John Edward Williams wrote a western back in 1960 about a buffalo hunter who loses it during a hunt he has put together for a naive Easterner who has come west to experience everything he's only read about. It's hard to imagine anyone these days better equipped to portray any level of insanity on film more effectively than Nicolas Cage manages it - even though Cage is barely recognizable here as a baldheaded buffalo hunter. Contributing to the overall effect is Cage's rather subdued manner of delivering his dialogue, making his behavior on the hunt seem even more shocking.
Heck, I'm just happy to see new westerns in theaters again, and I'm hoping that Butcher's Crossing turns out overall to be anywhere as great as the background scenery shown in this official trailer. I've seen Cage in a couple of other westerns, and he's done a credible job in both, so I'm looking forward to seeing this one when it's finally released in late October (it was completed in September 2022).
Keeping my fingers crossed that Hollywood will start taking westerns seriously again at some point
I've finally been able to begin Louise Doughty's 2013 novel Apple Tree Yard, a book I've been curious about since recently watching the mini-series for which it was adapted a couple of years ago. I've been curious, as I always am after watching a video adaptation of a book before reading it, to see how the TV series and the book compare.
So far, I've only made it through the book's prologue and first chapter, but I can already see that the book much more cleverly than the movie builds the suspense that is so critical to its plot. Not to give too much away, I'll just say that the plot hinges on an immediate erotic encounter a woman has with a man she meets by chance in a professional setting. She knows nothing about the man, and he knows nothing about her. What follows that encounter has the power to ruin both their lives, and probably will.
Now I have to be careful that I don't reveal too much more plot detail because, although the book flap reveals a lot of what happens after their chance meeting, the movie plays it all in strictly chronological, real-time order. It is only in the third episode (of four) that the TV series reveals just how much trouble these two have gotten themselves into. So, if any of you plan to watch the series, this may be one of those cases where watching the "movie" first would be the best way to go.
The book, on the other hand, begins near the end of the series by using the prologue to show exactly where the couple end up. Chapter 1 then flashes back to the night after their encounter before it describes what happened that day. All in all, I find this a much more clever way of building up to how they got there than the way the screenplay decided to do it. It's a great hook, and if I were reading Apple Tree Yard with fresh eyes, I would be well and truly hooked at that point. Even now, I'm looking forward to seeing how many other "hints," Doughty may use as the plot unfolds.
Louise Doughty is one of those new-to-me authors who has immediately impressed me. I've only read 30 pages of her work, and already I'm immersed in the world she's created and find her main character totally believable. And, good news, she has a back catalogue I'll be able to explore later on. I haven't done the research, but according to the book's "Also By Louise Doughty" page, in 2013 she had already written six other novels and a nonfiction book called A Novel in a Year. Now, I'm hoping that my enthusiasm holds up for the duration of Apple Tree Yard and that I've "discovered" another new author to enjoy for years to come. I'll know more in a few days. Time to read.
One of my all-time favorite books is 2016's News of the World by Paulette Jiles. I've mentioned it several times before here on Book Chase, but my enthusiasm (evangelism?) for the book has not lessened one little bit over the last four years. I was thrilled to hear that Universal had a movie version in the works starring Tom Hanks, and now it looks as if that movie will be Universal's Christmas gift to the world.
I'm saddened, though, that it had to come along in the middle of this COVID-19 mess because that means I won't be experiencing its debut on the big screen. That said, here's a look at the trailer dropped by Universal ten days ago:
I understand that Westerns are not for everyone...but please don't cheat yourself out of enjoying the novel and the movie because of that.
