Everything I watched in the theater this summer

 I honestly hate how fast this summer has gone. I always say I need 3 Julys back-to-back before I'm ready for it to be August and this current summer has me feeling that more than ever. My psych program has relaxed a little lately in that I'm basically done with core classes, but my clinical practicums always overlap and I never really get a break from one to the next. This year was ideal because my placement was within walking distance of my house and during the summer I was done for the week by 3pm on Wednesday. This is still all unpaid, mind, so there's that challenge, but the upside is I had time to go on bike rides, read, rewatch Dexter and Twin Peaks, get an AMC A-List Membership, and play Guitar Hero Van Halen with my sons (they are so much better than me it's embarrassing). 

Anyway. I'm holding onto the last 2 weeks of summer, I guess because I have enjoyed how my time has gone. There is plenty I have NOT enjoyed, clearly. Most of what's been going on in this country is very upsetting and continues to be. I think I went to the theater as much as I did because it helped me to both escape and regulate. I cried so much that first month, sometimes even at trailers. Here are some very short thoughts on everything I went to at Southdale, starting at the end of May. 

1. Jane Austen Wrecked My Life

Favorite film this year. I had a good time writing about this one. Every setting so lovely; smart people + books + writing = wins. *****

Go to therapy. Please.

 2. Friendship

 Sad and not one bit comical, although as a production it was put together fine. ***

 3. Sinners

 Loved the story, loved the people, loved the music. *****

 4. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

I was enjoying this very much until I got a text from my daughter that said: Can you come get me? I can't SEE. I left to get her at school, where she had somehow flung a piece of wood from a stick playing pickleball into her eye. 

Her vision was fine in the end. 

5. Bring Her Back

Is this body horror? So much visceral grossness. I also can't handle horror premises around child abuse. Again, put together well but crossed too many lines for me. ***

Cousin Matthew as Hot Priest

6. The Ritual

Also visceral but somehow more tolerable. Oh those Iowa Catholics! ****

7. Thunderbolts

Fine, I guess. Early vomiting sound design did not need to be that realistic, tbh. ****

8. Materialists

Meh characters, meh film. However, Dakota Johnson is very aesthetically pleasing. ***

9. The Life of Chuck

Not nearly enough Tom Hiddleston but whatever. I enjoyed the message. ****

10. 28 Years Later

Not nearly enough Ralph Fiennes but whatever. I enjoyed the message. ****

11. M3GAN 2.0 

Not as scary as the original (or at all, really), but fun. Not fun driving home at 50 mph down side streets with Edina, Richfield, and Minneapolis all blaring their tornado sirens afterward. ***

12. Jurassic World Rebirth 

I kind of felt bad for the dinosaurs, tbh. They were clearly rejected and some of them were . . . a bit difficult to look at. How many of these films do we need, really? *** 

13. Ballerina

Fine, I guess. As with the John Wick series, I get very antsy with the slow, drawn-out deliveries. RED BULL! ***

He's a punk rocker, yes he is

14. Superman

This was good, although I wish I would have just enjoyed it in the moment rather than spending so much time trying to analyze it. The ending and song were the best combo they could have possibly picked. ****

15. I Know What You Did Last Summer

Fine. Not as smart as the first one but still nostalgic and fun. ***

16. Eddington 

It wasn't bad, I just couldn't stand to be in that world for that long. Left after an hour. 

17. The Naked Gun 

I laughed. A lot. Pamela is cute-funny; Liam is serious-funny. ****

18. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning

I went back and really liked it. Claustrophobic submarine antics > Overlong plane chase antics ****

She may have forgotten her long legs but remembered her sticks

19. Weapons

Favorite horror film ever in a theater. Scary AND funny. Lost count of how many times characters and viewers together asked WHAT THE FUCK?, but it was a lot. I sat by some excitable 20-year-old and her boyfriend and we had fun being the easiest jump-scare targets in the place. Gladys (Amy Madigan) was immediately familiar to me as Chanice (Uncle Buck) and Sam's mother Mary Taggart (ER). YIKES.*****

Jane Austin Wrecked My Life

I feel like I've been crying all day. First I went to this film and then I came home and watched the first episode of this season's Handmaid's Tale so the works just keep on watering. I made the decision to start seeing films in the theater again, which I'm a little sad about not getting to do for free anymore since my daughter no longer works at AMC, but whatever. One of the happiest times in my recreational life was when I signed up for the 3-a-week subscription back in 2018 and went to several morning matinees while my kids were in school. I don't think I even wrote about most of them, I just went and watched, taking it all in the moment, I guess. As I am in a holding pattern with two things with my school program right now and recovering from a very rough spring semester (mostly due to a few of my organs deciding they'd had enough of my bullshit and consequently failing/inflaming), I thought it appropriate to seek out as many happiness-producing activities as possible. Turns out you can't just drink for ten years and then ignore your self-care because you're busy. Or at least I can't. 

Anyway, I re-upped the theater subscription; this time you get 4 a week! I will miss having my daughter as a wingman for everything I see, but she's onto bigger and better things and she actually prefers the Edina, now, with its Overlook Hotel writing desk stage upstairs. We used to stop at the bougie Kowalski's in Southdale for Starbies, sushi, and hot cheetos before every film last summer. I love those memories, just like I loved the times I went all those years ago, by myself. 

This film was such a perfect beginning to my summer. I seriously wanted to live inside it, forever. 

Jane Austin Wrecked My Life, 2024. 

Written and directed by Laura Piani 

This film is about books and writing with lovely musical interludes of importance thrown in at pivotal moments. As it takes place in France and is mostly in French, it is a beautiful example of what people do in countries where reading and intelligence and empathy still rank as desirable acts/attributes. It's such a visually beautiful film (French streets, all the books everywhere, Jane Austin's house and all its literary-ness and antiques), it could have well been silent and still been a lovely experience. There were lingering shots of many different decorative elements in the different settings, almost feeling like flipping through very well-composed still photos, and beyond the visuals, the story is emotional and funny. I haven't had the experience of not wanting a film to end in a long, long time, but I wanted to stay with this. It made me want to stay in a fancy house or a little European cafe and read books for days. This is decidedly OPPOSITE of the vibe in America right now. Agathe (Camille Rutherford) says at one point that literature, for her, is like an ambulance speeding through the night that is meant to save people. I think that was the exact moment I started crying (although I came close early on when there was revealed to be a piano *that she plays* in the bookstore). There are no pictures of this piano online yet, nor is there any information about the sonata she plays repeatedly throughout the film. 

I need this title. Someone?

