Month: October 2014

Three Sentence Movie Reviews: Gone Girl

This movie has not one, not two, but three meaty parts for women.* In another stunning turn of events, the gender equilibrium from the book was translated exactly, with no maximization of the male’s story at the expense of the female’s.  At two and a half hours, this still managed to be a roller coaster, even for me, who just read the book last month.

Where watched: St. Johns Cinema with Kelly
Cost:  $7.00

*I normally have to watch 20 movies to find three such well written and acted roles.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2014/gone_girl_ver2.html

So how do you fund your schools?

Here in the United States, we make children sell things in order to have fun things in their school.  No one wants to buy this crap, but they do, because who doesn’t want to support the neighborhood children on a mission?  So there is then more crap in the world, and entire industries make money off this endeavor.  Enough to send a sample kit in the mail.  
I have an idea!  Why not fully fund our children’s education?  Then no one would have to purchase things they don’t want and the children wouldn’t have to sell things.
I’m happy to say that the school at which I work does not do fundraiser of this nature.  That’s one school down, and many, many more to go.

Wrinkled newspaper.

It’s weird, the way the paper arrives.  Rather than just stacking all the sections in the middle and folding once, there are various configurations of sections and often just the front page is wrapped around a stack of sections.  This leaves the front page rather wrinkled and strained. This was something that was never a problem, before the advent of the tabloid format.

Three sentence movie reviews: Repo Man

Part of the Ruby Oliver Film Festival *

This has to be the most punk-rock movie I’ve ever seen as it refused to adhere to the conventional movie narrative.  Is it sci-fi, or action/adventure or biting social commentary?  It comes with a great soundtrack and will keep you interested.

Cost: free from library
Where watched:  at home.

*This movie is part of E. Lockheart’s list of top 10 movies and I’d be interested to hear why she likes it.

poster from:  http://www.impawards.com/1984/repo_man_xlg.html
The amount of text on this poster is crazy!

Three sentence movie reviews: Ruby Sparks

This was recommended by Jeff, who noted my intense adoration of Zoe Kazan in What If, and I’m going to say straight off that I liked it.  I think it’s incorrectly categorized as a romantic comedy as the darker premise has it headed straight for drama territory.* By the time it ended, I was angerly shoving it into that genre where men get to write all the movies and then was shocked to discover the author of this very interesting look at relationships was none other than female lead Zoe Kazan, which completely blew my mind and changed what I thought of the movie.**

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home.

*Note to people who decide these things:  Just because there is ROMANCE in a movie doesn’t automatically make it a romantic comedy.  Even if there are funny and sweet parts to the movie.
**Which made me wonder how I would have responded to this movie had I known from the beginning a woman wrote it.

poster from:  http://www.impawards.com/2012/ruby_sparks.html
I’ve got too much going on at the end of the year to give awards to posters of movies I’ve watched, but if I did, this would be a top finisher.  It correctly sums up this movie in an enticing way.

Excellent parsing of words.

Said by a mom at school to her third-grade daughter:

“It’s not about him being a man, it’s about him having a skill I don’t have.”

I was so excited by that phraseology I grabbed for a paper and pen to write it down.  In my ideal world, people would have skills and the gender of the person performing a skill wouldn’t matter.

Postcards from Minnesota

This is a neighborhood-centric representation of St. Paul.  Alas, the sender lives in Minneapolis, so her neighborhood is not represented.  I’m interested as to why a chunker of land on the other side of the river is still St. Paul.  I would have assumed that the river would be the sensible dividing line.
I adore this postcard, from a bookstore.  It’s design makes me look again.  And again and again and again. It’s going to look great when it makes it to the wall display.
A very nice arty view of the Stone Arch Bridge, which I can’t wait to see for myself.
Sadly, the postcards were labeled 1, 3, & 4 and #2 has gone missing. It’s been a week and has not shown up.

Books read in September 2014

This month’s selection provides good examples of how to write children’s books in verse (Brown Girl Dreaming) and how NOT to write children’s books in verse (Miss Emily).