Well, another week is in the books. Good, bad, or indifferent, at least we have another one behind us. Whether or not that really means we are any closer to the end of this pandemic-induced shutdown is something that I doubt anyone really knows. In fact, I've read conflicting news articles all morning - often from the same source - and I'm more confused than ever. This would be terrible enough if we were only dealing with a virus that has the potential to kill millions of us and change our daily lives far into the future - if not forever. But it's not that simple. Instead, we also have to survive the meddling of those, be they cheap politicians or be they cheap businessmen, who are more interested in personal gain than they are in solving the devastating problems the world faces right now. I am fast losing faith in the world leaders tasked with getting us through this truly historical moment in our lives. Most of them, I suspect, will be harshly judged by future historians. On a personal note, I'm still trying to deal with my father's hospitalization via telephone and email. It's impossible to judge his recovery progress this way, of course, as all I can do is rely on the professionals I speak with every day. One way or another, I have to place him in a new care facility within the next eight or nine days. The clock is ticking, virus or no virus. Virus Stats from Johns Hopkins: In the last week, Worldwide cases increased from 2,995,456 to 3,534,367, United States cases from 968,203 to 1,161,804, and Texas cases went from 24,968 with 651 deaths to 31,998 with 878 deaths. (So Texas appears to have just had its worst week since this all started, and today is the day that our governor has set to start opening things up again. I hope that I'm not reporting a huge increase in Texas infections and deaths two or three weeks from now.) Outside: Our early summer weather has a tight grip on the area. We are reaching temperatures in the high eighties every day, occasionally pushing past ninety, with very little rain in the forecast as a change of pace. The walkers, even the children playing in the neighborhood streets, seem to have almost disappeared in the last week or so. We are down now to that core group of regular walkers and bike riders I was used to seeing before the stay-at-home orders were issued. I find this a bit curious, but maybe it's because some people are going back to work now instead of working from home. Reading/Watching/Listening to:
I'm about 90 pages into I, John Kennedy Toole now and I'm still not sure what to think of it. The book is supposed to be published tomorrow, so I haven't seen any reviews of it yet and don't know how others are reacting to it. It's a novel written in third person about the author of A Confederacy of Dunces, a man who killed himself before that Pulitzer Prize novel was ever published. It reads more like a biography than a novel, at least so far, and I'm afraid it will fall somewhere between untrustworthy biography and poorly presented novel. I suppose I'm disappointed because I was expecting so much from this one.
I'm about halfway through the audiobook version of My Sister, the Serial Killer and I'm still not entirely sure where this one is headed. I am, though, impressed that it's a lot more than the "serial killer thriller" that its title implies. Instead, it's as much about sibling rivalry as anything else. One sister is tall and ordinary looking, the other (the killer) is short and so beautiful that men can't keep themselves from staring at her. How long will the less attractive sister be willing to help her sister hide the bodies - especially when it appears that her doctor/employer might be her beautiful sister's next victim?
Despite already having a high stack of books on hand for reading and reviewing (and being way behind), I added two new ones at the end of last week. One of them is Run with the Wind, the second novel from 84-year-old Jim Cole, a fellow Texan I "accidentally" met in a Kroger store a few months ago. The oddity of that meeting is that Jim lives down in Victoria, about 150 miles from the store, and I live about 6 miles from it and seldom shop there. I enjoyed his first book, Never Cry Again, and I'm looking forward to this new one - even though it will probably be sometime in June before I can get to it.
I also added In West Mills to my stack because the library unexpectedly made it available to me as an e-book. Just yesterday, they were predicting that I would have it in approximately 4 weeks, so this one catches me by surprise. I haven't downloaded it yet, but I can only postpone the download for three days or I will lose it. This is the first real crack in my May reading schedule - that sure didn't take long. I've heard great things about this 2019 novel, so I don't want to squander the opportunity to read it now despite of the weird timing.
Netflix provided us with some good stuff last week, especially two of its own productions, a film called Marriage Story and a limited series titled Waco. The two are very different, but both of them pack strong emotional punches. Marriage Story is about the end of an almost decade-long marriage that neither party (especially the husband) really wants to see end. But circumstances dictate otherwise, so the two agree that if their marriage is to end it will be as amicable an experience for them and their young son as possible. And then the wife gets a lawyer. And then the husband gets a lawyer. And then it's no longer in their hands. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver, Laura Dern, and Adam Alda. It's brilliantly done.
Waco is a six-part miniseries about Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and his followers who died in that tragic fire near Waco back in 1993 during an FBI siege of their Mount Carmel compound. 78 of the faithful still in the compound, along with Koresh, died in the devastating fire although a few did escape the flames. Almost 30 of the victims were children, and more than a dozen of those were fathered by Koresh. The series is based on two books about the event, one written by a Koresh follower who jumped through a closed window to escape the flames, and the other written by an FBI hostage negotiator who worked so hard for two months to get Koresh to surrender everyone to authorities. From what I can tell, it's historically accurate to the event.
Listening To:
I've been listening to the pioneers of bluegrass music this week, those first generation artists who helped create a brand new genre of music that is still alive and well some seventy or eighty years later (depending on where you start counting). Hazel and Alice were two of those people, working class feminists who took on the bluegrass establishment by joining together to make their own music. Theirs was one of the very first bluegrass band to be led by women instead of men. Their voices blended beautifully together, and what they left behind is simply wonderful. In the Kitchen: No improvements on the grocery or shopping front, I'm afraid. In fact, parts of the state are now seeing limits on the amount of beef or chicken that shoppers can purchase on any one trip to the grocery. Meat packing plants in other parts of the country are faced with high numbers of covid-19-infected workers, and that's starting to have an impact even on a beef-producing state like Texas. I haven't personally run into that yet, but my brother in Austin tells me that his grocery store limits a customer to two packages of beef or chicken, no matter the cut. The Outside World:
Texas is officially open. Well, it's open if businesses can figure out how to keep everyone "socially distanced" and limit customers to 25% of their pre-virus capacity. That sounds difficult, but I'm not expecting a real rush of customers to test that capacity limit right away anyhow, so maybe it's doable. Personally, I'm going to give this gradual opening thing at least a couple of weeks to see what kind of spike in virus infections comes of it before I venture out. I'm of the opinion that it's too early to do this, so I'll leave it to all the volunteers to get out there and see what happens to them and, ultimately, to our hospitals.
