Summer in Review

I somehow have surrounded myself with many readers in my life. Meredith
reads all the time (sometimes five or more books/week), Sonotmu and
OrangeJoJo read all the time, Rev. Transit reads all the time,
Caribbeaner is not content with just reading, so is actually writing a
book, and so on.

So, I thought I would list MY opinion on what I have read and seen this
summer. Since I read way less than everyone else, that must mean I am
more discriminating. Let the reviews begin!

The Reluctant Tuscan:
This is a very nice book for those who enjoy travel and the wonderful
madness that passes for organized activity in Italy. While I do not
agree with everything the authors did (they can be very Machiavellian
at times), it was still a nice read.

Up There With the Big Boys: The Cliff Johnson Story:
I am very biased on this one. This was the autobiography of my
grandfather who passed away a little over a year ago. I finally got
around to reading it, and I learned many things about Grandpa that I
had not known. Even aside from being part of my family history, I
enjoyed learning about the days of early radio.

Playing the Moldovans at Tennis:
A very funny book about a guy who bets a friend that he can beat the
entire Moldovan soccer team at tennis. This book is well written, and
gives a nice view of how parts of eastern Europe are still fairly wild
places.

Northanger Abbey
: I am only part way through this very thin book, but it is very funny.
It is Jane Austen poking fun at most of the things that go on in her
other novels.

That is it on the book front. On the movie front, I have seen:

Twelfth Night: (On DVD) – C’mon! It’s Shakespeare! This is a well cast, well shot movie of a very funny play. Two thumbs up.


V for Vendetta: I
really liked this film. It brought up interesting questions about
freedom vs. security, issues of loyalty, etc. A good action film that
is thoughtful too.


Secondhand Lions: (On
DVD) – Nice film. I am a sucker for happy endings, and moreover for
films that portray larger-than-life modern myths (Like Willy Wonka or
Big Fish).

Emperor’s Club: (On
DVD) –  This is a teacher film, which makes me more likely to enjoy
it. This has the added touch of being more complicated than the
take-troubled-kid-and-make-him-love-learning type of movie that
Hollywood can turn out. A very good film.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding: (ON DVD) A very funny film, worth watching just to see the father. Much fun for anyone who knows any strongly ethnic family.

The Man Who Came to Dinner:
(On DVD) This is a taped Broadway play, but they did a nice job. The
sound is fine, and the camera angles work well. Nathan Lane leads a
wonderful cast in a play that is funny even by itself. I am sure I
missed many references to 30’s and 40’s Hollywood, but it is a great
play/film.

X-Men III: The Last Stand:
I also enjoyed this film. Some had told me it was merely okay, but I
thought it was good (probably a 6 or 7 out of 10). It did not blow me
away, but I found it entertaining, and it was a good fix for an old
comic book junkie like myself. I had a good time seeing all the comic
references (the Danger Room, Wolverine trashing a Sentinel, Trask being
part of the President’s cabinet, etc.).

Sliding Doors: (On
DVD) I liked it – it is an interesting look at how things can pivot on
a small choice. The movie follows two time lines, and does so in a
fairly effortless way. I have to say I despise a couple of the
characters, but I liked the concept and how the director pulled it off.

On plays:

I have already given my two cents’ worth on “Too True to Be Good” and
“The Invisible Man,” so I won’t bore you with those. In addition to
those, I saw Porthouse Theater’s
production of “Our Town.” I thought it was okay. I thought the first
act was a little long and dragged in several places. The second act was
better, and the third act was interesting, although the director choose
to ignore two stage directions from Wilder – one to have the Narrator
wind his watch and one for the town clock to sound. Since
these come at the end of the play, one would think Wilder thought they
were important, but they were left out for some reason. I did not think
the play was fantastic, but I did enjoy myself.

We will be seeing Macbeth at Stan Hywet
this week. I expect that will be great – I have seen Shakespeare at
Stan Hywet before and have liked everything I have seen there.

Lastly, I have been listening to the radio adaptation of Lord of the
Rings and of a taped version of  Huckleberry Finn (one of my
favorite novels) while I have been running. Listening to books while
exercising has been a great way to pass time running.

So, there you have it. That has been my entertainment for the summer.
I’m sure my more literary friends have read a lot more, but I squeeze
reading in where I can.

14 thoughts on “Summer in Review

  1. sonotmu

    Jo and I saw 40 Year Old Virgin last night and it was hilarious. I haven’t laughed as hard at a Hollywood comedy in a long time (ever?). The language is strong at times and there are, needless to say, a few (surpisingly few, though) sexual situations, but…man, what a fun, fun film. It is probably more at the guy-end of the film spectrum, but I really recommend it.

