Down and Dirty Pictures (Peter Biskind)

AMAZON I think two things when I read books like this--nasty, dirty, tell-all gossip-spreaders. Thing #1: Boy, this guy likes to dish, but he never really mentions the fact that his dishing career would be nothing without those he's dishing about. It's the symbiotic relationship of the gossip columnist, which, when understood, leads to: Thing #2: Boy, gossip sure is fun and funny. It reinforces all of those Hollywood stereotypes we love to love, while carefully neglecting all those normal relationships that don't make good reading. From what I understand, Biskind tends to build his hypothesis and then bend the interviews to match it, rather than the decidedly more scientific way. But hey, he's no scientist. He's a gossip columnist, right? Well, at least one subject (Ben Affleck) has complained that he was asked to interview under the impression he adding to balanced journalistic look at the rise of Independent Film, instead of a manual on why Harvey Weinstein and Robert Redford are bad, bad people with questionable personal habits. Actually, a website has sprung up (which I'm sure Miramax had nothing to do with) speaking out against him, with the sparky name of http://www.biskindblows.com, although not all the links are good. Three things annoyed me: 1. Biskind's hateful movie reviews, which he'd tack in on the end of a sentence as if his few words explain the reason these films didn't do so well (most of the reviews were for films that tanked). He'd just throw them in off the cuff, as if these opinions were not only common knoweledge (nobody disagrees over film, after all), but that the common knoweledge is just something he plucked of the tree of opinion to color his sentence, instead of making the book partly about his opinions instead of the "facts." 2. Early on he calls to task all those people "too afraid" to speak out against the characters he's set his sights on. Well, it's never good business to talk turkey against people you still want to do business with, but more than that, isn't this a case of the light drinker who tells the alcoholic that he doesn't have a problem? If you tell Biskind you'd rather not comment, suddenly you're a coward and must be suffering under the heavy weight of oppression from those you won't speak out against. 3. The index sucks. I found two or three mistakes and non-entries without even trying. Speilberg said his previous book was all lies, and maybe this one is too, but if you love movie gossip then you'll enjoy reading these lies as much as you enjoy the lies of the people they lie about. You know, those grandiose expensive lies they project onto those big sparkly screens. Personally, I love 'em to death.

Lucky Jim

AMAZON "He disliked this girl and her boy-friend so much that he couldn't understand why they didn't dislike each other." Kingsley Amis's first novel. Wickedly funny indictment of haughty academia, and those in pursuit of things in which their hearts cannot be found. The pranks and misadventures of the (what was then) every-man Jim Dixon may seem familiar to the sit-com aesthetes of the late 20th century, but expressed in Amis's thorough and explicit prose, the payoff is quite different and all the better than in the visual form. I guessed the ending before I reached it, but it's a journey-not-the-destination sort of novel (this no murder mystery, after all), so I took my time to get there, and was glad for the time I spent in the sentances.

Master & Commander (Patrick O'Brian)

AMAZON Every movie reviewer who covered the adaptation of this book had to talk about Patrick O'Brian ad infinitum. They had to express either: a) Yes, I am a big Patrick O'Brian fan, or: b) I've never read Patrick O'Brian, but my friends love him and they've told me just how great he is. Then they wax on about historical accuracy, amazing vision, epic battle-scenes, and eventually get around to the actors, directors, and special effects--y'know, the movie they're reviewing. It got to be so bad that eventually I decided that I had to read the damn thing myself. So, I cracked book one in the 20 book series (Kinsey Millhone eat your heart out) . I figure if I love the first, I'll start taking them on one by one (just like I promised myself with the various Edgar Rice Burroughs series 20 years ago. Let's not talk about that). Briefly: 1) Accuracy of battles? Damn, they're short! There are 20 movies in here, although I understand why they combined this and one of his other books. This one doesn't really have a McKee-approved inciting incident, conflict, end resolution. 2) More levity than expected. Re: How Maturin and Aubrey meet (they annoy each other at a music recital). 3) For all that happens, a fairly slow read. 4) Yes, he's nautically accurate. Or, he's nautically inaccurate in a way that seems nautically accurate to myself and the other nautically ignorant armchair adventurers (it's all about the authority, folks!). Will I read book two? Sure, sure -- right after I finish The God of Mars. Finished January 5th, 2004

