Boy, February always seems to go by quickly, even in a leap year. Surprisingly, I found few books this time around but several decent films, and my picks follow below.
READS
Schmidt, Gary; Okay for Now (Clarion Books; 2011). This is the first book by Schmidt I’ve had the pleasure of reading, but it will not be the last. I’m not sure what made me pick this up since this is marketed as more a middle grade book, but I found the voice fresh, witty, and likable. Doug Swieteck is an eighth-grader readers savvier than I may be familiar with from Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars (next up on my list of must-reads). Here, Doug’s family has moved to “stupid Marysville” in upstate New York; his father is a bully; his mother a saint; his older brother, Lucas, is away in Vietnam; and Doug finds himself without friends, in a new town, and with a big secret. Along the way, Doug is befriended by a kindly librarian who introduces him to Audubon and with whose paintings in Birds of America, Doug becomes enraptured. Doug’s growth as an artist and person is nicely done here, although I also think that older kids would probably like this better than middle-grade readers simply because of all the symbolism. In addition, I found that many of the novel’s events stretched credulity, and Doug’s ability to teach the adults how to be better people a little too pat. That didn’t stop me from enjoying this lovely book, though. I’m sure you will, too.
LISTENS
Schmidt, Gary; Okay for Now (narrated by Lincoln Hoppe; Audible Audio Edition, 2011). Yes, it’s true; as I’ve said before, when I really start enjoying a book, I’ll frequently look for it in audio. Hoppe’s narration is first-rate, but I’ll be honest: I got this out through my local library as a download and didn’t know who the narrator was. In fact, I could have sworn it was Steven Weber (who did such a great job with IT). In any event, I liked Hoppe so much that I tracked down a few more recordings by him which I hope to listen to this month. Stay tuned.
LOOKS
Contagion (Steven Soderbergh, director; 2011). I wasn’t expecting much when I decided to see this film, so my surprise over how much I did enjoy it was a little . . . well, surprising. This is your basic you-gotcha-bad-viral-pandemic-and-everyone’s-gonna-die movie, but what I liked was how many of the very beautiful people bit the dust (and some, quite early). The movie takes its cue from the 2002 SARS epidemic, which made everyone freak out because China wasn’t very forthcoming (the virus got its start in Foshan Municipality in Guangdong Province and was traced back to a coronavirus originating in civet cats). Here, it’s the same: everyone suspects that the virus (a bat-porcine hybrid) came from China, and half the work of the field epidemiologists both from the CDC and WHO is to figure out the where and the who: the location of the index patient. Along the way, we get to see people act in predictable and not-so-predictable ways; there is a certain degree of societal breakdown; the Chinese aren’t forthcoming; etc., etc. What I liked most about this movie was that the scientists get to be the heroes; it really is a case of Back off, man: I’m a scientist.
Now, if only Matt Damon would lose a couple pounds…
The Grey (Joe Carnahan, director; 2012). You’ve probably heard about this movie by now, largely because so many conservation groups got pretty upset with the movie’s portrayal of wolves. As an environmentally minded person, I have to agree. On the other hand, this film is, primarily, an adrenalin-rush. It’s fun; it’s actually pretty realistic, aside from the animatronic wolves (which are honking HUGE). The basic story is very simple. A bunch of Alaska oil workers become stranded after their plane goes down: a story of life and death, and survival against the odds. Mostly, people get picked off in various ways; some of them you really hate to see go (and go, they do, rather horribly). If you don’t know, I’ll also tell you that there is a tiny ten-second bit right after the credits which, I guess, provides some resolution. From where I sat, you don’t need it–and it’s not worth sitting through ten tedious MINUTES to see. Oh, and there’s some predictable moralizing/philosophizing along the way about man, the nature of life, God, and all that. <shrug> Anyway, I liked it. The film’s based on the short story, “The Ghost Walker” by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, which the author expanded into a novel, available an ebook.
The Ides of March (George Clooney, director; 2011). Another somewhat predictable film, this story follows the career of an idealistic staff (played by Ryan Gosling) as he gets a crash-course in dirty politics and the lengths people are willing to go to achieve their goals. Is this loosely based on the John Edwards debacle? Uh-huh. Do you see what’s coming a mile down the road? You bet. Do you really care? Well, I didn’t, and that’s principally because of Gosling’s performance which is so good. The supporting cast is also first-rate, particularly Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti. It was nice watching Clooney be a bit smarmy, too.
On a lighter note, here’s this Sunday’s cake: sweet orange bittersweet chocolate (Happy Hubby’s finger, not included):
I so wish the phrase “Stand back – I’m doing science!” was in Contagion 😉
I know. I thought things were a little TOO pristine in the movie, although there wasn’t massive social unrest during the 1918 pandemic either. OTOH, I thought it was fascinating that no one ever lost power or water, and there weren’t more break-ins. Still, I liked it–and that CDC woman who injected herself with the vaccine? Right out of ARROWSMITH: my kind of gutsy doc.