2023-09-11

What, is this nothing but comics?

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The short answer is no. But don't blink or you'll miss the evidence.
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096) The Unsinkable Walker Bean and the Knights of the Waxing Moon by Aaron Renier, finished August 24

This books is so bananas. It's so strange, so weird. And although I don't understand it, it makes sense. I know it knows and I trust it.

I liked the first one but this volume is even more ambitious (and insane). We have animals made out of stars and doppelgangers and magic alloys and granddaughters of Neptune and ghosts rising from folktales and a floating city and visions and evil kings and all that just makes this book sound borderline ordinary. Believe me when I tell you it is not.

It is something else.

one marathon sitting


097) Just Julie's Fine by Theric Jepson, finished August 26

This was my last chance to do any edits prior to publication. I couldn't imagine there was anything left to catch but I ended up reading the entire novel anyway. I found about a dozen tiny errors still extant. Which means there's probably a dozen more I missed.

Sigh.

Editing is hard.

But I can announce that this book's pretty good. I don't know what you'll think but hoo. I enjoyed it.

today
 

098) Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith and Boulet, finished August 28

I loved this. I knew it was based on Beowulf and I know Weinersmith and I expected something more dumb than anything else.

That's not what I got.

He's taken the story of Beowulf and transposed it to the world of suburban childhood, bringing fantasies child me had to life but in the glories of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.

Last year I had a work published that fits that same description and I can tell you that there is something intensely natural (which is not to say easy) about embracing the pre-Norman forms of English poetry. To embrace alliteration and kenning and just go for it. And that's what Weinersmith does here. And it is glorious. And you can tell he respects kids. Why else throw out words like thole?

And Boulet's art is manic and heroic and absurd. It ties into classic looks of Grendel while staying true to Bea Wolf's own unique conceits.

And then the short essay at the end about Beowolf and the poetry and the process is likewise intelligent and carries a high opinion of child readers and is funny and insightful and, honestly, I suspect this book will make some writers. And baby am I excited to see their work appear twenty years from now.

A total success.

And I am delighted to tell you that just the other day Lady Steed saw someone on her free group looking for a large stuffed bear that could be gutted because her daughter is planning her Bea Halloween costume.

This is as it should be.

an evening
 

099) Assassinistas by Tini Howard / Gilbert Hernandez / et al., finished August 31

I guess you could call this a fun little satirical look at the American violent-story tradition. It did have some cool elements but it just didn't come together for me.

a week or more
 

100) Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons by Kelly Sue DeConnick / Phil Jimenez / Gene Ha / Nicola Scott, finished August 31

This is one of the most astonishing comics I've read in some time. It amazes on practically every page.

There are a few reasons for this. Let's start that it feels real. By which I mean these spins on ancient Greek myth carry genuine mythic weight and seem true in a deep and meaningful way. These are stories you can believe in. And they explode the Amazon-based mythos of the Wonder Woman universe in awesome ways. The characters birthed here I reckon will be with us a long long time.

The art has depth and rigor. I'm grateful for the brief notes in the back because there I discovered how little I was even seeing. Read this book with good lighting and perhaps a magnifying glass. There is much to find here.


In short it is beautiful and moving and deadly dangerous. This book is not here to play games.

Astonishing stuff.

You don't have to care half a whit about superheros to love this story.

two days, possibly not back-to-back


101) The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman et al., finished September 6

I read the original Sandman run in the early Oughts, but I didn't read them in order and I frankly don't know if I read them all. I've always intended to start over at the beginning, but just have not.

But I have a son I thought would like them so I got the first two from the library. Dad's suggestion didn't take but, hey, the first two volumes of Sandman!

You know what? I think the time has come.

The first volume does read like the team figuring out what they're doing, but the gist is right and I'm excited to rediscover where it goes from here.

Onward!

four days


102) Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! by Kurt Vonnegut, finished September 11

Now that I'm back to teaching Vonnegut, I'm hopping back on my novel-a-summer routine. I don't have many left to firsttime as you can see:

 This is not one of the better ones.

Honestly, it feels like something that should have been published posthumously. It has a lot of great Vonnegut spark and plenty of (half-developed) ideas, but it never congeals into a novel and it ends in such a way that makes me feel like he just lost interest in it.

Plus, there is some racial stuff that is satirical, sure, but for every bit that is arguably antiracist, there are ten that just feel racist here in 2023. I would be shocked if that were his intention, but, well, you can't always control how your stuff will be read.

