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08May

Crooked House

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by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie created some of the most memorable protagonists in mystery-novel history. But her secondary characters, including the villains, tend to be interchangeable from one book to the next. When an episode of Poirot that I first watched years ago plays again on TV, I can never recall “who done it,” because none of the characters stick to my memory. This isn’t the case in Crooked House, one of Christie’s personal favorites among her novels (writing it was “pure pleasure,” she said). I guarantee that even if you’re able to guess the identity of the culprit, you won’t soon forget him – or her.

06May

Reviews in Short: May 2015

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The Trap

Mladen and his wife Marija are young professionals living in Belgrade, where they rent a small apartment, drive a beat-up Renault and raise their 8-year-old son. When the boy is diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart condition, his desperate father considers desperate means to pay for an expensive operation. The Trap begins as a Strangers on a Train-type thriller (“you solve my problem, I’ll solve yours”) but it’s most effective as an absorbing riddle: How far would you go to save your child? Release: 2007 Grade: B+

*****

The Last Days

A moderately compelling thriller from Spain about an environmental plague that wipes out humans – except for the people who stay indoors, where the transportation system consists of rat-infested sewers and thug-patrolled subways. Days contains a few silly scenes, but it also has some good ones. The filmmakers were smart enough to realize that if we care about the characters, which we do, we won’t snicker (too much) when they get attacked by … oh, say a bear in a church. Release: 2013 Grade: B-

02May

The Weekly Review: April 26 – May 2

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Scratch That – The Week (Not) in Review

Sometimes we write entries for this page and then events conspire to make what we’ve written a load of crap. So we have to scratch those entries. For example …

What we wrote:

I’m warming to Inside Amy Schumer, which is the TV-show equivalent of someone farting in an elevator: vulgar and juvenile, but also very funny.

Scratch that:

I just watched the most recent episode of Inside Amy Schumer, and although it wasn’t overly vulgar, it also wasn’t very funny.

What we wrote:

This Orioles-White Sox game without fans was no big deal to the Minnesota Twins, who often play in empty stadiums.

Scratch that:

We wrote that on Wednesday. Since then, every Tom, Dick and Harry with an Internet connection has cracked the same joke about whatever lame team they happen to follow.

What we wrote:

Once upon a time, journalists at least pretended to be objective about the powerful people they cover, rather than tweet like giggly schoolgirls at a One Direction concert.

Uh, no need to scratch this one.

*****

Quote of the Week:

“He literally flew to Belgium to find wood for our kitchen, and he flew to Fiji once to get fabric. Like, he’ll fly all over the world just to find the best furniture, fabrics, architects. He’s really, really into it.”

— Kim Kardashian telling Jimmy Kimmel about her husband’s house-decorating obsession. Nice to know that, on top of their other contributions to society, Kim and Kanye are being careful to leave a small carbon footprint.

*****

Pearls of Twitter Wisdom:

*****

Funny lady Kristen Wiig, 40, walks buck naked through a crowded casino (above) in her new film, Welcome to Me. Could be a good career move by Kristen. When funny lady Mary Steenburgen walked buck naked through a crowded bar (below) in Melvin and Howard, she won an Oscar.

On the other hand, when funny lady Sarah Silverman, 40, took a buck naked shower (below right) in Take This Waltz …. no Oscars. Just a lot of horny males.

30Apr

So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed

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by Jon Ronson

Ronson’s book is certainly a timely arrival. I imagine that Brian Williams, Ben Affleck, and Britt McHenry placed early orders on Amazon. Shamed examines the repercussions of public humiliation, primarily via social media like Twitter, on several of its unfortunate targets.

Ronson’s conclusion is mostly anti-shaming, anti-mob mentality, but he doesn’t draw much of a distinction between a public dressing-down of the rich and powerful, and the same treatment aimed at the little guy. What can “destroy” — a word Ronson returns to repeatedly — a private citizen like Justine Sacco is probably no more than a nuisance to, for example, a Ben Affleck.

Also, I think most of us would agree that Sacco’s life was negatively impacted when tweeters hammered her for an ill-advised AIDS joke. Among other things, she was fired from her public-relations job. But was her life truly “destroyed”? I’m guessing that Hester Prynne would beg to differ.

25Apr

The Weekly Review: April 19 – 25

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Please don’t burden me with facts. I prefer to pillory people on the basis of first impressions and preconceived notions. Because, you know, sometimes first impressions and preconceived notions are spot-on. Therefore …

Dr. Oz – GUILTY!

Nobody’s stifling your “free speech,” you charlatan. They’re simply calling you out as a quack. Plus, you remind me of another egotistical loudmouth, Quentin Tarantino.

Ben Affleck – GUILTY!

You could have simply apologized for using your “star power” to intimidate PBS into censoring its show, but instead you took to Facebook to lecture the rest of us about race relations in America. So clueless. So arrogant.

PBS – GUILTY!

If you hope to preserve a shred of credibility … heads must roll.

Cops – GUILTY!

Too many thugs, too many Barney Fifes.

Oprah – GUILTY!

Stop foisting clowns like Mehmet Oz and Phil McGraw on the public.

Britt McHenry – GUILTY!

Used to be a pretty face and a college degree were all a girl needed to succeed. Wait … they do still work at Fox News.

Liberals’ Mansions – GUILTY!

I can’t take Earth Day seriously until Al Gore and Michael Moore move out of their energy-gobbling mansions.

Double Standards – GUILTY!

Hope you don’t plan on getting a sex change, ’cause they might change their minds and throw you into the clinker.

*****

The most shocking revelation from ABC’s Bruce Jenner interview? It wasn’t Jenner’s transgender announcement, nor was it his confession that he’s a Republican. No, the real mind-blower was that, after living for years with those awful Kardashian women, Jenner still wants to be female.

