Girl Detective

From Crime and Punishment

Fear was taking hold of him more and more, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He wanted to run away from there as quickly as possible. And if he had been able at that moment to see and reason more properly, if he had only been able to realize all the difficulties of his situation, all the despair, all the hideousness, all the absurdity of it, and to understand, besides, how many more difficulties and perhaps evildoings he still had to overcome or commit in order to get out of there and reach home, he might very well have dropped everything and gone at once to denounce himself, and not even out of fear for himself, but solely out of horror and loathing for what he had done. Loathing especially was rising and growing in him every moment.

Esquire doesn’t even pretend to objectivity in its “75 Books Every Man Should Read“:

An unranked, incomplete, utterly biased list of the greatest works of literature ever published.

That’s a good thing. And many of the books are pretty good too. For men AND women–I’ve read 12 of them, and many more are on my TBR shelves. But I think I only counted one female author–Flannery O’Conner–on the entire list. Come on. Only men can write great books for men? That’s just silly.

Link from The Morning News.

Several years ago I read Should We Burn Babar? by Herbert Kohl, and was surprised to find books I remembered so fondly from my childhood contained such objectionable stuff. (The book’s analysis of the construction of the Rosa Parks myth is fascinating, too). I went back to the Babar books, and the criticisms weren’t exaggerated; naked, African Babar’s mother is shot, he quickly gets over his grief with a move to Paris, where he is taken in by a lady who dresses him and civilizes him, so that when he returns to the elephants, he is quickly chosen as King.

Adam Gopnik’s piece in the New Yorker, “Freeing the Elephants,” doesn’t dispute this, but he works rather too hard to portray Babar as a comedy of the bourgeoisie rather than as an apology for colonialism. I agree with him about the art, though:

The completed Babar drawings, by contrast, are beautiful small masterpieces of the faux-naïf: the elephant faces reduced to a language of points and angles, each figure cozily encased in its black-ink outline, a friezelike arrangement of figures against a background of pure color. De Brunhoff’s style is an illustrator’s version of Matisse, Dufy, and Derain, which by the nineteen-thirties had already been filtered and defanged and made part of the system of French design.

Link from The Morning News.

Marmeladov to Raskolnikov, from Crime and Punishment:

But if that’s a lie,” he suddenly exclaimed involuntarily, “if man in fact is not a scoundrel–in general, that is, the whole human race–then the rest is all mere prejudice, instilled fear, and there are no barriers, and that’s just how it should be!…

From Kate Beaton, “The Greatest Hamlet of Our Time.” Link from Blog of a Bookslut.

Also see Party Time with Richard III

Reviews were mixed last year when Danny Boyle’s (28 Days Later, Trainspotting) sci-fi pic Sunshine came out. A recent positive review in Entertainment Weekly spurred me to rent it.

The film starts strong. Fifty years in the future, a crew of eight scientists are traveling through space to the sun. They hope to reignite the dying star and save the Earth. Their ship, the Icarus II, is the second attempt, after the Icarus I went missing. The characters are well differentiated, and the shots of the ship are beautiful and interesting to look at. As the film unfolds, though, it fell more and more in step with sci-fi films of the past, specifically 2001, Alien, and Solaris. The movie makes deliberate nods to these, and other, films–it doesn’t hide its roots, and deserves to be regarded as an homage to them. I didn’t feel it creatively went much beyond any of those films, though. There were some cool bits, a nice, creepy surprise, good acting, and good visuals. By the end, though, it felt muddled, and more derivative than I think it was trying to be.

Trivia: the gold spacesuits had funnel-shaped helmets designed after Kenny of South Park’s hood.

Eddie Campbell’s Black Diamond Detective Agency is an engaging graphic novel, beautifully painted and in a lovely paperback edition typical of publisher First Second. A man with a past is framed in small town America on the verge of the 20th century. Though the story is sometimes hard to follow, mostly because of several characters who aren’t sufficiently visually distinct, the mystery is unraveled in entertaining, CSI-fashion. The ending is pleasingly awry, avoiding the cliches by not tying things up too neatly. DArk and violent, though with an edge of humor and redemption, it’s reminiscent of Clint Eastwood westerns, A History of Violence, Victorian mysteries, and Campbell’s other work like From Hell.

