Pretzel Logic

3. "Snark," by David Denby (2009)

2010-01-13T11:00:00.002-05:00

All throughout this slim volume, I found myself nodding at one of David Denby's points or shaking my head at the next debasing example of snark he had retrieved. It'd be easy to draw a thought-bubble above Denby's author photo and write, "Get off my lawn!" but the fact is that he's right. Snark is a dead-end, and it's about time someone diagnosed it. Whether Denby succeeds is another matter.

My own rudimentary definition of snark has always been that it's insult simply for the sake of insulting, without some aspiration for social change (satire) or to expose hypocrisy (irony), and that there's never a standard to which its practitioners hold themselves to. It's easy to make fun of everything, but without some idea of what you actually do like, those insults just become hollow and exhausting, and, most of all, every bit as predictable as the people snarkers rail against. If you like something, that means you stand to be judged by X amount of other people, and the snark generation is paranoid of being judged.

Denby, to some extent, covers all of those points, and yet I'm totally underwhelmed by his book as a whole. He does a nice job giving us a primer of snark's history, and he competently identifies snark as a growing problem. But we all know this. Who's going to disagree that what Denby defines as snark has become the prevailing tone of our generation? It's everywhere. Seinfeld, (whose motto, recall, was "No hugging, no learning"), feels almost quaint these days. But snark relies on words, and words are just the expression of deeper feelings and motivations. As such, this book feels like half an argument, with the psychic and more lasting implications of snarky behavior left for another author.

2. "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," by Muriel Spark (1961)

2010-01-10T12:45:00.000-05:00

When I told people this week I was reading Muriel Spark's famous story, most of them replied that they remembered the movie, notably Maggie Smith's iconic, Oscar-winning performance. It's not hard to see a younger, more conniving Professor McGonagall in this role, that of a spinster-ish teacher of a cult of six girls, trying to mold them into her image until one of them betrays her.

I had a hard time getting into this book. The prose is drier-than-dry and (deliberately) repetitive, and, let's be honest: in the nearly 50 years since this book's publication, how many off-the-wall teachers with unorthodox methods have we been exposed to? Then I read this paragraph:

It had turned nineteen-thirty-one. Miss Brodie had already selected her favourites, or rather those whom she could trust; or rather those whose parents she could trust not to lodge complaints about the more advanced and seditious aspects of her educational policy, these parents being either too enlightened to complain or too unenlightened, or too awed by their good fortune in getting their girls' education at endowed rates, or too trusting to question the value of what their daughters were learning at this school of sound reputation. Miss Brodie's special girls were taken home to tea and bidden not to tell the others, they were taken into her confidence, they understood her private life and her feud with the headmistress and the allies of the headmistress. They learned what troubles in her career Miss Brodie encountered on their behalf. "It is for the sake of you girls -- my influence, now, in the years of my prime." This was the beginning of the Brodie set. (p.39)

I think up to this point I was happy to play along with the idea that Miss Brodie was just a loopy, self-absorbed, and altogether lonely woman -- but ultimately harmless. But with that excerpt, the novel takes a much darker turn: what she really wants is a cult of sycophants, little versions of herself. And to what end? This is a woman who possesses only a facile understanding of fascism -- she sees the low unemployment and clean streets of Mussolini's Italy but pays no mind to the tyranny behind them -- and likely enjoys that same feeling of power with her girls. What is fueling her Messianic complex?

What's interesting about the novel is that even though she's unquestionably the focal character, Jean Brodie remains an enigma. We know her only through her actions and her memorable turns of phrase ("For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like" being my favorite). The novel truly belongs to her cadre of girls, and in the second half, almost exclusively to the girl who betrays her.

All of which is to say is that the story is nothing if not an unsettling mystery. Don't be surprised if you read it, begin something else, but still find your thoughts creeping back. It's a grower.

In Which I Lay Out the Game Plan

2010-01-06T14:16:00.003-05:00

There's every possibility I'll come to regret writing this, but I hope that by doing so, I'll commit myself more than if it's just a notion in my head. In setting out a reading goal for 2010, I knew there were a couple bullet points I definitely wanted to reach: that I would begin reading more books by women* and I'd try more authors I've never read before rather than just the old standbys. And read more than the 50 books I read last year.

But how many more? I thought 75 was a good number, but I already did that in 2007. Why not raise the stakes? So in a possible kamikaze move, I have decided to read 100 books, and use this blog to document my efforts. Why? Who the hell knows. But it'll be fun.**

100 books: that's an average of 8 1/3 books a month, or just less than a book every four days. I read steadily, but not so steadily where I can polish off one literary heavyweight after the other every 3-4 days.*** Besides, I have to account for longer books and occasional funks where I can't get into anything. So I kind of have to cheat a little -- well, not cheat so much as recognize my own limitations and adjust accordingly -- and acknowledge that the only way to reach 100 is by reading a steady diet of YA books and airport fiction. I'm not as well versed in good YA fiction as I am in adult fiction, so any recommendations are welcome.****

Let's start the insanity.

*By which I mean authors like Marilynne Robinson or Jhumpa Lahiri rather than Sophie Kinsella. Nothing against Sophie Kinsella.
**Or some facsimile thereof.
*** Which kind of goes against the spirit of good reading, anyway. Unless you read nothing but junk (and why would you want to do that?), how would you find the time to actually think about what you read? Letting a good story roll around your head for a while feels like an essential component of the reading experience, yet it's what mercenary reading (like the woman who reads a book a day) can't allow.
****Harry Potter is still another couple years away. Twilight is another lifetime away. Find me something else.

"Looking for Calvin and Hobbes," by Nevin Martell (2009)

2010-01-04T16:32:00.009-05:00

(This is a review I posted on my Goodreads account last year; I dutifully re-post it here.)

As someone who considers Calvin and Hobbes to be one of his very favorite things, I breezed through this biography with expectations that in retrospect I know had no business being so lofty. Anyone familiar with C&H knows that Bill Watterson has chosen not to be a public figure and has not bastardized his creation with countless knockoffs; it's part of the mystique of the strip which consequently has a purity that I assume is why so many people continue to revere it. So the idea that we needed a biography of its creator was a noble but inherently flawed endeavor.

The main problem with this book is its subject. How do you write a biography of someone who won't talk to you and has not provided a copious public record for you to wade through? Obviously, you then have to go to people who know Watterson, but even that proves frustrating here, since most of the interviewees either remark on how little they actually know Watterson or offer boilerplate "Watterson is a genius" praise. And no matter how well-intentioned it is, interviewing Watterson's mother unsettled me a bit.

As it is, Martell relies on what interviews Watterson has given to a handful of newspapers and the commentary he's offered in his books. But anyone who's reading this book is likely a C&H fan who owns the books and has seen these opinions already. Including them here doesn't illuminate Watterson as a subject; it just makes Martell a dutiful transcriber. There's also the writing style, which struck me as too conversational to really take seriously.

Ultimately, this book is a big-hearted but doomed hagiography of one of the most cherished artistic achievements of my generation. I applaud Martell for his efforts and I have no doubt his heart is in the right place, but I'm not sure I know anything about Watterson that I didn't know before.

