The Good Thief

Wow! This was a fun adventure story! Take a look...

live through this

live through this, a mother's memoir of runaway daughters and reclaimed love - Debra Gwartney

This is a remarkable book - a harrowing story, well-written. And true.

The Graveyard Book

You may be familiar with Neil Gaiman as the author of Coraline but I never read that - or saw the movie. I came across this title when I was reading some reviews and it sounded like something I might like. It's weird - a boy living in a graveyard - but fun and very believable (as long as you enjoy fantasy).

Where People Like Us Live

I lived in Racine for over 20 years and had never heard of Rubberville until I read this book. And yet, there are plans to make it a landmark! (just google Rubberville)

However, even though I was unfamiliar with the name Rubberville, this book certainly made Racine come alive. It was fun to read about North Beach, Elmwood Plaza, the Golden Rondelle and know exactly what the author was talking about. The book was worth reading for that alone...but it also had a well-written story with believable and likable characters.

Howl's Moving Castle

In earlier days I felt that detectable changes from one frame to the next were a hallmark of cheap animation. This was especially true in animations produced for television: Hanna-Barbera may have been the most commercially successful animation studio ever, but for Heaven's sake! Do they HAVE to keep lowering the bar so @#$%#@$ far?

Once they had lowered the standard, they were copied and things only got worse. Watch an episode of Pokemon, for example, and the technique is--well, I'll just say that the cutting of corners to make the animation process cost-effective is plainly evident.

The previous result for me has been a knee-jerk dismissive reaction anytime the animation wasn't perfectly smooth. If they were putting fewer than 24 fps on the screen, somebody didn't care enough.

But then I started watching Miyazaki films. Quite often--maybe always--the transition from one frame to the next is evident. But if the drawings are beautifully executed with great care, does it matter so much? In this case, since so many of the drawings are executed by only one person--and since the result is soulful and thoughtful and magnificent in so many other pleasantly surprising ways--I'm finding a new ability to ignore frame counts.

This film, in particular, is beautiful. I found the story rather convoluted and a little disappointing in its complexity, but that's my only complaint. It's definitely on my to-own list.

what have I done to deserve this?

Picked this up from the World Cinema section at the public library. Any description I write wouldn't do this film justice, so I'll just copy the notes from the DVD jacket:

"Gloria is a cleaning woman and housewife who is addicted to amphetamines. She lives in a crowded apartment with her miserable taxi driving husband (who once forged Hitler's diaries), her two teen sons--one who is selling drugs, the other sleeps with older men--and her crazy mother-in-law who keeps a pet lizard. Driven by despair, Gloria sells off one of her sons, accidentally kills her husband and sets into motion a nightmarish chain of events in Pedro Almodovar's absurdist black comedy."

Excellent synopsis. Excellent movie. You have to be in the right frame of mind for this sort of absurdist black comedy, but if you are, this is hilarious. I've heard of some of Almodovar's other films (Talk to Her, All About My Mother), but this is the first thing of his I've seen. Can't wait to see the others.