Rainy Day Movies and Books

Warning: long, boring post --  movie reviews and a book meme

The Sun is out! Finally! After pissing down snot for almost a solid two weeks, there is bright, bright sunshine and everything is using this brief dry spell to try and de-soak. I used this intermission as an excuse to run up to the store early this morning to return the outstanding film: "A Song For Bobby Long."

I just love movies that take place in the south (this is set in New Orleans,) where the story tellers reign supreme and the music is divine. Scarlett Johansson is as delicious as ever and I swear, the more she matures, the more her face mirrors her soul. Touched at an early age by the acting bug, she's definitely a natural, and several of her scenes made me use the sleeves of my robe til I remembered I had a box of tissue just a reach away. I don't know who Shainee Gabel is, but she is also young and brilliant as the director and screenwriter of this low-budget, independent film, which she adapted from the novel Off Magazine Street, by Ronald Everett Capps. (Related to the very talented and soulful original songwriter/performer in the movie, Grayson Capps, perhaps? If so: that family has talent brimming and spilling over their cups.) I don't know why I haven't heard too much about this movie, perhaps it was a sleeper, but I find that some of the best films slide under the door like that, a note passed in silence from a secret admirer down the hall.

If you lost a mom when you were young, or your dad was missing for most of your life, like mine was, or you lost both of your parents, like Scarlett's character did, or if you were raised part time by your grandmother, like I was, or if you like cranky, larger-than-life characters like how John Travolta plays Bobby Long, or enjoy the dynamics of small towns, this movie has a lot of soul to offer. I watched it twice, just to make sure I got all the beautiful narrative prose by Gabriel Macht, who played the young writer who follows his southern college literature professor into a world of alcoholic bums, spouting literary quotes, singing, telling stories and raising hell.

Now I must go visit New Orleans and sit on a bar stool, tap my foot to the live music, and listen to someone's life story, told by the stranger who just happens to be sitting next to me...
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I also had a look at "The Aviator," which came with an extra DVD about three or four hours long with additional material, attempting to cover the Universal Expanse of Hughes' genius and contribution to our modern day technology. I had no idea. I think he must have had a little help from ET, as his ideas made possible satellites, global communications, launches, probes and all the other geeky science-outer-space stuff I like. His brain was way ahead of his time.

Leonardo's skills are coming along quite nicely and I can't wait to see him evolve more as time passes, packing his tool box full of real (as opposed to imagined) life experiences. He blew me away the very first time I saw him in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," and it seems this Scorcese movie made him stretch out upon the rack of emoting. You can actually see him cross over into madness and channel the strange Mr. Hughes before and during the Senate hearings.

***
I just finished watching "Vera Drake," an anagram perhaps for Very Dark, set in 1950 England, in the days when abortion was still illegal and women had to take things into their own hands. I love traveling to other continents, especially back in time when Section 58 of an old English law established in 1861 was re-birthed to bring this woman with a "heart of gold" up on charges for causing harm to a person, when her secret, home-assisted pregnancy termination went wrong. I would hope that all people could see this short, stark film, both people who believe in personal choice and those who believe that there should be no choice.

"Vera Drake" could easily have been a most excellent play, perhaps in the style of Ibsen or Strindberg, where the affluent have everything but happiness and the dirt poor, where everyone in the family must go out to work and there still might not be enough to eat, are the happiest of all -- perhaps because happiness is all they can lay claim to in their lives. The film, dedicated to a father that was a doctor and a mother who was a midwife, tried not to be too preachy but instead made a brave attempt to honor the tradition of "show, don't tell."
******

I had the most lovely surprise at the post office this morning: a heavy box full of books. These were used books, in excellent condition, carefully sealed in individual plastic covering, stacked and packed in a box with other delightful surprises. This shipment arrived just two days after it was sent from Seattle from Jeff Sharman's used bookstore, the talented writer and photographer who has a site called Beans For Breakfast.

I had no idea he had a used bookstore, so imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this little gem: Using Books. It's easy to use and has a search engine, so in no time, I had amassed quite an order, knocking off some from my wish-list. His prices are very reasonable, the books are in excellent shape and I finally got hold of some hard-to-find author's works I have had trouble locating. Thanks, Jeff! You're a Peach! Go visit his online bookstore, he has an incredible list of titles and First Editions ... and if he doesn't have it, he'll find it for you.
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This brings me 'round to that damned book meme that's been floating around the blogosphere. I usually don't like seeing these things and pass them by, unless they are about film, books, or music, but Robbie McBean tagged me, damn it, and by EMAIL, just in case I didn't see the highly questionable and suspect "General Delivery" of his post, pointing to anyone who was unlucky enough to happen by his blog. So, this seems as good as any time to commence with the torture of making me think on a Saturday.

