Spook Country

I believe I've said before how much I like William Gibson and that Neuromancer was the first SF book that made me a hard SF reader. The problem is, he wrote a lot of crap after neuromancer-I know, because I read it all. Finally, with his last book, Pattern Recognition, there was a return to form. Ironically, for some whose first book was set in a barely recognizable future, he's been getting closer and closer to present day-which he has now reached in Spook Country.
This is a great book-beautifully written, with fantastic imager (something that has always been his forte) but it's more than that. Spooks of all kinds inhabit this book-ghosts of dead friends, family, countries on the verge of not existing. Are the characters spooks as well? They seem to be of certain places, but they may not fit in, so flit about a bit like ghosts-along with the element of spying that seems to be happening. But are they spies? Is something sinister happening? Honestly, it's not clear until almsot the end of the book what the story is-and not only is the journey enjoyable, the arrival at the destination is as well.

In The Valley of Elah

I went to see In The Valley of Elah last week -it was quite good, except for a couple of things I'll get to later. First, the good...Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron are excellent. Jones is great at playing the tough guy who cares deeply but never shows his emotions. How much he feels may be shown in his actions (going to look for his son and digging and picking until he finds the truth) but he'll be damned if he comes out and says anything. As for Charlize Theron, while I thought her Oscar for Monster was well-deserved, she hasn't done much since to impress me-until now. Here's the story: Tommy Lee Jones' son is stationed in Iraq-he returns home with his until but almost immediately disappears. Jones goes to investigate the disappearance, as he was a MP when he was in the Army, but just a day after he gets to New Mexico from Tennessee, his son's remains are found out in the desert, cut into pieces and burned. What happened? He goes to the local police department, where Charlize Theron is a detective who wants to help, but is caught between her job, the local Army base and her fellow officers who believe she got the job by sleeping with the boss. Theron is great in this part-there's none of that "will they sleep together" stuff with Jones-he's very prim around her and there's no sexual tension, they are two people who want to find out the truth. And she so focused on her job that she's smart enough to learn from the old MP and use what he knows and what he can teach her-and that's what I liked about the movie. It's an investigation into what happened and is very much about people doing their jobs. Jones is a father, so it's his job to find out what happened. Theron is a detective, so it's her job to find out what happened. The son is a soldier...and this is where it's a bit murky. Is it his job to kill people? To torture people? What happens if by doing your job, you turn into someone you don't want to be? The son's nickname of Doc turns into a cruel joke, his friends and fellow soldiers turn out to be anything but and there is no happy ending for anyone, which actually worked out well for me-a movie about war (especially the one we are in now) can't and shouldn't have a happy and resolved ending-and the small scenes we see of the way (retrieved from his son's cell phone) are glimpses of hell-things that no one wants to beleive or see happen. What would it be like to see someone you love turn into a monster? Turn into someone capable of torture, of hate nad of heartlessness and then hated themselves for it? How bad would that be? I can't say I think this movies answers those questions-and I'm not sure it should-sometimes the asking is enough.
However, there were two things that bothered (and here's a warning that there are major spoilers ahead)...if his friends killed him by stabbing him at 42 times (and probably more) and then cut his body apart and burned it-wouldn't they have blood on them? If I have the timing right from the movie, they went to the strip club, had a fw drinks and got kicked out. Then they went driving around and went to see the whore-then they went out to the desert where they got into the fight and killed him and they the killers were hungry and took his credit cards to go eat, then went back to the base where they got rid of their clothes and went to sleep. Okay, so if they had on the same clothes they had on when they killed as when they went to the chicken place-no one noticed that they were covered in blood and maybe gasoline? And maybe looked a little scratched up from dragging a body into the desert? Come on, even in an Army base town, that had to stick out a little. And the other point is what happened at the end with the flag-Jones tells a handyman that to fly a nation's flag upside-down is to indicate that you are in deep shit and need help to get out-an extreme form of an SOS. I was really hoping at the end that I wouldn't have to see the flag upside-down, it's clear that this is war is a clusterfuck of monumental proportions, so we didn't need to see the flag to demonstrate that-it was a cliche in a movie that up until that point had been remarkably free of them.