Lin Enger’s Undiscovered Country, which I received as a reader’s copy from the publisher, transposes Shakespeare’s Hamlet to modern-day Northern Minnesota, an icy analog for Denmark. The narrator, Jesse’s, father died in a supposed suicide, and after he sees what may be a ghost, he wonders what role his uncle and his mother might have played in the father’s death. This update follows Hamlet closely, but not exactly, and it’s in the departures and the nuances that this book shines. Here, Jesse and his 8-year-old brother Magnus, talk about the death of their father:

Did he do it, Jess?

What do you mean, I asked, knowing full well.

I mean, did he do it?

Of course not. It was an accident, like Mom said.

Mom never said that. Mom never said anything.

Well, that’s what it was.

How do you know? Did you see it happen? No.

Then you don’t know.

I know Dad, I said.

Are you sure?

I took his shoulders in my hands, looked as deeply into his eyes as he’d let me, and saw there, in large part, what my role in life was going to be for the next decade or so, until he grew up. I saw it with clarity–and I was not mistaken.

Yes, I said, I’m sure. I’m sure.

My brother stepped forward into my arms then, and his body felt breakable and small. I hung on to him for all I was worth.

Undiscovered Country is in the tradition of young-adult novels, told simply in first person by a teenager having difficulty with the adults in his life. This would work well as a companion novel for high schoolers reading Shakespeare’s play. There are opportunities to compare and contrast, discuss whether the story is universal, and how well it translates to a different time and place.

Was anyone else concerned by EW’s cover of Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty?

Now:

About 14 years ago:

Doherty looks strangely the same, plus as if she needs a sandwich, or five. Garth’s face looks suspiciously tight. These women are only in their mid-thirties. Plastic surgery to make them look like their original-90210 selves is pretty extreme, and depressing.

One of my readers, SmallWorld Reads, commented about the movie Mamma Mia! that the movie characters, played by actors between 48 to 59, were significantly older than the characters’ ages in the play, which were supposed to be about 40ish.

I think 30-40 actors often won’t play parents because of the stigma of aging. Though her reps deny it, Rachel Weisz reportedly refused to reprise her Mummy role because she wouldn’t play the mother of the new 20yo character. (Weisz claims to have been born in 1971. A good friend of mine was in secondary school with her, and says she’s shaved a few years off.) Also, the age of parents goes up each year. I had my son Drake when I was 35, Guppy at 38. I’ll be 58 (about Meryl Streep’s age, now) when Guppy is 20. So 60 is the new 40, 40 is the new 30, and 30s are the new 90210.

Does that make 80 the new dead?

(Thanks, I think, to JV for the joke, which is ironic, since JV and his wife Rock Hack were the most fervent 90210-riginal fans I know.)

Stefan Kanfer, at the City Journal, on films in black and white (Link from Arts & Letters Daily):

Gregg Toland, the greatest cinematographer of his generation, never shot in color. He and his A-picture directors, including John Ford, Orson Welles, and William Wyler, preferred to give audiences the sense that they were watching a suite of etchings. Who needed color when the haunting landscapes of Wuthering Heights materialized on screen, as if photographed in Emily Brontë’s nineteenth century? Or when Citizen Kane’s deep-focus montages breathed life into the story of a fatally ambitious press lord?

Those of us in the Twin Cities are fortunate to have a good cinema culture that screens many of the black and white films Kanfer mentions. If you don’t have access to film revivals, though, TCM and Netflix do an outstanding job of making these films easily available.

From Boing Boing, Marlboros for Moms.

I’ve been a nonsmoker for eighteen years now, and am pretty happy with that choice.

Found by my husband G. Grod, the Hamlet weblog.

Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder will probably be the last summer 2008 movie I see, and it was a fine one to finish with. Reviews were mixed, and PC advocates were up in arms (link from Morning News), but I found it a very silly, very funny film. Yes, it was big, loud, and often stupid. I don’t have a problem with that in a summer movie, because it also had sharp clever moments and was a lot of fun.