Maybe Reading Could Help: Darkness

I keep thinking about this bit in Dave Eggers' The Every where the main search engine and the main online commerce place have merged and everything is controlled and curated by them--- and halfway through the book it is explained that people in this world quit reading and the skill just went away. The only people around who could still do it were people on the legal teams, because those organizations actually required literacy and comprehension, but nothing else did. No one else gave a shit so there wasn't a need for books anymore and they all just went away. (This gives a little of two different Twilight Zones, both starring Burgess Meredith, and it's upsetting just how correctly Rod Serling had humanity, even 60 years ago) 

I'm not bringing this up because I'm afraid of not being able to read again (I have enough books to last me the rest of my life, no repeats, and I have lots of glasses in case mine break), but it's sad and horrible, thinking about this BRAWNDO HAS ELECTROLYTES world we live in and the direct consequences of an unthinking, unable-to-empathize populace who doesn't care to read. 

Anyway, here's what I read over the last month, I call this stack DARKNESS. The first 3 of them were re-reads, because I'm obsessive and I never get over anything.

1. Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales, by Stephen King

I looked back on other blogs I wrote on this and I guess this is the third time I've read the whole book, although I have read "1408" and the title story a few more times, still. Again, I always read things multiple times, dating back to age 2 when my mother used to read me The Story of Ferdinand or Goodnight Moon when she put me to bed. When she left I would just start it over and recite whatever story to myself, again.

This time I loved: Illustrating the severity of Jack Hamilton's gunshot wound first by having the smoke from the Lucky he inhaled exit out the back of his lung where the bullet hole was (Like Juno in Beetlejuice but less funny and more yikes) and then ongoing, by the various stages of pus and Jack's energy. With a title like "The Death of Jack Hamilton," you obviously expect the guy to die, but these were still nice details. There was a lot of visceral medical stuff in this one I never really noticed before. Infection is no joke, kids. You can't just shrug that shit off.

Also all descriptions of the insane maitre d in "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe", and always with this vibe of very dark humor with the hindsight. Like, who would come up with these metaphors when telling the story of getting randomly chased around with a butcher knife?  ". . . bent forward slightly from the waist as he was, he made me think of a drawing in my sixth-grade literature book, an illustration of Washington Irving's unfortunate schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane." Steve Davis (main character) was clearly over it all before he even walked into that cafe, and often it's these out-of-fucks kind of people that tell the best stories about whatever bullshit they encounter. 

And in "1408," still my favorite in this collection, and I maintain, the scariest: "Whatever there is in that room, it's not shy." NO SHIT. It's a small thing, but why is there always a changing painting in so many of these stories? Evil coming out of neutral decorative objects: fruit to rot; regular teeth to fangs; even the floor changes after everything gets going to include "smooching noises" when Enslin walks on it. Stop it. I'da been long gone at the first hint of motion sickness when the goddamned doors started tilting and shifting right off the elevator. Not to mention how everything is orange--- there's something seriously wrong with this entire setup. 

Reading these all over again helped me laugh a little and appreciate creepy characters and cleverness in storytelling (although I still refuse to read "1408" at night). That settles it. I think I always need to be reading a Stephen King book. 

2. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I am a very different person now than I was when I first read this. This time, knowing what the deal was from the beginning, I started keeping track of who was the bigger liar, and how early this started coming out (Nick's secret cell phone, which details from Amy's diary were somewhat true versus flat out lies, etc.). What I started noticing more was the difference between how Nick's lies and character flaws are peppered here and there throughout the story beginning early on and the truth about Amy's disordered personality is withheld until she explains how has framed Nick for her murder. I think the end goal was to be as if Nick's version he wrote (in the book, that Amy made him destroy) was actually this book, his chapters of Gone Girl, combined with Amy's true account of all the events as she experienced them (first part the diary that she partially reported truthfully and partially made up, second part the truth of everything that happened to her after she abducted herself), and this just really highlights the differences between them: Nick is an asshole; Amy is pathologically disturbed. We receive the negatives about Nick early and consistently; the disturbing problems with Amy's character emerge slowly at first, and then erupt. And because she is the narrator of her chapters of the story, and she's been proven to be a liar and a manipulator, we can never really be certain she's telling the whole truth. 

Could she have genuinely been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy)? There are hazy details missing from her childhood above and beyond her parents not relating to her or treating her like her own person (although was that even real? she could have made that up, too). She would have needed to meet criteria for conduct disorder in childhood or adolescence in order for APD to apply; it seems odd that this would have escaped both her psychologist parents, but a very smart person with beauty, talent, and resources would have likely found ways to perform the role of a psychologically typical daughter. The moments when Amy criticizes people who are trying to help her--- Boney, the cop ("I find ugly women are usually overly deferential or incredibly rude") Desi, or even her parents--- show her as cold and unfeeling, with no desire to relate with any real humanity. Can she relate to people on this level? Yes. She charms many. But she also uses and frames countless people in her life, and kills Desi with no remorse---like everyone else, he is nothing more than a means to an end. She chooses who gets her painted-on humanity, just as she chooses to disclose certain details in the telling of her story and not others. Amy Elliot probably wouldn't find anything wrong with her actions, nor would she be able to reflect more deeply into why she does what she does. Nick at least knows he's an asshole and could probably pinpoint all the ways and reasons why he is one.

The experience of reading this again was unpleasant, but I have a feeling personality disorders will be making a nation-wide comeback very soon. I thought it would be useful prep. Also I re-watched the film and thought there were several missed opportunities in Fincher's choice not to include the numerous friends from Amy's past who she screwed over. One final thought: I found a scholarly article on apapsychinfo that used popular film characters as a way of discussing the etiology of personality disorders. The authors actually started back with Fatal Attraction's Alex Forest (Borderline Personality Disorder), changed the ending a bit to allow Dan and Beth Gallagher's daughter Ellen to become an orphan in foster care, and suggested that these negative experiences could set the stage for young Ellen to be adopted by two childless psychologists (The Elliots), and subsequently develop conduct disorder and then Antisocial Personality Disorder as Amy Elliot in Gone Girl. 

3. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood 

Talk about darkness. What upsets me about reading this now is how it relates so completely with how some people, some who think ectopic pregnancies can be re-implanted or that cameras can be swallowed to record data on fetuses, want to use our government to control women. I used to think it was a fringe element, no more than 40% in the heyday and far less than 20% after the real crazy came out. Turns out it doesn't matter. People still aren't listening, or they're actively siding with Gilead's boys.

"You wait, she said. They've been building up to this. It's you and me up against the wall, baby. She was quoting an expression of my mother's, but she wasn't intending to be funny."

I gotta go with the show over the book on this one; there's at least some revenge happening there.

4. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor

Yes, well. Bouncing back to personality, there were several issues with every character in every one of these stories. Everyone is very racist, and the characters who don't believe they are racist, or who believe they are less racist than other people in the story with them are usually the most racist of all. There are class issues, too, farm money, education, religion, etc., but mostly everyone is just really unpleasant. That said, there is an element of inevitable train wreck that comes in reading each of these; the situations themselves that these people are in are actually interesting enough to keep you locked in. As in, what is the guy going to do to purposely embarrass his mother on the bus? Is that little girl going to side with her grandfather or the father that beats her? What is the religious wife going to say about the latest tattoo? Then add to each answer, "and how will this fuck things up worse than they already are?" 