Top contenders:

Picture books: Nothing really blew me away, though all are fine.
Middle Readers:  El Deafo
YA: Brown Girl Dreaming
Grownup:  American Wife. (But I’ve been recommending this for years, so I assume y’all have read it by now.)
Nonfiction, children’s: Tiny Creatures
Nonfiction, grownup:  Bad Feminist, Many Are Called

Picture Books
 In New York
Marc Brown
Read for Librarian Book Group
Mostly I had the following sour grapes thought while reading this book:  “How nice that you found fame and fortune by creating Arthur and can afford to live in your lovely part of New York.”  But that’s just me.

Chicken Squad
Doreen Cronin
Read for Librarian Book Group
Amusing beginning reader.

Little Elliott, Big City
Mike Curato
Read for Librarian Book Group
Nice retro illustrations.
 
Middle Readers
Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere
Julie T. Lamana
Read for Librarian Book Group
Another forgettable/not right title (perhaps I should have a running list).  Forgettable title aside, I very much enjoyed this tale of Hurricane Katrina experienced by a 10-year-old.  It’s an interesting contrast to the other Hurricane Katrina book (Zane and the Hurricane) I read recently, and I thought this one was much more gritty and “real” in details.  I had trouble getting started, but once the hurricane got going, I wanted to keep reading.

Leroy Ninker Saddles Up
Kate DiCamillo
Read for Librarian Book Group
DiCamillo’s writing is good, but her illustrator is better.  Very fun story of a cowboy without a horse who acquires one.

*starred review*
 El Deafo
Cece Bell
Read for Librarian Book Group
Highly recommended.  The graphic novel story of how author Cece Bell lost most of her hearing and the way her hearing loss shaped her childhood.  Full of really fun and funny details and gently heartbreaking.

Through the Woods
Emily Carroll
Read for Librarian Book Group
Super awesome and creepy stories, richly illustrated.  I couldn’t read them before bed.

Miss Emily
Burleigh Muten, Matt Phelan
Read for Librarian Book Group
Rather twee and treacle-y story of Emily Dickinson having an adventure with some neighbor children.  It was written in verse.  I was not a fan.  The illustrations were disappointing too.
 
YA
*starred review*
Brown Girl Dreaming
Jacqueline Woodson
Read for Librarian Book Group
Books written in verse seem to be a thing now, but most of the stories could be told just as well if they weren’t written in verse.  Not this one.  The poetry could stand alone and the story that flowed from the verse was compelling.  Very well done.
 
Grownup
*starred review*
American Wife
Curtis Sittenfeld
Read for Kenton Library Book Group
This was a re-read for me and I loved it just as much as the first time I read it.  
Nonfiction, children’s
 *starred review*
Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes
Nicola Davis
Read for Librarian Book Group
I really loved the way this book talked about scale of things.  It was helpful to this reader who is much older than the intended audience.

Nonfiction, grownup

*starred review* 
Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay
Some essays read like a bit too much like a comparative literature paper, but most are insightful and funny and manage to hit both high and low.  My favorite was “Typical First Year Professor.”

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Alexandra Fuller
Kenton Library Book Group
The story of a woman of English descent growing up in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.  The writing was fine, the details were spectacular.  There were a lot of things to discuss at book group and it was the first book in a long time that we all liked.

50 Photographers You Should Know
Peter Stepan
I greatly enjoy seeing the works of good photographers and have decided to check out books of good photographs on a regular basis.  But which books?  Enter this handy guide to expose (hah!) me to many interesting photographers.  I especially loved the timeline feature.

Foodist
Darya Pino Rose
Pino Rose wants us to stop dieting and instead work on improving our food habits.  There is a lot of solid advice.

*starred review*
Many Are Called
Walker Evans
I didn’t even finish reading 50 Photographers You Should Know before I put this on hold. Evans concealed a camera in his coat and took surreptitious pictures on the New York City Subway during the late 30s and early 40s.   I loved seeing older women before plastic surgery became a thing and also the many hats people wore as a part of daily life.