I don't really want to talk about my netflix movie, which was House of D. There was a good movie in there, trying to get out, but didn't make it. Tea Leoni was great as a mother who recently lost her husband, Anton Yelchin was not great as the main character, a 13 year-old struggling to find his way and whose only friend is Pappass-a retarded Robin Williams, which should tell you all you need to know. Any movie where Robin Williams plays a character who is A) Retarded B) Quirky, C) A Rebel Who Is Trying To Change The System shoud be avoided at all costs and I should have known better. After seeing a great movie like The Lives of Others and then to watch this was such a letdown that felt mildly depressed afterwards. David Duchovny had pretty good to very good actors and he let most of them down. I will say that I liked Erykah Badu as the prisoner yelling at Anton Yelchin from her cell in the Women's House of Detention-that was probably the high point of the movie. From his directing and writing on The X-Files, I know he can do better, so I hope he improves because if it's worse than this...the mind boggles.

The Lives of Others

My netflix movie last week was The Lives of Others, the German movie that won the Best Foreign Film for 2006 (in what was, to me, the most hotly contested category that year). It's the story of two men-one is a writer (mainly of plays) and the other is the Stasi policeman assigned to listen in to his life. Dreyman (the playwright) lives with his girlfriend, a celebrated actress while Wiesler listens to everything they do, in order to find out whether Dreyman is a security risk/a dissident/because they want to. Wiesler believes in the East German Socialist cause-he views himself as a patriot, so spying on a playwright is not unheard of, especially in a country where everyone was turned against everyone else in order to preserve the East German state. But then Wiesler meets Minister Hempf, who takes a great liking to Dreyman's girlfriend, the lovely and talented (and a drug addict) Christa-Maria Sieland. Hempf uses his power to spy on the couple, he uses it to assault Christa-Maria and he uses it to try and destroy her. Dreyman knows some of this, enough to cause him intense pain. He knows Christa-Maria goes to see the Minister to she can continue to get the drugs and that she goes to keep them safe and it kills him. But it also kills Wiesler, who actually believed in the State-so when he realizes what the Minister is doing, he gets involved as well, instead of just listening...

This is movie is good on so many levels, it's almost ridiculous. It's intelligent, funny and moving in so many different ways. It starts off as it it's going to be a political thriller-with the state spying on its citizens to find out what they're doing-and it is. Then, it seems it will be about the abuse of that power by the state and it's about that too. Then it seems it will be about love and betrayal-and what people will do to protect the ones they love and what they won't do-and it's about that as well. And it's interesting-Dreyman and Sieland don't really change-they are trying to live their lives the best way they can, without betraying each other-but Wiesler changes just by virtue of listening to them and being a part of their lives, tangential as he may be. There is much to say about this time and place in which lovers, neighbors and strangers spy on each other in order to save them and to save themselves, but I don't want to give everything away. I'll just say that every performance is good-Sebastian Koch is very good as the playwright who is hurt by his lover's behavior and begs her not to see the Minister who could ruin their lives, Martina Gedeck is excellent as Christa-Maria, who doubts her own abilities as an actress, until she uses them in real life. But the best is Ulrich Muhe as Wiesler, a man who believes in what he is doing, until he sees the personal toll it takes-and attempts to help them. This is a great movie about love, honor,betrayal and trust and the cost to be paid for each.