I read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (very small town, In Cold Blood murder-y) in an English short story class at MCTC in 2000, and as much as I was disturbed by it, these were somehow worse, darkness-wise. O'Connor's feelings about religion are actually kind of valid---something like "the world is so horrible and violent that only God can save us . . ." I wonder what she'd think of organized religion, today.

5. The Splendid Ticket by Bill Cotter 

The darkness in this book is embodied by the character of Dean Lee, who wasn't even that terrible of a human, just made bad choices. Gambling addiction and guns. Bad combo. I had a professor who described a large percentage of her female clients' problems as needing either a winning lottery ticket or a husband-ectomy. Angie needed both.

I hated knowing all along how this was going to end.

Hella Nopes + Wambsgans

My husband would have said, "wow, that's too bad,"
thrown some loose change at them, and
slammed the door.

1. Knock at the Cabin (2023) d. M. Night Shyamalan

Family goes to cabin; 4 randos show up and demand one of the dads kill either the other dad or the child to stop the end of the world.

This was put together well (aside from weird extreme closeups in the very beginning) and I probably would have liked it maybe 10 years ago because omg what an interesting, high-stakes mythology! But now, today, this feels very much like Cult Initiation 101 and after all that has happened in the last 7 years, the writing feels irresponsible. I realize that worrying over whether or not some zealot out there is going to take this seriously is probably not a big enough reason to pan a film, but I have concerns for very specific and gullible members of the population and I honestly can't believe this is a 2023 narrative. Just quit trying to freak people out this way, they've HAD ENOUGH! This was like Saw but with religion.

RUN. 

2. ER, season 13 (2007)

"It's giving old, creepy Malucci."

My daughters are rewatching this and it's always been this exact season where I quit giving a shit about the show. I don't even think I watched it full to the end, to be honest, and this upsets me because I absolutely count the first 10 seasons as one of my best shows, ever. Abby Lockhart is 100% my favorite character, ever, and I wish she would have stayed in psych with her perfect cardigan and all her experience and empathy. What a god.

A. The change in the opening credits was bad, someone on Reddit said it was to make room for more ads. WHY.

B. Tony Gates as some sort of rebooted Clooney bad boy was annoying. Bonus negatives for Stamos, who is very problematic (look him up, JANE magazine interview), any time, anywhere. BYE.

C. No more Greene, Corday, Benton, Chen, or Romano, Weaver is hardly in any episodes, they need Carter. Abby and Luka are good, keep them along with Sam, Pratt, Neela, Ray, and Morris but Abby is just a doctor now. Not a nurse becoming a doctor, not a resident doing psych and NICU rotations. I want more for her, not just a surprise pregnancy. And there could have been multiple episodes about Darfur, not just a couple. 

GET IT RIGHT.

3. If There be Thorns by V.C. Andrews

I cannot believe this even exists. I read it in middle school (!), then again in college with my roommate where we would circle ridiculous stuff in the text and make comments on the story in the margins, and now I'm reading it again. This is the third book in the Flowers in the Attic series (4th if you count Garden of Shadows first, chronologically and I hate myself for knowing this) where Cathy's ten-year-old son, Bart, goes off the fucking rails after Grandmother Corrine moves in next door. Bart is moody and unloved (by stepfather Chris and Cathy, who seem to prefer Jory, the older brother and Cindy, a little girl Cathy adopts. Chris and Cathy are yes, brother and sister and yes, MARRIED) so his initial interactions with Corrine seem hopeful because he's finally getting attention from someone but lo and behold John Amos, the Foxworth's butler, decides to groom Bart to become the next Malcolm Foxworth, forcing him to read the old diary, speak in his voice, and grow to hate all women for bothering to exist. 

I have a lot of sympathy for children going through struggles with parents, and many times kids with the biggest problems come off as extremely unlikeable to most people, but mental health struggles aside, there were very few redeeming qualities to Bart (to the point of me thinking GOD just let it end), and the Malcom stuff was weird and confusing. At various times in the story this change in Bart was presented as 1. He accepted what John Amos was selling and decided at 10 to be like, sounds good, Imma hate women and be like my great-grandfather, 2. A sort of supernatural possession of Bart by Malcom, or 3. An actual second personality in line with dissociative identity disorder, Malcom a second side of Bart, who was always aware of the presence (making it decidedly not DID). If I had to guess, she was going for all of these things under the umbrella of "this is what happens when you do incest," (even though Bart was conceived through Cathy's affair with her mother's husband Bart Winslow, not her own brother). See? GRANDMOTHER OLIVIA WAS RIGHT! 

Clearly I missed everything messed up about this book the first time, slightly less the second time, but this thing is off the charts ridiculous. Chris and Cathy seemed to ignore tons of red flags throughout the story just because Bart was already slightly unpleasant, and that makes me sad, but overall the story was a giant ICK.The continued incest, the abuse toward animals and Cindy, and most of all the indoctrination of a little kid into said abuse plus misogyny. I know I was just looking for creepy locked-in-the-attic stuff the first 2 times reading it, since that's what I thought these books were about, but my god, how clueless was I to be reading through this at 12, "yes, all these things are fine because SCARY BOOK!" Also, not a single adult, anywhere, thought this might be an issue because everyone I knew was reading these also.

Christ. 

4. The Idol

Just NO. That's all.

5. Succession

So enough time has gone by where I am able to think more about Succession and Tom Wambsgans. Yes, I made a video freaking out about how cringey he was and how he was one of the worst people on the show, but I am going to retract that. Sometimes I get it wrong. 

Tom Wambsgans was at times annoying, and I still have a problem with how he treated Greg (manipulation, water bottle assault, the bodega sushi issue, etc.), but I have come to appreciate his character as one of the only ones that reacts to the disturbing elements of both the business and the Roy family with any sort of emotion or empathy. This sets him apart from Kendall, Shiv, and Roman as they also realize their lives are disturbing and problematic yet they just continue to try to one-up each other in the race to see who can get the attention of Logan (King disturbing and problematic). While the siblings try to become more like Logan, Tom tries too, but it's a challenge for him and he consistently acts out, usually targeting Greg in the process. This is not unlike the Patrick Bateman situation in American Psycho where he wanted to be noticed so much in a money-obsessed, materialistic environment that he became a serial killer and still no one cared. Tom pretends he's like the Roys, even wants to be like them, but he's not. Shiv wants an open marriage; he feels guilty after hooking up at his bachelor party and turns down the 3-way on the boat. He doesn't want to go to prison over the cruise line issues but offers to do it for Logan. He helps Logan in the bathroom with care and tenderness none of Logan's own children would have been able to match. This is not to say Tom doesn't have the ability to become more heartless and Roy-like with time, especially considering the finale (no spoilers) but yeah. 

