Movies and Books (sung to tune of Silver and Gold)

Movies

2001: Melissa and I saw this the Friday before Katrina. I had seen a few scenes and had a general idea of what would happen but still wasn't prepared. What a crazy movie! First off, that acid trippy scene toward the end, just a little too much for me. The rest of it I thought was pretty good, if in a very modern art sort of way. Certainly not a movie for the casual moviegoer. All the HAL stuff is my favorite part.

Elizabethtown: I really wanted to love this movie but something about it just didn't work for me. Seemed a little too thrown together and at times the soundtrack was just overwhelming. I still liked it, I mean come on it's got Kirsten Dunst, just didn't love it like Fritz and Melissa seemed to.

Good Night, and Good Luck: Awesome. Loved it. Saw it with my parents while they were in town. With my dad having been a reporter way back in the day it was interesting to see his reaction. It was nice to see Patti, the amount of smoke in the movie was nutty, the black and white worked, David Strathairn is amazing, and the choice to use the real McCarthy footage was wise.

40 Year Old Virgin: Hilarious! Steve Carrel is a genius. I wish I had seen more of him when he was on the Daily Show. The movie works because Carrel doesn't become a caricature and the story actually seems plausible. More comedies should take a cue from this movie.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: I don't know if it's a testament to the books or the actors or what, but these movies just continue to be good. I didn't like this one as much as the third but not by much. They did an excellent job with a rather lengthy book. I just would have liked to have seen more from the supporting cast. I know it's all about Harry but the other movies seemed to do a better job of giving everyone else something to do. All the actors did a great job, especially Brendan Gleeson did a great job as Moody, but to me it needed to be longer to give me more Snape and more Hermione and more Ron. Maybe there should be an extended edition on DVD?

Derailed: I think we already covered this one. Argh.

Books

Will in the World: I got this book for Melissa for Christmas a while back and we both read it after seeing Shakespeare in Love recently. It does an excellent job of trying to figure out what kind of person Shakespeare really was and helps you place the man in the time period. Some of the conclusions are rather large leaps of faith but its a fun trip especially if you like the Bard and his works.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: This book has been on my to do list for quite some time now. Everyone I talked to who had read it recommended it. Now I know why. If you have any interest in pre-recorded history or look around at the world today and wonder how we got here, this is the book for you. I honestly couldn't put it down. I've never read anything before that pulled information from so many different disciplines. Definitely changed my world view and a book that can do that is a great book.

Knife of Dreams: Latest book in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. This is book 11 I think. I've been reading the series since high school and the fool still isn't done yet. Thankfully stuff actually happens in this book. For people who don't know the series, that may sound odd, but ask anyone who has read them, and they will know what I am talking about. It was nice to get to know the characters again and get sucked into the world. Jordan has always done an amazing job of making his world feel like a real place, sometimes to a fault. I'll refrain from saying too much more since Jerry, who turned me on to the books, hasn't read any of them since high school.