Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

To help celebrate Christmas, I recently read Skipping Christmas, a novel by John Grisham.  It's equally as good as The Rooster Bar, and much better than the movie it was adapted into, Christmas with the Kranks with Tim Allen.  The novel is about an accountant and his wife who, when their daughter decides to join the Peace Corps, both decide to skip Christmas one year in favor of taking a cruise.  The rest of their neighbors beg to differ!  Mainly on display here is Grisham's crisp, clear writing, one which offers great descriptions while also capturing many of the niceties of small town and Christmas season life.  He really is one of the best writers working today, and much more than just the guy who wrote The Firm.  I've actually bought a number of his books and plan to read all of them.  Check him out!

The Rooster Bar by John Grisham

Just read an EXCELLENT book called The Rooster Bar by John Grisham.  Very clearly written, with.   a very exciting plot.  A group of law students, following the suicide of a friend, discover that their for-profit law school is a scam. From there, they embark on an adventure to get out of the awful debt situation that they’re in.  Many great twists and turns throughout. . .  proof that Grisham really may be “America’s favorite storyteller,” as his tag line says.  Check it and Grisham out!

The Master

I recently watched Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master, shortly after also watching his Inherent Vice and his Phantom Thread. After some consideration, I've decided that it might actually be his best film, with the only possible exception being Magnolia. It tells the story of a disgruntled war veteran who stumbles onto a yacht and into the world of a mysterious religion known as The Cause. The late Phillip Seymour Hoffman kills as the leader of this cult, in particular delivering a scene-stealing monologue at the end. A great study of the two characters and how they relate to each other, just a great slice of life with great set design and great scenery. Definitely worth checking out! Recommended!

The Meg

During my day off this week, I got a chance to see the national blockbuster The Meg.  Not a perfect movie, a little on the cheesy side, but a lot of fun and definitely worth seeing. It's directed by the same director who did National Treasure, and it has that same rewatchable quality to it. And Jason Statham is in fine, gravel-voiced form, playing the mysterious hero and tough guy who will, of course, *spoiler* eventually take out the sharks. Watching everyone get from point A to point B is a lot of fun, though, and there are some great weapons and gadgets thrown in to help fight the sharks. What summer movies are made of. Recommended!

Black Sunday book and movie

I recently finished reading the novel Black Sunday by Thomas Harris. It has everything you could want in a Thomas Harris novel (except for Hannibal Lecter!), great character development, great suspense, all building up to an inevitable climax! The settings and descriptions are grim, but that doesn't make the action any less satisfying or the plot any less compelling. This story of a terrorist attack on the Super Bowl works great as a book and as a movie (by John Frankenheimer, which I've also seen); I like both, even with the happier ending used in the movie.  Both are recommended!

Phantom Thread

I recently saw Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day Lewis’s recent film, Phantom Thread. It’s a great film, a perfect jewel of a movie in many ways, with no clear defects. DDL’s character is intriguing but offputting, and his continual sparring with his girlfriend, and it’s poisonous climax, is sort of like watching a macabre yet funny dance. How cool is it that the final scene in the end really IS a dream? Recommended!

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage

I recently Netflixed the Nicolas Cage film USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage. I thought it was a great film anchored by a great performance by Cage. What starts out as a men at war film turns into a rather gonzo action film involving shark attacks, men at sea, and more shark attacks. But the whole thing is tastefully done, with director Mario Van Peeples having a great sense of character. The ending is given real weight and importance. Recommended!

Ant Man and the Wasp

Ant Man and the Wasp is a very entertaining and friendly movie, which, in a good way, lacks some of the epic blowing up off stuff that the first one had. It's a Marvel movie for people who don't like Marvel movies. Lots of chuminess, jokes, and one-liners. The acting is great, particularly Michael Pena as the wacky friend, as are the set pieces. Paul Rudd really holds things together, and gives the whole thing some of the cohesiveness of a 1990s era comedy. Recommended!

