Three Things...

The first thing is that I watched The Madness of King George over the weekend-I'd never seen it before. This is a great movie-Nigel Hawthorne was amazing-blustering, preening and arrogant in the beginning, he turns into a frightened patient (and you would be frightened too, if you had to deal with the sort of medical treatment he was subjected to). Helen Mirren's accent was not perfect but she was excellent in her part-the King may has loved her in spite of her lack of beauty but she still looked good. And Rupert Everett, despite wearing one of the worst movie wigs I have ever seen and beaten out in sheer bad hairness only by Colin Farrell in Alexander (a movie a refused to see because I couldn't get past his hair) still gave a great performance-also by turns arrogant,power hungry and a boy scared of and for his father. It was witty, clever and very moving at times and I really liked it.

The second thing is that I was looking through Amazon last week for a particular Christmas song (I'm still not in the Christmas spirit yet though) and saw a disc for Essential Christmas Songs-but I thought it said Existential Christmas Songs, which I thought would be much better-I'll work coming coming up with titles that express the essential depression of Existentialism along with holiday cheer-they CAN go together-in fact they go very well together.

Three is that I'm almost done with the second book of Charles Stross's series about The Merchant Princes and I like it almost as much as the first one. The heroine is resourceful and smart, which is a refreshing change and the bad guys actually have reasons for being bad besides wanting power and money. My friend Y said he likes Stross because he writes about ideas and that's really clear in this book when Miriam (the main character) discovers a new world aside form the other one she already knew and wants to set up a business there-and she needs to import ideas and inventions to it because they have capital and manpower but are stuck in a pre-industrial society with no industrial revolution in sight. Miriam is going to change that, and bring about women's suffrage and freedom of the press as well.

Fourth is that I really feel like re-reading Declare, Tim Powers' great novel of WWII espionage, the Cold War, the Middle East, Mt Ararat, genies and ghouls. This is a great book-full of memorable lines, engaging characters and a story that won't quit. I don't know how someone can look at Kim Philby, Communism , the Bedu (that would be the Bedouin) and think genies explain all the discrepancies, but Powers does an amazing job of tying all the threads together. It's a great book, but my only copy is hardcover and I don't feel like lugging it around so I may have to buy a paperback version.

Okay, it was four things-so sue me....

Christmas Traditions or What I'll Read Over Christmas

I don't have many Christmas traditions-my mother has enough for me with decorating the tree, putting out the beat-up Nativity scene, setting up the Dickens Village and getting into fights with every member of the family. And while I love Christmas lights and a big tree, there's no way I'll do it in my apartment. The most I'll do is make cookies and buy gifts-I'm just too lazy to put up the lights anything else-the thought of me wrestling a tree into the Jeep and then getting it into my apartment makes me shudder-and a fake tree is just wrong. I'm okay with all of that as I'll get the whole Christmas scene at my parents' house. But I do have one tradition that I started about 10 years ago-I read Traveling With the Dead by Barbara Hambly. Hambly has written many different kinds of books-usually more towards the fantasy side of fiction than hard sci-fi-but Traveling With the Dead is a pure vampire story. I love vampire stories-from Interview With the Vampire (good), The Vampire Lestat (this may be Rice's best book) and Queen of the Damned (I really like it) to funny vampire books (Undead and Unwed and Bloodsucking Fiends are really funny books) to the historical novels of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Traveling has much in common with Yarbro's books, in that they are both very historical and main vampire in it can be a sympathetic figure-but Hambly makes the story her own and owes very little any other writer. Traveling is the story of James and Lydia Asher-James the former spy in Her Majesty's Service, who had to quit after he was forced to shoot a 16 year old boy who otherwise would have turned him in as a spy and Lydia-the heiress who defied her father to become a doctor. Disinherited for marrying the middle class James, she nonetheless got all the money after her father died and didn't change the will in time. Set in the early part of the 20th century and spanning a great deal of the European continent, James and Lydia have run into vampires before, in the previous book, Those who Hunt the Night (good but not great). In this book, James is returning from family business when he sees the enemy (in this case an agent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) speaking with a man he knows to be a vampire. In an instant, he decides he must follow them-what if the enemy has found a way to make vampires work for them? The spy in him could never let that happen, despite having given up service to the Crown 10 years ago. And so the tale begins-James follows Karolyi (the enemy) and Ernchester (the vampire) to France, Austria and Turkey, all the while traveling with Ernchester's wife-also a vampire many years old. And in pusuit is Lydia, who believes James is walking into a trap. She has enlisted the help of Don Simon Ysidro, also a vampire many years old, who owes her husband a favor for helping him in the previous book. Hambly has a way with words-her descriptions of Vienna and the surrounding woods are lush and beautiful, the vampires are seductive and gorgeous, humans are petrified and determined. Despite all the physical traveling that happens, the greatest journies in this book are the ones that happen internally. James discovers that he can't leave being a spy behind-and that's okay as it saves his life. Lydia learns that she can just about anything she wants if she puts her mind to it-from traveling with a vampire or saving her husband. And the vampires themselves learn who really wants to live and who is ready for death.