1. "Paper Towns," by John Green (2008)

2010-01-04T10:48:00.006-05:00

I grant you that this book is essentially a rewrite of Green's first novel, "Looking for Alaska," which won a bunch of awards and turned Green into a YA sensation. Judging from the synopsis of his second novel, "An Abundance of Katherines," it seems that "Paper Towns" is yet another variation on the themes there as well.

I grant you that this story comes perilously close to succumbing to the "Juno" syndrome, where all the teens are too witty by half and seem to possess uncanny amounts of wisdom, which they dispense in well-timed morsels.

I grant you that the target of the protagonist's quixotic journey is a cipher, a girl given far too much credit when what she really is is just immature.

I grant you that the main character unspools a faux-poetic monologue near the end that is both overlong and borderline ludicrous.

I grant all those things and yet I still enjoyed the hell out of this book. Maybe I'm just feeling charitable with the New Year, but I turned my grizzly critic's switch off about halfway through and just went along for the ride. Green absolutely needs to begin branching out in future novels, but for now, he's written at least two really good ones.

Book Recommendations for January-May 2009

2009-05-21T18:23:00.012-04:00

Because I can't be relied upon to contribute to the blogosphere with any regularity, I submit instead this round-up of my favorite books I've read so far this year. I offer it not as a survey of contemporary literature or as an AP English reading list, just as a source if you're looking for something good to read. I begin with my favorite novel of the year, and of many other years:

Crossing to Safety, by Wallace Stegner (1987)
Perhaps I'll write more about this novel at year's end, but I want to describe how I came across it: I had heard of Wallace Stegner as a literary figure, someone whom I remember seeing on a Pulitzer winners list, but I'd never read any of his works, never been inclined to. Then, one afternoon at the library, when we along with many other libraries in the state were counting how many people entered the building, I needed something to pass the time in between clicks. I reached into the return cart, recognized the name, dipped in, and was soon knocked on my ass. This is why I'm a librarian and continue to put up with "the public": for serendipitous moments like these.

Because I was not ready for how great this novel is -- how unassumingly great it is. It never announces itself as an Important Book, has no po-mo lit tricks, no major philosophical statements, and it is not difficult in the slightest to read; this is the perfect literary book to give to somebody who doesn't think they like literary books.

The novel basically charts the decades-long friendship of two couples who meet when the narrator begins teaching at university. Plot-wise, that's about it, just two couples navigating the peaks and valleys of a 50-year relationship; at one point, the narrator even wonders aloud what drama can be mined from such seemingly banal circumstances ("Where are the suburban infidelities, the promiscuities, the convulsive divorces, the alcohol, the drugs, the lost weekends?"). This is Stegner's gift: that he can capture these universal feelings in such unpretentious, memorable prose. It's a novel really to cherish, to give as a gift, to recommend whenever possible, so consider this my humble attempt.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (2007)
I'm not sure I'm as enraptured of last year's Pulitzer winner as others, but I still admired this novel a lot. Oscar is depicted as an uber-geek, a slothful, girl-repellent sci-fi buff who makes it his life's crusade to fall in love. But there's much more at stake than that, as Diaz charts Oscar's family through several generations; in fact, despite the title, Oscar only appears in maybe half the book (I actually preferred the backstory of Oscar's family to the parts involving Oscar himself -- until the last chapter, at least). The language is fresh, it's funny, and surprisingly, given the academic stature of the narrator, very smart. The main thrust of the novel is how behavior runs through generations, and in particular, how Oscar's family, living through a brutal 20th-century dictatorship, still carries those scars.

The Cradle, by Patrick Somerville (2009)
In this short novel, a man is asked by his pregnant wife to search for a Civil War-replica cradle that had been stolen by her estranged mother's new boyfriend when she was young. His journey to find the cradle is filled with bizarre characters and at least one life-changing decision. There's also a counterplot featuring a mother reluctantly seeing her son off to war that eventually dovetails into the main story. If any of this sounds like a recipe for quirk-induced disaster, breathe easy: Somerville is too good for that. And at 200 pages, you can polish it off in one or two sittings.

Pieces for the Left Hand: 100 Anecdotes, by J. Robert Lennon (2005; reprinted, 2009)
As the title suggests, this is not a novel but a loose collection of 100 vignettes, none more than three pages long. They are slice-of-life stories, as recounted by a droll, older man living in upstate New York (e.g., Two professors disagree vehemently on the proper spelling of gray/grey, to the point that they refuse to speak to each other. Over the years, each comes to realize the other was right, but the grudge endures: they still refuse to speak to each other.) The book has a way of luring you in (you think you're just going to read three or four, and then you look up and you've read 15), and I do admire the economy of the stories. I would advise reading this in bursts, since one could grow weary of the stories' inevitable ironic twists at the end; however, when they work, they're very funny and observant. You could even view this as a roundabout character study of the narrator, a man who keeps you at a distance but whose behavior and the company he keeps does give you an idea of the person he is.

Zeroville, by Steve Erickson (2006)
By some distance the craziest novel I've read this year. A man calling himself Vikar moves to Hollywood around the time of the Manson murders and becomes a celebrated film editor. Right from the start we know there's something not quite right with Vikar (or is it that there's something not quite right with us?) : he has one of his favorite movie scenes tattooed on his bald dome, and Erickson describes him as cineautistic -- knows everything about movies but can't negotiate everyday interaction. There's an element of Forrest Gump in Vikar, in that he unwittingly shows up at seminal moments in cinema history; half the fun of reading this novel is in picking out what movies are being referenced in these encounters. I'm not sure I could explain why this novel works -- especially when it descends into pure chaos in its final pages -- I just know that it does.

Other worthwhile reads:
Lowboy, by John Wray (2009)
The Dart League King, by Keith Lee Morris (2008)
Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You, by Peter Cameron (2007)
City of Refuge, by Tom Piazza (2008)

"The Yankee Years," by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci (2009)

2009-02-08T23:33:00.007-05:00

"The Yankee Years" is an enjoyable read and a helpful, accurate primer on the Joe Torre era for those who missed it or need a refresher. If you're reading it simply for the Alex Rodriguez bashing, it's not really that vicious -- and besides, A-Fraud has slightly bigger problems to deal with these days.

It gets points for eliciting pretty candid opinions from former Yankees such as David Cone and Mike Mussina, and it also does an effective enough job providing context for the Yankees' inexorable slide toward...well, not mediocrity, per se, but certainly disharmony. Along the way, there are juicy tidbits even day-in, day-out Yankee fans like me hadn't heard. My favorite: head scouts from the 2000 title team still haven't received their World Series rings for reasons only George Steinbrenner knows, but among those who did receive them were Steinbrenner sycophants Billy Crystal and the opera singer who does 5-minute renditions of "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch of playoff games. Priceless.

The book loses points for its somewhat repetitious and overstuffed prose, and for including a few too many self-satisfying quotes from other people extolling Torre's virtues (of which there are many, but still: The book details a team meeting in 2007 where coach Larry Bowa chews out the players and tells them that Torre is a "once-in-a-lifetime" manager. I'd much rather have heard what Torre said in that same meeting). I also am not sure why Torre's contributions to the book warrant co-author credit (besides the obvious financial reason) -- Torre's voice is not heard for large chunks of some chapters.

All in all, though, a worthwhile read, and not half as salacious as the headlines would suggest.

