On a quick trip to Baltimore this week, I had an evening free so I spent $10 to see The Other Guys a new flick starring Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson. For better entertainment value, I should have taken that ten bucks, thrown it out a window of a Manhattan high rise and watch folks scurrying to pick it up. Anything would have been more entertaining and a better use of my time and money than watching this disjointed and dismal movie. I’m surprised any one of the four afore-mentioned actors would attach themselves to this garbage. It’s understandable that Michael Keaton, whose best comedy movie days are far behind him, desperately needed a movie role (he plays Captain Gene Mauch) and signed on to this mess. The movie is described as “Two mismatched New York City (Ferrell and Wahlberg) detectives seize an opportunity to step up like the city’s top cops whom they idolize – only things don’t go quite as planned.”  If only, the movie made a slight effort to give us that plot. Instead the only “mismatching” going on here was not the two main characters but “The Other Guys” from funny entertainment.

Other Guys movie promo T-shirt (Will Ferrell & Mark Wahlberg) (Size=M)

I don’t have much to say about this book. It was a good waiting for an airplane book. It was full of cliches about men, women, children, marriage. No new ground broken here; I’ll probably give it away.

In USA:

Published in hardcover-Spiegel and Grau-2008
Softcover edition-Spiegel and Grau-2009

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything: A Novel

Yes, I admit it. I went to see Dinner for Schmucks and I did enjoy it. I have not really liked anything that Steve Carell (playing Barry) has done on the big screen-his talents seem suited perfectly for television. This, however, was quite clever and funny.

Paul Rudd (Tim) plays an ambitious executive who finds that his ability to rise in his company depends on the quality of the “idiot” he can bring to his boss’s monthly dinner. When he (literally) runs into Barry he knows he has found the perfect guest. Barry is a lonely IRS employee who spend his free time designing tableaux with dead mice he has found. Of course Barry is such a schmuck he messes things up for Tim and his girlfriend, while managing to cause a house fire at the home of Tim’s boss.

But funniest of all is Jemaine Clement, who plays an odd, and oddly popular artist. He may be best known to fans of HBO’s Flight of the Conchords. He is over-the-top funny.

I know this movie sounds really silly, but it’s a good summer flick.

Dinner For Schmucks

Capsule review #4. Like probably every other book club in the country, mine had read Eat Pray Love a while ago, and really enjoyed the book. So of course I was anxiously awaiting the release of the movie.

I was actually a bit disappointed. Julia Roberts plays Elizabeth Gilbert with a lack of emotion and depth. The other big star, Javier Bardem, was a shallow depiction of a real person. I think the real problem with this movie was that there is too much in the book to fit into a two hour movie.

The part of the movie that took place in Italy had the most depth and interest for me; the rest seemed flat, slow moving and dull.

Eat Pray Love : Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Capsule review #3. Very good acting by all the principles, particularly Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a 40 something, long married lesbian couple. Their two children are the products of artificial insemination by the same sperm donor, played by Mark Ruffalo.

When their son succeeds in connecting with his biological father, all of the relationships in  this family are tested. It’s great to see a non-traditional family treated like any other. They don’t communicate as well as they should; they make stupid mistakes; they choose friends poorly.

I recommend this highly!

The Kids Are All Right

Capsule review #2. Not the best movie ever. As with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the filmmakers  have condensed and simplified the book, but it still works.

The actors playing the familiar characters have returned, and we do get to learn a bit more about them. So, if you’ve read the books and feel the need to see all the movies, go for it. If you’re not that into it, you don’t need to bother.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is one of those books that are released to a great deal of fanfare, sell lots of copies, and go on to become even more popular. A year after its release I requested it from the library, and I was number 805 in the queue (previous high about 280). I thought I’d have to buy this book but, through luck and a quirk in the system, I received my copy after less than two months.

Well-I’ve been quite busy. I started this review over a week ago, and have not had a chance to finish it. So this will be the first of a few capsule reviews, since I really need to catch up.