It's hard to say why I feel the need to re-read this book every year at Christmas. Maybe it's that I like the ending-which in it's own way, is just as confusing as Funeral in Berlin. Every time I read the ending, I have the same reaction-which is "what? Who is the bad guy? Have we seen him before? And is Simon really in love with Lydia? and did the traveling companion forced upon her by Simon in order to giver respectability-did she really sell her out? And did Simon really fall in love with her?" The answer to the last question is yes, all the others have a pretty ambiguous answer and I like that. And why at Christmas? No answer for that-I read it for the first time at Christmas and decided to re-read it the next year, so maybe that started it. I know it's strange but I have no explanation.

Also, I'm almost done with The Bridge of Birds. I can't say it's fantasy-it bills itself as "a novel of an ancient China that never was" and it's great. It's NOT historical but it is really well written great story with many moments that are pretty funny. I don't like fantasy but this isn't twee or precious but it is entertaining and intelligent. There are two books that follow it-my friend Y who recommended it has promised me one of them in early january and I'm looking forward to seeing him AND reading the book (seeing him tops the book, just so you know). And I had to pick out the books i wanted to read while on vacation-yes, it took me longer to pick the books than pick my clothes and I love clothes. But I've whittled it down to 20 and I'll weed from there. Better too many book than too few-I'd hate to get stuck reading my parents' books (they actually have good taste in books except for the times my mother tries to get me to read chick lit) when I have so many that I WANT to read.

More posts later on what I decided to take with me (books, not clothes)

I Hated This Movie

So, I went to see The Holiday over the weekend and that's two hours of my life that I won't get back-on the bright side, I don't want those two specific hours back in any way shape or form.
I'm not a chick flick kind of person. While I love the romantic comedies of the 30's and 40's, the modern version leaves me cold, except for a select few (Valley Girl, and that's from the 80's). I can't take Meg Ryan's romantic comedies or Reese Witherspoon's movies-if Mark Ruffalo is in it, I'll think about it but my favorite movie is The Terminator for God's sake! But I saw the preview for The Holiday and I thought Kate Winslet's in it! And Jude Law and Jack Black-how bad could it be? So bad that I did not for one minute believe a word these characters said in any way. I've heard robots say their lines with more conviction and Babe the pig was certainly more expressive. I did not for one minute believe that Jude Law loved Cameron Diaz (who was dressed very well but made unbelievingly annoying facial expressions). I did believe that Jack Black could develop a crush on Kate Winslet, who, while she looked cute, had to say some incredibly stupid lines. How could this movie try to compare itself to The Lady Eve or His Girl Friday? Those women had the wittiest lines ever and knew that they were smart and clever. These two beautiful, intelligent women acted like idiots without a brain cell or ounce of gumption between them. They acted like the kind of woman that Barbara Stanwyck and Rosalind Russell would run rings around and then steal their boyfriends because no one would undstand why the leading man was with either of them. I feel the need to nitpick a few things as well...

1) If Jude Law is a book editor in London and Cameron Diaz owns a trailer cutting company in Los Angeles, why is Jude more tan than Cameron? Hitting the tanning salon too much?

2) Why was there an odd tribute to Eli Wallach? Was it just to name all those old movies? I can get behind a tribute to old movies (and you would be MUCH better off watching The Lady Eve or The Philadelphia Story than this piece of dreck) It's not like he hasn't had a long and stoied career-and he's still working! The man is 92 and he gave the best performance in the whole movie, so maybe that's why he was there.

3) Their houses were beautiful and Cameron's clothes were nice. I did wonder how book editors could afford such nice digs, but maybe they have family money.

This movie was extremely annoying and badly written-you would be much better off watching The Terminator. I watched Minority Report the same night (despite my dislike of Tom Cruise and the unbelievable happy ending that felt really tacked on) and was much happier.

Christmas

I am NOT in the Christmas spirit this year. I've bought some gifts that I think everyone will like (No, I'm not telling. You'll have to wait). But other than that...I'm still waiting for the spirit to hit. Holiday cards? Nope. Decorations? I don't think so. I have baked, but as that's a usual occurence with me, it's not very Christmassy-although I did decorate them a little. We'll see what happens-I don't want to be Scrooge this year-that job usually falls to my Mom. But I AM getting a Kitchen-Aid mixer for Christmas (my sister told me, and let me say it did not take much prying on my part to get it out of her). So this means I can do even more baking! Yay! I can't wait to open it up.....the people in my office will love the goodies unless they're on a diet, in which case they'll hate me.