"The Turnaround," by George Pelecanos (2008)

2008-08-10T21:45:00.011-04:00

Right up front: George Pelecanos is one of my favorite authors. He writes exactly the kind of crime novels I'm interested in reading, ones that venture beyond the crime (which in some cases doesn't even occur on the page) to its effects on a community. He prefers a lean, direct writing style, relies little on contrived plot twists, and allows his characters only the hardest earned of optimism. His dialogue is spot-on and his characters are complex. He rarely utilizes violence for its own sake, choosing instead to chart the effects that ripple out after an act of violence occurs. It's not a big surprise why David Simon tapped Pelecanos to write several episodes of "The Wire," since that show took all of the above qualities as its mission statement.

So I have pretty high standards for a Pelecanos novel, and each time he has delivered -- and, for the most part, he delivers in his new novel, "The Turnaround," as well. But sometimes when you've read an author a few times, you start to see the machinery behind the story, and all of those elements that made the first few books such eye-opening experiences now come off as rote. This might explain my disappointment in his otherwise solid new novel, one I'd still recommend despite its flaws. It contains all the hallmarks that make Pelecanos such a good read, but for the first time, I found myself saying, "We've been down this road before."

The novel begins in 1972, when three white teens, high on marijuana and youthful arrogance, drive to the other side of town and casually shout out racial epithets to three black teens as they drive by. But the road dead-ends, and the white kids are forced to turn around and drive back as the black kids stand waiting, poised. One kid runs away. Another doesn't make it out alive. The novel then jumps to present day, as we follow the progress of those teenagers, now in their 50s, as they all come to terms with their roles in The Incident.

This is treated with the gravity you'd expect from Pelecanos, as he understands more than most other crime novelists how one 10-minute sequence in 1972 could leave scars that never go away. There's also an economy to his prose that is both deliberate and welcome; Pelecanos has always flirted with the stripped-down aspect of hard-boiled fiction, but never before with such confidence.

If you had to single out one overarching theme coursing through his works, it's the nature of manhood. On whether a character measures up as a man, Pelecanos's definition seems clear: a real man gets up, goes to work every day, is there for his children (biological or otherwise), remains faithful to his woman, stays loyal to his friends, pays his bills and his debts, and maintains a long mental Rolodex of great soul songs from the 1970s. Tough to argue with those criteria, but sometimes Pelecanos relies exclusively on those guidelines when establishing his characters, to the point of repetition.

In "The Turnaround," one character, having worked hard all day, is said to relax at night with his "bought-on-time" television. Another character, who works in his father's restaurant, learns that "Work was what men did. Not gambling or freeloading or screwing off. Work." The effect is that Pelecanos sometimes telegraphs his characters in a way that's only slightly less clumsy than just saying Character A is good and Character B is bad.

Most of these hiccups occur in the early stages of the novel; the story settles in once the action moves to present day, and as they say on book jackets everywhere, I wasn't able to put the book down. But this still seems like a small step back from his previous novel, "The Night Gardener"; it's minor Pelecanos, a novelist riffing on some familiar themes. B

A Quick Film Point

2008-08-02T21:48:00.006-04:00

The movie I had wanted to see earlier (not Batman) was sold out, so I decided instead to try "American Teen", a documentary about high school students in the Midwest doing high school things and making high school mistakes. As a documentary, it's average at best, never telling us anything about teenagers (the white suburban ones, anyway) we didn't already know. The conclusion: Today's kids are materialistic, self-absorbed, techno-savvy, backstabbing, misunderstood brats under all kinds of social pressure. So basically, just like every other generation that preceded it, minus the technology.

But this is the point I'd most want to make: Here in 2008, practically a whole generation has grown up saturated in and under the influence of reality television and talking head-type documentaries, beginning with "The Real World" and reaching its peak (or nadir, more likely) with "The Hills." Watching "American Teen," I was struck by how comfortable everyone was on camera -- even the representative geek who is "awkward around people." All the main characters know what they're supposed to say and how they're supposed to say it. Of course people have always looked to the media to inform them how to behave and to validate their feelings, but this has taken it a step further -- people walking and talking all day long as though they're on camera because they very well may be, whether it's on a big screen or on YouTube.

Here's my next point: The filmmaker would likely say that my first point is the point, that kids expertly preening for the camera is what makes an American Teen these days. But that's where I break off; how invested am I supposed to be in these people, and what is supposed to resonate with me, when they all sound like they've been rehearsing for their close-ups their whole lives?

This Year's Model

2008-07-29T23:41:00.006-04:00

Last year I warned the six people who read this blog that I would turn it into another one of those aw-shucks-isn't-that-cute things where people write about the books they read. So here it is, the third incarnation of the Pretzel Logic blog, which hopefully will turn visitors both known and unknown onto books they might not have known about, or begin discussions on books they've already read. (I deleted earlier posts, but kept those that seemed germane to the new mission statement.)

As far as the types of books I read, I use the all-purpose term 'eclectic' to describe my tastes. I'm willing to try any kind of book at least once, and I generally genre-jump (for lack of a better term) from book to book, so feel free to throw recommendations my way. I really only have one steadfast rule in selecting my reading material: what I read next should differ (at least superficially) in style and theme from what I just read. It keeps me engaged and prevents me from souring on otherwise revered authors and stories. And I don't read James Patterson, so stop asking me. Life is just too short.

I'll try to post reviews to each book I read (unless it's so blah that I can't muster up the enthusiasm); I'll also try to double back on books I've read recently that warrant the effort. First up: a modern noir set in a newsroom. Count me in.

"Occupational Hazards," by Jonathan Segura (2008)

2008-07-29T23:24:00.010-04:00

With Occupational Hazards, first-time novelist Jonathan Segura has written an assured, delightfully profane, sometimes hilarious 21st-century noir set in the genre of hard-boiled fiction, giving us a newswriter as the protagonist rather than the customary detective -- and a memorable protagonist he is. Bernard Cockburn is a going-nowhere journalist writing for a go-nowhere newspaper that nobody cares about when he stumbles onto a potential scandal involving real estate. And his maybe-girlfriend Allison gives him the unwanted news that she's pregnant. That's all you need to know going in; the plot is secondary to watching Segura unleash Cockburn's inner monologue, revealing an attitude that is almost refreshing in its retrogradation.

Eventually the story, whose plot is teased out slowly, comes careening to a rather sudden and violent climax, but it doesn't affect the novel adversely since Segura has kept the tone consistent throughout. The language is vulgar and spare, like Chandler pumped up on steroids, and the humor tests the boundaries of good taste in all the best ways. I admire Segura's commitment not to redeem Cockburn in any way, up to and including the very last sentence (which of course makes Cockburn all the more sympathetic). So a few points are docked for the thinness of the supporting cast in relation to Cockburn, but really this book is just a lot of fun. Recommended for anyone who likes hard-boiled fiction and/or self-medicating anti-heroes. B+

Why You Should Read Richard Yates

2008-02-19T22:19:00.005-05:00

The year 2007, among other things, will be known for me as the year I discovered the fiction of Richard Yates. His 1961 novel "Revolutionary Road" is probably the most penetrating "suburban novel" I've ever read.

