive husband. That plot fits both stories. Its lack of originality is the one demerit of Hosseini's otherwise fine book. Since THE KITE RUNNER was for me a new plot, I would rate that book a little higher. But SUNS is still an engrossing and excellent read. [A small admission here. My knowledge of THE COLOR PURPLE is based on the film. I have not read the book.]

In this novel Mariam was always mistreated as a child because as an illegitimate daughter she was a family embarrassment. At fifteen she is married off to an abusive husband of forty-five, Rasheed. She lives in virtual slavery to the brutish and physically repulsive Rasheed. I do not remember one scene in which Rasheed rises above being a hissable villain. But a new indignity is coming to Mariam.

Rasheed takes a second young wife, Laila, the daughter of a wealthy family who is pregnant by another man, Tariq, who was her true love. Laila receives word that Tariq has been killed in battle and resigned herself to marriage with Rasheed. After many long months of a rocky start Mariam and Laila find a genuine affection for each other. Each helps the other through her difficult situation in the household.

But there are worse things in the woman's lives than Rasheed. We are given background of the wars in Afghanistan and the two women seem to suffer with each regime change. But when the Taliban take control the situation becomes truly harrowing and nearly unbearable. Women are treated lower than animals. Most medical facilities are male-only. The conditions at the rare and distant women's hospitals are completely barbarous. The descriptions of the "hospital" are nightmarishly the most haunting images of the book.

Both of Hosseini's books will be an education for Americans on the concentrated evil that the Taliban brought to Afghanistan. The first book had a scene of the stadiums in which women are stoned to death in front of large audiences. The newer book has the stadium stonings become an important part of the plot. In that sense the two books dovetail.

Both books are about courage. THE KITE RUNNER also focuses on cowardice, guilt, and responsibility. A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS is more about victimization, which perhaps is not so uncommon a theme. Both books are an education in the barbarity of the Taliban and what they have done to Afghan society. Two such books are an impressive start to Hosseini's career. Grade: A.

Movie review: Journey to the center of the earth 3d

Reader #83 wrote: Fun as thrill ride, but surprisingly poor as film, this is a story of three modern reluctant explorers who find out that the center of the Earth is just as Jules Verne described it with a lot of fast theme-park-like rides. It has even less logic than Verne gave it. Rent the 1959 version.

The 3D effects of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH 3D are almost worth the price of admission. That means this film as a whole is almost worth the price of admission. As an adaptation of Jules Verne's novel this film is nearly worthless. In fairness I should say that no Jules Verne novel has ever been translated well to the screen and probably never will be. That is just not how Verne writes generally. Possibly the best film version of a Verne novel is the Disney 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, but that film has a lot of inventing. In the book, after the main characters are brought aboard the Nautilus they mostly just see wonders rather than have adventures. Similarly, in Verne's novel JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH there is not much action. Aside from occasional separations from the main party the characters mostly just see occasionally scary wonders. The 1959 film was one of the highlights of my youth but it made good cinema only because of heavy revisions to Verne's story by the writing team of Walter Reisch and Charles Bracket who had previously written films like NINOTCHKA and TITANIC (1953).

Strictly speaking, the new 3D version of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH is not an adaptation at all. It is an adventure that takes place in our world with characters who are very much aware of the Verne novel. (A similar approach was taken to the 2002 version of THE TIME MACHINE.) This film is more a vehicle to show off 3D effects than it is to tell a real story. Life in the interior of the Earth seems to have aspects of theme park rides, video games, and both Disney and Warner Brothers cartoons. There are some nice renderings of engravings from Jules Verne books into real-looking albeit digital sets.

Trevor Anderson (played by Brendan Fraser) is a scientist who discovers that he has to play host to his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) for two weeks. At the same time he discovers that for some reason he has a limited time to access volcanic chimneys into the center of the Earth. The reason for the rush is unexplained by it has something to do with changing numbers on a computer screen so it must be scientific.

Trevor packs up the nephew and off they head for Iceland. Along the way they pick up Hannah Ásgeirsson (Anita Briem) the daughter of a scientist who worked with Max. Max was Trevor's brother, Sean's father, and a friend of Hannah's late father. The name Ásgeirsson, incidentally, means "Son of Asgeir" and would never be given to a woman. The credits list her father as Sigurbjörn Ásgeirsson so she should have been Hannah Sigurbjörnsdottir. Briem would have known that, being Icelandic herself, but getting things accurate was just not where this film was at. The group came to study the chimneys, but soon they are trapped inside the Earth a long distance below the surface. Which brings us to the falls.

Our hearty band frequently falls distances of many miles and manages to land with no ill effects, like Alice in Wonderland. Two such falls and they make it to the center of the Earth. That saves time and story-telling, but it cuts out most of what would be interesting in the film. Admittedly, how far down the center of the Earth is a moot point. If the center is just a single point it could be a long way down. If "center" refers to a very large region it might not be that far down. (Think of it this way. The center of an inflated balloon is a pocket of compressed air that begins a small fraction of an inch below the surface.)

These are most unusual explorers. They can fall hundreds of miles and land without breaking a bone. Hundreds of miles beneath the surface of the Earth they never seem greatly concerned for how they can get to safety. In 105-degree temperatures they never seem to break a sweat or in the case of Hannah even smear her lipstick. At one point a character is jumping from one rock to the next in a line of rocks floating in air suspended by magnetism. Somehow he manages to do this without imparting any rotational momentum until he gets to the very last rock. It just plays better if only the last rock has a rotational momentum. The travelers brought no food with them and rarely seem to pass much that is edible, but they always seem to be well-fed. The film exempts itself from any laws of physics or logic. Luminous birds that glow like fireflies illuminate the world beneath the earth. These are birds from 150 million years in our past, yet they look more like modern bluebirds than like the archaeopteryx of that period. What is more, the birds seem to understand English and show very human-like expressions like some fugitives from Disney's CINDERELLA. One of the birds adopts the travelers and follows them around like Tinkerbell.

Visually the film has some nice moments, but not all of the images work. There is a large Tyrannosaurus Rex that looks like a digital animation and is not believable as a living animal the way the T-rex in JURASSIC PARK did. Too often the lighting is too dim to really see the dimensional imagery to its full effect. There is some blurring. Frequently the left-and right-eye images do not coalesce. The 3D work, virtually the film's only virtue, is a step down from that of BEOWULF. For me it would be very hard for JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (2008) to match the enjoyment that the 1959 version brought me. However, this film does not even come close. The 3D effects are actually quite nice usually, but see it for the 3D or not at all. Rating: D

Movie review: Trumbo

Reader #83 wrote: The story of Dalton Trumbo's career is told, based on the play of the same name by Dalton's son, Christopher Trumbo. The story is illuminated by Trumbo's writings, particularly his correspondence dramatically read by major actors of the film industry. Actors recreate the moods of this always tremendously well-spoken man. This may be the last film to feature Trumbo's writing and it has some of his most powerful prose. It is may be the best film that has ever been made about the Hollywood blacklist and the Hollywood Ten.

The darkest chapter of the American entertainment industry was the years of the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy era. People accused of disloyalty to the government--usually for actions that were completely within their Constitutional rights-- could not confront their accusers, but would suddenly find that nobody would hire them. Careers were destroyed by innuendo.

Ten Hollywood screenwriters refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation into whether as anonymously accused, there were Communist influences in the film industry. In most cases this lack of cooperation was a refusal to betray their friends and give names of people who could be accused of being Communists. Unchecked the accusations would have spread in a chain reaction. If each person accused gave the names of two others the entire film industry could have been consumed. Ten screenwriters refused to cooperate. These were the Hollywood Ten.