Which Lie Did I Tell? (William Goldman)

AMAZON Okay. I confess, I'm writing a screenplay, with my friend Kent M. Beeson (see his site for a bit of writing about it. We both also succesfully completed NaNoWriMo last year.). As every young, eager, wide-eyed and starry idealed screenwriter knows, you must absorb the wisdom of the masters. This, of course, is great for the masters because of the number of young, eager, wide-eyed and starry idealists far outweigh the actual number of working screenwriters. Thus, they can reveal their souls and secrets without having to worry too much about their readers stealing their next doctoring assignment away. But unlike the majority of advice givers who are professional advice givers and part-time (or not-time) screenwriters, Goldman walks the walk. His is a perfectly balanced mixture of Hollywood insider gossip, sage advice, how-to-develop-ideas, and how-to-read-a-screenplay beginners manual. He's not afraid to let loose the neurosis, and shamelessly faces the music on his flops. Best of all, he reproduces about half of a screenplay he's working on and solicits feedback from five or six working writers he respects who are mostly quite brutal on it (great when you agree with them, painful when you don't). You come away (hopefully) with the knowledge that a great movie can turn on a dime, that screenwriting is about teamwork more than being a visionary (He recounts the number of times he’s had to kill that favorite idea or change something he knew would weaken the script at the bequest of a star, director, or studio head), and that if you work hard enough, name dropping is just one of the bennies of a life in film. The other is that if your particular fetish is finding out exactly how tall action-movie stars are, you're going to have the chance to stand next to them and see how they measure up. Finished Februrary 23, 2004

English Passengers (Matthew Kneale)

AMAZON You may or may not believe me when I tell you that I had no idea this book was a Booker finalist or won a Whitbread award (he says, as if he'd heard of the Whitbread award before today -- exposure of ignorance, for your amusement! Please enjoy). I didn't know because we got a library hardback, and they aren't so good about bragging about awards that come post-publication, are they? Better reviewers may review it better elsewhere. Let's just I loved these things: 1) The logical arguments against scientific Geology, and towards why the garden of Eden is located in Tasmania are worth the price of admission. 2) If colonialism gets your goat, be forewarned of it here. On the other hand, lots of colonialist Englishmen get to make fools of themselves for your amusement. I'd definitely recommend it. If you do read it, make sure you keep track of the narrator of the moment and the date from which they write. It's all 1st person and there are about 30 1st people. It's less complex than it sounds, but more complex than you might be ready for going in blind. Finished on: February 20, 2004

Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson)

AMAZON I like to imagine some guy in a dark-hooded robe, copies of Magick in Theory and Practice open to one side, old frayed Lovecraft novels on the other. He’s sitting at an altar with four candles burning, chanting indecipherable words in an even monotone, while in front of him, in the middle of a pentagram, sits an enigma machine. He’s trying to call up some Cthuluian spirit but first he has to decode the incantation before the candles run out. (acutally finished on 01/21/04).

Cold Mountain (Charles Frazier)