Dominion and The Exorcist: The Beginning

Over the past two weeks, I watched the two versions that exist of the prequel to director William Friedkin's The Exorcist: one by Paul Schrader, and one by Renny Harlin.  Harlin's was shot, using the same sets and actors, after the studio decided on a new version that was more "scary."  Both are great!  The best one, by a hair, is Schrader's, which is basically a low key, moody, and I thought very scary exploration of Father Merrin's relationship to a young priest.  There is a possession, but on a much smaller scale.  Harlin's is much more traditional, but also much more hardcore, in many ways being a straight remake of the original.  When that girl gets possessed, watch out!  Very inventive use and reuse of sets, here.  Both highly recommended!

Casino

Casino is a film that a first saw in high school and then rewatched obsessively when I got to college.  There's really no other film like it, and I think I've come to see it as Scorsese's best film.  However, in recent years I think we've learned that it's just as much a Nicholas Pileggi film as a Scorsese film, with the fast narrative pacing and voiceover work being just as much his trademark as Scorsese's.  The Departed, good as it was, was nothing like this!  There's a moment where a low level mobster suddenly and unexpectedly does a freeze frame voiceover that is just absolutely priceless, just the essence of 90s cinema.  Casino takes you to a time and place unlike any other film, including GoodFellas and even the Godfather films.

If you did want to take issue with Casino, it would be with the violence.  Is Casino too violent?  There are moments in the film that are so violent that they almost seem like a pie in the face to the viewer.  I think I'm willing to forgive this approach, however, as being part of Scorsese's distinctive style.  Child of Vietnam that he is (I think Oliver Stone could write quite a piece on Casino), I think Scorsese is using violence even here to comment on how in functions both within American society and within us all.  He just doesn't let up when it comes to that.

So are the characters off-putting?  Sure.  But that doesn't make Casino any less a classic.

First Reformed

First Reformed is a very fine film by Paul Schrader, which in some ways is better than Raging Bull.  It tells the story of a priest who is dying of terminal cancer, and his struggle to come to terms with that.  The way that storyline develops is unexpected and gripping.  Schraderian symbolism (inherent suffering) at its finest.  Check it out!

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story might be the best Star Wars film yet, in my opinion.  The dark but alluring photography, the fantastic, monomythic storyline, the character development, and the romantic subplot add up to one epic tale indeed.  This Han Solo could almost be Luke, so epic and heroic he is.  Ron Howard really gives these characters a lot of humanity, which is rare for a Star Wars film.  Note the Willow reference!  Check it out!

The Bronx Bull

The Bronx Bull is a sequel/remake to Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull that basically attempts to externalize, psychoanalyze, while at the same time romanticizing the original's main character.  The film is, as I recently stated on Netflix and on Facebook, extremely racy and unpleasant, so much so that the apparent benefits of really "knowing" Jake LaMotta are outweighed by his unpleasant milieu.  The film is a Scarfacean wallow in excess, one that ultimately isn't worth viewing.  I would pass.

A Quiet Place

Today, as the second part of a double feature, I saw the horror film A Quiet Place.  A great film, and a great film to unwind with.  Well shot, and a lot of fun.  Beautifully shot interiors, and extremely scary  monsters.  Also includes some great scenes, including a very well-realized bathtub scene and colossal ending.  Recommended!

Nightcrawler

Just watched 2014’s Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhal, and I was impressed!  A very dark, moody production that links video production to news media and crime fighting, and which one article compared to the filmmaking style of Martin Scorsese.  I liked the use of ethnic actors and the gripping plot and photography very much.  Recommended!

The Philosophy of Martin Scorsese

I read about the first 100 pages of this book.  Not exactly my cup of tea, but still very interesting.  I think tackling both great philosophers and Scorsese at the same time is a bit much, but some of the themes concerning absurdity and nihilism are still very interesting.  You definitely don't hear things like that everyday!  Might have been more successful as a philosophy primer, though.

Red Dragon

Today I watched Red Dragon.  What an EXTREMELY well-executed, yet haunting, movie.  Cinematography-wise, it's one of the best shot movies ever.  It really FEELS like one of Thomas Harris' novels, very autumnal.  It's also one of the best cast movies ever, with even minor roles going to great actors like Harvey Keitel.  Great scenes and plots twists throughout.  Not always plausible, but still a great movie.  Check it out!

Top 6 movies

Top 6 movies: (1) Shutter Island (2) Raging Bull (3) Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (4) Gone Girl (5) Prometheus (6) Christmas Vacation

Ready Player One

A strange and disjointed affair, but also an interesting comment on the competitive nature of social media and social networking. Worth checking out!