What a difference a week makes. Some of you already know from a comment I added subsequently to last week's Covid-19 Journal update that my 98-year-old father fell and broke his hip last Tuesday. He had surgery on the hip late Wednesday afternoon, and he is now recovering in a Houston hospital. He will probably move to a physical therapy facility tomorrow, where he will spend the next two weeks trying to regain as much of the limited mobility he had before the fall as possible. At that point, we will have to determine the best way to get him the level of care that he will need for the foreseeable future. What makes all of this especially tough is that I'm unable to visit potential care facilities to help me judge for myself the quality of the facilities and the people who work there. No nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the state (perhaps the entire country?) are allowing visitors, including family, to come inside. They are even restricting residents to their own rooms at this point. I'm finding that virtual tours, while helpful, don't give me the comfort level I need to make such a life-changing decision - and that my stress level rises at about the same pace my comfort level falls. To say that this has been a horrible week would be an understatement Virus Stats from Johns Hopkins: In the last week, Worldwide cases increased from 2,440,876 to 2,995,456, United States cases from 766,212 to 968,203, and Texas cases went from 19,512 with 504 deaths to 24,968 with 651 deaths. Outside: For the most part, we have been having some really nice spring weather even though it did reach 91 degrees at least once this week. Unfortunately, tornados came through the area last week and there was some major damage in a small rural community about 50 miles northeast of us. I think there were at least three deaths involved plus the usual mass destruction that accompanies this kind of storm. And then Saturday night, a nice little hail storm came out of nowhere and pelted the house so hard that I was worried about the windows on the north side of the house breaking. Interesting weather-week to say the least. Reading/Watching/Listening to:
I received a review copy of As Good As Can Be back in late January (you know, back in the good old days) and I spent three days this week reading it. It's a really interesting coming-of-age novel about a military brat who had one of those "Great Santini" kinds of fathers. I really enjoyed the book, not the least because I came of age at pretty much the same time as its main character, and I hope to have a formal review of the novel up on Tuesday.
The review copy that I was happiest to snag this week is one called I, John Kennedy Toole by Kent Carroll and Jodee Blanco. Most of you know Toole's story, including his tragic death and how hard and long his mother worked to get his novel posthumously published. A Confederacy of Dunces, of course, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize after it was finally published - thanks largely to author Walker Percy and publisher Kent Carroll. This novel is a fictional recreation of Toole's life and it will be published on May 5.
I was surprised that three of the books I had on hold at the library decided to come in 4-6 months early! Just what I didn't need to have happen all at once, so I've accepted two of them and postponed the other. I'm wondering if the long wait time caused a bunch of people to drop off the list out of frustration. I have another 15 on hold, and I sure hope they don't all suddenly start coming in at the same time like this batch did.
As you can see, the two I checked out are very different from each other. Blood is Allison Moorer's memoir about the traumatic murder-suicide in which she and her sister, Shelby Lynn, lost their mother at the hand of their father. I don't know much about My Sister the Serial Killer other that it's been highly praised in just about every literary publication I read. At the very least, one look at the cover makes me pretty sure that it's going to be an entertaining read.
I enjoyed a couple of good movies again last week, but my favorite by far was 1963's Hud starring Paul Newman, Melvin Douglas, Patricia Neal, and Brandon deWilde. Hud was based on Larry McMurtry's 1961 novel Horseman, Pass By and it won three Academy Awards. I read the novel in the mid-eighties and don't remember much about it, but Hud is such a masterpiece of storytelling that I know I'll be revisiting McMurtry's novel soon so that I can compare the two.
The other highlight to my viewing week was a livestream event from the historic Carnton plantation house in Franklin, Tennessee. During the American Civil War, the house was used as a field hospital that treated at least 300 Confederate soldiers during and after the battle. Before it was all over, the bodies of six Confederate generals were placed side-by-side on the back porch of the house. Civil War battlefields are wonderfully preserved in numerous states, but Carnton and its graveyard are extraordinary. I know that not everyone has a Facebook account, but if you do, and if you would like to watch the one-hour tour, click on this link.