Stiller is a has-been action hero pining for prestige. Robert Downey, Jr. plays a method actor playing a black man, a double-layered performance that was dizzying to watch. And Tom Cruise is hilarious and mesmerizing as the balding, fat, profane studio head. His over-the-top dance sequence that caps the movie is a simultaneously disgusting and hilarious homage to his star-making scene from Risky Business.

Tropic Thunder was one of many enjoyable movies this summer, most of which were a good blend of quality and entertainment. Things started strong for me with Iron Man, continued with Wall E, hit a high point with The Dark Knight, and still finished well with Hellboy II, Mamma Mia! and Tropic Thunder. I found all these films worth the price of admission, popcorn and Junior Mints.

I hesitated about seeing Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Phillip Seymour Hoffman got an Oscar nod for his part in the film, but I feared it would be too grim to appreciate. Grim it was, in the ancient tradition of messed-up family tragedies. But it was also well directed and put together, and so exceedingly well acted, that any qualms I had were overridden. I can’t say the qualms were put to rest, though, because it is a decidedly provocative and agitating movie.

Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play brothers who are in financial and family trouble. They attempt a crime they think will be victimless; by the end every single character is affected. And in true tragic form, many of them are dead. Lumet, director of classics like Dog Day Afternoon, makes a patchwork tale feel seamless. To an actor, the performances were outstanding, especially Hawke and Marisa Tomei. It’s a solid, well-done, classic tragedy.

Fall color is not just for trees. I’m in the midst of my annual fall-fashion magazine binge, and my most-wanted color duo is dark plum and bright yellow. They’ll go great with dark brown or gray.

Purple patent ballet flats

Purple leather hobo bag. Both from Target.

Lincoln Park after Dark nail varnish by OPI, a favorite of my fashionable NYC friend, N, who bought me

the bright yellow flats I’m wearing today, as a gift for fall.

From the Star Tribune:

Gov. Tim Pawlenty said the 10-lane bridge will open to traffic at 5 a.m. Thursday, with a full complement of state troopers slowly leading the way when the barricades come down. He and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak also unveiled the design for a memorial to the 13 people who died in the collapse.

The bridge collapsed a year ago in August, and I still feel woozily grateful we weren’t on it, as we usually are on Wednesdays, for our weekly comic-book store trip. Condolences to all those who suffered by the collapse, and hopes for us all to enjoy a healthy, strong bridge to the city of Minneapolis.

Good news for Nordeasters: A new Thai restaurant, Sen Yai Sen Lek: Thai Rice & Noodles, opens this week on 2422 Central Ave NE. The name means “Big Noodle Little Noodle” and will feature a menu influenced by Bankgkok street food. Guests can eat in, take out, or reserve for larger parties. Chef/owner Joe Hatch-Surisook and his wife, Holly, are Northeast residents. They are sourcing many products locally and plan to build new relationships with local growers and producers. Stop in to support their new venture!

Is it me, or are photos of Claire Danes with her costar Zac Efron from the upcoming film, Me and Orson Welles, more than a little reminiscent of those of Angela and Jordan Catalano from My So-Called Life?

Mark Harris at Entertainment Weekly writes about what piles up on his DVR: quality programs he finds himself unable or unwilling to watch, instead turning to shorter, lighter fare.

The oldest movie on our Tivo is Guys and Dolls (1955)–three hours long, and recorded at least a year and a half ago during Oscar month at Turner Classic Movies. There never seems to be enough time, or the right mood, for a 3-hour 50’s musical.

As Harris notes, the same reluctance applies to books and music. I wonder, how many others besides me are feeling bad that they’d not yet read David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest? It’s been on my shelf for a decade.

Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;

Writer David Foster Wallace killed himself this weekend past. The books and essays of his that I’ve read have challenged, surprised and entertained me. Reading them, it wasn’t hard to “hear” the author’s depression. I imagine that his head, with the morass of thoughts, learning, and tangents that he wrote about, was an often difficult, painful place to be.

Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

ETA: Harper’s has gathered links to Foster’s essays for that magazine. (From the NBCC blog.)