Plus, this is the 2019 Vintage edition and I don't know if it was just the process of changing the punctuation to be more British, but there are several punctuation and other typesetting errors. It's hard to believe that this could happen at a major house to a major author's 47yrold book. How? How? How?

a couple months or even more even though it's quite short

 

Previously . . . . :

final posts in this series from
  2007 = 2008 = 2009 = 2010 = 2011 = 2012 = 2013
2014 = 2015 = 2016 = 2017 = 2018 = 2019 = 2020 = 2021 = 2022

 
 
Earlier in 2023

001) The Dark Room by Gerry Duggan & Scott Buoncristiano, finished January four
002) The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander, finished January 6
003) Rose by Jeff Smith and Charles Vess, finished January 10
004) Acting Class by Nick Drnaso, finished January 10
005) Red Scare by Liam Francis Walsh, finished January 11

006) The Short Reign of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck, finished January 18
007) Filmish by Edward Ross, finished circa January 20

HOW many times?

008) Maddy Kettle Book: The Adventure of the Thimblewitch by Eric Orchard, finished January 24 
009) Fantastic Frights: A Beginner's Guide to Scary Stories, finished January 24
010) Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary, finished February 2
011) Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, finished February 3
012) The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, finished February 4

013) Is that all there is? by Joost Swarte, finished February 6
014) Edge Case by YZ Chin, finished February 7

If it weren't for a friendly sex talk, everything here would be miserable

015) Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, finished February 10
016) Sex Educated: Letters from a Latter-day Saint therapist to her younger self by Bonnie Young, LMFT, finished February 13
017) Unmask Alice: LDS, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson, finished February 20 

A Bookful Bounty for thee and thine 

018) I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jeannette McCurdy, finished February 27
019–21) The Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kershl, finished March 6
022) Displacement by Kiku Hughes, finished March 6
023) The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Ram V and Filipe Andrade, finished March 6
024) The Homeland Directive by Robert Venditti and Mike Huddleston, finished March 7
025) Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare, finished March 14
026) Last West: Roadsongs for Dorothea Lange by Tess Taylor, finished March 15
027) 22 Young Mormon Writers edited by Neal E. Lambert and Richard H. Cracroft, finished March 19
028 & 029) Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare, finished March 23 & March 27

Literarily solving for X

030) X by Sue Grafton, finished March 28
031) Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary, finished April 5
032) Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century by Dana Stevens, finished April 5
033) Abe Lincoln in Illinois by Robert E. Sherwood, finished April 8
034) Theology of Play by Jürgen Moltmann, finished April 12
035) The Male Animal by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent, finished April 12
036) Bluffton by Matt Phelan, finished April 16
037) Number One Walking: My Life in the Movies and Other Diversions by Steve Martin and Harry Bliss, finished April 15

From Lolly to Elias

038) Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner, finished April 17
039) The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson, finished April 19
040) Beware the Eye of Odin by Wager/Odland/Madsen/Dukeshire, finished April 19
041) The Complete Peanuts: 1965–1966 by Charles M. Schulz, finished April 20
042) A Wealth of Pigeons by Steve Martin and Harry Bliss, finished April 22
043) Elias: An Epic of the Ages by Orson Ferguson Whitney, finished April 23

Old Hollywood & Olden Times

044) Straight Lady: The Life and Times of Margaret Dumont, "The Fifth Marx Brother" by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian, finished April 25
045) Voices from the Radium Age edited by Joshua Glenn, finished April 26
046) The Ballad of YFB by Aaron Brassea, finished April 28
047) Reynaud's Tale by Ben Hatke, finished May 3
048) Superman: Up in the Sky by Tom King and Andy Kubert, finished May 5
049) Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary, finished May 5
050) Resurrection Row by Anne Perry, finished May 6 

Saying good bye to our friend Kinsey

052) More Gross: Cartoons by S. Gross, finished May 9
053) I Am Blind and My Dog Is Dead by S. Gross, finished May 9
054) Batgirls: One Way or Another by Becky Cloonan / Michael W. Conrad / Jorge Corona / Sarah Stein, finished May 11
055) Batgirls: Bat Girl Summer by Becky Cloonan / Michael W. Conrad / Neil Googe / Robbi Rodriguez / Rico Renzi, finished May 11
056) Y is for Yesterday by Sue Grafton, finished May 12 

The tyranny of getting stuff in the right order

051) On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, finished May 8
057) Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang and Guruhiru, finished May 13
058) Four in Hand by Alicia Mountain, finished May 17
059) The Glob by John O'Reilly and Walt Kelly, finished May 20
060) Why They Can't Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities by John Warner, finished May 24
061) Less by Andrew Sean Greer, finished May 25
062) Children of the Woods by Ciano/Hixson/Stevens/Otsmane-Elhaou, finished May 27
063) The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks, finished May 29

Such quality. Such excellence.