Amazon I know I started this little blog-thing-experiment to log the movies I've seen this year, but I decided (despite the misleading URL) to log books as well. Since I've read this book and seen the movie quite recently, I'll compare the two instead. Cold Mountain the book and Cold Mountain the movie are like the little angel and devil on your shoulders. Both look just like you, but underneath their intents are completely different. The book uses a love story as an excuse to tell Civil War Stories. The movie uses the Civil War as an excuse to tell a love story. Problem being, the love story is not one to rate among the ages. It's a love story of only the impression of love each character carries with them, and not the toothy, solid love you can pop your corn to. It's wistful and intellectualized love, used by each character for their own purposes. When Ada and Inman finally face each other in the book, they are wondering how the reality of the other might sure up to the pathways they've so deeply cut through their neurons. When their little-devil-mirrors face each other in the movie, there is no intention behind their eyes other then to fulfill the Emotional Cinema 101 plot-point guide. You know what’s going to happen. The book's Odyssean journey away from the underworld of the war is seething with mud, meat (bruised, pierced, shot and rotted) and murder. It’s coated with lust (blood and body), lord and labor. It has a lead-metal tang and an aching-muscle doggedness that chill. The cruelty of life and cruelty of spirit imposed on every character give an arc to their story—a digging from the hole of war to the hill of peace. The movie looks pretty when it shows gore, but it never truly grits up. Dirty faces don’t make dirty souls. But, specifically, let me list a few particular things I disliked about the movie in comparison to the book (even given my understanding of how much a story need be changed for the shift in medium. Also—potential spoilers ahead—ye been warned). 1. Foremost—the movie imposed race into the story. This may sound odd for a story about the civil war, but one of the things about the book that made it interesting was Inmans (and, frankly, all the characters) non-feelings about race. They were Southerners fighting to keep slavery, but it wasn’t their cause. Inman wasn’t a slave owner (or pro-slave), but he was certainly no abolitionist. Ada’s father, who owned slaves in the movie, was a non-Baptist, non-traditional (read: liberal) preacher in the Deep South. It would be likely (although subtextual) that he would be gently leading his flock towards a more healthy view on race relations. But the movie made Ada and Inman modern liberals by putting them in positions where they had to defend or show kindness to slaves. This makes the war their war, when the harsh reality of the book is that they were involved in a fight that had little to do with them except for its overwhelming imposition into their lives. 2. Tegue. Oh man, what a mess. They lost an opportunity and gained horrible formula by making this man and his deputies the sneering, snarling bad guys. The acrobatic-albino sharpshooter was a laughably ridiculous character, and his very existence and actions early in the movie completely undermined the reason for his actions (and negated the tension it created) at the end. Plus, giving Tegue an interest in Ada’s land was trying to create tension while losing the tension that the original story created. It was the Franco-American Italian food of screenwriting. What they did with Sally Strangler and family was the cinematic equivalent of the modern-primitives dance/sex scene in the second Matrix. Talk about unnecessary. 3. They shouldn’t have shown the battle at the beginning. It was a great Civil War re-enactment in the wrong movie. In the book, his wounds drive him home. His disgust with warring drives him home. In the movie, Ada drives him home. What matters the battle? It was gratuitous. At the very least, they should have shown this in flashback only. By starting with text on the screen and showing enemy characters before anybody else, the viewer is put in the position of dispassionate observer. They could have hooked you right away with close emotional ties to Inman if you had been close to his gory, bloody neck and the flies infesting it in the hospital to begin with. 4. Stobrod's music. In the book, Stobrod finding his voice is a metaphor for his own transformation. The moment where he first plays for the soldier who doesn't want to hear one of his few tunes (which I have no argument with how they handled in the movie--crossing Stobrod with Inman early on) hints at the melancholy and strangely original voice he discovers. By shoving old moutain standards on him later in the story, they undermine the character who finally found his voice after a lifetime of searching. Some of the most endearingly lyrical passages in the book were of describing Stobrod's powerful music. Too bad they didn't even really attempt in the movie. I'll bet T-Bone would have been up for the task. All that said, the acting was just fine. Of note is Phillips Seymour Hoffman (always spot on), Natalie Portman, who really shone in her role, and surprisingly good is Renee Zellweger who had no control over the stupid changes they made to her character, so cannot be faulted for literacy (when in the book the beauty of the relationship between Eda and Ruby is that Ada is all books and no street and Ruby is all street and no books). Which is not to say that Nicole and Jude were poor—they were quite good. But they could have been great if, say, Michael Winterbottom had directed it ala The Claim. Anthony Minghella did a disservice to the text when the adaptation could have easily become Apocalypse Now for the Civil War set. Like poet Heather McHugh says: using a synthesizer to imitate a violin is a waste of an opportunity.