The Guardian profiles him, and the renaissance his work is now enjoying, here:

According to David Hare: 'Yates belongs with Fitzgerald and Hemingway as the three unarguably great American novelists of the 20th century. The highest compliment I can pay him is to say that he writes like a screenwriter, not like a novelist. He wants you to see everything he describes. Dramatic writers find novels unbearable because novelists mostly junk word on word, incident on incident... Yates describes everything with deadly precision, then goes on cutting everything closer and closer to the bone.

That jives with my reading of the novel. There are scenes in there that are just plain uncomfortable to read, because you rarely see authors willing to get that emotionally unflinching.

A Year in Reading

2007-12-31T17:47:00.000-05:00

As 2007 draws to a close and a new year (and a new reading list) begins, I'd like to look back at some of the books I read this year, culminating in some small essays about the six books that stood out most for me, the six that I would assume will be among my favorites for years to come. But first, some other housekeeping:

Most Overrated Novel: An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke. I read a book near the end of the year that said one of the reasons why American book reviewing is so unhelpful is that just about everything gets recommended. This novel is Exhibit A. It is to literature what "Juno" is to cinema: A nice effort that tries way too hard.

Most Underrated Novel: Colson Whitehead's Apex Hides the Hurt is a bitingly funny little satire about the nature of advertising and nomenclature. Trust me, it's a lot better than that description.

The Most Pleasant Surprise: I picked up Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station thinking it'd be a dispensable suspense thriller, something to breezily read during my move to South Orange. I was treated instead to a surprisingly memorable story, as well as one of the funniest. I later learned that Wambaugh is one of the great mystery writers of the last 30 years, so maybe I'm the only one who was surprised.

Best Debut Novel: About a month into my position as library assistant at the South Orange library, I stumbled on What You Have Left, by local author Will Allison, and I was glad I did. As Allison himself told us when he came to his own book club discussion (something that has to be just a little bizarre), the novel comprises a series of previously-published short stories that he then threaded together. As such, it's an unassuming book, definitely a first novel, but is a wonderful little read.

Saddest/Most Sobering Book: Tested, Linda Perlstein's year-long examination of a Baltimore inner city school, isn't perfect, but it will leave you frustrated, angered, and/or resigned with how education is legislated in this country.

The Annual Summer Epic: Every year for the last decade or so, I've blocked out two or three weeks during the summer to tackle a huge novel, those imposing doorstops that take up so much space on my bookshelf and often supply me with my only exercise. This year's was Don DeLillo's Underworld. Having read (and admired) DeLillo before, I knew what kind of a commitment I was making, beyond its 827-page length. I suspect it's a novel that will grow in stature upon re-read, but if you want a sampler of what DeLillo's all about, read the prologue, a sequence of about 60 pages centering on the 1951 Shot Heard 'Round the World that truly is an awesome display of writing.

Other Writers You Should Be Reading (a short list):

Laura Lippman -- Baltimore mystery writer. What the Dead Know was my third Lippman novel, and it's by far the best.

Richard Price -- A friend of mine had to read Price's Freedomland for her book club a couple years back. From what she told me, nobody liked it. At all. I was sorry I couldn't have been there to be its lone defender. Price's novels are always riveting, they reek of authenticity, and few authors write dialogue better. Ladies' Man, while much smaller in scope, was still a terrific read.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: I've posted about their novel Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist at least twice on this blog, so I won't repeat myself, other than to say you should check it out.

Cormac McCarthy: I know it's been Oprah-fied and it won the Pulitzer, but The Road would have been a must-read even without those lofty endorsements. New readers to McCarthy might be thrown by his spare writing style, but eventually, they'll get sucked in to his desolate and violent morality plays.

Other Notable Stuff I Read:
Harold Pinter's play Betrayal. Upon learning that the infamous backward episode of Seinfeld was a direct homage to Pinter's 1978 play, I spent part of an afternoon reading it. Very well done, if a total theater philistine does say so himself.

Robert Coover's "The Babysitter." If someone asks you what postmodern fiction is, hand him this story and he'll begin to understand. Basically a babysitter comes over to watch two kids while their parents attend a party, her boyfriend wants desperately to come over, and she tries to steal some time to watch TV. Then she accidentally kills the baby. Or the father has sex with the babysitter. Or the boyfriend and his shady friend try to rape the babysitter. All of that happens, among other things. Or none of it happens. Who really knows.

Richard Yates's "Doctor Jack O'Lantern." A quietly devastating short story about a new kid trying to fit in at school, and the naively optimistic teacher who tries to do right by him. This sounds like a cliche, but it's not. More on Richard Yates is forthcoming.

Juno: Indie as the New Mainstream

2007-12-29T21:01:00.001-05:00

(** out of 5)

There's a scene toward the end of "Juno" when the title character tells the father of her child, "You're the coolest kid I know, and you don't even have to try." It's the closest this relentlessly vapid film comes to offering a truth, and when I think about what I'll take away from this film, among the most overrated I've ever seen, it won't be anything about the plot. Rather, it'll be the parade of half-written people straining to be cool, burying anything approaching genuine emotion beneath an endless barrage of contrived dialogue.

It's possible you'll watch this movie and think they captured today's high school teenager perfectly; the audience I saw it with certainly did. Many top-flight critics have embraced the blend of comedy with the heartfelt drama. If you embrace that, though, you have to embrace people who say things like, "Fuget, Thailand" instead of "Fuck it," or parents who name their child Liberty Bell, or an abortion receptionist who says they want to know "every score and every sore." This film falls over itself to stay clever with audience-approved indie flourishes, at the expense of what could have been a very perceptive drama.

It's becoming more and more apparent that these "indie" flourishes are every bit as formulaic as a Michael Bay blockbuster, just on a smaller scale. Rather than big-budget explosions, we get what one critic I read called "pre-packaged quirk": the snappy one-liners, the twee soundtrack, the false affectations that are supposed to make the characters "multi-dimensional." Remember the brother in "Little Miss Sunshine" (another movie I didn't like all that much)? His little gimmick was that he never spoke, a character detail arbitrarily included so we would get an inevitable scene near the end where he did speak, which would then be played as something insightful and climactic. But the jig was up long before that: Once the grandfather died and they snuck his corpse onto the van, the movie ceased to be a piercing portrait of a modern American family (what it was billed as) and settled into its role as a pretty funny slapstick comedy.

Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with funny slapstick comedies. But please don't tell me these movies are showing us something about the human condition when everyone in it does their best to stay away from real human interactions. It's all bullshit. Take away the cleverly-arranged jokes and the cute music and you realize how little these movies are actually saying; hell, "Superbad" has more to say about the teenage condition. And it's a shame, since "Juno"'s is a story that merits a wide audience. The movie promotes a message that deserves better than the treatment it receives.

Who can I blame for this? Not the actors, the only reason I didn't give this film one star. Even breakout star Ellen Page does her best to make her character tolerable, if not relatable. Director Jason Reitman already has made one good fim, the deft satire "Thank You For Smoking," so we know he's capable of turning out worthwhile material. I think the onus here is on screenwriter Diablo Cody, whose script appears to be written in aspiration of being quoted on Facebook walls and in conversations in shopping malls nationwide.