The Larval Stage of a Bookworm

I stole the title of this post from the book I'm reading-Happy Days, H.L. Mencken's memoirs of growing up in Baltimore. it's a great book-very funny and slightly acerbic (I expected a bit more acerbity, but as his youth seemed to be quite happy, the lack of it is not surprising). But when I got to the chapter which shares the name of this post, I had to laugh-I've been called a bookworm all my life. I don't remember learning to read-it seemed that one day my sister was reading my favorite Dr Seuss book to me (One Fish Two Fish, which I made her read to me again and again, as she reminds me and which set a pattern followed to this day of reading my favorite books again and again) and the next day I was reading them myself. I always read the newspapers-it amused my Mom and Dad no end that in middle school and high school, I was always up and ready, had eaten breakfast and read the newspaper and was ready to go when my father was (he gave us all rides to school) while my sister and brother were difficult to get out of bed and scrambled to get ready. So what did I read, once I had started? Anything that I could find. I went into my siblings rooms and stole their books-I went into my parents room and stole their books (the cover of an old paperback version of Captain Blood scared me for ages-it wasn't until many years later I found out it was an historical mystery-it looked a something about the Devil or perhaps a vampire and looked way too scary at eight years old. So, I read the Hardy Boys (my brother), Nancy Drew (my sister), Trixie Belden (both of them, I think). Yes, all were mysteries-even then I had no use for plain fiction, I found it boring. And I discovered Poe-reading Poe changed my life. I knew then there were more stories out there like this-that scared me and that I liked it. In 5th grade we had to memorize a poem and recite it to our class and while my classmates chose poems about flowers and trees and nature, I memorized the first stanza of The Raven. I think my teacher was a little surprised by my choice (although she never said anything) but she did seem pleased. (although I think it wasn't too long after this that I had to go see the counselor twice a week and once I got into high school, I wondered what about my behavior had caused the school to send me to counseling? Or was it Poe?).The first book I remember reading all the was through was called The Little Leftover Witch-about a little witch who goes out on Halloween with her aunts-and gets left behind. A local family takes her in (hilarity ensues) until her aunts return to retrieve her. I should surprise no one that I loved this book-but I had a hard time finding others like it, so had to go through the Judy Blume phase-I think that was the only time in my life (the latter part of 5th grade) where I actually read what was expected of me. I liked her books, I read them and I moved on-they were interesting, but bore no resemblance to my life, not really and didn't seem to me to have much to say. Next came Sherlock Holmes-and I found him much more enjoyable. I found his world a bit baffling (what's a brown study? Why does Watson have a wife and then doesn't? How come Holmes died and then doesn't?). It would have helped if I had read them in order-although the question of Watson's wife has baffled better critics than I). I once checked out The Complete Sherlock Holmes out of the local library and kept it...quite awhile. The fine was $15 (and this was the early 70's!). For that much, I thought I should have been able to keep it. When I went to middle school, I had access to a real library. It wasn't like the local library, to which I had to be driven (and in truth, I don't think my parents minded taking me), it was right there, every day. And we had learned how to use the Dewey Decimal system, so now I knew how to look for the books I wanted to read. There were two huge books (at least they were huge to me) full of scary stories, creepy stories. When I went to check both of them out, I remember the librarian telling me she didn't think I could read them both in the time allotted (I don't remember how long I got, probably a week) and I told her of course I could. And what was in them? Great stories-The Upper Berth (still a great story), The Man From the South (hugely inappropriate for a 10 year-old), the Yellow Wallpaper (difficult to understand, but even at that age I knew it creepy). This seemed to set the stage for me-I made a point of searching out books and stories like this. The romances that other girls my age read held no charm for me(except for Mary Stewart and I'm not quite sure why, although there was always an action/adventure thing going on, so that helped). And by the end of middle school, I could read everything parents had-and could understand it. I aways read way ahead of my grade level, so I never fit in with what the other girls were reading. While they had their romances, I had Alistair MacLean, John D. MacDonald and anything I could find on King Arthur.
This is a transcript I had with a friend, circa somewhere around 1977 or so

My friend: I saw this great movie last night! It was about a guy who becomes a king-and then his friend and wife cheat on him-and he has the great sword-it was good.

Me: Was the sword called Excalibur?

My Friend: Yes! How did you know?

Me: (dumbfounded) Everyone knows the story of King Arthur!

My friend tells me that people in my family do this all the time (you don't know about Arthur? EVERYONE knows the story of Arthur! What's wrong with you?) And my friend M asks me all the time "Is that common knowledge?" Me"Yes, it is common knowledge that the North won the Civil War, you should know that". It's not simplistic, That's how things were and are in my family-it was expected that you read and knew about things-King Arthur, Darwin and evolution, what happened in the world today and whether the new John MacDonald book was any good or not (usually it was). I read science fiction for the first time in high school (Ursula K. LeGuin) and was embarrassed to admit I liked it. That lasted until college, when I read Neuromancer and realized I couldn't hide it any more. My taste in books has always baffled my parents but if they ever thought I should be reading something more appropriate, they never said so. The only time they spoke to me about it was when my mother found her copy of Klute in my room (I was 13, it was probably inappropriate for my age but I've always had a hard time telling what's appropriate for an age and what isn't. The only time I ever knew for sure was in discussing The Scold's Bridle by Minette Walters with my sister and my niece said she wanted to read it. She was 10 at the time and even I knew it was inappropriate. I thought it was inappropriate for ME and I was 28! We gave her a copy of Rebecca instead. Daphne Du Maurier was probably the closest I ever got to romance but many of her books had science-fictiony elements in them and the others had far more going for them than your average romance). So there you have it. I loved all those books-and learned something from every single one. They opened a world for me that gave me a place to belong. Books don't change-you may change and find something new in them each time you read and re-read them but th written world has never lost its charm. I recently read an interview with William Gibson, in which he was asked about the death of books on printed paper...and he said "And here I am, out on a book tour...". They haven't died yet-and I have a feeling that one day I'll be a very old woman, complaining that how hard it is to find an actual paper book. I accept that future and embrace it-book lovers are never alone.

