Book # 8 -- Old School

Title: Old School

Author: Tobias Wolff

Release Year:

Plot Summary: A young man at a New England prep school tries year in and year out to win the school's writing contest.

Thoughts: This book came highly recommended to me by a good friend who's opinion on books I well respect. It's about a young man who struggles with his writing (which is his true passion). His desire to write so well leads to inner corruption and this plays out throughout the rest of the book and the rest of his life.

There are a couple of levels to this book. The first and most obvious is the actual narrative itself. The story itself starts out strong, but about two thirds of the way through the book gets really boring and starts to wander aimlessly. The next level, the verbage, is fantastic. However, no matter how fantastic the language may be, it gets to be too overbearing. Wolff conveys a sense of perpetual winter and amazing ambience in his novel. Thirdly, the story seems somewhat autobiographical -- and Wolff leaves that up to the reader as to whether or not it may or may not be. But the last few chapters of the book just just kill the book -- they take a (until that point in time) really good novel and pretty much kill it.

I had trouble relating to the main character. I can empathize with writer's block, but not to the extent contained herein. The narrator also seemed like a poor little rich boy to me... one that I felt no empathy towards, especially at the turning point in the book (which I will not reveal here).

Rating (0-10): 6.2

recommendations: For 200 pages, this book read more like 500. It's a laborious read because of all of the fantastic words used but it gets to be too much.

Movie #99 - The Skeleton Key

Title: The Skeleton Key

Director: Iain Softley

Release Year: 2005

Plot Summary: A young woman helping care for an invalid in New Orleans finds herself caught in the middle of morbid going-ons centered around a group of Voodoo practitioners.

Thoughts: Another one that surprised me. The back-story might have been a wee bit on the lame side ("hoodoo" v. "voodoo"? Huh?), but Kate Hudson pulled off the role of a woman who's fighting her gradually-increasing belief quite well. Also, the end is not quite what I expected, and definitely in a good way.

Rating (0-10): 7.5

Recommendations: One of the better horror/suspense thrillers I've seen in a while. Worth a look.

Movie #98 - Four Brothers

Title: Four Brothers

Director: John Singleton

Release Year: 2005

Plot Summary: Four brothers look to avenge their mother's death.

Thoughts: I went into this movie not expecting much of anything, and was quite pleasantly surprised. The plot never really progresses much beyond the "let's beat the shit out of some guys who have information for us" stage, but it's a fairly enjoyable stage, so I'm willing to let that go. ~grin~ Also, I really thought the four "brothers" meshed pretty well as an adopted family, and that's really good to see.

Rating (0-10): 7.5

Recommendations: If you can't decide on anything else to see, you could do a lot worse than seeing this one.

Movie #97 - The Dukes of Hazzard

Title: The Dukes of Hazzard

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar

Release Year: 2005

Plot Summary: Cousins Bo and Luke Duke, with a little help from their cousin Daisy and Uncle Jesse, egg on the authorities of Hazzard County, Boss Hogg and Sheriff Coltrane.

Thoughts: I'm told I liked watching the show when I was a little tyke, but can honestly say I have no real memory of what it was like. That said, and I'm pretty sure I'm in a minority here, I found the movie to be rather amusing and fun to watch. It really looked like Scott and Knoxville were having a great time filming, and it gave the film a positive energy that I really liked.

Rating (0-10): 7

Recommendations: If you're a huge fan of the original TV series, I hear you'll hate this. I wouldn't buy it, but I'd easily watch it again.

Movie #96 - The Island

Title: The Island

Director: Michael Bay

Release Year: 2005

Plot Summary: A man goes on the run after he discovers that he is actually a "harvested being", and is being kept along with others in a utopian facility.

Thoughts: The whole concept of "one guy figuring out that his reality is a lie" was a little too Matrix-y for my liking, in all honesty. Mildly entertaining, but really nothing to write home about.

