| Book/Movie Update |
[Feb. 2nd, 2010|08:00 am] |
Books:
1) I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President - Josh Leib: A children's book written by a Daily Show writer about an evil genius child who plays dumb in school in order to fly under the radar and run his empire. It works until he decides he's going to run for class president. Laugh out loud funny, great for any age, absolutely loved this.
2) American Original: The Life and Constitution of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - Joan Biskupic: I don't know what Biskupic's ideology is, but I get the feeling that she's not a Scalia fan, which taints this book somewhat. It's not like I want to read hagiographies, but I don't really care to interpret incredulous reactions about the subject of the book in a biography, either. Not terrible, but could have been a lot better.
3) Ex-Machina: Dirty Tricks - Brian K. Vaughan: Finally getting around to catching up on this series, only to find out it's ending in 2 more trades. Alas, it's still good right now and I'm really curious to see where it ends up.
4) Project Superpowers: Volume 1: I can't tell if I like this yet, but the first set showed a lot of interesting promise.
5) Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored History of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour - David Bianculli: Ann & I spent some time watching a PBS documentary on American comedy, and they spent a section on the Smothers Brothers. I didn't realize how significant they were up to that point, and a few days later I saw a review in one of my magazines of this book, so I grabbed it from the library. A quick read, focusing mainly on their battles with CBS, but still a really interesting look at the battles they faced, the censorship, and just the attitude of the time.
6) The Puzzling World of Winston Breen - Eric Berlin: I was given this book by someone pretty important, and it took a shameful amount of time to read it, even moreso because it was actually very good! Sort of a Blue Balliet-style read for kids about a child who enjoys puzzles and helps solve a town mystery with his skill. A quick, but fun, read.
7) Carter Finally Gets It - Brent Crawford: A YA book, for sure, and a fairly crude and obnoxious one at that. It's done completely in the voice of a sex-obsessed 14 year old kid, and it's really only working well after the payoff at the end. If you can get that far, you can appreciate it, but it was very tough.
8) My Year of Yes - Maria Dahvana Headley: A memoir of a year where the author said yes to every date offered to her. Interesting enough to keep me engaged, not interesting enough where I'd necessarily recommend it.
9) Audrey, Wait! - Robin Bowman: The only thing that would have made this book better would have been if Meg Cabot had actually written it, because it's near perfect otherwise. High schooler Audrey breaks up with her musician boyfriend, who then writes a song about her that quickly becomes a mega hit and turns her into a celebrity. Ridiculous, yes, but an insane amount of fun. I loved this book. I'm such a 15 year old girl.
10) Amulet: The Stonekeeper's Curse - Kazu Kibuishi: This is the second book in a children's graphic novel series. It's still very dark, but the art is good and the story strong.
11) How We Decide - Jonah Lehrer: Pop-science about how our minds work when it comes to making decisions and using reason and such. I learned more from this than I expected to, and a lot of it left me uncomfortable, which isn't bad.
12) Reading the OED - Ammon Shea: Think Alphabet Juice without the charm. I think I'm done with this genre.
13) My Jesus Year - Benyamin Cohen: A Jewish man spends a year exploring Christian religions. A lot of overlap with Rapture Ready, which I loved, but it took a very different point of view, as he wasn't an observer but rather someone who was trying to bolster his own faith while experiencing the faith of others. A great, different angle on the idea, and one that I really liked reading. Definitely recommended.
14) Extra Credit - Andrew Clements: I love Andrew Clements because his books are ridiculously subversive, especially for the age group he writes for. This book is also subversive, but in a really different way than his previous works, and in a way that caught me off guard. About an American girl and a boy from Afghanistan who write back and forth to each other, it's a great read.
15) Mock Stars: Indie Comedy and the Dangerously Funny - John Wenzel: A book about comedians like Patton Oswalt, Neil Hamburger, David Cross, etc.. Not essential, and the author tries to keep it light, but there's not much here for people who are ultimately already fans.
16) Into the Wild Nerd Yonder - Julie Halpern: Another great YA book. A girl has a falling out of sorts with her friends, who start running with a different crowd, and said protagonist grows as a person herself and embraces who she truly is. It's a lot less formulaic in reality than I've made it sound, I really did enjoy this one quite a bit.
Movies:
1) Anvil: The Story of Anvil: Ann called this one of the saddest movies she had seen in a while, and while I get why she'd think a documentary on a metal band that never made it in its prime, but is still plugging away trying desperately to make it happen as sad, it was more reality-meets-Spinal-Tap-meets-Some Kind of Monster. That's a great movie in my mind.
2) Avatar: There are not enough bad things I can say about this movie. Sure, the special effects were amazing, and the world was immersive. The problem is that the plot is crap, the characters ridiculously one-dimensional, and the story so poorly crafted that it's impossible to truly care about what's going on. A lot of people are complaining about the film's ideological leanings, but I honestly don't think the movie is sophisticated enough to actually have any. And this movie is going to win Best Picture, and I'll hate humanity a little more when it's all said and done. So. Bad.
3) An Education: Now this was a good movie. I was interested almost solely because Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay, and it turned out that everything about it was done well. The acting was wonderful, the story almost completely perfect (the way it ended didn't sit well with me, but I haven't dwelled on it, so it doesn't matter), the whole thing just great. See this movie, really, it's worth your time and a real gem from last year that's kind of getting ignored.
4) Whatever Works: It's a Woody Allen comedy, thus it's somewhat unsettling and there's someone trying to act like Woody Allen who isn't Woody Allen. Not his best work by a longshot, never mind being anywehre close to what he's been doing over the last few years. |
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