One screenwriter among the ten was Dalton Trumbo. Before the years of the blacklist he was a successful screenwriter with an eloquent and powerful command of the English language. Like the others of the Ten, he was sentenced to a year in prison on the charge of contempt of Congress. When he was released he had become an un-person as far as his Hollywood career was concerned. Studios could not hire him for fear of being accused themselves of hiring Communists. Trumbo could submit only very few scripts he had written and then only under a pseudonym or by the use of a front man whom Trumbo would allow to claim credit for Trumbo's work. In 1956 a Trumbo script--submitted under the fictitious name Robert Rich--was given an Academy Award that could not be claimed. Then in 1960 two major films were released, SPARTACUS and EXODUS, each written by Dalton Trumbo. The producers and directors of these films risked the wrath of the American public and gave Trumbo screen credit for his own work. It was an extremely risky action. The decision to use Trumbo's name was made by Kirk Douglas and Otto Preminger respectively of these two films. When there was little fuss from the public. Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper was a notable exception calling SPARTACUS "A story sold to Universal from a book written by a Commie [Howard Fast], and the screen script was written by a Commie [Dalton Trumbo], so don't go see it." When the public did go see it it was generally acknowledged that the blacklist was dead. Trumbo, Preminger, and especially Douglas had tested the waters and demonstrated that the government hunt for supposed Communist influences had lost the support of the American people.

The story of Trumbo is important and moving enough. But nine major actors give dramatic readings to his correspondence: Joan Allen, Brian Dennehy, Michael Douglas, Paul Giamatti, Nathan Lane, Josh Lucas, Liam Neeson, David Strathairn, and Donald Sutherland. In addition Kirk Douglas also talks about his relationship with Trumbo and the history of the period. In addition there are filmed interviews with Trumbo to fill in gaps and interviews with family and friends still living.

The story covered by the film goes from Trumbo's career in the 1930s to his final acceptance back to public approval in 1960 (with a bit of a postscript in the 1970s). In the 1930s the Communist Party seemed to be the only American party that had a direct policy of opposing Fascism and confronting dictators. During World War II, the Soviets were at least nominally America's allies. But when the war was over the fear and hatred of the Soviets turned into a vicious anti-Communist witch-hunt. Some actors, afraid for their positions, willingly cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). The first who did not cooperate were called the Unfriendly Ten. Later they were re-dubbed the Hollywood Ten. The film follows Trumbo through his time in prison and then to his self-exile to Mexico to find work that he could not find the United States. The actors dramatize his many moods reflected in his correspondence including Paul Giamatti's very funny reading of a letter from Dalton to son Christopher on the subject of masturbation, a letter that probably ranks with Mark Twain's 1601. The film follows Trumbo through times when he was taking any work he could get and when he returned by screenwriting, the career he had promised himself he would never enter again. He used fronts and pseudonyms to sell his scripts while hiding his name. All of this is described with great eloquence in his correspondence. It is also illustrated with scenes that he wrote for the movies, which take on new meaning in the context of Trumbo's life.

There is a certain continuity across the many actors who read his words. They can be funny or sad or serious and heavy, but it is the same voice behind them and the same carefully and powerfully wrought prose. TRUMBO is among other things a lesson in how two say volumes with an economy of words. As a sort of grand finale the actors all share a reading with overlapping segments so each can get a part of this one reading. As admirable as TRUMBO is, and as powerful in his convictions, Dalton Trumbo is not the hero of this story. Dalton Trumbo is a man whose strong character was more important to himself than his sense of self-preservation. By being a person of character he knowingly (or mostly knowingly) allowed himself to be the victim of dangerous political forces.

The real hero of this film is Kirk Douglas. He is present and speaking through stroke-slurred speech, but he obviously wanted to participate. Another hero is Otto Preminger who also credited Trumbo's work. These two men risked losing heir careers to make a stand against the Hollywood blacklist. TRUMBO is essentially the story of a rescue against high odds. And more than just Trumbo's career was rescued. Douglas and Preminger are the rescuers. This film concentrates on why that rescue was necessary, why it had to be done, and why all Americans are the beneficiaries of the rescue of one articulate contrarian with a bushy moustache. Kirk Douglas gives a good account of his part in the events in his autobiography THE RAGMAN'S SON. The film TRUMBO gets its New York City release on June 27. Rating: A.