I am kind of okay with him now. And it has totally nothing to do with (below). 

6. Pride and Prejudice (2005) d. Joe Wright

I rewound this scene and watched it 3 times after finishing the film. I just . . . 

All My Vampers

Ever since I heard True Blood's Andy Bellefleur (Chris Bauer) first pronounce the word vampire, "VAMPER" I have adopted it as my preferred way of saying it. I have to remind myself to actually say vampire when it comes up outside my own home, which is a lot more often than I thought it would be. This is not unlike Mark Borchardt stubbornly calling his film Covin,  COE-VIN, which I also do. 

Salem's Lot, 2004 d. Mikael Salomon

Written by: Stephen King (novel); Peter Filardi (teleplay)

Starring: Rob Lowe, Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Samantha Mathis, Andre Braugher

Does a Stephen King adaptation even need a summary? Bodies start piling up as a mysterious newcomer stalks a small North Eastern town. And as always, there's a writer.

This somehow made it onto my Netflix disk queue and was delivered the week after I finished rewatching The Twilight Saga. Someone, somewhere must have recommended it to me, although I think my Netflix queue still has stuff on it from 2010 that is just now coming up. 

I don't really have a ton to say about it; even though it's a 2004 production, the vibe is very much cheesy 80s film that you don't get too mad about or invested in. There are very good parts: the casting was interesting, the timeframe was updated from the seventies to (then) modern times, and Donald Sutherland as bad guy Striker seemed to really have fun with this role (the scene of him giddy and scampering up the stairs after a victim made me laugh, a lot).  There are also bad parts: the writing of the relationship between Dr. Jimmy and Sandy was cringe-worthy, the Ben Mears voiceover was mostly lame, and I keep waiting for someone to put the knives-under-the-vanishing-stairway bit from the book into a film adaptation (this didn't), but overall I still enjoyed the experience. This is exactly the kind of film we would watch for our Tuesday group and either spend the whole time overanalyzing or laughing at everything. I actually really dug the ending. My husband had the idea for Ben Mears (your favorite and mine, Rob Lowe) to shout out "Let's Rock," in conversational tone every time they went to kill a new vampire. Yes, everything Rob Lowe does must be related back to St. Elmo's Fire, forever. 

In terms of the vampire genre, I think True Blood might have ruined me a little when it comes to fangs. The retractable (kind of sexual) obviousness of all the Bon Temps Vampers' fangs springing out left and right made me realize that fangs are important. I'm not saying they need to be that clicky or anything but good fang work must be written into the special effects budget. Otherwise the killings are basically zombies who bite necks, why even bother with it? 

The fang work in this film was adequate (Rutger Hauer wore them beautifully), just like the fangs in The Lost Boys were good if a little thick, but I go back to one of my favorites again and again for both fangs AND creepy claw nails, and that's the original Fright Night. Chris Sarandon as Jerry Dandridge is one of my favorite vampires,ever---attractive and creepy. Enough time has passed for me to try the remake starring Colin Farrell again, which I don't particularly remember digging too much, so maybe look for that this fall when I get into the horror lists properly. 

Cameron (Obnoxious and Anonymous) and I discussed the Twilight Saga a few days ago, and obviously, the attractive aesthetic is alive and well with these vampires with added sparkle and eye-change features, but seriously, had there been a little more attention devoted to fangs, I think it would have elevated the vampires, specifically their fight scenes, to the next level. 

Though I realize I'm missing the Wheadon series (I know, I'm getting to them), I decided to list my favorite vampire experiences in film, television, and books below. Tell me what you think I should do next! 

1. Fright Night (1985 film)

2. I Am Legend (book by Richard Matheson)

3. Dracula (book by Bram Stoker)

4. The Lost Boys (1987 film)

5. Dracula (1992 film)

6. Nosferatu (1922 film)

7. True Blood (television series) 

8. Fevre Dream (book by George RR Martin)

9. The Passage Triology (books by Justin Cronin)

10. I Am Legend (2007 film)

11. The Twilight Saga 

12. The Southern Vampire Mysteries (The Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris)

13. From Dusk Til Dawn (1996 film)

14. "The Reluctant Vampire" (Tales from the Crypt Episode)

In the meantime, if you're down for a nice long chat about The Twilight Saga, check out our discussion (I think I only slip and say "Vamper" once!").

Reading in Quarantine: The Second 7

This stack went considerably faster than the first one. They were shorter in length but also very engaging---I tore through these because I thoroughly enjoyed each one and always looked forward to picking them up when it was time to read. I don't think I've ever felt that way about an entire group of 7 before. 

The Poet, Michael Connelly, 1996. 492 pages.

In effort to uncover the truth surrounding his twin brother's supposed suicide, a journalist finds a string of serial crimes linked to a murderer and child abuser with a penchant for the work of Edgar Allen Poe.

I had read only The Lincoln Lawyer from Connelly, which I liked a lot, but I picked this up for fifty cents at a thrift shop in my hometown last year. It was a little slow at first for maybe two chapters, a lot of journalism and cop talk as the main character, Jack McEvoy, deals with the aftermath of his brother Sean's suicide, but once it gets going, it really goes. Details that don't add up, the arrival of the FBI to the story, and the POV chapters from the murderer himself, not to mention Poe and the poetry, all make for very interesting scenes and a compelling mystery, overall. As with any story that deals with child abuse, the subject matter here was dark and disturbing, but it was a very well-done, interesting novel.

The Great American Read project (which I'm still in the first pages of) lists all of Patterson's Alex Cross mysteries on their list, and while I do enjoy the character of Alex Cross, I feel like Connelly does a better, more authentic job laying out the mystery. Written in 1996, this was Connelly's fifth novel, but on the strength of this one I'd really like to start at the beginning of his work like I did with Patterson and CJ Box's Joe Pickett series. Good thing I have all this time on my hands.

Esperanza Rising, Pamela Munoz Ryan, 2000. 312 pages.

After the death of her father, a young girl must leave Mexico with her mother to escape an abusive uncle and find work in California.

I needed a YA novel and one of my kids recommended this one. I really ended up enjoying it, there's so much going on to process. It makes me really happy they give this to kids in elementary school, because on top of being a great story about a girl and her family, there are class issues at play (Esperanza is from a upper class family), labor union issues (many of the workers want to strike for better working conditions), and racial issues (white workers from Oklahoma are given better homes and more pay per hour than the immigrant workers from Mexico). Each chapter heading is a Spanish word for whatever fruit or vegetable the crew is currently picking or prepping, so by the end you've learned the Spanish words for twelve nouns (grapes, papayas, figs, guavas, cantaloupes, onions, almonds, plums, potatoes, avocados, asparagus, and peaches), which is cool, too.