19Apr

Killing Lincoln

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by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

Political firebrand Bill O’Reilly took a break from his TV show and returned to his roots – teaching American history – to co-author this lively account of Abraham Lincoln’s final days. O’Reilly and Martin Dugard fashion their nonfiction books in the manner of fictional thrillers, and Killing Lincoln is certainly a page-turner. But as I turned those pages I had the same nagging question that afflicts me when I read most history books: How much “artistic license” did the authors take?

Do O’Reilly and Dugard really know what ran through Lincoln’s mind as he stood on the deck of a steamboat and observed the bombing of Petersburg, Virginia? Were the authors privy to John Wilkes Booth’s inner turmoil as he lay injured in a Maryland swamp, just days after assassinating the president? And yet, no historian can expect to achieve total accuracy. Killing Lincoln at the very least does a fine job capturing the tumult and horror of April, 1865.

18Apr

The Weekly Review: April 12 – 18

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I’m not sure that life in prison will be an effective punishment for convicted killer Aaron Hernandez. After all, he’s a jock who’s spent much of his adult life showering with other men. Won’t prison just be more of the same?

*****

Quote of the Week:

“The captain said that we’re turning around. And then he re-announced, ‘Don’t panic,’ which made everyone panic.”

— Alaska Airlines passenger Lexi Graf, above, describing the mood in the cabin after a baggage handler who fell asleep in the plane’s cargo hold woke up and began calling for help.

*****

From Monday’s Huffington Post:

Also from Monday’s Huffington Post:

Perhaps it should be open season on lazy headline writers.

15Apr

Reviews in Short: April 2015

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Life Itself

I liked Roger Ebert. He was that rare celebrity who would reply to reader comments on his Web site, or respond to e-mails, as he did once or twice to mine. I think Ebert was America’s most popular film critic because he merged an “everyday Joe” persona with keen intelligence to produce thoughtful, accessible reviews. And it didn’t hurt that his TV pairing with Gene Siskel was a movie-buff’s delight.

But Ebert could also be, as we learn in the documentary Life Itself, something of a jerk. And so when Steve James’s camera records Ebert’s lengthy battle with cancer, the movie is honest, but perhaps not as moving as it might have been with a more sympathetic subject. Ebert was a superb writer with unpredictable taste in movies, so it’s hard to know what he might have thought of Life Itself, but my guess would be “thumbs up.” Release: 2014 Grade: B+

*****

Flu

Here’s a big, dumb, special-effects-heavy disaster pic from Korea, inspired by big, dumb, special-effects-heavy disaster pics from Hollywood, but featuring that peculiar Korean mash-up of 1950s wholesomeness and modern sensibilities (the heroine is a single-mother virologist).

The action scenes are well done and exciting, but what ruined the movie for me was snippy Dr. Kim who, for unfathomable reasons, puts our hero, a virtuous emergency-services worker who is smitten with her, through hoop after romantic hoop. I mean, seriously, how many lives does the guy have to save – including those of Dr. Kim and her daughter – before she’ll give him the time of day? The plot involves an infectious disease spreading through the Korean peninsula, but I found myself hoping the flu would infect Dr. Kim. Release: 2013 Grade: B-

*****

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Critics adore this movie, presumably because 1) it’s an Iranian story (shot in California); 2) it has a female Iranian-American director; and 3) it is a mash-up of — according to some reviewers — the vampire/western/romance/graphic-novel genres. (I might debate the inclusion of “western.”) What most critics don’t mention are Girl’s artsy, pretentious asides and the interminable pauses during which the plot grinds to a halt and the audience falls asleep. Nice cinematography, though. If you want to see a better movie about a lonely, female vampire who finds love with a cute Muggle, I recommend Let the Right One In. Release: 2014 Grade: C

11Apr

The Weekly Review: April 5 – 11

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TV Update:

I’m only halfway through its 12-episode first season, but I am digging Fortitude on Pivot.

I said, “Fortitude on Pivot.” Fortitude: the name of the series. Pivot: the name of the channel it’s on. You’re welcome.

It’s television of the weird, what we might have gotten if David Lynch had directed The Thing. It’s odd, but it’s also atmospheric as hell, set at an isolated island-community in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, situated at the foot of an ominous glacier that never stops moaning and groaning.

**

Don’t know how much longer I can keep watching Outlander, which is morphing into Fifty Shades of Grey (Kilts):

*****

Question on Red Eye: “Joanne, how do you like your weenies?”

Joanne’s answer: “Small.”

*****

Pop Quiz:

In the pictures below, which is the character “Romero” from Escape from New York, and which is legendary actress Lucille Ball?

04Apr

The Weekly Review: March 29 – April 4

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How to Move to America and Win Over Americans:

Wander through an L.A. neighborhood with a CBS camera crew in tow, knock on doors until you find a willing participant, and then film your entire show from … Tommy’s house. Jeff Goldblum and Beck show up, and then you all play hide-and-seek in the messy house. Oh, and also bring along a big snake.

How to Move to America and Immediately Piss Off Two-Thirds of Your Audience:

Like most people, I hadn’t heard of Trevor Noah (below) when Comedy Central tagged him to host The Daily Show. So I watched his stand-up routine on Netflix. The guy is whip-smart and provocative. That’s a good thing. He’s also a professional comic who doesn’t know how to use Twitter. That’s a bad thing.

As for Noah’s fellow comics who leaped to his defense when all hell broke loose over his tweets (above), including Patton Oswalt and Jim Norton … they can dish it, but apparently they can’t take it. Aren’t stand-up comedians supposed to have thick skin?

*****

From The Huffington Post:

Oh yeah, if that doesn’t get her to change her mind, nothing will.

*****