Juno is just a hipper version of a sitcom character, spouting off jokes with unerring accuracy and timing. Whether she's using her hamburger phone, talking to us via redundant voice-overs, name-dropping whatever bands are cool for disaffected teens to like these days (Mott the Hoople, evidently), or worst of all, using a healthy amount of black lingo as an attempt at irony, Juno keeps coming off as a joke factory rather than a vulnerable girl using humor as a defense mechanism or as the common language among her friends.

I read a young adult book earlier this year called "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." Like Juno, the two protagonists are well-versed in sarcasm and pop culture references, but they can't (and don't) keep it up forever. When they're taken out of their comfort zones and forced to face genuine human moments head-on, they revert to the immature young adults they are, and the novel is all the more touching for it. Cody's screenplay doesn't allow Juno that luxury -- from start to finish, she stays "on." And eventually, she exhausted me.

I haven't even mentioned how the film essentially glosses over the complications of teenage pregnancy, or how so many of the secondary characters just fill pre-determined roles as the script requires. (The greatest offender is the ultrasound doctor, a woman whose sole function in this film is to get on a soapbox and generalize about Juno and her family, since I guess somebody has to).

So I pretty much hated this movie. Looking at Metacritic, where "Juno" is sporting a healthy 81 (the lowest score being a 58), it appears I'm in the distinct minority. There's also a prevailing feeling that anyone who resists the contrived charm of these movies must have his head in the clouds. I'm not buying it. There was an observant, witty, and affecting film to be made here, but this wasn't it.

Last week, I saw a film called "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." The script was probably half as long, since the main character is unable to speak, but it has twice as much to say than does "Juno." See that instead.

Have a Couple Hours to Waste Away?

2007-12-20T19:52:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season for year-end lists. Seems like every publication under the sun (and the blogosphere) pumps out a few ready-made lists for every occasion. If you're in the market for a one-stop source for all your Best-Of needs, here's a site that has compiled as many of them as it can find -- in every field imaginable (Top 10 PR blunders, Idiots of the Year, Top 10 Search Engine terms).

As for me, I have a couple more books to go to hit 75 (the last week of school nearly brought my reading to a standstill), but I hope to write up some thoughts on what I read this year, including little essays on the books I double-starred.

More Food for Thought

2007-12-08T15:41:00.000-05:00

Here's an outstanding and sobering essay by noted literary critic Michael Silverblatt as to why more and more people have come to hate reading.

Something I Felt Like Sharing

2007-09-19T22:44:00.000-04:00

I'm a fan of John Sandford's Prey series (his new one is #17, I believe), one I've been reading faithfully for probably 10 years or so. Though they rarely deviate from the standard mystery/thriller script, and one's kind of indistinguishable from another, I think one thing that separates Sandford from the factory line of similar authors is his gift for characterization. Even his minor characters are given some life beyond a cardboard cutout.

For example, here's a line from his latest, "Invisible Prey":

Jim Cole was a stiff; a guy who'd get out of the shower to pee.

That's all the description we get of him, but man, how incisive is that?

If you're looking for a nice, breezy thriller that doesn't require much effort, isn't James Patterson (heaven forbid), and won't insult your intelligence, I'd recommend trying Sandford.

David Simon = Genius

2007-08-14T19:17:00.001-04:00

Why, you ask? It's not just because his show "The Wire" is perhaps the greatest achievement the medium has yet produced, even though, as I've told some friends before, if Simon were to write and produce a 12-hour miniseries on the plight of plumbers in America, I'd be his bitch and faithfully watch all twelve episodes. The attention to detail, use of dialogue, and level of characterization that rivals any good novel, both in his nonfiction and television work, are on a par with nobody else writing for TV in the country. Not even David Chase.

But why do I really love David Simon? Because of quotes like this:

My standard for verisimilitude is simple and I came to it when I started to write prose narrative: fuck the average reader. I was always told to write for the average reader in my newspaper life. The average reader, as they meant it, was some suburban white subscriber with two-point-whatever kids and three-point-whatever cars and a dog and a cat and lawn furniture. He knows nothing and he needs everything explained to him right away, so that exposition becomes this incredible, story-killing burden. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell.

You people can have Dick Wolf and your Law and Orders. I'm sticking with Simon.

Food for Thought

2007-07-18T00:30:00.001-04:00

Learning to like "like."

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

2007-07-16T22:23:00.000-04:00

Whether Spoon is the greatest American band of the new millennium, as some critics have bloviated, is an argument for someone more knowledgeable of such things than me. But I'd have to believe you'd be hard pressed to find another band that's been this consistently good for this long. Six albums in and they have yet to put out an album that doesn't pay both immediate and long-lasting dividends on your investment. Over the last year, many of my favorite contemporary bands have put out stuff that has left me unimpressed (notably the Arcade Fire's ponderous new effort), but it's good to know you can still pencil in Spoon on your day-of-release purchase list without worry.

Spoon is oft-praised -- and rightly so -- for its economy, a quality on full display here. One of my criticisms of a lot of new albums is that they just...keep...going, long after the artist(s) ran out of good ideas. Just because you can fit 80 minutes of music on a CD doesn't mean you should. Britt Daniel and company draw from a varied musical palette, but never at the price of showing off. At 10 songs and 36 minutes, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, clunky title and all, gets in and gets out.

As for the songs, many of them are vintage Spoon, but they still find room to surprise: "The Ghost of You Lingers" is goosebump-inducing in its stark repetitiveness (you keep waiting for the full band to kick in -- in fact, the rules of pop music demand it kicks in -- but it doesn't, making the song even more haunting). Its follow-up, "You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb," with its celebratory Motown shuffle, reveals a sound I'm not sure we've heard from the four-piece before.

I could pull out the thesaurus to come up with a ten-dollar adjective to describe this singular group, but I'll just fall back on an old favorite, a little outdated perhaps but still on-point: This band is awesome.

Zodiac: The Best Movie of 2006 That Really Came Out in 2007

2007-03-11T22:55:00.000-04:00

(***** out of 5)

I didn't come up with a Top 10 list of films last year, partly because I didn't see nearly as many as I did in prior years, but more because none of them really got my editorial juices flowing. I suppose I'd have put "The Departed" at the top, albeit with serious reservations -- it's a very very good film, but not among Scorcese's best -- and there were a handful of others I have pleasant opinions of. But I kept waiting for a film that would, as Peter Travers would say, pin me to my seat and render me thunderstruck when I left the theater. Unfortunately, in 2006, that never happened.

Now, just more than two months into the new year, it finally has.

"Zodiac" is a mesmerizing tour de force, a wholly absorbing mind-fuck of a movie that will play with your head and leave no doubt of David Fincher's directorial prowess. He's toned down the cinematic pyrotechnics of his earlier works ("Seven" and "Fight Club" among them) and turned out an expansive yet drum-tight mystery.

I will neither bore nor spoil you with a plot synopsis; just read the Wikipedia entry on the Zodiac killer and you'll be presented with the same material you'll get from the film.

But if you go in expecting a gritty, serial killer whodunit (like "Dirty Harry," which this film references), you will be disappointed. This is a long movie, about 160 minutes. There are plotlines that lead nowhere, pieces of information that may or may not mean anything, and Fincher takes his time exploring all of them for what they are. To his credit, though, he's able to juggle all of that, as well as his enormous, Altman-esque cast (this film is a veritable orgy of That Guys), without allowing the pace to suffer. I only looked at my watch once, about two hours in, to see how much time remained. Not because I was bored, mind you, but to see how much longer I'd be able to stay immersed in Fincher's dizzying world of dark humor and bewilderment.