064) Here by Darlene Young, finished June 1
065) Theseus Volume 1 by Jordan Holt, finished June 1
066) Theseus Volume 2 by Jordan Holt, finished June 1
067) Reviews for Non-Existent Movies by Eric Goulden Kimball, finished June 5
068) The Scarlet Plague by Jack London, finished June 6
069) Anne of West Philly by Ivy Noelle Weir and Myisha Haynes, finished June 10
070) Ramona and Her Mother by Beverly Cleary, finished June 10

 Books read: a forensic investigation

073) These Precious Days by Ann Patchett, finished c. June 17
074) Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, finished c. June 19
075) The Burning Book: A Jewish-Mormon Memoir by Jason Olson and James Goldberg, finished c. June 21
076) The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich, finished June 23


From prehumanity to eternal destiny

077) Tuki: Fight for Fire by Jeff Smith, finished June 28
078) Tuki: Fight for Family by Jeff Smith, finished June 29
079) The Writer's Hustle by Joey Franklin, finished July 8
080) Future Day Saints: The New Arrivals by Matt Page, finished July 16
081) Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, finished July 18
082) Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary, finished July 19
083) Just One More by Annette Lyon, finished July 20
084) The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl, finished July 22
085) Somewhere Out There: My Animated Life by Don Bluth, finished July 22

Two women, in comics form

085) Beast by Marian Churchland, finished July 24
086) Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by King/Evely/Lopes, finished c. July 28

The sex-and-metaphysics Venn diagram

087) Banana Sunday by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, finished August 2
088) Falconer by John Cheever, finished August 3
089) Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins, finished August 3
090) Homunculus by Joe Sparrow, finished August 5
091) Cuckoo by Joe Sparrow, finished August 9
092) Fatal by Kimberly Johnson, finished August 16
093) The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier, finished August 17
094) The Infinite Future by Tim Wirkus, finished August 22
095) Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne by Katherine Rundell, finished August 23

 

2023-09-01

August filmdom

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Not a lot this month, which is kinda disappointing for August, but if quality still counts for something, we got a couple Edgar Wright movies, some Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, a return to Barbieland, and a disappointing Disney property ah crap. So much for the sweep.

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THEATER
Century 16 Hilltop
Haunted Mansion (2023)

What a perfectly adequate movie! What a lovely work of committee-based creativity! Look, it's not really much better or worse than Disney's last attempt (Muppet, not Eddie—I've never seen the 2003 movie) but it was a pleasant enough way to spend a couple hours in a theater.

It's interesting to contrast this movie with Barbie. That too is a a corporate cash-grab created by incredibly talented artisans. The difference is Barbie has Greta Gerwig and the helm, a single visionary making everything fit together. Haunted Mansion feels like they were still workshopping the script a month into filming. When your lead is LaKeith Stanfield and you surround him with such talent, it'll still be watchable. But it was painful, watching the editors attempt to put together some of the dialogue-heavy scenes with the footage they had.

Also, if I may say so, actors are right to be battling against digital replacement. It's already happened to animals. It feels like we can't make it through an animal performance anymore without it being 90% cg. How's the animal-trainer's union doing (datapoint)?

Remember the first Pirates movie? Somehow it was more than just its source material. This movie has some ideas (not all of which worked together) about how to do the same but it just didn't work. Where was the controlling genius?


HOME
library dvd
Holiday (1938)

This was so refreshig after the movies we've been watching. All the music is diegetic, the dialogue is nonstop and delightful. The pacing is unpredictable. The leads don't get together until the final shot and it's hardly clear just how that will happen until just prior.

This is Cukor directing Grant and Hepburn a couple years before Philadephia Story, and you know what? I think I like this one better. (Although apparently it's bee over ten years since I've seen that so . . . I'd perhaps best hold judgment.)


THEATER
Century Hilltop 16
Barbie (2023)

I think I love it even more this time. Margot Robbie is brilliant. I get Ryan Gosling's performance better this time. New wrinkles are evident in everyone from Michael Cera to Will Ferrell to Simu Liu. Rhea Perlman was perfectly cast and delivered in a big way. The movie's pacing is so deliberate and measured and willing to pause simply to breathe in moments yet it still comes in under two hours. The music is smart and well crafted. The imagery is stellar. I love that so much is done in camera.

It's perhaps the most innteresting movie spiritually I've see in a while too. This deserves even more conversation.

I short, it's a deserving blockbuster and I expect it to be with us for years to come. I love it. My favorite movie of the year.


