Superman, short stories, kung fun, Sister Fidelma and Thursday Next
I promised reviews of what I read and watched on the vacation. To save space on people's f-lists, though, I'm going to put them all behind a cut appropriately named
So as I said, we went to Universal City to see Superman Returns on the IMAX screen. Some scenes were in 3-D, which was both neat and annoying. Neat because the effects really popped out in certain scenes; annoying because you had the glasses on, then off, then on, then off. Overall, I would say I enjoyed the movie but did not think it was anywhere near as great as it should have been with Bryan Singer directing, the guys who wrote X-2 on the script, and Kevin Spacey in a major role. I thought Spacey was wonderful. Over the top? Yes. But it worked for me. Parker Posey was hysterical and thank god she was not just a retread of Miss Tessmacher. Sam Huntington as Jimmy Olsen was just right ... a little baby-faced but funny. Frank Langella was given even less to do as Perry White than Jackie Cooper was; he has the right look and that's about it. James Marsden was terrific, far better than his last two turns as Cyclops IMHO. I agree with whoever it was that said you just can't help but feel bad for the guy -- anyway you look at it, he's being dicked around by Lois. Kate Bosworth was a non-entity -- there was nothing particularly spunky or Lois Lane-ish about her Lois Lane. She could have been playing any intrepid reporter. I thought Brandon Routh was very good -- others said that he played Clark like a cartoon of Chris Reeve's already buffoonish take on the character, but I didn't really see it that way. I think he did the best he could with the material he was given, and considering how slavishly the script re-trod the same material the first movie did, he and Spacey didn't have much to work with in the way of expanding their characters beyond what Reeve and Hackman did. The plot had several gaping holes (not the least of which was the famous "amnesia kiss" from Superman II), but the special effects were terrific. Overall, I'd give it a grade somewhere in the B range.
The other movie I saw for the first time while on the trip was Kung Fu Hustle, which I thought was absolutely hysterical. I will admit that as much as I enjoy Hong Kong wire-fu movies, I am not a fanatic devotee ... so I'm sure a lot of the in-jokes went right over my head. But I loved all the fight sequences and thought a lot of the dialogue was just downright funny.
On the reading front, I followed through on my plan to cach up on my short story reading. I went through all the back issues of The New Yorker that I'd been neglecting, and tore out the fiction pieces. I read 12 out of the 14 stories I brought with me. Made lots of notes about them in my actual journal, analyzing what worked for me and what didn't. Most of them were good. I enjoyed two different stories by William Trevor, whose name I know I should know, if that makes sense. I was pleased to have a Jhumpa Lahiri story in the mix since I enjoyed her novel "The Namesake" so much. There were two other stories by Indian women, one of which worked for me and one which didn't. There was a Solzhenitsyn excerpt which made me realize just how little Russian Lit I've actually read -- we didn't have a Major Russian Authors course at Elmira as far as I remember. Many of the stories were in the first person; many had to do with damaged relationships. One was actually a mystery; one read more like a piece of battlefield reporting than a story. I'm glad I made this effort though. It is why I subscribed to the magazine in the first place.
In retrospect, I started and ended the trip reading about strong female characters, which is appropriate since I was going to spend time with one of the strongest women in my life.
On the way to LA, I read The Jane Eyre Affair, the first Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde. It is hard to describe the Thursday Next books. They're kind of alternate history, and kinda sci-fi, and kinda comedy, all rolled into one. In a world that considers literature more important than we consider sports, Thursday is a "LiteraTec," one of the British Police's SpecOps -- departments that specialize in less than common crimes. Thursday's department investigates classical literature forgeries, hoaxes, etc. When her Uncle (think Q from Bond mixed with Caractacus Potts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) invents a "Prose Portal" that allows you to travel into any book, a master criminal steals it and starts killing famous fictional characters. Thursday has to go into the books to save them, and discovers that there are people, herself included, who can move into and out of the life of a book without needed an external device to do so. This first book is the setup for the whole series, and I am anxious to read the rest of the set someone gave me months ago. Thursday is a great character -- she's been through the mill (is a veteran of the Crimean War, which on this Earth is still raging, has seen her brother's memory thrown into disrepute, is in danger of losing her job) and still hangs in there, tenacious and funny and straightforward. A character it's easy to fall in love with.
On the way back from LA, I read a book Karen had given me off of her shelf: Absolution By Murder, the first of Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteries. Fidelma is a "religeuse" (he goes out of his way to avoid calling the Sisters "nuns") in 7th century Ireland. She is also a "dalaigh of the Brehon courts," which essentially means she is empowered to investigate crimes and see justice done -- half detective, half lawyer. She is another very strong woman. In this first book, she is out of her element, attending a church synod in Northumbria which is at that time a Saxon nation, when a fellow Irish nun is murdered. Fidelma finds herself forced to work with a Saxon monk named Eadulf to solve the crime (and several related crimes that come after). Along the way she stands up to some very dangerous men, and even to the Oswy, High King of The Saxons and to some very powerful church officials. Needless to say, she solves the mystery. There are quiet a few Fidelma books -- anyone who, like me, likes the Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters will probably enjoy this series as well. A caveat: the first two-thirds of this first book are heavy on setting the world up, explaining the political and religious situations; there is much repetition of basic background information. Work past it. In the last third of the book, you'll be glad you put the effort in. Another series I look forward to exploring in the future.
