Starbuck- full review

David Wozniak, he's kind of a loser.  He owes a lot of money, is the worst meat-delivery driver around, and is not reliable to family or friends.  He is, however, prolific in one way.  In the past, he made 693 sperm donations to a fertility clinic over a two year span, and the 533 children that were created in this process would like to meet him.  David hires an attorney, er, uses a friend to make sure that doesn't happen, but curiosity gets the best of him and he begins reading the files of these children and starts to believe that he has to do something for them.

His ex-girlfriend Valerie reveals that she is pregnant and early on in the film wants nothing to do with him because of the aforementioned unreliability.  David decides to do a complete life makeover and start doing the right thing for everyone, so he builds relationships with his "children". 

I thought the film was excellent for a variety of reasons- the characters are not cartoons or there just for laughs- the laughs seem built around the characters, which creates an emotional tie to the personalities.  There were a few minor quibbles- there's a scene where the 533 (or most of the 533) children have a getaway and camp together, and most of them were very good-looking, and there's a couple scenes where David visits a physically disabled son that are jarring.

There's an American version currently in preproduction with Vince Vaughn listed as part of the cast- not sure if he's going to be the lead character or the attorney friend.  Vaughn seems more suited for the wisecracking sarcastic friend (since that's what he usually does), but it should be interesting to see what changes are made.


 

Book Review- 11/22/63 by Stephen King

I'm a sports fan.  Have been since I started watching baseball back growing up in the late 80s, and I think that sports fans are drawn to hypotheticals.  What if the ball hadn't gone through Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series, leading to the Mets winning instead of the Red Sox?  What if Michael Jordan hadn't decided to have trouble with the curve in the mid-90s- how many titles might he and the Bulls have won? 

11/22/63 is all about the hypotheticals.  Jake Epping is a teacher in 2011, but has his world flip-turned upside down when Al Templeton, a man owning a diner comes to him with a discovery- inside his diner, there's a portal (and everytime I hear of a portal, I think of Super Mario 3 for some reason) that will transport someone back to September 9, 1958.  Templeton persuades Jake to go back in time to prevent president John F. Kennedy's assassination).  Jake decides to make a test run to see if he can prevent an adult-learning student's family from being murdered and the student from being injured.  After this test run, he agrees to go back to 1958 and try to save JFK.

11/22/63 is a first-rate page turner.  King's narration of both Jake Epping and alter ego George Amberson is riveting- it's observational (especially of differences between the two eras), witty, wry, and emotional.  It's a very long book (around 850 pages), but the journey is extremely worthwhile, and King's depiction of the 1950s and 60s and all the locales makes a reader feel like they're part of the action, a co-conspirator with Epping/Amberson. 

Time travel may seem silly to some, since it's physically impossible.  But for those who can put that aside and go along for the ride and see where time-travel might lead, it's definitely a must-read. 

Paranorman

Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts is under a curse- the curse of a witch, to be exact. 300 years ago, a little girl was declared to be a witch and executed and each year, someone must read from a certain book each year to keep the girl in her grave.  This task falls to Norman Babcock, a boy who has a gift that feels like a curse- he can see ghosts and connect with the dead.  He routinely speaks with his dead grandmother, puzzling his parents and sister and making him an outcast at school.

Being different can be a curse in school.  Any difference can make a child subject to taunting, teasing, and can make school (and home life) a miserable experience, and it's easy to put oneself in Norman's shoes throughout the film. He's ridiculed at school and by his sister and father at home, and really only has one friend that sticks by him throughout. 

Paranorman is a film probably best enjoyed by kids- there's a few grossout moments and the humor's more at the early teenage level, but does have some funny moments.  The stop-motion animation is well-done and the 3D is best in the closing scenes.  The voicework (by John Goodman, Jeff Garlin, Casey Affleck, Anna Kendrick, and Leslie Mann, among others) is also excellent.  I'd recommend it for kids especially, but adults will have a good time as well.

Tears for Fears- Saturnine Martial and Lunatic

 

Recently, I listened to one of my favorite CDs growing up, Tears For Fears Saturnine Martial and Lunatic.  It's a collection of B-sides from the popular 80s band, and what made it unique then and now was that many of the tracks played with existing melodies or ideas from TFF songs- for example,  the opening track "Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" has a woman rapping the lyrics to "Sowing The Seeds of Love".  "Pharaohs", a very laid back track, features some of the guitar work from Everybody Wants To Rule The World.  "Deja Vu and The Sins of Science" is noteworthy because of the lyrics but also the sounds effects, including what sounds like a van door closing (and, at one point, a cow mooing).  There's an alternate take of "Laid So Low" called "Tears Roll Down", and a cover of David Bowie's "Ashes To Ashes.  Overall, it's an interesting listen and one of the better B-side collections I've heard.

Live album review- Genesis- Live Over Europe 2007

Genesis is another group that reminds me of childhood- I'd always loved the Invisible Touch album, and later I got into some of their early work.  There's a debate on which is better- the Peter Gabriel era or the Phil Collins era.  Personally, I think each has its strong points- Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is strong PG Genesis, while I like the Abacab and Genesis albums better than Invisible Touch during the Collins era.

Collins left Genesis in the mid-nineties, and in 2007 they reunited (interestingly, the same year as The Police, another one of my favorites).  They released Live Over Europe in late 2007, but I didn't get around to it until just recently.

LOE starts with a trio of faster paced, recognizable tunes, but the first few tracks also signal one of the release's major problems- many of the songs are at lower keys, as Phil Collins' voice isn't what it used to be.  The version of Turn It On Again that leads off could be described as a polite version- definitely not as hard-rocking as the studio or earlier live versions.  No Son of Mine suffers from the same treatment, although it works slightly better, and I did enjoy Land of Confusion,the band seemed tighter than the 90s live release The Way We Walk (TWWW).

Next came a section that really bogged down- In The Cage/Afterglow was enjoyable at first but stretched out too long and was plagued by cheesy synth. Hold on My Heart is one of the dullest songs in the Genesis catalog, but I did enjoy Collins' singing in this version.  Home By The Sea was almost note-for-note the same as TWWW.

One of my favorite Genesis songs, Follow You Follow Me, was next, but this was more a light-rock version, especially the ending.  Then came an excerpt of Firth of Fifth, which featured some solid drumming. 

By this point, I started to notice some patterns.  The more popular songs were getting safe treatment, enjoyable but not much different than either the studio or previously released live versions.  The earlier-era Genesis songs were long (sometimes painfully long) and often featured cheesy synthesizers.  So followed the pattern until the end, and the problem with this release is that it's hard to have a show with both early prog-rock Genesis and the more commercial songs, as it almost seems directionless after a while.   Some more upbeat songs would have helped- a Misunderstanding or That's All mixed in would have livened things up considerably.  Instead, the band goes for a dated-sounding Domino (almost identical to TWWW) and then closes out with stale versions of Invisible Touch and I Can't Dance. 

Book Review- True Believers by Kurt Andersen

 

Karen Hollander, now 65 years old, looks back on her life as she prepares to write a revealing book about herself and her friends and their activities in the 1960s.  One friend calls the book "a suicide package" as the secrets revealed have the potential to be very explosive.

That's about as deep as I'm going to go with the plot summary, as to reveal any more would be a disservice, and I think one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much was that it nearly never went where I was expecting.  Andersen does an excellent job of revealing the secrets slowly as the book alternates between the present and the past, and also weaving history into the plot.  True Believers starts innocently enough, with Hollander and her friends hooked on Bond novels and carrying out their own imaginary (but yet not imaginary) missions between junior high and high school.  As they grow older, the turbulence of the Sixties draws them in and events unfold and are unveiled aptly by Andersen.

I highly, highly recommend True Believers, as it represents the best contemporary fiction I have read in quite a long time./

Wanderlust

Director:  David Wain

Stars:  Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux (future Mr. Aniston), Alan Alda

In Wanderlust, Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston playPaul and Linda Gergenblatt struggling financially after Rudd's character loses his job and the two lose their high-priced New York apartment.   Without palatable alternatives, the Gergenblatts return to an "intentional community" (the folks there don't like it being called a commune.  After initially resisting the lifestyle, they begin to embrace the change of pace, no longer obsessed with technology (Zenith televisions and walkmen, according to the "leader" Seth).

Overall, Wanderlust is not a great movie, but has some solid laughs.  Rudd and Aniston are mostly reactory characters in the zaniness that dominates the movie.  The characters on the commune are mostly stereotypical hippies and most grow tiresome pretty quickly.  The "leader" (although the residents don't call him that) is written pretty well.  

I wouldn't recommend Wanderlust highly.  It has its flaws- the R rating is for graphic nudity (and really unnecessary graphic nudity at that ), and the conflict between Paul and Linda later in the movie doesn't feel altogether genuine.  But watching Wanderlust isn't a waste of time- it's not as crude or obnoxious as something like Hall Pass.