The story itself is told through the main character Esperanza's perspective, and while it does focus on common YA topics such as friendship, material things, and bullying---which I happen to think everyone should read more about anyway, no matter age or gender---the bigger topics described above make it an important story about immigrations experiences with labor and the struggles these workers face. I daresay we as Americans could stand with a bit more empathy for situations like these, and would recommend this book as an introduction on learning about topics that require understanding and compassion for humankind.

The Wild Things, Dave Eggers, 2009. 306 pages.

In a novelization of Maurice Sendak's children's book, Where the Wild Things Are (and also a novelization of the screenplay of the same name), Eggers tells the story of Max, the boy in the wolf suit who escapes his family life to and island of beasts to become their king.

Silly me, I bought this only because Eggers did it, had no idea it was based on Sendak, no idea Eggers had done the screenplay. Only after the wolf suit came into play did I realize what was happening, but even so, the story was wonderful and engaging from the very first page. I don't think you even need to have read or enjoyed the first book or film to enjoy this story, Eggers is a brilliant enough writer to have carried it totally on his own, filling in those back stories of why Max was naughty, what was going on in his family, the unique personalities of each of the beasts he spends time with, and how Max inadvertently learns a lot about himself in the process. It's a great story, and should you already be a fan of its original subject material, you will likely enjoy this, too.


Watership Down, Richard Adams, 1972. 496 pages.

After their warren becomes unsafe, a group of rabbit bucks forge an escape and relocation plan encountering several threats and challenges along the way.

I never really had any interest in rabbits; as a writer and more importantly, a reader, I'm a solid cat person, although I do sprinkle our throwaway produce ends under our deck for the baby buns that hang around the yard. It doesn't matter if you like rabbits or have even thought about them in regard to fiction, this book is really about adventure and relationships, and it's very well done. I really enjoyed it.

As with The Stand, I read most of this about ten years ago when looking for clues about LOST ---people said it might hold clues to the survivors' fate (it was also one of Sawyer's "beach books"). The premise is sort of similar, a group needs to survive and evade enemies, but that's really it. At its heart, this is a sweet story that explores a lot of how wild creatures experience other species and the natural world. I enjoyed all the rabbits' names and personalities (Dandelion, the storyteller, was easily my favorite), the mythology and history of rabbitkind showcased in the stories of old they passed around, and as these were British rabbits, I enjoyed many of their words such as "shan't," "Old Chap," and other traditional phrases. It's a lovely story, and I daresay, one that eventually addresses bigger, relevant-to-humans themes such as trust, bravery, and control. It's pretty long, but well worth the time, and the ending had me in full waterworks.

The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead, 2016. 338 pages. **SPOILERS BELOW**

A woman escapes from the plantation owner who enslaved her through an underground railroad but soon discovers, escaped or free, there are no safe places in America.

This was on a list of novels of supplemental reading for one of my grad classes at Augsburg, the third one from the list that I've finished, and by far the best. I didn't know anything about it before reading, only that it was said to be very good and that it would go on to win many, many awards. I assumed it was about The Underground Railroad as I've grown to know it from history and I was very excited when I discovered the motivation was the same, but this story was about an actual railroad that allowed people to escape. I don't want to say too much, because reading and learning about the railroad, where it goes, how it's made and hidden, should be experienced as it's written, I think the less known in advance, the better.

Cora, the book's main character, is interesting, very headstrong, and written, I think, in a way that details the evils of slavery she experienced while giving equal attention the concept of the long-lasting trauma these experiences caused. I don't know that I've ever read it described so fully (since Toni Morrison, at least)---the idea that these terrible things that have been done to a person, beatings, rapes, humiliations, stalkings, murders, and the memories of these things can and will stay with them, affecting every aspect of their lives. The effects of slavery didn't just stop when those enslaved escaped or obtained freedom.

Everyone should read this.

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators, Ronan Farrow, 2019. 464 pages.

Farrow investigates the countless sexual assault and harassment charges against Harvey Weinstein over the years; many people, including his production team at NBC and Weinstein himself, try to kill the investigation but in the end, The New Yorker publishes the story.

I was curious at first, and I knew quite a bit going in, but after "The White Whale," a section about 90 pages in, this became an anger read to the end as I learned about the number of victims, specifics of how they were raped/assaulted/stalked (and not only by Weinstein, Matt Lauer has a section and he's just as disgusting and criminal), and just how deep this coverup really went. It was infuriating, but an important read, and (as with War on Peace) really good insight into the importance of competent journalism. The one happy moment, if there can be one in a story like this, is Farrow's little "okay, bitch ass," (my words, not his) treatment of his producer Noah Oppenheim's pleads for Farrow to make a statement that he, Oppenheim, wasn't the villain in all this. I'll allow that in a story this evil, he wasn't THE villain, but he was definitely A villain. Reminds me of Isaac from Children of the Corn, strapped to the corn cross, crying, because he knew his ass would soon be grass. With any luck, Weinstein is making similar sounds in prison these days.

Unsound Variations, George R. R. Martin, 1982.

A former chess captain and two friends agree to meet the teammate that lost an important chess match decades earlier; the loss has consumed every aspect of the teammate's life, and as it turns out, all of theirs, as well.

This is a short story in the Dreamsongs, Volume 2 collection, and one of my favorites of all GRRM's short fiction. I'm a pretty basic chess player so I knew and understood most of the terms, but honestly, it didn't really matter. Chess is important in the story, yes, but overall, it's a story about bitterness and strategy (both on and off the chess board). I think it would make for a very nice new Twilight Zone episode, if Peele might be looking for material for his third season. I really, really dug this, very clever with a brilliant ending.

LOST: It Wasn't Purgatory, thoughts on the first season

So what all happened during the first season of LOST?

1. Oceanic 815 crashed onto the island
2. Pieces of each of the main surviving characters' stories were told through flashbacks
3. The survivors found ways to live together but weren't rescued
4. Dangers such as polar bears, a mysterious monster made of black smoke, and a group of others living on the island threatened the survivors' lives repeatedly
5. A secret hatch was found, uncovered, and blown open
6. A small group of the survivors built a raft and left the island to seek rescue

LOST as a unique frame story:

In the book Getting LOST (edited by Orson Scott Card), Evelyn Vaughn identifies the narrative of LOST as a "frame story," similar to literary works she has studied such as Boccaccio's Decameron or The Canterbury Tales (56). These stories are composed of different inner stories and narrated from multiple accounts but focus on one central event that maintains the theme that unites everything. In LOST's case, the plane crash could be seen as the one central uniting event, but the island itself needs to be identified as more than just a setting---certainly it's a unique environment but with time we see that it's also a container and character, with both healing and threatening properties whereby all the various happenings throughout the season are made possible. No other known environment could manage this narrative; LOST has given viewers something never before seen.