This is a story about a young woman who has graduated from college in Mississippi in 1962, and gone home to live with her parents on their cotton plantation outside of Jackson. She has finally become aware of the plight of “the help”; the African-American (or colored as they refer to them when being kind) women whose services as nanny and housekeeper make the lives of white women easy. In an attempt to let their voices be heard, she tries to write a book full of their stories.

This is a good read, and an uncomfortable topic is handled in a sensitive way. Go for it!

In USA:

Published in hardcover-Putnam-2009
Softcover edition to be published- Berkley Trade-2011

The Help

Inception is a good movie, and worth the ticket price. Christopher Nolan directs a well paced, thrilling heist movie set in dreams. Leonardo Di Caprio plays Cobb, a man who leads a team of people who enter dreams to access the hidden depths of others. He is assisted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, and Ellen Page as a new recruit. It is through the training of the recruit that the audience is introduced to the well defined rules that govern the abilities of those who enter dreams. This section is the only part of the film that drags, but it is necessary, because the rest of the film may have been unintelligible without it. Throughout the rest of the film explanations are necessary and given, but in a manner that serves the story, not the other way around.

This movie was fun as a mental exercise, in tracking of the events of the story and the how the rules impacted them. Leonardo Di Caprio is great, and Ellen Page is nice as the character she always plays, but I think the breakout star of this was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. His role is pragmatic, physical, and stylish. Action stars in great suits have been an iconic since before the Green Hornet.

There’s plenty of questions left at the end, and it seems this movie has found a mystery making mystique similar to that occupied by Lost. If you are interested in an excitable discussion regarding fictional characters in a fictional universe, go and see Inception!

Inception: The Shooting Script

Chris Cleave’s  novel Little Bee is interesting and moving and finely constructed. It tells the story of  a young girl from Nigeria who, as the story opens, has spent two years in an immigration detention center in southeast England. She has fled Nigeria after the destruction of her village.

Little Bee has come to England because she believes she will be murdered if she stays in Nigeria. Her only connection to England is a British couple, Andrew and Sarah, with whom she had a brief encounter on a Nigerian beach.When Little Bee and three other illegal immigrant girls are released from the detention center without the proper paperwork, Bee finds her way to Andrew and Sarah’s home in a London suburb.

Andrew is a journalist, and Sarah is the editor of a magazine for young women. They have a young son, Charlie, who believes he is Batman. Andrew and Sarah had taken a vacation to Nigeria in hopes of resuscitating their troubled marriage. When events unfolded horribly on the Nigerian beach, they returned to England, and Little Bee was left to escape from Nigeria on her own.

Little Bee is told from the perspectives of both Sarah and Bee. As the action unfolds in the present, we learn the details of the story from the past, and the past is quite grim. This book raises the hope that Bee can begin a happy new life in England. It certainly seems possible and the book is worth reading to find out.

The characters are interesting and sympathetic. The only part of this novel that seemed off to me was the naivete of Andrew and Sarah. They are both intelligent, educated people and yet they took a vacation to a Nigerian beach resort? Whatever! This book has been a bestseller and a favorite of book clubs everywhere, so read it if you have the opportunity.

In USA:

Published in hardcover-Simon & Schuster-2009
Softcover edition-Simon & Schuster-2010

Little Bee: A Novel

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is the third book in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. Like most everyone else who has read the first two books, I have been anxiously awaiting my chance to read this final book. The strange and brilliant Lisbeth Salander is once again the girl of the title. When last seen, she was in the emergency room with a bullet in her skull.

Obviously Lisbeth survives, or there would be no book. How she survives and how she avenges the attempt on her life is the heart of this book. This book delves into the mysteries of The Section-the super secret arm of the Swedish intelligence service. The Section gave asylum to and sheltered the murderous Alexander Zalachenko for years. We learn how and why this came about, and who in The Section is responsible.

Lisbeth is still strong and smart and resourceful. She is assisted in her quest for justice/vengeance by the journalist Mikael Bloomqvist, the attorney Annika Giannini, Plague and Trinity, as well as by numerous new characters.

If you have read the previous two books in this series, this is a must read. If you haven’t read the other two books, read them first or this will make little sense to you.

In USA:

Published in hardcover-Knopf-2010
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest