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.