in unrelated clothing news, something has come aloose in the sole of my shoe and rattles around when i walk. i think this means i have to buy a new pair of shoes.
Let's do some reviews, shall we? I did promise lots if them, after all. Not much middle ground here, some real duds and a few great efforts.
*****
Meet Joe Black
I'm a big fan of otherworldy topics when done correctly (Dogma is by far the best to pull it off in movie form), so i thought Meet Joe Black might be worth the risk, despite the obvious chick-flick perils. i finally got a chance to watch it the other day when it came on tv.
Worst movie ever.
I'm all for temporary suspension of belief (or whatever the technical phrase for "just go with it" is in the world of fiction), but even in Pretendland, 1 + 1 has to equal 2.
Spoiler Alert
Take for example, the end of the movie when the daughter is talking to brad pitt and says "wish you could have known my father," an obvious reference to the fact that she knows her father is dead. Which means that her father's body is on the other side of the hill. So what does she do? she walks off with Brad Pitt back to the party, just leaving her dead father out there.
End Spoiler
That's not even the most exasperating flaw in the movie, just the easiest to explain. Oh wait, there is another one pretty easy to explain. I'll just call it the "i don't know what peanut butter is but i am intimately familiar with the detailed workings of the IRS" theme.
Anthony Hopkins is the only redeeming part of this movie.
Score: 3 out of 10
*****
The Devil's Apocrypha by John De Vito
What Dogma is to otherworldly movies, I, Lucifer by Glen Duncan is to books . I stumbled across the De Vito book when looking for something else by Duncan. I had enjoyed another book Duncan wrote and wanted to see what else was out there.
I decided to get The Devil's Apocrypha because it was fairly cheap. It's the creation story told by the losers, so to speak.
Worst book ever.
I made it through the forward, barely, where the author misspelled "lose" as "loose" twice. And on the offchance he meant to use the word "loose," he used it incorrectly. So i stopped reading it.
I will keep this book for the rest of my life because 1)I'm opposed to throwing away books, and 2) I'm even more opposed to giving someone else an opportunity to read this literary abortion.
Score: 0 out of 10
****
Solomon vs. Lord by Paul Levine
Ah, sweet relief. A funny courtroom novel that, despite being pretty long, never gets dull.
At parts it gets a tad predictable, but i always tell myself "if things didn't work out the way they did, the story wouldn't have been worth telling."
The pace and storytelling makes up for any predictability problems, and even though how the case will be solved becomes apparent, Levine doesn't give away what the resolution actually is too early. I actually wondered if he did it on purpose, sort of "hey, let me make the reader feel smart, and he'll be happy with himself and like the book more."
Score 8.9 out of 10.
****
Torpedo Juice by Tim Dorsey
Picture the funniest person you know simultaneously being on speed yet having the self control to sit down and write a book. That's Tim Dorsey, the endlessly funny creater of Serge Storms, the serial killer with a heart.
I can't remember exactly how many of Dorsey's books i've read, but you need to grab some of his stuff if you haven't before. If you like Carl Hiassen, you'll enjoy Dorsey.
The basic premise is Storms is a mentally unbalanced lover of all things South Florida. he is prone to knee-jerk obsessions and finding creative ways to kill the bad guys. In Torpedo Juice, he catches a guy robbing an elderly couple. Serge takes the robber, makes him swallow a handful of bullets then runs him through an MRI machine.
Lots of amusing characters and Dorsey's outlandish humor is outdone only by his mastery of subtle humor.
Score: 8.7 out of 10
*****
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Got this a couple of days before Vonnegut died after a coworker recommended it.
Very good. It's sort of about two people, but then it's also more about two characters in a book, but then again, it's more about the relationship between an author and his characters.
The sort of thing that's easy to see why people would lift Vonnegut up as an icon. It didn't completely knock my socks off, but it's definitely a case where the way the story is presented adds a ton to the story itself. brilliantly done.
I give it 8.5 *'s out of 10 *'s
*****
A note on the scoring.
You might notice that I've scored two books higher than another novel considered an all-time classic. This does not necessarily mean that the other books are better than Breakfast of Champions.
In an intellectual environment (which i tend to avoid) i would tell you that Breakfast of Champions is easily the best of the books i reviewed. Think of it like this, I know that Tom Brady is a better quarterback than Michael Vick, but i enjoy watching Vick more.
Capische?