Listening To:
I decided to borrow some of my old Beatles LPs back from my grandson last week and drag out the turntable to see what they sound like (I gave the albums to him last year because he loves them as much as I do, and I know he will keep them safe for another generation.) I was surprised at how good they still sound, even on the more modern speakers that tend to pick up every little snap or pop that the old LPs were so prone to acquiring over time. We ended up listening to albums pretty much all day long for a couple of days while we did other things around the house. Great memories were rekindled -in my case, and created - in his case.
In the Kitchen: Nothing much new in the way of grocery and supply shopping, I'm afraid. The local stores don't seem to have made all that much progress in re-filling all the holes on their shelves, so it's still pretty much a matter of luck when it comes to finding exactly what you're looking for. CVS pharmacy is doing a really good job with free delivery of prescription medicines. So far, our prescriptions have all arrived in one day at no extra cost to what we've already been paying for the same meds. The Outside World:
Bolivar, Just East of Galveston Island on 4-26-20
Tomorrow it becomes mandatory in Harris County, Texas, that everyone who leaves home is to use a mask while out. The announcement was made four days ago, and it does look like around 80% of people are complying with the order already. We'll see tomorrow if the county is really going to fine people who do not comply. Sadly, I saw on the news today that the beaches in Galveston and Bolivar were fairly crowded today, and that's not at all a good sign of what's to come. I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired - and not just tired of being confined so close to home for the last six weeks. I'm physically tired, and I fear that's the result of living with the increased stress levels we have all been experiencing whether we consciously realize it or not. Stress and a disruption of my exercise routine are really doing a number on me. So, another week in the books. Hang in there, guys. Stay safe.
I'm kind of in shock this morning as I watch the price of crude oil rapidly fall to near zero. It actually hit one penny per barrel a few seconds ago, and at this moment the price is around twenty-five cents a barrel. That is a disaster for the world economy that is going to have some longterm effects that most people don't think about. It's a great feeling to get gasoline for under a buck a gallon, I agree. But it's a killer for a country that had finally reached energy independence because now many domestic oil producers are going to disappear forever - and we will be dependent on the Saudis once again for our energy. (Before I finished this post, the price of oil had gone negative for the day. That, in effect, means that some producers are willing to pay you roughly $35 a barrel just to haul the stuff away.) Virus Stats from Johns Hopkins: In the last week, Worldwide cases increased from 1,846,963 to 2,440,876, United States cases increased from 555,398 to 766,212, and Texas cases went from 13,741 with 286 deaths to 19,512 with 504 deaths. Outside: We were on the very edge of the storms that clobbered the Southeast yesterday, so we really didn't get any of the high winds or much of the heavy rain. It did rain pretty much all day long, but it really only came down very hard three or four times all day. And today is one of the most beautiful days of the year with bright sunshine, cool temps, and very little wind. Reading/Watching/Listening to:
This is the only recently published e-book I was able to get from my library last week, and I'm about 75% of the way through it this morning. The Other Wes Moorewas written when its author learned there was another man by the same name in his city who is living a life 180 degrees from the one the author has known. The author is a Rhodes Scholar, a veteran, a businessman, and a White House Fellow. The other Wes Moore is serving a life sentence in prison for his part in a jewelry store robbery during which a policeman/security guard was shot and killed. Both men are black.
I was pleasantly surprised that I was able also to snag an e-book loan from my library of Louise Penny's 2010 Armand Gamache novella The Hangman. It appears to be 100 pages long, and I'm wondering how it chronologically fits into the Gamache timeline, or if that even matters. Penny also published Bury Your Dead, the sixth novel in the Gamache series, that year, so I wonder if the novella started life as an intended-novel that she quit early on, or if it was always planned as a novella. I'll read this one as soon as I finish The Other Wes Moore because the due-date clock is ticking on it.
I enjoyed several good movies and documentaries last week, but honestly, with such an abundance of choice these days it would probably be more surprising if I hadn't. First Man (2018) is a biopic of Neil Armstrong that focuses on America's quest to beat the Russians to the moon. I had not realized that Armstrong had some emotional problems that he had to battle throughout his life, problems serious enough that they sometimes had the NASA decision-makers wondering if he was the best choice for various missions. The movie stars Ryan Gosling.
The Tomorrow Man (2019), starring John Lithgow and Blythe Danner, is a strange little movie about a "survivalist" who is preparing for apocalyptic times by storing food and gear in a secret room of his house. Because he is divorced and lonely, when he spots the Blythe Danner character he thinks he's found his soulmate after he observes her buying in large quantities just the way he does. Little does he know that she is just a hoarder. The last minute of this one is especially strange - never saw The Tomorrow Man going where it ended up.