    On the book front, I just finished The Translator, by John Crowley. Crowley writes as I wish I could: he’s lyrical, intense, and there is a depth to his characters that I rarely find in other books. The book focuses on the relationship between an exiled Russian poet and his (female) student/translator building up to and getting through the Cuban Missle Crisis. It’s thoughtful and, to use an over-used term in book reviews, haunting. I have a feeling it’s one my subconscious will work over for a while.

    Reply
  2. SPOOONNN

    I loved Secondhand Lions! I agree with Shannon that 40-Year-Old Virgin was the funniest comedy I’ve seen in a looong time. I’m currently subjecting him to Night Stalker episodes from teh early 70s. I LOVED Night Stalker as a kid. Darren McGavin – the dad in A Christmas Story – plays a nosey reporter who comes across all kinds of supernatural activity but for some reason noone ever believes him. Some of the effects are pretty cheesy, but it was such a “OOOOOH! Christmas in July!” moment when I spotted the DVD boxed set at Dark Star Video. They almost ALWAYS come through.

    PIrates of the Caribbean 2 was my favorite summer film, V for Vendetta was great (Go, Natalie Portman!!!), and I loved the feel-good Superman which reminded me of how movies USED to make me feel (Star Wars, Superman) back in the 70s and 80s, and Kevin Spacey is just fabulous. Made us go rent the incomparable Usual Suspects again – one of my all-time favorites, even though I can’t spell Kaiser Sosce I’m just certain that Snakes on a Plane will absolutely blow Superman, POTC, and V out fo the water, though. What a brilliant plot! (does sarcasm breach the potential sarchasm risked when writing in response to a blog? Mind you, I will have to see Snakes on a Plane as it was a cult classic the moment the writers pitched it, but I’m not expecting the brilliance of Orson Welles. Really. Seriously.)

    As for books, I finished Umberto Eco’s imminently readable (for once!) Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana – a story that begins with a man in his 60’s who wakes up in a hospital with episodical amnesia – he can remember how to do things like drive a car, eat with silverware, read, but he can’t remember who he is or who his family is or what happened to him to land him in a hospital bed. He spends months at his grandfathers home in rural Italy trying where he had spent most of his childhood trying to piece his life together again, trigger his memory. He comes across boxes and boxes of stuff from his childhood – comic books, school learners containing fascist propaganda, records, stamps, cigarette packets for brands long since discontinued. Every once in a while he feels a “mysterious flame” in his belly when something sparks not his conscious memory, but the unconscious core of his being.
    You don’t find out what happened to cause his memory loss until the end, but in the meantime he tries to discover whether he was a fascist (grew up in Italy in the 30s and 40s) or on the side of the rebels, what he liked, what he did for fun, whether he was a trouble maker, whether he was clever, whether he liked school, who his first love was – everything. One of the neatest things about the book is the pictures of album covers, snippets of lyrics, pages from comic books, stamps; there are hundreds of pictures included throughout the book which you find yourself studying along with him. Yambo, the main character, was a book collecter/seller and his eye for the genuine has stayed with him.
    Eco is just such a stunning author and it was a pleasure to read one of his books in less than the usual, oh, 3-4 months it usually takes me (Foucault’s Pendulum, Name of the Rose – both of which are DEFINITELY worth the effort, but very dense). Eco’s not only, IMO, one of the most brilliant minds on the planet, but he has a wonderful, wonderful sense of humor. Especially in Foucault’s Pendulum, you’ll find yourself scrutinizing every word trying to figure out what’s going on only to find he’s just totally messing with you and you laugh out loud. Here’s an interview with him on Queen Loana:

    http://www.harcourtbooks.com/AuthorInterviews/bookinterview_Eco.asp

    I’m currently rereading To Kill a Mockingbird for a book club session with a couple of my wonderful ex-coworkers, and I’m reading The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean for the first time which was lent me by one of my wonderful current coworkers. The Orchid Thief was the inspiration for another of my favorite movies, Adaptation. I’m learning more about orchids and orchid hunting than I ever thought I’d care to know, but it is absolutely fascinating. Orlean tends to repeat herself once in a while, but it feels as though it’s because she’s caught up in the experience of finding out about this world of orchids herself and wants to write everything down in case she forgets.

    I’ve also just finished The Sparrow by Mary Dora Russel which I’d read at Shannon’s suggestion. It’s sci-fi meets religion in the form of a Jesuit priest (I was sucked in already – Jesuits fascinate me to no end) who heads a mission to Alpha Centuri where a new planet has been discovered through beautiful music. He and his closest friends go to meet the natives and only he comes back, utterly broken. When you find out why and what happened to the rest of the crew, one by one, you’re absolutely heartbroken. Honestly, one of the few books that has actually made me cry. The fact that he still has faith in God is just amazing and more than a little humbling and inspiring. It’s an excellent excellent read, but not for the squeamish. Russell is actually an anthropological linguist, so an added layer of awesomeness is her development of a brand new, made-up language which the priest learns, breaks down into it’s base components and interprets – sometimes too late, again, with heartbreaking results.