 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1677720/?ref_=nv_sr_1

The Politics of Abstraction: Race, Gender, and Slavery in the Poetry of William Blake

The fine folks at Hodges Library at the University of Tennessee have converted my old Master's thesis into digital format.  Here it is for your perusal:

http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6027&context=utk_gradthes

Enjoy!

The Game

Hmm. I watched The Game this Saturday and Sunday, and it was actually a painful experience (you actually can't find it on plain DVD now). The scene with the burrito and the scene where Michael Douglas threatens little children are both terrible. However, I actually admire David Fincher a great deal, especially his remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

https://filmschoolrejects.com/david-fincher-motion-emotion/

Badge 373

Badge 373, rumor has it, is a film that Martin Scorsese codirected at one point but did not actually put his name on.  Howard Koch is actually credited as director, but many scenes have Scorsese's indelible inprint, resembling sequences from his Who's That Knocking at My Door.  The outdoor sequences and informal staging are clearly reminiscent of this film.  Robert Duvall plays the "Popeye Doyle" character (resembling Popeye Doyle from The French Connection) this time around, and does a pretty good job of making the character a hard nosed cop.  The film itself closely resembles The French Connection in places, but is more loosely structured.  Worth checking out, as kind of a rare curiosity.

Annihilation

Today I saw the sci-fi/horror film Annihilation with Natalie Portman.  It was a very strange and surreal film, and I’m not sure that I liked it.  Portman turns in what is in some ways a moving performance, but at times she also seems like a sex object.  There isn’t much of a plot to speak of, and it seems like it could have used more of an old fashioned sci-fi plot.  Great trailer, as showcased on the now much lesser AICN, but did not at all live up to it’s true potential for me.  Unfortunately, don’t  recommend!

Killers of the Flower Moon

Killers of the Flower Moon is probably the best book I have read since The Crying of Lot 49, a riveting exploration and reopening of the case of the murders of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma.  David Grann's writing is expert as he recounts the circumstances of the initial murders, details the subsequent involvement of the FBI, and then adds his own expertise toward solving the murders.  The book is really about prejudice and racism, and about a war that erupted between two cultures, all but destroying or at least forever changing the culture of the Osage Indians.  The writing is sharp and detailed, and the first hand accounts and photographs only add to this effect.  Just an excellent, exquisite work of recent prose.  Highly recommended!

Next up: King James Bible

In anticipation of The Irishman

I'm really looking forward to Martin Scorsese's next film, The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro.  As enjoyable as Scorsese's post-Gangs of New York films have been, they have not had the same power as his initial work with Robert De Niro.  Although I really like The Departed, Shutter Island, and others, his best remain Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and GoodFellas.  So, it will be interesting to see if The Irishman achieves that same level of quality.

Rabbit, Run and The Centaur

Thus far, the John Updike novels that I have read are Rabbit, Run and part of The Centaur.  I gave up after reading about a third of The Centaur because it was just so hard to read!  Rabbit, Run wasn't easy to read, either, and I honestly wasn't expecting Updike to be so challenging.  At times, his writing can be quite clear, crisp, and engaging, but at other times he can be about as difficult as James Joyce.  So, no more Updike for now.

Up next: Killers of the Flower Moon

All the Money in the World

Just got back from Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World.  Honestly, this might be the best film I've seen all year.  Unbelievable cinematography, brilliant acting, just great, great stuff.  It tells the story of John Paul Getty, oil magnate, and the kidnapping of his grandson by terrorists.  He initially refuses to pay the whopping 17 million dollar ransom, but with negotiation, compromise, and cajoling from the boy's mother, Michelle Williams, they eventually reach a compromise with the terrorists.  The human element of the story is inescapable, and we get to really know these characters.  The movie also takes us to many interesting places, as we witness the opulence of J. Paul Getty's lifestyle and the lows of the terrorists' dwellings.  The whole story is an epic journey, and one well worth taking.  Recommended!

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

This holiday I was able to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi with my family.  It might be my personal favorite Star Wars.  I liked how atmospheric everything was, and how evil the bad guy was.  Everything looked very iconic and shining, much more so than the other Star Wars.  Even though I missed the first thirty minutes or so, I really enjoyed it.  Check it out!