Paul Potts (yes, again)

I was reading the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, which had a big article about Rick Rubin. Of course I knew who he was-musical genius who created Def Jam records, producer for everyone from the Beastie Boys to Dixie Chicks to Neil Diamond-he's his generation's Clive Davis. Can he save the music industry? He was absolutely right when he said that for too long the industry has focused on selling and marketing the music and not the music itself-if you make good music, the people WILL buy it-that part won't be a problem. (I don't we'll get rid of ipods, as he predicts, though. At least, not anytime soon). But the best part was when he talked about Paul Potts and showed the writer the youtube video of Paul's first performance on Britain's Got Talent. Of course, he cried. Everyone I know cried watching it-and Rick Rubin said he was going to be Paul's promoter in the US-you can't do better than that.
It was very cool-I had a big grin on my face while reading that part of the article.

My Life Without Me and Bunny Lake...

All I've been reading lately are the Robert Crais books (thankfully, he's just gotten better as the series has progressed) so there's nothing new on that front. I just started the first book of H. L. Mencken's memoirs and it's very funny, acerbic and intelligent-what else would you expect from him? I look forward to reading the next two books after this one.

I haven't gone to see any movies-there's NOTHING good out there right now. Halloween? Please. Rush Hour 3? I don't think so. But there are some good one opening soon, so I'll be going again, probably this weekend. However, my last two Netflix movies were pretty good. Not great, but pretty good. The first was My Life Without Me, with Sarah Polley as a young mother in a dead-end job, who soon finds out she has a tumor and will die fairly soon-what will she do before she dies?
I liked this movie because she makes something of her life-she tells her children she loves them, she sleeps with a guy not her husband (a very cute, kind of weird guy played by Mark Ruffalo) she tries to get along with her cranky, bitchy mom (Debbie Harry!) and goes to visit her father (Alfred Molina!) in prison. I liked all the people in smallish parts-they were all convincing, but none more so than Polley herself. She clearly loves all of them, and she wants to do something for herself AND for them. She sees that their lives will be okay without her-she's done the best she could for all of them and for herself as well.

The other movie I watched was Bunny Lake is Missing-and I still can't decide how I feel about it. The first 3/4 of it was really good-Carol Lynley as a young woman moving to London with her child and to live with her brother, takes her child to school-when she returns to pick her up, she's missing. No one at the school as seen her-did she make her up? Her brother (Keir Dullea) seems to be very helpful and caring-but he also tells the inspector investigating the case (Laurence Olivier!) that his sister had an imaginary playmate as a child-one she called Bunny. Does her daughter Bunny even exist? I give Keir Dullea credit-for the most of the movie, he's the sane, rational one, along with Olivier. They both seems to have their doubts about Ann Lakes' sanity, as does the audience. The big reveal with 1/4 of the movie to go was played very well-and from there it's bit of cat and mouse....until it just goes bonkers. I understood the game Ann Lake played with her brother, to keep his mind off killing her child-and I liked how Keir Dullea seemed perfectly sane until he just wasn't any more-their scenes together at the end were really good. But at the very end, he's pushing her on a swing, her daughter his hiding from him (near a pit he's has dug out to bury Bunny's clothes and toys and possibly her)-what was that? Had Ann become so wrapped up in the game that she forgot about her child until the police providentially appeared? What annoyed me about this scene was that it just seemed like a stupid 60's movie trick-over-acted and overly staged and also owed much to Psycho. All these things bothered me because up until then, it had been really good and the ending just let me down.