Of course there would be no show without the initial crash, but many of the happenings on the island (the smoke monster, the polar bears, Ethan) were presumably carrying on with whatever they had been doing beforehand, making the island itself seem overall more important (and more of a framing device) than just the crash. Thus, the island becomes the show's central uniting factor and survival (from starvation, from the monster, from Rousseau, from the others), its theme. One almost gets the sense of a sort of updated collection of Twilight Zone episodes within a contained universe, each featuring a different survivor but revealing and linking several commonalities as the episodes build toward their shared conclusion.


Philosophy on the island:

It's difficult to pin any one character down to any clearly defined philosophy. Chief among the obvious differences in philosophy of the survivors are Locke's devotion to faith and Jack's to science, but as we've seen through several episodes, there's more than meets the eye with both men, their respective experiences, and how they approach leading. Locke, having experienced the miracle of his own healing after crashing on the island, is more trusting and intuitive toward this new environment. He respects the island and its mystery, almost blindly, but also considers the needs of individual survivors over the larger group's best interests in the spirit of Emmanuel Kant (discussing Jack's issues with Christian in "White Rabbit," Walt's desire to be involved in hunting in "Special," and Boone's separation from Shannon in "Hearts and Minds"). Does he do this because he is trying to treat each person as ends and not means or simply because he just happens to know what's best for them? Maybe both, maybe his faith in himself is as strong as his faith in the island.

Jack also focuses devotedly on the individual in providing medical care (shown mostly in his handling of Boone's injury and subsequent death in "Do No Harm," but also in several of his flashbacks throughout the series and in the situation with the dying marshal early on). Both Locke and Jack have shown they are able to make decisions for the group and have done so with a utilitarian approach (do what will bring the best outcome for the greatest number of people), but the motivation for these decisions, especially in regard to dealing with each other, seems to be frequently at odds. Worth mentioning of course is the use of the name "John Locke" as one of the main characters; the philosopher John Locke believed in the freedom of men and their will to live according to reason within the state of nature. The idea of a "Tabula Rasa," (blank slate) was something he explored in his writings, and was used fittingly early on in the series as the survivors struggled to adapt to their new surroundings. If Locke is patterned after the real John Locke's philosophy, what, if anything does this mean for Jack?

Exodus, part 3
Exodus, part 2
Exodus, part 1
Born to Run
The Greater Good
Do No Harm
Deus Ex Machina
Numbers
In Translation
Outlaws
Homecoming
Special
Hearts and Minds
Whatever the Case May Be 
All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
Raised by Another 
Solitary
Confidence Man
The Moth
House of the Rising Sun
White Rabbit 
Walkabout
Tabula Rasa
Pilot, part 2
Pilot, part 1

Reading in Quarantine: The First Seven

I always have a stack of seven books to read. Sometimes I'll get to pages or chapters from all seven in one sitting (or bath), other times I'll zero in on one that I'm enjoying more than the others and finish it first before going back to the remaining six. This time around, I was watching The Handmaid's Tale while also reading The Testaments in early March, so I worked it out by reading Testaments in the morning and then by watching Handmaid's Tale at night (with wine, because yeah). I can't say it was fun, exactly, but I was very interested in both stories having read Atwood's THT novel years ago. Things were a lot different back then.

I didn't set out to create a depressing stack of dystopian books to read, it just sort of assembled itself. My friend lent me the Atwood, I had been reading small bits of the Rand since summer, Cronin's last in his vampy trilogy had sat gathering dust on my shelf since after returning home from China in summer of 2018, I'm just always reading something of GRRM's, and I've been rereading each of King's novels just for the fun of it. The other two I just picked up because I wanted to learn more about history and international diplomacy. When I posted a photo of this stack on March 16 (the week after my graduate school internship was suspended and the quarantine unofficially began), many people noticed the theme and remarked upon it. Very heavy, very dark, they all said; I went with it. It was indeed a very heavy and dark collection of books, but without spoiling anything, there are a few happy conclusions snuck in, too. Not the non-fiction, mind.

After a while and given the way the events under quarantine have unfolded throughout my time at home, I started balancing these stories with television programs that became an outlet for my disgust and anger at the administration's handling of the situation (Sons of Anarchy, Rescue Me, House, Mrs. America) and my need to escape it all (LOST). Here's what I read:

1. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. 2019, 431 pages.

This story continues the events of The Handmaid's Tale and is told through POV chapters from two young girls, one inside Gilead and one across the Canadian border, and Aunt Lydia, one of the women charged with the education of Gilead's young women.

I could give my thoughts on this in a balanced and proper way highlighting interesting bits of prose or clever links back to the previous novel --Hey, Aunt Lydia's backstory! Awesome!-- but this would really be a waste of a good rant. It's obvious that Atwood knows how to write; everything she does is intelligent and skilled, but I wasn't thinking of this while I read. I was cringing and scowling and squeezing the book (as during the show but sub squeezing the book with gulping my wine) because I was ANGRY. This experience was quite unlike reading The Handmaid's Tale so many years ago because for various reasons, now, I am more afraid of it ACTUALLY HAPPENING. I found myself thinking several times that this might give the wrong people worse ideas than they already have and that women might need to have a plan in case this someday gets put into play. Just like everyone is likely to have a "pandemic plan" that has toilet paper, yeast, and bottled water hidden away in a bin after this COVID debacle, I move that women start developing a "Gilead plan," for safety's sake. I don't know what it would entail, but once we can meet again friends, let's get something down on paper, okay?

Verdict: Great book, well done (will raise blood pressure). Men? Reading this could really help with insight and self-awareness, please try.

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. 1957, 1084 pages. 

I will try to be tactful with this. I started reading it a really long time ago and planned to stop at least six times throughout different stages of it but didn't. I read The Fountainhead about twenty years ago and thought it was okay until I actually started thinking about the date rape presented as, "well, it worked out in the end, didn't it?" I had a hard time with that, but it's another story for another day. Atlas Shrugged is an entirely different experience although there's definitely gender stuff and a weird, destructive vibe around the intercourse that gets had among characters.

Dagny Taggart is the vice president of a successful railroad company; her brother is the company's president but he's spineless and bad at his job. Hank Reardon is successful in running a steel company having created his own superior brand of metal. Europe is in the grips of communism, which seems to be spreading to other parts of the world, and this worries the two industrialists because every single liberal-minded person in America favors collectivization, helping one's fellow man, eschews science, progress, and rational thought, and they're beginning to take over. Through the guidance of several other mysterious and lauded industrialists, the two realize they've been approaching their businesses in a way that rewards laziness and ignorance, and that this needs to be radically halted.

I get that communism was scary, but seriously.