    I have a stack of about 20 books that have been lent me that I have got to get through by the end of the summer, in addition to getting back to researching for my own which I’ve put of for *cough cough* and a day. It’s just that fiction is so much EASIER….Well, unless it’s Eco.

    Happy reading Mu!

    Reply
  3. revtransit

    I’m almost done with Ulster Emigration to Colonial America: 1718-85. Before that, I read a book Shannon gave me– In Discordance with the Scriptures about the making of Protestant Bible for Americans. Previously, The Steel Bonnets: The Story of the Anglo-Scottish Border Reivers (which was gripping). Just before my dad came up from Kansas to do our baseball marathon, I read Three Nights in August, mostly about Cardinals’ manager Tony LaRussa, but sometimes the book just makes silly comments about the new application of statistics in MLB. And before that, it was Fundamentalism and American Culture. I’m going to finish Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism pretty soon, but Jo gave me a big book on London by Peter Ackroyd and I find myself inexplicably drawn toward it.

    I haven’t seen many movies lately or any theater since London– Stomp and The Crucible and that other one I hated.

    Reply
  4. Shurtugal21

    spoon writes way too much (no offense to you).  mr. riordan, i am thoroughly disappointed.  it is secondhand lyons.  great movie, but you’re married to the english teacher and you cant even spell.  you need her to start proofreading your entries.  since we seem to have a cca entry (ask the mrs. if you don’t know what im referencing), i’ll add a few quotes.

    “‘Kender are unclean. They roam the earth, living by stealth and dishonor. To touch one, it is said, is to invite scorn, or worse, disease. I don’t think it is necessary to search this one.’ ((Dogz, a minotaur))
    ‘Unclean! Why, you big horny cow! I’ll have you know that I bathe regularly. I washed my face just yesterday, to be exact-that is, assuming this is the day after yesterday, which I don’t know for sure because I have no idea where I am or how long it took me to get here. But if you want to bring up personal hygiene, I suggest you take your two moon-sized nostrils, bend over, and take a whiff of yourself!’ ((Tas))

    “Gerard handed Tas some clothes that were clean and well-made, drab, dull and- the kender shuddered- serviceable.
    ‘Thank you,’ said Tas, rubbing his eyes. ‘I know you mean well, but I have my own clothes-‘
    ‘I won’t travel with someone who looks as if he’s been in a fight with a maypole and lost,’ Gerard countered.” (188)

    ((After Tas suggests Raistlin abolish sleep)) “Raistlin had replied that the kender should be thankful someone had invented sleep for this meant that Tasslehoff was quiet and comatose for eight hours out of a day and this was the sole reason that Raistlin had not yet strangled him.” (187)

    those are from some good novels.

    Reply
  5. mriordan

    I certainly can not spell, but this time I think I have it right, at least according to the movie title. 🙂

    I don’t recognise your quotes – I am assuming they are from fantasy novels you have read recently?

    Reply
  6. sonotmu

    I took a bit of a double-take when I read “Kender are unclean” – I thought Shurtugal21 had misspelled “Kinder”, which is German for “children”. The passage does read a bit differently if you subsitute “Kids” for “Kender”…

    Reply
  7. SPOOONNN

    Nope – Shurtugal21 misspelled “lyons” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327137/ but not Kender. I loved that series.

    Mu – if you have access to the BBC Shakespeare productions, I highly recommend them. Even the history plays are riveting – Mark Wing-Davey plays the most stunning Earl of Warwick. They MIGHT only be available on VHS, though.

    BTW – Mu, post something new, or I’ll be forced another lengthy description of what I’m reading right now: “The Relationship of Continuing Medical Education Activity to American Board of Surgery Recertification Examination Performance.” It’s fascinating. To…..somebody…..?

    Reply
  8. mriordan

    Is it a bad sign that I glazed over from just the title? “The Relationship of zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.”

    I’ll post when it it not 90 degrees in my computer room/office. Ugh.

    Reply
  9. lesaellen

    Hey, Matt.

    Thanks for the technical help.

    I’m reading Frankenstein for the first time.  Chelsea told me about its Calvinistic underpinnings, so that snared me.

    I’m a big fan of Jane.  She didn’t write enough novels to suit me.  It’s quite sad when you finish the last one.

    Twain hated her…wanted to dig up her bones and beat her over the head with her thigh bone or something.  ???  I usually respect his opinion (re/ James Fenimore Cooper) but he was wrong on this one.

    Reply

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