It's not revealing anything to say the Zodiac killer has never been caught. In fact, I think your enjoyment of the film is only enhanced by the knowledge that you won't receive a satisfying payoff here. Don't waste energy expecting a cathartic arrest and instead focus on the details. Admire how Fincher nails the 1970s, from the wardrobes to the Watergate-like levels of tabloid conspiracy that defined the decade. Revel in the top-notch cast bringing its collective A-game (particularly Robert Downey Jr., at his wily best here). The movie also looks spectacular, thanks to the cinematography of Harris Savides and Fincher's always-imaginative flourishes in direction.

It's not a perfect film. Character is sometimes compromised in lieu of maintaining the frenetic pace (Chloe Sevigny, for one, does all she can with an underwritten role), and there are times when Fincher might tread closely to manipulation, notably in one scene involving Roger Rabbit that ratchets up the tension in a way that no other scene does, leaving you to wonder if you've just been played. I'm also on the fence about the end, a rather redundant stab at closure that belies the point of the entire film.

But that's minor quibbling. I haven't seen a film as consistently inspired or as thought-provoking since 2004's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." I believe "Zodiac" is destined to become a classic of the psychological thriller genre, joining the ranks of "The Silence of the Lambs" and Fincher's own "Seven."

Do be sure to see it.

A "Pretzel Logic" Exclusive

2007-02-23T13:33:00.000-05:00

"It's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers."
--Judy Blume

"Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads."
--George Bernard Shaw

If you've been following the news lately, you read that the Newbery committee just awarded Susan Patron's "The Higher Power of Lucky" its highest honor of 2007. One problem: on the very first page, the author tries to sneak in the word "scrotum," all sinister-like. The reaction has been pretty much what you'd expect: a lot of self-righteous indignation followed by the requisite calls for censorship. Kind of makes you wonder what goes on in these people's heads, doesn't it? Fortunately for you, I had a chance to sit down with one of the book's detractors, A. Composite, for a chat recently. Here's a transcript of what I think you'll find an illuminating discussion:

Mike: Before we begin, I just want to thank you for taking the time to meet with me. I appreciate it.
Composite: You're welcome, Michael. Glad I can help.
M: Well, I know your time is limited, since I'm sure there are other books corrupting our youth that you need to get rid of, so --
C: We think of it less as "getting rid of them," and more "promoting the well-being of our constituents". Don't be glib about this.
M: My bad, didn't mean to judge. I'll cut right to the chase: You know I asked you here because of this whole "scrotum" incident. What do you make of it?
C: It's terrible. That an author in this day-and-age would so brazenly insert such filth in an otherwise delightful story. I thought we were past that as a society.
M: Oh, so you did think the rest of the story was delightful?
C: Well, I didn't actually read the novel, just the incriminating paragraph someone cut out for me. Like you said, I'm very busy, so I don't have time to read offending material in context.
M: But what's the danger of having a young reader come across the word "scrotum," which is a perfectly legitimate way to refer to a body part?
C: Kids should be reading about making friends, treating each other with respect, dealing with that pesky younger sibling who's hogging all the attention. You know, good wholesome things. Not sex.

M: I didn't think the scrotum reference was sexual at all.

C: They always are, Michael. It's subversive.

M: In retrospect, maybe the author should have used "balls" or "sac" to make her point.

C: You're still being glib, son. You're better than that.

M: Yeah, well, the Newbery committee obviously saw enough in the novel to overcome that little scatalogical reference (which really isn't scatalogical at all). Don't you trust young people to be able to get past a sort-of-but-not-really-at-all euphemism that isn't even relevant to the story?
C: I'm not surprised by that mentality; I see it all the time in people your age. Are you a parent, Michael?
M: (laughing) Not remotely, no.
C: So you see, then, that you're not really qualified to assess the literary merit of a particular piece and its potential effects on impressionable young folks. You're an idealist, you want to live in a perfect world, and I'm sure we would all love to sit in our ivory towers criticizing the old fogeys who have ruined this country with their "rule books" and their right-wing extremist philosophies. But when you have children of your own, you'll see the inherent risk of putting a novel like this, which is nothing more than kiddie porn, in their hands.
M: Keeping a book out of my child's hands because I'm a prude is one thing. Banning it from a library is another. You have to see that, right?
C: I'm not a prude. I'm up for pretty much anything, ask Mrs. Composite. But not when it comes to my kids, and the kids of this country I've taken it upon myself to moderate. They deserve to grow up in the world with their innocence intact.
M: But in the world according to y'all, death is something that happens only to old people; Catholicism is a perfect religion; kids should just kinda "wing it" during puberty and not ask questions -- in fact, a girl really shouldn't get her period before she's 21 -- gay people don't raise kids, nor are people really gay at all (they're just temporarily misguided); racism doesn't exist; drug use is a non-issue; schoolchildren are always nice to each other; authority is always right; South African apartheid wasn't really that bad, and neither was Vietnam, for that matter; cursing, even with little symbols in place of the words, is always unacceptable; and we are all Immaculate Conceptions.
C: And? What's wrong with that?
M: Who's being the idealist now?
C: (sighing) It's always a battle with you people. Fucking liberals.

A Case Study in Political Correctness

2006-04-13T21:37:00.000-04:00

(I wrote this a year ago, but given all the hoopla surrounding the Grey's Anatomy "gay-hating" controversy, my feelings are just as strong. Reading newspapers and online publications do a tap dance around the word "faggot" was amusingly counterproductive.)

On the way home from work today, I opted to skip listening to a CD and instead tuned into the Matt and Ramona show on 107.9 The Link (Charlotte's #1 drive-time talk show, don'cha know!). They were having a discussion on how certain terms with perfectly legitimate definitions (retard, gay, queer among them) also have those other connotations. They seemed to agree that we've gotten so PC in this country that merely mentioning one of those words (even in a non-offensive way) would be found offensive in certain circles.

For example, we could say something like, "The Senate's refusal to compromise has retarded the passage of the president's bill," and most people would recognize the innocuous nature of the word 'retard' in that context. But there will always be a faction of people for whom using the word would be unacceptable. This led to a very astute caller offering that it shouldn't be up to her to tailor her vocabulary to make sure she never offends anybody when she's clearly not being offensive, and everyone on the air (as well as me) seemed to agree. The consensus: If you're not being insulting by using a certain word, you should be free to use the word. Good stuff.

Anyway, it was pretty thought-provoking fare for the rush hour crowd -- and then the conversation led to the debate of another incendiary term. A caller phoned in to say her teenage daughter had begun saying hello to her friends by calling them a variation on the word 'nigger.' Matt and Ramona vehemently objected to the casual nature of the term (particularly Ramona, who's black), and deplored the evolution of the term as one of endearment among certain people. However, in all the time they were discussing this, neither the hosts nor the callers said the word 'nigger,' instead opting for the phrase 'the N-word.'

