Movie Watch for 2008

March
19.The Siege-a man's action movie with Bruce Willis as the bad guy. Hated it.

20.Beaches-a movie from my childhood that I wanted to watch again. This was the movie that made me a Bette Midler fan. But the movie was pretty lame. Very chick-flick.

21.Girl, Interrupted-Winona Rider was made for this movie. Her extremely uncomfortable look at a young woman deciding whether she is crazy or brilliant is often tough to watch but very compelling and authentic. I want to read the book it's based on.

22.Love in the Time of Cholera-followed the book surprisingly well. The story of a man who dedicates his life to loving a woman who has rejected him. A very unromantic love story.

23.The Princess Bride-needs no explanation. I just wanted to watch it after finally reading the book. A lot of fun.

February
10.The Painted Veil-Very highly recommend
11.Mrs. Dallaway
12.Heartbreakers
13.Ali
14.The Lives of Others-very moving
15.Becoming Jane-Recommend
16.Crash
17.Persuasion
18.10 Things I Hate About You
January
1.Amazing Grace-very well done
2.Eragon
3.Atonement-A favorite!
4.If Only
5.Evening
6.La Vie en Rose
7.Ethan Frome
8.The Namesake
9.Shakespeare

The Sunday Salon

I haven't posted for the Sunday Salon for several weeks because there has been no reading activity on Sundays for a while but today, thanks to my very long recovery period with this dang flu, I had nothing but time to sit and read and watch a little Dancing with the Stars on abc.com.

First the reading. I am really surprised at how fast I have read through The Princess Bride. I suppose when you are left alone at home for hours each day, without children to take care of, without dinners to prepare, you can get a lot of reading done. And that's just what I did, I got it done. The Princess Bride was a lot of fun and I look forward to discussing it with my IRL book group tomorrow evening. But first I plan to watch the movie with my kiddos once more. I'm gearing up for some yummy sword fighting scenes.

The second part of my day was spent watching TV on the computer. I just had to see Steve Guttenberg dance. How entertaining it's been! And how cool that I can go there any time I want and catch up on the Lost episodes I haven't seen. This could be addicting.

But enough about TV. Let's get back to reading. This is the end of March and I only got through two books that I planned to read. I could still finish listening to the audio version of The Namesake before the end of tomorrow. And I might pull out the Shakespeare play As You Like It to read before watching the movie that I have from Netflix. Both of those together would bring me back to an average that I am comfortable with. I suppose you'll just have to stay tuned to find out how I do. Goodnight all.

More Love and Cholera

We watched the Love in the Time of Cholera movie last night and I have to say, it followed the book fairly closely. I was really surprised. The book is written in an unusual manner but they managed to translate it very well.

The book was different, which is what Marquez does best I think, so it goes without saying that the movie is odd too. It started off a bit romanticised but it very quickly takes on the quirky qualities of the book. I'm not sure it's all that easy to follow in places but I always think that when I've read the book first. My husband seemed to follow it pretty well.

One of the things I was not prepared for was all the bare breasts. I think every woman in the movie has a topless scene, and some of them are pretty unpleasant but, again, it is in keeping closely with the book. If you have read the book and loved it then I don't think the movie will be a disappointment but it you found it "interesting" or "different" then the movie will leave you with that same feeling.

Review: Love in the Time of Cholera

Love in the Time of Cholera
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'm afraid I cannot give this the review it deserves because of this nasty flu. It has left me so weak I can't even think without laying down for a rest.

Florentino Ariza is a passionate man, a man in love. Fermina Daza is the object of his love but she rejects him early on. Though he is heartbroken, he will not give up. Though she marries another, he does not give up still. As he waits, for decades, he never gives up on Fermina Daza as his only reason to live and love.

I started reading this book prepared to love it but I should have known this would be no romantic love story. It is probably the most unromantic love story ever written. All of the characters are painfully real. Marquez draws a crude picture laced with the ridiculous and mundane. But it remains a love story to the end.