(Epoche: I have a liberal arts undergraduate degree and have very nearly completed a graduate degree in a field that combines art and science. I taught little kids to read for four years; I serve others in a helping profession. I am a writer and musician. I have more children than average. I read a lot. I am not a business owner, nor I am remotely interested in becoming one. I realize I am speaking from a position of privilege, as a reader and as a middle-class, white, cishet American whose parents created a comfortable life for me). As such, I was not made to be afraid of the ills described in this story, nor was I guilted by the implications leveled at liberals. I won't say it's not an important story, it is, but it's of another era, another world, even.

Most liberals are not going to put the time in with this. Hell, most followers of Rand are probably not going to put the time in, either. It's long, it's complex, and it deals with a lot of abstract ideas that don't really get interesting until halfway through the book. That said, I was intrigued by the two characters' views and experience in their respective industries. The book itself is written well (if a tad long-winded), it's passionate, and presented in an intelligent manner. As someone who enjoys a good rant, I appreciated that this book had several: Francisco's wedding rant was maybe 15 pages, John Galt's radio lecture was almost 60. I didn't particularly enjoy those rants but I liked some of the other lines, mostly Dagny's: (New sis-in-law tries to throw down. "I'll put you in your place. I'm Mrs. Taggart, I'm the woman in this family now." "That's quite all right," said Dagny. "I'm the man.") I liked her energy and inner focus, and I liked that she, a woman, was competent and respected.

What I rolled my eyes at a lot were the thoughtless and negative blanket statements about professors, teachers, mothers, and even writers and musicians that were presented as absolutes as well as the whole idea of moral codes being the guiding forces in these industries. Please. If she's trying to sell us on America's superiority and the strength of the American businessman, that's some real fairy tale, revisionist bullshit that ignores a hell of a lot of exploitation that this country was built upon. I don't think Rand considered how quickly and completely her little idea would eventually 180, (the word moral as it applies to this outfit, today? People rejecting logic and intelligence? Come on!) but whatever. I can have a sense of humor about being a liberal, and in so doing, I can laugh about this very misguided idea of Rand's that caring and empathizing is wrong and that only selfishness matters.

Verdict: It's obviously written by an intelligent person, just one I don't personally agree with. If a greater understanding of "what moves the world," was the goal, the book is only interested in what moves the unemotional, disconnected world of white businessmen and their money. I'll take real humanity, thanks.

3. The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin. 2017, 602 pages. 

I really shouldn't have let so much time pass between installments, but it all worked out in the end.

In the reorganization after the defeat of The Twelve, members of the new civilization throughout various locations in Texas make ready their next moves for survival while Zero (Timothy Fanning) shares his backstory and furthers his plan.

I'm not gonna lie; Timothy Fanning stole this story completely away. His chapters had the best events and the most emotion and insight into his character. I had to try very hard to keep everyone else straight. This survivor's doing this, this is a dream sequence, this survivor's over here, now, and so on.  Really loved the line about Hollis, "This large, gentle man, collector of books and reader to children, had become a warrior." I very much dug the book and thought it wrapped up the trilogy nicely; the idea of hitting reset on humanity is not something I thought about in any seriousness before, but funny enough, it's on my mind a lot now. Bonus points for viruses being not just interesting but all of a sudden relevant.

Verdict: Enjoyable book, lots of feeling, a smart series about vampires. Enjoyable series overall. Check out The Passage and The Twelve first, if you're interested.

4. The Stand, the complete and uncut edition by Stephen King. This release, 1990, 1141 pages. 

A virus named "Captain Tripps" wipes out most of the country; good versus evil battle it out in the aftermath. 

I've never read the edited version, I wonder now what initially didn't make the cut. This I read 10 years ago in search of what I thought would be clues to the ending of LOST. I whipped through chapters and did not appreciate all the subtle little details that I really enjoyed this time around. Although there are definite ancestor text references, this felt decidedly less like LOST and very much more like The Walking Dead after the initial threat of the zombies had been extinguished. They have to elect a new government. They have to figure out how to get the power back on. And gardening! The community-building was a huge part of the novel, mixed in with the creepy jealous evil of first, Harold Lauder, and next, Randall Flagg, aka "The Walkin' Dude." I had forgotten the last battle, as it were, and was expecting some sort of desert ultimate fight scene, so I was a little let down by the abruptness of the final battle (but appreciated the link to a certain Juliet Burke). 

Overall, the story itself doesn't seem to me to be rooted in horror at all: The Stand is about its characters, which is very much like LOST, and I can't fault it for that because all of them are interesting and well-written. It's a long read, it takes its time, and some of the language feels very dated and cheesy, but it still holds. Especially now. Did you know they were releasing a new version of it in 2020? Good to see the Skarsgaard family is making a habit with these creepy updates; Eric the Vampire as RF? Nice.

Verdict: If you are a patient reader, a fan of King, or both, you'll dig it. Surprise, it's disturbingly relevant, also.

5. "The Skin Trade," from Dreamsongs, volume II by George R. R. Martin. 2012, 88 pages. 

Werewolves (lycanthropes) do wolfy things in this crime story. Skins are also removed.

This was a nice longer short story. I was hopeful that the wolf and skin stuff might be some generationally-relevant reference to the Starks and the Boltons, but no such luck. I just want everything GRRM writes to have some basis in the world of ice and fire, is that too much to ask?

Verdict: It's fine. It's not Winds of Winter but we make do, you know? Enough said.

6. The World Since 1945: A History of International Relations by Wayne C. McWilliams & Harry Piotrowski. 2001, 618 pages. 

This was a textbook for a current events history class I took back in 2000 at MCTC. I learned a lot; it was definitely one of my favorite history classes, ever. The professor was super smart, liberal as hell, and had done his studies on China, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

A detailed volume of how the threat of communism guided US policy and got us all in bed with terrible dictators. Also colonialists did not leave their former colonies with the skills or tools to prevent corruption, so that happened. Germany and Japan rebuilt and learned a lot from their horrible mistakes; globalization has its good and bad points. The former Soviet Union and modern-day Russia is a shit show, but we can't really even know the half of it. Oil. Pollution. Poor nations become indebted nations. 

Verdict: Yes. Read it. 

7. War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence by Ronan Farrow. 2018, 392 pages. 

In summary: There used to be smart people in the State Department, and while those smart people didn't always have all the right answers and made a lot of mistakes, they were smart, they understood diplomacy, and legitimately wanted to help the country and the world. Those people were fired or quit 3 years ago and weren't replaced or are governed by people unfit for such roles who don't understand or value diplomacy. Or anything, really. Gross. 

Verdict: WE. ARE. SCREWED. 