THEATER
Rialto Cinemas Cerrito
The Trouble with Harry (1955)

It's maybe been over twenty years since I've seen this and in those decades I've refered to it as one of my favorite Hitchcocks. And it remains delightful. He should've done straight comedy more often. (The only other one I can think of is Mr and Mrs Smith [final shot:sexiest bit of footsie I've ever seen] which I also haven't seen in over twenty years. That and the lost silent film, but why count that?)

The New England autumn is beautiful. The tightness of action is great. The characters charm. The whole thing's constantly just funny enough. The long gaps between scenes are curious. And the whole thing is just good, not great. But how wonderful to watch it with an audience!


HOME
library dvd
Hot Fuzz (2007)

Can't remember why I suddenly decided it was time to share this with the boys but I'm happy to say I'm (almost) ecstatic as last time. 2016 was a long time ago, wasn't it? Before seeing Olivia Colman was reason enough for me to watch a movie. Back when "Make Sandford Great Again" was amusingly ahead of its time rather than traumatically so.

I guess we oughtta bring the whole Cornetto Trilogy home, eh?


HOME
library dvd
The Truman Show (1998)

A few months ago, for reasons I can't explain, I read several long articles about The Truman Show (including one two three). For the last maybe three years, the now16yrold's bee askig to watch it.

I watched it a few years back with the high school's film club and at that point my opinion of it skyrocketes. I thik the film is more true now than it was in 1998. Or perhaps I am only older.



HOME
library dvd
The World's End (2013)

When we first saw this in 2016 we knew nothing other than it being an epic pubcrawl. I still think that's the best way to come into this movie. What an incredible experience this must have been with a theater audience in 2013 when it first dropped. Hoy, I'm jealous of those of you who managed that.

Just utter brilliance and utterly not-just-predictable-but-unimaginable.





Previous films watched

MOST RECENT POST




2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2023-08-31

Three songs, Barbie edition

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Remember the glory days of the Disney Renaissance? One thing we regularly saw then was Disney's animated features getting multiple Oscar nominations for best song. Twice (Beauty and the Beast [1991] and The Lion King [1994]), they racked up three nominations!

Let's use The Lion King's feat for our discussion as it's the clearest example of what I have in mind.

The three nominated songs were "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," "Circle of Life," and "Hakuna Matata."

"Can You Feel the Love Tonight" was the big winner. We all knew that would be the case. The big love ballad. The song resung by a popstar over the closing credits. The big radio hit. It was going to win.

But in my opinion, it should not have. The win should have gone to "Circle of Life" which was the thematic core of the film (and, in my opinion, the superior song). My thinking is that voting should be biased in favor of songs that engage the entire movie, that pull it together, that are the engine for its plot and/or the explanation of its characters and/or explicative of the film's ultimate message. Not the one that Elton John got on the radio.

(I've been annoyed by this Oscar for thirty years.)

Anyway, these coming Oscars seem to have the best shot at a three-nominee in ages with Barbie. I think the likely nods are, in order of appearance, Lizzo's waking up song, "I'm Just Ken," and the Billie Eilish number.

Although the early buzz is with Ryan Gosling, it's Billie who's gone to number one and so that seems, according to 90s rules, the likely winner. I genuinely don't know if those rules still apply, however.

I do think her song is a strong candidate by my rules also. It first appears at arguably the emotional climax of the film and helps make that moment really work. At that time it, again arguably, clarifies the thematic purpose of the film. And then we get to hear it (I think the same version?) over the closing credits. So it's checking both boxes.

But I'd encourage you not to sleep on Lizzo's "Pink" which is genuinely funny and is reinvented when reprised to show how Barbie's reality is changing underneath her. It's doing interesting things.

But, bad news, this show down can't happen. After twice in the Nineties, one-movie-three-song-nods happened twice more, to Dreamgirls (2006) and Enchanted (2007), neither of which won.

I can only guess as to the Academy's motivation as to what happened next, but I'm assuming they felt those movies both should have won (what they lost to: Dreamgirls, Enchanted) but their vote was too split. I'm not sure that's true, though. Sure, the songs Enchanted were what "should" have won during the Nineties when Disney dominated, but, I mean, don't you think that Once song is more deserving? I do.

Anyway, the Academy was unhappy and made a new rule: a movie can only earn two Original Song nominations. So we'll never know if a third would otherwise have qualified.

I'm interested to see how Warner Bros pushed Original Song when it's for-your-consideration time. My guess is Billie and Ryan will get the push. And that's fine.

But dang.

2023-08-24

Barbie is an endowment film

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The latest episode of Face in Hat talks about my favorite movie this year (so far).

Listen on PodBean, Apple Music, Spotify, or I don’t even know where else.