Florentino Ariza reminds me of Don Quixote throughout the story. He names his mistress not based on any merit in her but simply because she is present; then he dedicates his life to her in the face of no encouragement at all. In the face of so much discouragement the reader wonders where Florentino's strength comes from. Will he ever get the girl or will he realize what a pointless endeavor this is? Surely it must be a pointless endeavor.

Marquez is a storyteller of a different type. Rather than start at point A and lead you through all the important events he prefers to tell you all the little nuances that make up a personality. Then he throws in a few events from the main characters lives. By the time you get to the end you feel as if you have always known them and that you can predict exactly what will happen to them and how they will react to their situations. It's certainly a different way to read a book.

I have a few problems with the book. Florentino Ariza has an affair with a 12 year old girl that is a relation under his care. This is very disturbing for me. Is this a cultural issue or a literary device? Either way it was a major roadblock for liking his character. And the words sex and love are used synonymously throughout the book. Since when did they become the same thing? I think there are great bones here for a beautiful and romantic love story and I hope that is what they have used for the movie. Otherwise, I'm not sure there is much of a pleasant experience waiting for me.

Two More

While cleaning up my library wish list I came across a couple of titles I had made note of that will work beautifully for the Once Upon a Time II Challenge(to be forever known as OUT2).

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall: Women Writers Explore their Favorite Fairy Tales - a compilation of essays by such authors as Francine Prose and Margeret Atwood.

Victorian Fairy Tales: the Revolt of the Fairies and Elves by Jack Zipes

So, one day in and my list has doubled already. I am also considering adding a couple of Shannon Hale titles and possibly Lud-in-the-mist.

Once Upon a Time....

I have finally returned from an internet-free, Spring Break road trip to Texas which I will tell you all about in a day or two, when I have recovered a bit. But first things first...

The Once Upon a Time II Challenge has begun!

I am trying hard not to commit to too many challenges this year but I left room in my plans for this one. I had so much fun last year delving into the fantasy genre, exploring authors such as Peter S. Beagle, the Brothers Grimm, Neil Gaiman and Shakespeare. It was like discovering a secret door in my soul. Unicorns, fairies, ogres and witches; like Anne of Green Gables, I am in love with the romance of it all.

The challenge runs from March 21st to June 22nd. Visit Carl to get all the low down. Of the 4 challenge options to choose from I am going for the easiest, The Journey, which is to read at least one book. I hope to read more but at the moment I am down for the count with a nasty Texas flu which has left my brain looking like oatmeal and my energy level at a -30. Fortunate for me, there are 2 titles from my march reading that never got read that will fit the bill perfectly. I have to read The Princess Bride for my IRL Book Group. And Bulfinches Age of Fable is a beautifully written book of mythology, a subject we happen to be learning about in our homeschool this year. I'll add to my list when I can.

The Beauty of Language

If my husband hadn't ordered the movie from Netflix I never would have watched it and been unimpressed. If I hadn't posted my disinterest in it Eva never would have encouraged me to read the book. And if I had never checked out the book on CD from the library I never would have been seduced by the exquisite linguistic abilities of Jhumpa Lahiri. I never would have known what I was missing out on. The Namesake is a book to own, a book to scale for its majestic horizons. Many thanks to both my dearest sweetheart and to the ever helpful Eva.

I've only just started the fourth disk out of 9 but I am so in love. I have developed such a respect for the Indian culture depicted within this story. Every little gesture they perform serves to demonstrate honor toward each other. I can't number the times I have blinked away tears while listening to the daily struggles of the main characters. Their loneliness and confusions and triumphs bleed through until you wish these were real people you could befriend and encourage. Having seen the gravely inferior movie I know what is to come but I now have a much much deeper understanding of the whys and whatfors. The beauty of this story lies entirely in the whys and whatfors.