Movie review: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Reader #83 wrote: Guillermo del Toro makes great horror films like CRONOS and PAN'S LABYRINTH. His graphic novel films are just not his best work. HELLBOY II's visual images are spectacular and the film is full of fights and action, but there is only a bit of plot and that involves an epic fantasy premise that would have taken multiple films to do well. The characters are flat and the film has no center. This is a film to watch, but there is not much to think about. The conclusion holds no surprises.

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY has my vote for this year's "WHAT DREAMS MAY COME" Award for the most spectacular visuals in service to the least worthy story. The two films are somewhat different in that WHAT DREAMS MAY COME was saccharine while HELLBOY II has a graphic novel hero involved in a half-hearted attempt at Tolkein-like fantasy. And it pains me to say this, because HELLBOY II is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro whom I consider the best living horror film director. He makes horror films and films based on graphic novels. To my taste he is much better at the former than at the latter. Every film he makes is visually exquisite, but the graphic novel films just do not have the same quality of storytelling that he gets when he creates his own characters. He has a better touch telling stories about vulnerable characters than with invincible ones. Del Toro is probably missing the boat on the character of Hellboy also. The part-human and part-demon Hellboy should be torn between human and demonic urges. That would be a fairly dramatic premise. Instead he comes off as the brawny, master sergeant type, not very complex or very interesting. He is more earthy than most superheroes, but his character could be more engaging than it is.

Hellboy (played by Ron Perlman) is involved here in a Tolkein-like high fantasy. The film suggests there is a war between humans and the mythical creatures like fairies and elves. The adventure is a quest for the pieces of an ancient crown which gives the bearer the power to command a clockwork "golden" army. For most of the film it does not matter what they are looking for, the point is that Hellboy gets into fights to find the thing. The crown is actually the key to the war between humans and the creatures of myth. This is a big concept and one film devoted to the subject might not give del Toro sufficient time to develop the myth of the great crown or the mighty army. But it is not much of even this film. Most of the screen time is spent with Hellboy trying to clobber some great monster or with him sitting around drinking beer after beer and while bonding with his effete fish-man sidekick Abe Sapien. Sapien looks like a fugitive from Rene Laloux's FANTASTIC PLANET. The beer sessions give plenty of opportunity for a product placement of a particular Mexican beer. Hellboy's chief enemy is Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), an evil sorcerer who is tied by an invisible bond to his non-evil sister Princess Nuala (Anna Walton). Any injury to one will afflict both. So nobody wants to hurt Nuada for fear of hurting Nuala. The look for Nuada seems borrowed from Michael Moorcock's Elric.

Part of the pleasure of a del Toro film is in looking for allusions and personal touches. Del Toro seems to have two trademarks that hail back to his first feature film CRONOS. He seems to always have visual imagery of clockwork and some of insects. In this film he goes overboard on the clockwork. There is clockwork under the opening titles. The final fight is on a giant clockwork set. There are no insects but there are small crawly things called "tooth fairies" that stand in for the insects. There is a doff of the hat to Stanley Kubrick and John Landis with an allusion to the mythical and non-existent film SEE YOU NEXT WEDNESDAY.

More touches, good and bad: One might expect that after STAR TREK V a director would think twice about having drunken men bond by singing together, but del Toro tries it here and it still does not add much charm. There are also several shots on TV monitors of the Universal horror films that del Toro likes. There are supposedly scenes set at the famous Giant's Causeway. If so the "causeway" remains off-screen. The film does have a giant, but we are not told if it is supposed to be the legendary Fionn mac Cumhaill (a.k.a. Finn McCool) who supposedly built the causeway. The credit sequence at the end seems to have subliminal messages different from the credits. Perhaps people will want to rent the film to see the credits run by a little more slowly.

The visuals of HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY are a triumph of imagination, but the story is more of a failure. Rating B.