If you're still with me -- thanks! I hope these reviews invite some response.
So as I said, we went to Universal City to see Superman Returns on the IMAX screen. Some scenes were in 3-D, which was both neat and annoying. Neat because the effects really popped out in certain scenes; annoying because you had the glasses on, then off, then on, then off. Overall, I would say I enjoyed the movie but did not think it was anywhere near as great as it should have been with Bryan Singer directing, the guys who wrote X-2 on the script, and Kevin Spacey in a major role. I thought Spacey was wonderful. Over the top? Yes. But it worked for me. Parker Posey was hysterical and thank god she was not just a retread of Miss Tessmacher. Sam Huntington as Jimmy Olsen was just right ... a little baby-faced but funny. Frank Langella was given even less to do as Perry White than Jackie Cooper was; he has the right look and that's about it. James Marsden was terrific, far better than his last two turns as Cyclops IMHO. I agree with whoever it was that said you just can't help but feel bad for the guy -- anyway you look at it, he's being dicked around by Lois. Kate Bosworth was a non-entity -- there was nothing particularly spunky or Lois Lane-ish about her Lois Lane. She could have been playing any intrepid reporter. I thought Brandon Routh was very good -- others said that he played Clark like a cartoon of Chris Reeve's already buffoonish take on the character, but I didn't really see it that way. I think he did the best he could with the material he was given, and considering how slavishly the script re-trod the same material the first movie did, he and Spacey didn't have much to work with in the way of expanding their characters beyond what Reeve and Hackman did. The plot had several gaping holes (not the least of which was the famous "amnesia kiss" from Superman II), but the special effects were terrific. Overall, I'd give it a grade somewhere in the B range.
The other movie I saw for the first time while on the trip was Kung Fu Hustle, which I thought was absolutely hysterical. I will admit that as much as I enjoy Hong Kong wire-fu movies, I am not a fanatic devotee ... so I'm sure a lot of the in-jokes went right over my head. But I loved all the fight sequences and thought a lot of the dialogue was just downright funny.
On the reading front, I followed through on my plan to cach up on my short story reading. I went through all the back issues of The New Yorker that I'd been neglecting, and tore out the fiction pieces. I read 12 out of the 14 stories I brought with me. Made lots of notes about them in my actual journal, analyzing what worked for me and what didn't. Most of them were good. I enjoyed two different stories by William Trevor, whose name I know I should know, if that makes sense. I was pleased to have a Jhumpa Lahiri story in the mix since I enjoyed her novel "The Namesake" so much. There were two other stories by Indian women, one of which worked for me and one which didn't. There was a Solzhenitsyn excerpt which made me realize just how little Russian Lit I've actually read -- we didn't have a Major Russian Authors course at Elmira as far as I remember. Many of the stories were in the first person; many had to do with damaged relationships. One was actually a mystery; one read more like a piece of battlefield reporting than a story. I'm glad I made this effort though. It is why I subscribed to the magazine in the first place.
In retrospect, I started and ended the trip reading about strong female characters, which is appropriate since I was going to spend time with one of the strongest women in my life.
On the way to LA, I read The Jane Eyre Affair, the first Thursday Next novel by Jasper Fforde. It is hard to describe the Thursday Next books. They're kind of alternate history, and kinda sci-fi, and kinda comedy, all rolled into one. In a world that considers literature more important than we consider sports, Thursday is a "LiteraTec," one of the British Police's SpecOps -- departments that specialize in less than common crimes. Thursday's department investigates classical literature forgeries, hoaxes, etc. When her Uncle (think Q from Bond mixed with Caractacus Potts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) invents a "Prose Portal" that allows you to travel into any book, a master criminal steals it and starts killing famous fictional characters. Thursday has to go into the books to save them, and discovers that there are people, herself included, who can move into and out of the life of a book without needed an external device to do so. This first book is the setup for the whole series, and I am anxious to read the rest of the set someone gave me months ago. Thursday is a great character -- she's been through the mill (is a veteran of the Crimean War, which on this Earth is still raging, has seen her brother's memory thrown into disrepute, is in danger of losing her job) and still hangs in there, tenacious and funny and straightforward. A character it's easy to fall in love with.
On the way back from LA, I read a book Karen had given me off of her shelf: Absolution By Murder, the first of Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteries. Fidelma is a "religeuse" (he goes out of his way to avoid calling the Sisters "nuns") in 7th century Ireland. She is also a "dalaigh of the Brehon courts," which essentially means she is empowered to investigate crimes and see justice done -- half detective, half lawyer. She is another very strong woman. In this first book, she is out of her element, attending a church synod in Northumbria which is at that time a Saxon nation, when a fellow Irish nun is murdered. Fidelma finds herself forced to work with a Saxon monk named Eadulf to solve the crime (and several related crimes that come after). Along the way she stands up to some very dangerous men, and even to the Oswy, High King of The Saxons and to some very powerful church officials. Needless to say, she solves the mystery. There are quiet a few Fidelma books -- anyone who, like me, likes the Brother Cadfael mysteries of Ellis Peters will probably enjoy this series as well. A caveat: the first two-thirds of this first book are heavy on setting the world up, explaining the political and religious situations; there is much repetition of basic background information. Work past it. In the last third of the book, you'll be glad you put the effort in. Another series I look forward to exploring in the future.
If you're still with me -- thanks! I hope these reviews invite some response.