# of books that I own:

Not counting the boxes in the garage from college, leftovers that I COULDN'T sell back because by the time we were done with the classes, they were "out of date editions" (what a racket;) not counting the boxes in the closets, the spare room, or the stacks on the floor, JUST looking at my three bookcases, which are threatening to fall over from some stupid law of gravity because they're top heavy, even though I put all the often-used anthologies, giant English and foreign language dictionaries on the bottom rows, let's see ... maybe half a ton. (1,000?)

Last book I bought (not including textbooks:)

I'm SO GLAD you asked! I just happen to have a lovely new stack here:
Last Chance to See and Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams
Dr. Bloodmoney and The Zap Gun, by Philip K. Dick
Death Is a Lonely Business, by Ray Bradbury
Through Other Eyes: Animal Stories by Women, *I was looking for anything by Annie Dillard, and this was a nice surprise collection which also features three other female literary greats: Doris Lessing, Ursula LeGuin, and Alice Walker. AND: Jeff threw in just for me:
Klondike Kate, 1873-1957: The Queen of the Yukon, by Ellis Lucia. What a great surprise!

Last books I read:

Yeesh. I'm gettin' a headache. It takes me a long time to get through a book anymore, so since winter:

Faster Than the Speed of Light, by Joao Magueijo
The Celestine Vision, The Tenth Insight, God and the Evolving Universe, all by James Redfield
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Rebecca Wells;  and currently I'm involved in:
Things that Never Were, by Matthew Rossi
The DaVinci Code (for a year and a half now) by Dan Brown
Parallel Universes: The Search for Other Worlds, by Fred Alan Wolf; and I decided to re-read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, in honor of his movie coming out and because it's been so long since I read it the first time, that I can't remember it anymore.

Five books that mean a lot to me: (5? you're kidding, right?)

Pilgrim At Tinker's Creek, by Annie Dillard (or anything by her)
The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood (or anything by her)
Maus I & II, by Art Spiegelman
Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou (or anything by her)
Archy & Mehitabel, by Don Marquis
Watership Down, by Richard Adams

Crap! Anything that I own with the name of Ray Carver on it, or David Foster Wallace, or ANY of my poetry books mean more to me than anything ... in fact, if the house was on fire and I only had a few seconds to grab an armful of stuff, not sure I'd make it out in time...

See? This is why I don't much care for these memes, Robbie, you cheeky little monkey. It's like being forced to choose which of your children is really your favorite. C'est impossible.

Double crap. It's raining again. Hmmm.... new books....

Never read anything written by Philip K. Dick before. I hear he's really gooood.........

Comments

[philip roth]

holy crap now i feel guilty. even more guilty than i did before. not just your usual anglo saxon scottish presbyterian guilt, but real genuine jewish guilt. and i'm not even jewish. i'm not doing anymore blog memes and i'm not passing them on. and now i have to go find a suitable way to assuage my guilt.

i have a copy of some short stories by ursula k. leguin if you want it. she teaches at the univ. here.

[Kate S.]

Dear Mr. Roth,

Please go check out the video "The Human Stain," and then report back to me on how you thought they handled the guilt.
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Seriously, I had fun. And it made me go through my dusty books. I may even go through the boxes next.

LeGuinn teaches near you? That must be fun! I bet you get a lot of "out of towner" students, eh?

[Mary Lou]

I think I have an Anne DIllard book, what has she written? Is she a northwest author? I may have the wrong Anne...If I can find it I will send it to you.

[The Heretik]

Nice, Kate. Poetry is the essence of all things in an instant.

[john]

# of books that I own: about 700 (not including 3 boxes of comics)

Last book I bought (not including textbooks:) The Ghost Dance: The Origins of Religion by Weston La Barre

Last books I read: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (first time-liked the movie too) , The Wind is My Mother by Bear Heart, A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, World on Fire by Amy Chua...I know I'm forgetting some.

Five books that mean a lot to me: Huckleberry Finn¸ Catch-22, Childhood's End, "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", Watchmen

And it's will great effort to only name those. At times it's authors that heavily influence me over any one "book." I have to say that The Holographic Universe is right up there since it blew my mind for a while after reading it and before that it was Consilience by Edward O. Wilson. Right now Samantha Powers, A Problem from Hell is taking me a long time to read since at times it affects me too emotionally to keep reading.

But the five books are listed in the order they were read by me and they had a significant impact on my thinking. I'd put Poe in there, but he had a cumulative effect on me much like Harlan Ellison did much later. It is only scratching the surface. I'm fighting the urge to keep listing more authors.

BTW, The first Philip K. Dick I read was part of Dangerous Visions, which as a whole is one of the best collections of short stories I have ever read. (fighting urge again!)

[Missouri Mule]

I wish I could read.