The Spiderwick Chronicles

Oh boy. Hard to know where to begin with this one. The biggest issues were the glaring inconsistencies in logic. I know it's a kids movie, I know children aren't supposed to have the best judgment, but the errors they made just seemed ridiculous. The basic premise (beware of spoilers ahead) is that there is this book that contains all of the secrets to finding magical creatures in the world and the book is inside this old house that this mom and her three kids moves into and one of her sons finds it. The whole point is to keep the book safe from some scary ogre guy because if he had all the secrets then he would destroy the world. So the boy figures out that the house is protected by some magic something or other and the book is safe inside the house. He sees his brother get dragged away into the forest by goblins and so he goes after them, but instead of leaving the book in the magical safety of the house, he takes it with him!! I could understand this if he was going to use the book to figure out how to help his brother or something, but he doesn't open it one time! Then he finally gets his brother back safely to the house and they decide they have to go into town to find the crazy daughter of the guy who wrote the book and ask her for help, and he takes the freaking book with him again!! For NO REASON.

There was more of this kind of nonsensical BS, but it all adds up to lazy writing. It made the whole suspense of the movie kind of fall apart for me because I was so irritated. The 'feelings' part of the plot was one of the sons waiting for his father to come pick him up (the parents were recently divorced) and then of course his father doesn't show up because, surprise! He doesn't really want his son to live with him. Haven't we seen this particular drama play out about a thousand times already? Now I haven't read any of the books so I don't know if they were just stupid or very poorly adapted. Either way, I'm annoyed. From the drippy dialogue to the unbelievable plot lines, this had to be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Don't waste your time.

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

This book did live up to the praise of its reviews. It was interesting, well-written and thought provoking. Though I would have done a bit more editing, it was well worth reading, just as it is. This book is worth your time - and easily read as it is only 256 pages.

shortcomings by a. tomine

just read this. it's real good. quick read. we actually got to see him talk a little while at wordstock in november.

The Gathering by Anne Enright

This book had some great reviews and was even a Booker prize finalist. Why?? Mostly I just found it boring. I gave it a good 75 pages but after nothing interesting happened and I didn't care for any of the characters, I just skimmed the rest and read the ending. Don't waste your time.

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

Wow! What a book! You get quite a feel for Bombay (now called Mumbai) and some of the people that populate the city. The author has quite a way with writing and no matter whether the concentration was on the policeman, the gangster, the film star, beggars, ordinary folk - you felt you had an understanding of them and an appreciation of their lives. You knew them - or wanted to.

The paperback edition is 947 pages and I have to admit I was getting a bit tired of it around page 600 or so. But as I moved onward, I again got engrossed in it and by page 947, I was sorry to see it end! However, I do admit there were some pages where I felt "I really don't want to know any more about this character". However, there were only two small sections that I would have edited out of the book.

My very favorite part of the book was one of the insets (where the author discusses a more minor character) called A House in a Distant City. It's about 30 pages long and you can read it by itself, ignoring the rest of the book, and still have a really good story. If you are not ready to tackle 947 pages, give this inset a try.

John Legend - Once Again

I came across this album on Napster as a recommendation for people who like James Morrison. Anyway, I threw it on my MP3 player with some other stuff and put it on random and John's songs just kind of stood out. Every time I was really digging a song I would look at my MP3 player and it would be one from this album! He has a very nice mellow style.

Here's a link to a 30 second preview of one of my favorite songs of his: PDA (We Just Don't Care).

If it makes you log in, use the following: username: cpadian password: 020276

legacy of ashes

been reading this lately. pretty comprehensive and cements the notion that everything the cia touches turns in to a collosal goat-f**k. i feared that it would be too dry but author writes real well and keeps things moving. however, it does not instill confidence in our country, our country's leaders, our country's history since WW 2. man oh man. italy, greece, korea, guatamala, iran, indonesia. one massive trainwreck after another. covert ops, briefcases of money, coup's, elections bought, sold, manufactured, controlled thru misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, radio free europe etc. I haven't even gotten to cuba yet.

update:
i've arrived at cuba. boy oh boy

Twin Peaks, tv series

been watching this on dvd. it was awesome way back when and it's awesome now.
at least it is so far. we're only a couple episodes in to season 1. season 2 is a bit less sucessful if memory serves

Zodiac

I enjoyed Zodiac a lot. I tend to be partial to serial killer movies anyway (not sure what that says about me, but I don't think it's good), but this one in particular was paced really well. There were sequences where I was actually on-the-edge-of-my-seat scared, and that doesn't happen to me very often. Plus, it's chock full of Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and Jake Gyllenhaal...how could that be bad??

Pan's Labyrinth

I just finished watching Pan's Labyrinth on Netflix On Demand. The thing that surprised me the most about it was how bloody it was and how disturbing some of the scenes turned out to be. I expected it to be much more lighthearted than it was, and while technically I suppose it had a happy ending, it was still a little bleak for my taste. Given all that, I'd have to say I can't quite recommend it. Most of you have already seen it anyway, so I don't suppose it matters too much what I thought :)