Rating (0-10): 5

Recommendations: Eh, I can't really encourage anyone to watch it, but I wouldn't warn anyone away from it either. ~shrug~

Movie #95 -- Man On Fire

Title: Man On Fire

Director: Tony Scott

Release Year: 2004

Plot Summary: Creasy (Denzel Washington) is an alcoholic ex-assassin hired to protect Pita (Dakota Fanning), the daughter of the wealthy Samuel (Marc Anthony).

Thoughts: Tony Scott is a fabulous director. Seriously... one of the best in the biz. And the direction of this film is top notch. Lots of crisp and quick cuts and interesting camera angles. The cast is fantastic: two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington is good in his role as the alcoholic bodyguard; Marc Anthony (yes... THAT Marc Anthony) is outstanding as the corrupt Samuel; Radha Mitchel's character blends seemlessly into the film; and what more can be said about young Dakota Fanning?

All that in mind, this sum of the parts of this movie is less than it should be. Christopher Walken and Mickey Rourke's charcaters (see... awesome cast) are not given enough meat. The use of Trent Reznor's music gets extremely annoying about halfway through the movie. Denzel's character doesn't really make a whole lot of sense either (as wonderful as his performance is in this film). The ending sucks. Oh, and I'm convinced that somewhere in this 146 minute movie is a very good 120 minute movie just waiting to break out.

Rating (0-10): 6.8

recommendations: Worth watching for the acting performances and the kick-ass directing. I'd catch it on cable, but this certainly isn't the kind of film that bears repeat viewing.

Movie #94 -- The Notebook

Title: The Notebook

Director: Nick Cassavetes

Release Year: 2004

Plot Summary: An old man reads to a woman with dimentia. A story within a story.

Thoughts: This movie came out last year. I was dating this girl at the time who at the end of our second date was talking about marriage and I was genuinely creeped out. At any rate, we went to the movies for one of our dates and the trailer for this movie appeared and she said "Oh! We should go see that." Needless to say (yet here I am) after that evening, I no longer had a desire to see this film.

Well, I finally got around to seeing this yesterday on cable and, after having read many good things about this movie (look at the rating it has in the IMDB for pete's sake), I thought that I was in for a treat. I was pretty dissapointed.

I didn't feel any real connection with the characters, save young Noah Calhoun (played by Ryan Gossling) -- the way his character turns to alcohol to drown his sorrows seemed very real and heartfelt. James Garner turns in a decent performance and Joan Allen is effective (it's a real wonder as to why she doesn't get more work). But Rachel McAdams is just dreadful and Sam Shepard and James Marsden are almost as bad.

Sure this movie breezy and fellas (this concerns you, so pay attention) you'll probably get laid if you watch this with your sweetheart.

Rating (0-10): 6.25

recommendations: Mostly harmless. As far as romance movies though, you can do much better: The English Patient, Love Actually, and Before Sunset all spring to mind.

Movie #93 - The Stand (TV Mini)

Title: The Stand

Director: Mark Garris

Release Year: 1994

Plot Summary: Super flu kills just about everyone. Good guys are drawn to Colorado, bad guys to Los Vagas. Random showdown. Woot.

Thoughts: Well at least it didn't take place in Maine. I enjoyed it. It was long because it was a 4 part miniseries but I still felt like they left stuff out. I mean the book I think the book will do better (amy picked up a copy at the Treader so I'll read that shortly).

And as far as random mini-series go, the casting director for this one hit the jackpot. Gary Sinise was, as always amazing. Molly Ringwald, well she did as well as we can expect for her. But there was just so many faces I recognized it worked very well. It wasn't a bunch of no-name, no-talent actors. I even saw the guy who played Dr. Kelso from Scrubs, and he got super flu and died which made me feel better (although I LOVE him as an actor).

I also loved the use of "Don't Fear the Reaper" in the opening titles. :)

Rating (0-10): 8.5

recommendations: Rent it or read the book or somthing