The Great American Read: 5 and 6, 12 Angry Men

These posts are from a reading list I started in late spring of 2018 and a film list I solicited from readers in January of 2017. I work slow but I'll finish, dammit!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

This is a story that at its heart is about two things: poverty and books. The protagonist, Francie, lives with her mother, her younger brother, and father in Brooklyn during the early 1900s when times were extremely rough. Dad drinks, money is tight, Mom picks up the slack and gets them all through it by--guess what--READING TO THE KIDS. It's not a pleasant story, it's full of a lot of tragedy and injustice, but the empathy and heart that comes from experiencing such a story is very meaningful. We've all struggled, we've all gone through unpleasant situations, but the sort of struggle author Betty Smith has written about in this novel is something that many times, today anyway, gets written off as laziness, as ignorance, or just failing to lift one's self up "by the bootstraps," as it were. No one in this story is lazy or ignorant; people work hard, people do the best they can and people fail, people die. As with the title of the book, my favorite moments discuss the hopelessness together with the surprising way optimism persists in this young girl's life. Why does the tree keep growing? Read and find out:

When baby Francis is born, Katie frets to her German mother about the poor quality of life that lay ahead, but the new Oma sees hope:

"Excitement came into her voice. 'Already, it is starting---the getting better.' She picked up the baby and held it high in her arms. 'This child was born of parents who can read and write,' she said simply. 'To me, this is a great wonder.'
'Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard. What must I do, Mother, what must I do to make a different world for her? How do I start?'
'The secret lies in the reading and the writing. You are able to read. Every day you must read one page from some good book to your child. Every day this must be until the child learns to read. The she must read every day, I know this is the secret.'"

Teachers had a lot to do with Francie's success,

"If all the teachers had been like Miss Bernstone and Mr. Morton, Francie would have known plain what heaven was. But it was just as well. There had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background its flashing glory."

Yet not all of them made an effort to understand the realities so common in the lives of poor students (one such bristled at the subject of one of Francie's stories that described a character with a drinking problem):

"'Drunkenness is neither truth nor beauty. It's a vice. Drunkards belong in jail, not in stories. And poverty. There is no excuse for that. There's work enough for all who want it. People are poor because they're too lazy to work. There's nothing beautiful about laziness.'
(Imagine Mama lazy!)

This is the first novel on the Great American Read list that I feel should be mandatory reading for both kids and adults. People generally agree that literacy is important; can we make the same statement about empathy for the poor? Or while we're at it, the experiences of poor little girl? Oma was right---many secrets to success lie in reading and writing.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

I didn't know how this was going to go, honestly. I read the story as a kid, probably some arranged or edited version, saw the film, and was full well familiar with the environment of most of Twain's works, which is the openly racist South. Even knowing this beforehand, it's still jarring and uncomfortable to read racist words in dialogues or the descriptions of people first and foremost seen (by the white people) as "others." Did I enjoy the book? Mostly I did. On the surface it's a story about a naughty little boy doing naughty little boy things but there are very serious issues going on, too (murder, framing an innocent, abduction, homelessness) and racism underscores a lot of the events. Tom Sawyer as a character, is not mean or hateful, but this book takes place during a time that was, and there's no way to justify it other than to say that it was written accurately for when it happened in history.

Apart from its historical honesty, the writing is very witty and youthful. Every now and then you get a fun kind of acknowledgement (from Twain about Tom as a little shit of a character, which he is):

"The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer . . . "

and often the importance of the natural world. A beetle in church provides entertainment until a dog randomly comes into church and carries it off. Tom knows not only bug and bird species, but how to fish, how to start a campfire, how to survive in the wilderness (but not quite yet how to smoke without throwing up). He has sympathy for an innocent man. He falls in love with Becky Thatcher and impresses her with his artwork. He sympathizes with Huck Finn when his friend realizes his clothes aren't good enough to be a pirate, and so on.

There are many sweet little human moments in this story, and among all the evil and dishonesty, mostly perpetrated by the adults in the town, the overall theme is one of youthful innocence. These moments made me nostalgic for my own childhood---picking dandelions in the ditch of our driveway, hauling barn cats around in wagons, climbing up trees, and running around at night, all with my brother right instep with me--and these moments made the book a worthwhile read.


12 Angry Men

1957: d. Sidney Lumet, starring Martin Basalm, John Fiedler, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Henry Fonda, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, Robert Webber.

1997: d. William Friedkin, starring Courtney B. Vance, Ossie Davis, George C. Scott, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Dorian Harewood, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza, Jack Lemmon, Hume Cronyn, Mykelti Williamson, Edward James Olmos, William Petersen.




The story was originally written by Reginald Rose as a teleplay in 1954 but has since been adapted for theater, film, and television. Many countries (Germany, India, Russia, Lebanon, China, and Sri Lanka) have also released versions of the same story over the years. The premise of the story, twelve male jurors deciding the fate of a young man of an unidentified but different ethnicity, is nearly the same in both American films as are the personalities of the characters themselves. Unlike many other courtroom dramas, all of the time is spent inside the locked jury room with the twelve men while they deliberate, and as the title suggests, there are issues.

"He can't hear you. He never will."

I'd seen both of these years ago, and I remembered the lone juror (#8 Fonda/Lemmon) holding out among all the others who were so immediately convinced the kid was guilty. What struck me this time around were the standout differences between the eighth juror and the rest of the crew. #8 is one of two men (the other, #12) whose profession would have required a college education but this isn't the only reason he's interesting. He asks questions, is honest and self-aware, and he explains things very exactly and specifically. An architect would have to be both creative and scientific, and #8 is both of these things, almost teacher-like. He seems to have a greater understanding of the importance of the legal system, the jury's duty as citizens, and an overall worldly kind of approach to right and wrong. This kind of attitude stands in direct contrast to that of many of the other jurors', who are very rigid and defined (at least at first) in their behaviors.

"You oughta have more respect."

While these characters initially come off a little caricatured, it's still kind of exciting to see how they navigate through the whole procedure and how #8 eventually gets through to each man. I gave the 1957 cast nicknames (nerd, ranter, poor guy, old guy, full racist, dumb guy, etc.) and they mostly held true for the 1997 cast as well, but there were some updates in characters and with the writing that blurred the lines a little more. In any case, both casts were quite skilled, and seeing them interact was pretty fun. I personally enjoyed Fonda's easygoing calmness in the first film and the late great James Gandolfini as #6, a kind of early, wise-cracking working man Tony Soprano in the second.




Is any of this outdated? In some ways, yes. Race relations have changed slightly for the better, and juries are rarely made only of men anymore, but there's no denying that the core system that continues to divide everyone and push an us vs. them mentality continues to be old, white, and male. That said, the issues of truth (who's telling it?) and laziness (who's got time for all this?) will keep these films relevant, probably forever no matter who sits in the jury box.

"Assumed? Brother, I've seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day, but this little display takes the cake. Y'all come in here with your hearts bleedin' all over the floor about slum kids and injustice, you listen to some fairy tales, suddenly you start gettin' through to some of these old ladies... well, you're not getting through to me, I've had enough! WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU GUYS? You all know he's guilty. He's got to burn! You're letting him slip through our fingers."