This phrase must have been used 10 times during a 5-minute span. At one point, after a caller used the N-word phrase, Ramona praised the caller for "not actually saying the word." My question: Why couldn't they just say the word? In a discussion regarding political correctness and the civilized person's ability to differentiate between saying something to insult and saying something to inform, what was the benefit of pointedly avoiding saying a certain word, especially when everyone listening knew what word they were referring to?

One could argue that on a shortlist of words that should never EVER be used in any form on television or the radio, 'nigger' should be on it. I disagree. Words on their face have no ability to hurt; it's the meaning behind them that inflicts the damage. One could also argue that unlike terms like 'gay' and 'queer' and 'retard' -- words with legitimate definitions -- the word 'nigger' has no redeeming value. Perhaps, but I find it discouraging -- and ironic, given the nature of the on-air conversation -- that we can't have a rational discussion about the use of certain words without actually using the words in question.

The Enduring Failure of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

2006-02-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

Surprise! Surprise! According to this news article, the Sex Pistols, who are to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next month, will not be attending the ceremony. The article includes this excerpt of their handwritten explanation to the committee:

"Next to the SEX PISTOLS rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain," the statement read. "Your museum. Urine in wine. Were (sic) not coming. Were (sic) not your monkey and so what?"

Of course, the RRHOF has this take on the statement:

Susan Evans, executive director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said of the band's announcement, "They're being the outrageous punksters that they are, and that's rock 'n' roll."

Whatever. Whether the Pistols show up (whoever's still alive from its original incarnation, that is) is immaterial to the larger problem facing the RRHOF -- that's it's totally irrelevant and, I think, in the next 10 years or so, will be seen as the pointless exercise of sycophantic back-slapping that it is.

The basic reason for the HOF's failure stems from the fact that there's no objective way to measure an artist's greatness the way you can with other Halls of Fame. The difference between music (or any art form) and sports is that in sports, you can quantify the ability of a player in a way you can't with an artist. Because an athlete is performing in a field where everyone accepts the established rules of the game, it's easy to tell when someone's excelling at his field. Nobody's going to debate the greatness of a player with a .320 career batting average or 600 home runs -- we know they're great because so few players accomplish it. And there aren't different genres of baseball -- everyone's playing the same game.

How do you quantify the excellence of an artist? Now that the no-brainers of rock and roll have been inducted (The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, etc.), how do we gauge the importance of future artists? Record sales? If that's the case, we better start preparing Britney Spears's bust. Influence? The band Television probably influenced a ton of aspiring guitarists, but they've been left behind while their CBGB counterparts have gotten in.

Also, their criteria for induction seems shaky. Bob Seger was inducted into the HOF in 2004. Now, I have nothing against Bob Seger -- like you, I've been singing along with his radio hits since I was born. But is he really a rock immortal? Outside of Kid Rock, who only cites Seger because they're both from Michigan, does any band ever cite Seger as a major influence? What has his contribution been to rock and roll's legacy?

The best answer I can come up with is: longevity. Seger's induction seems to be the RRHOF's way of rewarding Seger for having poured his blood, sweat, and tears into his straight-ahead, non-influential, radio-friendly music for decades.

Which is fine. But if that's the case, how can the HOF begin to overlook a score of other artists, who have been around just as long as Seger, and in some cases, been far more popular? A partial list off the top of my head would include: John Mellencamp (who was passed over this year), REO Speedwagon, Styx, Peter Frampton, Journey, and Hall & Oates.

I'm not saying that Styx or Journey should be inducted into any Hall of Fame. But it just proves that there's no good way to separate immortal bands from merely popular ones. It just reveals the RRHOF for what it is: A bunch of upper-level music executives (led by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner) hand-picking their favorite bands.

Now that I'm thinking about it, I honestly can't figure out why Hall & Oates haven't been inducted. By any measure imaginable, they've been one of the great acts of the last 35 years. Commercially, they're the most successful duo of all time. They had #1 hits on both mainstream and R&B radio. Daryl Hall is one of the most adored blue-eyed soul singers of his generation. If you think their pop confections of the '80s are too lightweight (kinda like how Aerosmith's were, right?), how about that trilogy of truly classic songs they released in the '70s -- "Sara Smile," "Rich Girl," and most notably, "She's Gone"? And yeah, they made a bunch of cheesy videos, but so did Billy Joel. And here they are, some 30 years after they started, still touring and releasing new material. So why hath the HOF forsaken them?

Maybe they'll get their due in time, because as you begin to think about it, you realize that there's been a decreasing amount of truly era-defining, influential bands during the last 20 years. Sure, there'll be the first-ballot inductees whenever they're eligible: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Madonna, Radiohead, even (gulp) the Dave Matthews Band, but they're coming fewer and farther between. Then again, didn't Hootie and the Blowfish sell a shitload of albums and define the sound of mid-90s radio?

I predict that within the next decade, you're going to see a significant watering-down of who's being inducted. Some people would argue that this will just reflect the ever-evolving nature of rock music, but let's be honest, is anyone going to have a legitimate debate as to whether Bon Jovi is as important as Van Morrison? (In fact, I'd like someone to adequately explain to me why Bon Jovi is held in such high esteem as they are -- for the life of me, I can't tell what separates them from Whitesnake or Night Ranger).

But you know what? In the end, the RRHOF is a reflection of the changing nature of rock and roll -- the HOF perfectly represents the total commercialization of the music business. What used to be a form of music that went against the establishment now relies on the establishment to validate its success. What a joke.

In Appreciation of Junebug, my #1 film of 2005

2006-01-27T15:40:00.000-05:00

While watching highlights of American Idol's recent trip to Greensboro the other night, a thought popped into my head: It's so easy to mock Southern culture. You don't even have to try. As stereotype after stereotype wandered into the audition room to face the wrath of the Six-Headed Monster that is Simon, Randy, Paula, and their respective egos, I couldn't help but wonder what the rest of the country thought of my adopted homestate.

Never mind that you can find variations on all of those stereotypes in every part of the country; if you're from south of the Mason-Dixon, you must be a beer-chugging, Republican-voting, education-lacking, chain-smoking, culturally-deficient broodmare for the state.

Which is why it's so refreshing when you read or watch a story that respects, rather than looks down, on its characters.

"Junebug," my favorite movie of last year, accomplishes the delicate task of observing Southern culture -- through the eyes of an outsider -- without ever lampooning it or resorting to half-baked generalities. In doing this, it also maintains its sympathy for the outsider; rather than couching her as the Cultured, Highbrow Yankee cruising into town with an eyebrow raised and her head in the clouds, she gains our sympathy as well.

The premise of the story is fairly straightforward: An art dealer, Madeleine, meets a guy named George at an auction in Chicago who's admiring a work of "outsider art." They are both attracted to each other instantly; after the proceedings, they make out for a few minutes before she breathlessly asks him where he's from.

He tells her, almost with a smirk, that he's from a small town near Winston-Salem. Not long after, they are married.

Six months later, Madeleine needs to visit the home of David Wark, an artist who specializes in works of outsider art one could classify as racist, symbolic, pornographic, or all three. Wark lives near Winston-Salem, so after she persuades him to sign with her art gallery, she can also meet George's family for the first time while she's at it.