Billy Joel

Is it bad to admit that I like Billy Joel? Old Billy Joel-70's and 80's Billy Joel, not anything since the mid-90's really. So I was thrilled when my friend L got us tickets to see Movin Out here in DC. Yes, I know everybody else saw it in New York a couple of years ago, but I don't live in New York and if I did, I could only afford those off-off Broadway shows that are held in a room in PS 128's basement-like where I saw the play Matt and Ben. Anyway, we went on Tuesday night and it was great. I knew what it was-a dance to the music of Billy Joel but L thought it was going to be more like Mamma Mia and that they would sing the songs. In any event, they did not sing-there was a platform up above the stage for the guy who DID do all the singing (and played the piano as well) and a band. The first half was good-but everyone intensified their efforts in the 2nd half and it was amazing. The dancers were better, the music was more intense-it just seemed like the everyone really tried a lot harder later in the show-it helped that the songs were more dramatic thasn in the first half-Goodnight Saigon V Only the Good Die Young? No comparison). And the dances were a great mix of classical and modern dance-they were often mixed within the same scene and often by the same dancer-it was interesting and cool. And the guy who sang and played the piano was great-he put a lot of heart into the songs in the 2nd half-it was interesting, because from where we sat, we could see him looking down aften at the dancers-like he was singing the soundtrack to their lives (which he was) and he wanted to see what they were doing. I will say I thought the whole Uptown Girl part was just wrong-that song is about Uptown NYC-where the Upper Class lives and in the dance, she was a tramp! Hanging out with mechanics from Jersey!Ignoring the fact that he wrote that song for Christie Brinkley, it still made very little sense. But the songs were great, the dancers were wonderful and a good time had by all.

One Book and Three Movies

So Charles Stross has redeemed himself (at least temporarily) because Book One of The Merchant Princes is a great read. It's really entertaining and has some interesting ideas. It owes a lot to the fantasy of Roger Zelazny and the Chronicles of Amber (another series that I loved), so we'll see if he can maintain the quality. I like it mainly because I can't deal with fantasy that has castles and talking animals and it just very twee. I like hard-edged science fiction, and if I'm going to read fantasy then the fairies better be armed with some good weapons. This series may be set (occasionally) in an alternate world-but the barely post-feudal society is not pretty and twee (and I think Stross makes an effort for it NOT to be twee). A quick synopsis-Miriam Beckstein, former biotech reporter in Boston loses her job and an hour later gets a locket from her adoptive mother-and discovers that said locket can be used to transport her to another world where her family has lots of money, an enormous house and is basically that world's version of the Mafia. Far from being the honored countess she is, Miriam gets gets pulled into all the intrigue that can ensue when a long-lost heir to a fortune appears...

As for movies...I saw three and heard about one.

My friend told me he saw Dreamgirls and he liked it-the funny thing is that all we talked about was Jennifer Hudson-he thought Beyonce was pretty but not memorable while Jennifer stole the show. She does get the big number, but apparently does really well in the whole movie.

I went to see Bobby on Saturday and I liked it. It was clearly very heartfelt and had some really good performances (Freddy Rodriguez in particular) but it could have used some judicious editing. It couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a comedy, a drama or a portent for the future, and somehow the mix doesn't quite come off-it's a valiant first effort though (all the critics have said it's uneven and I can see why) but I still liked it-and the counteract is great.

My Netflix movie was The Man Who Would Be King. I remember when this movie came out and it was pretty much savaged by the critics, despite the fact that it starred Michael Caine and Sean Connery and was directed by the legendary John Huston. The basic plot is that Caine and Connery are soldiers who have served under the British Crown in India-they have now left the Army and have heard of a country where there are riches beyond belief. They mean to travel over the mountains and claim it for themselves-and things don't work out quite as they planned. This is the kind of movie that irritates me because it's just on the verge of being marvelous. There is a really good movie in here that's trying to get out and it's not happening. I blame John Huston, because some of the performances are great. Caine and Connery are believable as great pals and Caine is absolutely believable as a Cockney trickster. But Connery....He can be a good actor (aside from the whole Bond thing) but I had a hard time buying him as a disenchanted Scottish soldier looking for riches. His performance was off and the directing didn't help. Huston was a great director, but here the characters become caricatures and everything is a little over the top and not in a good way. There were times when it was entertaining though-and it's worth it just to see Michael Caine-he was great.

The last movie I saw was the original version of In Cold Blood, with Robert Blake and Scott Wilson and it was great. Filmed in black and white, it is a chilling telling of Truman Capote's famous story. Robert Blake plays Perry Smith, one of the killers of the Clutter family, with alternating sympathy and horror. Smith seems like a nice guy, with dreams of the future and nothing but bad luck on his side. You feel sorry for him, until he comes up with the line "Mr. Clutter seemed like a very nice man. I thought so right up until the time I cut his throat". I felt sorry for him (which was controversial at the time-you weren't supposed to have sympathy for killers in 1967) but when that line came out...It was chilling. I highly recommend it.

And one more thing-this article about how the writers of Battlestar Galactica work was fascinating. Did anyone see Friday's episode? It was amazing-and as close as a love story as this show will ever get. However, Adama's speech about how they got separated and how HE let them get separated was the main point of the episode and it was an amazing performance by Edward James Olmos (if he had actually been in Miami Vice, I might have liked it better. Maybe), but everyone was good.
Here's the link to the article-you would think a story about writing for a TV wouldn't be that interesting, but in this case, you'd be wrong.
http://www.slate.com/id/2154625/?nav=tap3