Obviously I am receiving a great deal of pleasure from the language. It inspires in me a will to express beauty for myself. But The Namesake is not the only source of this proclivity. I am also reading Love in the Time of Cholera. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has a gift for the illustrious paragraph. Even while his characters are very human (suffering from constipation or having a month long marital rift over whether or not she forgot to replace the soap in the bathroom for an entire week) they are stunning portrayals marked with grace and elegance. I hope to have this book completed by the time the movie is released on DVD but I am apprehensive about a movie that, judging only from a small preview, seems a bit too concerned with bringing together a Latin/American sweetheart cast than with finding the true heart of the story. (I have a hard time believing Benjamin Bratt can pull off a role like this but I would love to be proven wrong. And I am most definitely not a fan of Shakira.) But I really must put a halt to this habit I have of judging a book by its cover, or a movie by its preview, as the case may be.

For the record, I have nothing against Latin/American actors. It's the "trying too hard to make a statement that is out of place" that rubs me the wrong way. I think a drama makes more of an impact when subtlety is used. Benjamin Bratt makes a great Law and Order detective but if his acting abilities are not suited to a romantic drama then don't compromise the whole movie just because he has the right heritage. Ben Kingsley played Gandhi to perfection because he was the right caliber actor regardless of his nationality.

Boy, when I digress I really digress don't I?

So I have been wafting in a cloud of richness that I am glad to follow through to the end. And when it is all over and I must box it up and shelf it temporarily for the swashbuckling fun of The Princess Bride, saddened will I be. At least, until I am lost in the romantic tenacity of a stable boy named Wesley. =)

Review: Six Weeks

Six Weeks
by Fred Mustard Stewart
184 pages

Congressmen Bill Dalton is a young, happily married politician in need of funding. That's how he first meets the multimillionaire Charlotte Dreyfus and her precocious daughter Nicky. Within days he is in love with both. But Nicky has been given only six weeks to live and no chance of survival. Being with them could cost him his squeaky-clean image, his 18 year marriage and his career as a Senator. And not being with them could cost them his happiness and self-respect.

I won't say much about the book, though I have very strong feelings about it. Suffice it to say that I have a strong moral objection to men cheating on their wives. The book was a waste of time. I think the movie must have been a much more palatable version, though now I wonder.

Review: Persuasion

Persuasion
by Jane Austen

An acquaintance of mine shared with me that she disliked Jane Austen's works. Obviously I was very surprised. A woman? Not loving Jane Austen? What's wrong with her? She said she gave it a try once and was so bored that she put it down after only a couple of chapters and never picked it back up again. She prefers action, lots of immediate action, in her books.

So while I was reading the first couple of chapters I realised that she was right. They are extremely boring. Really, really boring. The narrator is simply telling about the family and the situation they are in, in serious debt, needing to "retrench.". In fact, there is no real action in the book until many chapters in; and then it is not really action, per se, but dialog and taking walks. You have to make it to the 100 page mark before anything truly happens.

Put away your tar and feathers. I am not a convert to the Anti-Austen League. I'm just saying. At least for Persuasion, it has its boring parts.

But what my acquaintance misses (and I suspect this of her reading as a whole) is that in order to acquire the depth of feeling and intimacy with the characters that make for good reading, this kind of stage setting is necessary. Austen has depth and intimacy.

I have another qualm though; a real one this time. I love the character of Anne Elliot. I wish my own personality was more like hers. She is upright and wise, proper and true. But she is just too perfect. Austen goes out of her way to make sure that the reader understands that Anne really never makes poor choices. At the end of the book, Anne and Capt. Wentworth discuss her rightness in being persuaded to break off their original engagement. She has such confidence in Lady Russell, in her judgements; judgements that have been proved more than once to be flawed (I'm thinking of Mr. Elliot here). According to Lady Russell's way of doing things, Anne's happiness is secondary to her need for a husband of title and honor. Yet, Anne forgives her, as any wise and upright woman ought to. Alas, I am not so easily forgiving and I don't see how Capt. Wentworth shall be either. Lady Russell may appreciate Anne better than Anne's own family but ultimately she is in alignment with Sir Walter's ideals. How foolish!

Tonight I watch the Hinds/Root movie again with a few women from the reading group, which should be a lot of fun. Then we meet to discuss on Monday night. I know a few members have not cared for this book but most of them are right sensible women. =)