To say more about the story would be ruining the experience; there is a plot, but the real joy of watching the film is observing Madeleine as she attempts to assimilate herself into a culture foreign to her, and also watching George return to a world he's not sure he wants to return to. George's mother Peg (Celia Weston) instantly resents Madeleine for taking her son away; his younger brother Johnny (played wonderfully by The O.C.'s Benjamin McKenzie) resents him for coming back and overshadowing him yet again; Johnny's pregnant wife Ashley (Amy Adams -- more on her later) envies Madeleine and her cultured, well-traveled background; and George's father Eugene (Scott Wilson) wanders around the house aimlessly.

In short, this is an insulated, fiercely protective home, and when Madeleine enters it, it forces everyone to come to terms with their relationships to everyone else.

Director Phil Morrison assembled a near-perfect cast for the movie, but I have to take a moment here and expound on one performance in particular. In a year when much ado was made (and justifiably so) about Reese Witherspoon's portrayal of June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line," I think Amy Adams outdid even my beloved Reese. Ashley is the character most in danger of parody, and it would have been so easy for Adams to depict her as a caricature.

Instead, Adams plays her with the right combination of naivete and awareness: she knows she's not as smart or refined as Madeleine and wants so desperately what Madeleine seems to have -- attention from her husband -- yet she always maintains her relentless optimism and sunshine-y demeanor; she provides the life in an otherwise lifeless family. She is also capable of blunt, sudden wisdom: "God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to let you stay that way," she tells Johnny.

Of course, her showcase scene comes near the end, while she's talking to George. I won't ruin the moment, but it's remarkable how Adams never allows Ashley to dwell on sadness for too long; she's such a trusting, loving person that she can't keep that submerged for long.

"Junebug" is not without faults. Though I didn't mind the film's deliberate, almost funereal pace, there are moments when the "show, don't tell" adage is taken to its absolute extreme. We aren't told much of anything about George's post-N.C. life other than his new marriage, and the crucial decision Madeleine is forced to make near the end of the film shouldn't be as monumental as screenwriter Angus MacLachlan wants it to be.

But that's all quibbling. "Junebug" works because it gets the details right. So much dialogue in film is superfluous and/or simply expository, but so much of this film rang true -- even for a Yankee like me -- that there wasn't a film in 2005 that I admired more. For such an unassuming, subtle drama, you may be surprised at how effectively it gets under your skin.

I Want to Be an NFL Color Commentator When I Grow Up

2005-12-11T23:38:00.000-05:00

Sam, I want to point a couple things out about that play we just saw. I'm going to freeze the screen here and I want you to look at the running back. With 3 minutes left in the game, you can actually see him look at the scoreboard and realize that if his team is going to prevail, it's up to him to make the plays. Nobody's going to hand him the game, he's the one who has to get it done. Great players make great plays. And 32 is a Great Player. You may remember I included him on my list of Players to Watch before the game as someone the team would ask to run the football on third down situations if their primary running back suffered a debilitating injury. And I was right.

You can just see it in his eyes, how he's telling his teammates to hitch their wagons to his star, how he's taking the whole team -- all 55 players, even the backup punter -- on his back and willing himself to get that extra yard, not settling for anything less. That's courageous, let me tell you, it's heroic, it's the stuff legends are made of. He looks at the sidelines at his teammates leaving absolutely nothing on the field and then the warrior in him realizes he has to step up his game. It's not about money, not about endorsements. He wants the respect of his teammates, he wants them to see him as a real man, and real men don't cower in the pressure situations. They get tough. They get it up whether it's their first time playing the game or they've pounded their way through any number of fields. And they're not light on their feet.

I want to show you something else, look very closely at this crude circle/square hybrid I just drew, look how the tight end sacrifices himself right HERE -- see it? -- bringing down the defender so his teammate can get that one extra yard. That's selfless, it's putting the team before you, it's teamwork at its finest, Sam, and the coaches recognize that effort. You don't think they see their men putting everything on the line? I'm telling you, we're going to have a hard time awarding the Levitra Player of the Game today, there's just so many men here rising to the occasion, stiffening the pressure at all the right moments, and sticking it to their opponents.

Y'know, Sam, when Renee had a chance to talk with the head coach before halftime, there was one thing he told her that I thought almost justified our use of women in a man's sport. He wanted his guys to come out after the half, score as often as they could to put the other team on the defensive, and really step up the effort on the defensive side to keep the other guys from putting points on the board. And Sam, what you're seeing here is a team sticking to its game plan to the letter. When you have an entire team -- offense, defense, special teams, and the cheerleaders -- all on the same page, playing for the same goal, fighting a war for the same spoils -- then you can accomplish anything, reach any summit, climb any mountain, touch any sky, kill any foreigner who may or may not be invading your territory. When I was a player, there was a name for game plans like this: championship football.

This team may be down 35-3, but those are the types of plays that will get you back in the game. Sam?

The Squid and the Whale

2005-12-02T15:39:00.000-05:00

(****1/2) out of 5

"It's Mom and me against you and Dad," says Frank, the youngest son of the Berkman family, at the beginning of "The Squid and the Whale," Noah Baumbach's caustic yet moving observation on that most American of traditions: divorce. He's talking about what should be a friendly tennis match with family, but turns out to be an apt characterization for the brutal verbal tennis match that follows.

Bernard, whom Jeff Daniels portrays with just the right combination of charming aloofness and self-delusion, is a failed academic who -- perhaps inevitably -- now teaches a creative writing class, the kind of guy who drops phrases such as fait accompli into casual conversation. He achieved some literary recognition early in his career, but has since seen his output dwindle, his agent look elsewhere, and now finds fulfillment in flirting with his student (Anna Paquin), who contributes "epic stories about her vagina" to the class. To make matters worse for the pitifully competitive Bernard, his wife Joan (Laura Linney) is now the successful Berkman author, selling stories to The New Yorker and getting her novel published.

Early in the film, Joan and Bernard tell Frank and his older brother Walt that they will separate, Joan's affairs during the prior four years finally too much for Bernard to deal with. They agree to joint custody -- albeit each for their own selfish reasons -- and each son immediately chooses sides.

Walt clearly idolizes Bernard and the assumed authority that comes with being a published author. When Walt first talks with Sophie, a classmate he has his eye on, she tells him that "Tender is the Night" is one of her favorite novels. "That's minor Fitzgerald," Walt replies in the voice of his father, even though he hasn't read it. "'Gatsby' is really his masterpiece." So desperate is Walt's desire to meet his father's expectations and express his own talents that he later performs a Pink Floyd song at a talent show and claims he wrote it himself.

While Walt clings to whatever crumbs of wisdom Bernard hands down ("Do you think Sophie's pretty?" Walt asks. "She's not usually the type of girl I go for, but she's nice," Bernard deadpans), Frank stays on his mother's team. He's discouraged when Joan tells him he looks more like his father than her, and begins acting out sexually in school.

"The Squid and the Whale," which derives its metaphor from a museum exhibit featuring the two animals battling for position, plays out the way you'd expect a Wes Anderson-produced film to: it's off-beat, the soundtrack unlike anything else you hear in contemporary film, and funny just when things have gotten too serious.

At just less than 90 minutes, Baumbach doesn't waste any time, never allowing the pace to slow and ending right when Walt has achieved his well-earned sense of maturity. It also features an affable performance from William Baldwin. What more could the discerning viewer want?