Just finished reading “Gone Girl“. It sticks in my mind, and I’m not sure why, so I’m going to see if I can figure it out.
Category: Reviews
bookmark_borderMy Recent Reads
So, with the help of my library’s on-line search and my cell phone’s list of downloads I think I’ve managed to collect a list of all the books I’ve read or listened to on the phone during the past fifteen months. In order of author: Continue reading “My Recent Reads”
bookmark_borderReview: Visitor Q (Originally Bijitâ Q)
Dysfunctional family, healed with the help of an outside visitor. Sound like a good storyline?
Now, how dysfunctional can you make the characters, both as family members and as individuals? How about using prostitution, and incest? How about combining the two so that the incest comes about when the daughter is charging the father for the sex, including a surcharge for cumming too early? Is that too wierd? Wait, it gets better. Throw in some family violence. The son, who is being bullied regularly by some boys his own age, verbally and physically abuses his mother while the father ignores them and continues to eat his dinner. Toss in some more prostitution and add in some sexual violence when the mother needs to earn money to support her drug addiction and her client asks her to whip him with his belt. And voyeurism. The father is a failed television newscaster and films himself and his family constantly. He films himself having sex with his prostitute daughter, films his son being bullied and films as his house is attacked by the bullies brandishing fireworks. He has the unknown visitor do the filming while he rapes and kills a former newscast partner when she refuses to partake in the filming of the bullying of the son. Add in some necrophilia when the father takes the body home to dismember but finds himself getting excited. Add some scat when the dead woman’s bowels release while the father is having sex with her dead body. Put in some more violence and indignities to human bodies when the father and mother kill the boys who have been bullying the son and add the three bodies to the woman’s body and begin to dismember them as a family project. And this comes after the mother has rescued the father’s penis from being trapped by rigor mortis in the dead woman’s body by giving the father a shot of heroin.
bookmark_borderReview: “Zoe Busiek: Wild Card”, the Ceiling of Mediocrity
I watch very little television these days. I do have a television in the bedroom though, and today I woke up an hour early and turned on the TV to see what was on. Between morning newscasts I found something intriguing on W Network. Googling it helped me to discover that the program is called “Zoe Busiek: Wild Card” and that it ran from 2003 to 2005 on Lifetime.
Continue reading “Review: “Zoe Busiek: Wild Card”, the Ceiling of Mediocrity”
bookmark_borderReview: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Finally managed to watch this movie. Very nice. Does not fall into all the standard expected story tracks as it progresses.
bookmark_borderWriting analysis: Blue Roses, by Francis Hwang
Review of “Blue Roses” by Francis Hwang
Published in “The New Yorker” November 1, 2010.
Continue reading “Writing analysis: Blue Roses, by Francis Hwang”
bookmark_borderReview and thoughts; Memoirs of a Geisha
I don’t read a lot of books when they first come out, I don’t see a lot of movies in theaters or even when they first arrive in DVD format. It could be that I don’t like being part of a crowd, or that I like things to stand a little test of time before I spend the money and time required, but more likely it’s just that I’m lazy and slow.
bookmark_borderReview/reaction: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Haven’t seen the movie version yet, but I read a reference to the book in an issue of the New Yorker a few months ago and realized that I should read the book. I requested a copy from the library but it took so long to arrive that I forgot my request until the book arrived last week.
Continue reading “Review/reaction: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”
bookmark_borderReactions to watching “Brokeback Mountain”
Recently we bought a new DVD player and with it came a month of free DVD rentals. The first movie that we chose is “Brokeback Mountain”. I’m sure that everyone knows what separates this movie from all other mainstream successful movies; gay cowboys.
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bookmark_borderAn Ideal Husband
I admit to not being much of a movie watcher in the past few years, and though I’ve been involved on a board level with a small theater festival for a while it’s been years and years since I’ve seen classic theater.