Watching Drunks (1996) is a lot like sitting in on one of the AA meetings that take place all over the world every day. It is one heck of a reality check, but not nearly as depressing a movie as you might think it would be. The best part of this one for me was watching the actors, most of whom got so deeply into their roles that it was easy to forget they weren't a bunch of actual alcoholics and addicts. As you can see from the attached image, the cast of this one is pretty remarkable. Listening To:
I got part of my music-fix last week from watching a couple of documentaries that were truly wonderful. First, I finished up Ken Burns's eight-part documentary series called Country Music. Burns had the good sense to end the documentary in the late 1980s because, sometime in the early nineties, real country music was destroyed by the likes of Shania Twain and Garth Brooks, and it never really recovered from their influence. I also watched Ron Howard's documentary on The Beatles called The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years. Even to this day, I listen to The Beatles more than to anyone else, so this one was a real treat for me last night. Ron Howard did a great job of putting all the material together.
I also broke out a few of my older compilation albums, the kind where a dozen or so different artists contribute a song each based on a unifying theme or one core singer they all duet with. I had forgotten how good some of those albums are. But what I enjoyed most from my collection last week was rediscovering the amazing voice of Patty Loveless (a cousin of Loretta Lynn, by the way). Patty can sing just about any kind of music but I am particularly fond of her two or three bluegrass/mountain music albums. If you are a grasser, I very much recommend the album pictured. In the Kitchen: Life goes on. We are still finding pretty much what we need from the grocery stores every week, but it requires me to go to two or three of them every Friday morning to make that happen. I'm a little surprised that there are still large gaps on the shelves of the three grocery stores I shop in my north Houston suburb - and how the outages are so different from store to store. What one chain has been out of for weeks, another has in semi-abundance, and vice versa. I would definitely prefer not having to make three stops every week, tripling my exposure, but I don't expect that to change soon. The Outside World: Texas is starting to open up just a little bit this week. The barriers to all the State Parks have been lifted, and the parks are open to those who wear masks and maintain the required spacing from each other. I doubt that will have much of an impact on the economy, however, since access to state parks is, I think, free. Maybe some folks will at least burn a little gasoline getting to the parks. The governor has also said it's now OK for small businesses of all types to offer curbside service, something that might help the economy a bit, maybe even saving a few jobs that were on the brink of being lost in the next few days. I wonder, though, even when things are more generally opened for leisure, shopping, exercise, etc. how soon people like me are going to feel comfortable going out in crowds of any size again. When will I feel comfortable shopping without a mask, maybe even gloves? Will I return to major sporting events at all this year, or even next year? Will the "old normal" ever be normal again?
I got sidetracked on my library's website about two hours ago and have just now managed to break free. I initially went to the site hoping to find an audiobook that might appeal to me, but that didn't happen. I've not had much luck with the last three or four audiobooks I've tried, so it's probably me. I'm a little picky and hard to please right now.
I did find a bunch a books that I would love to read, most of them having just been published in the last two or three months. Fifteen of them, in fact. But when I tried to check them out, I found that only one of them was actually available for check-out. The Other Wes Moore was written when its author learned there was another man by the same name in his city who is living a life 180 degrees from the one the author has known. The author is a Rhodes Scholar, a veteran, a businessman, and a White House Fellow. The other Wes Moore is serving a life sentence in prison. Both men are black.
The other fourteen books are now on hold for anywhere from ten weeks to six months plus, most of them in the latter category. It appears that the Covid-19 pandemic has caused a mass run on library e-books and audiobooks now that physical books are off-limits for the duration of the outbreak. I'm really, really hoping that the pandemic will be under control before the six-month availability estimates are tested. Surely, we will be able to get back inside a library before then...please, say you agree. Among the titles I've put on hold are Anne Tyler's brand new one, Readhead by the Side of the Road, This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, and My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite. Not all of the requested books are new, even the older ones have a wait-time of at least four months.
But there's some good news, too, and some of you may want to take a look at your own library systems to see if this works for you. The library is offering dozens, if not a few hundred, relatively current magazines for downloading and reading on various electronic devices. The magazines can be kept for only 14 days, but the best part of this is that the number of copies available is unlimited, so there is no hold-list to suffer through. The magazines are immediately available to you. I downloaded the April 2020 edition of Macworld and can't wait to get into it later this afternoon (so now I have yet another another thing to distract me from my regular reading).
And, I've mentioned this before, but if your library is part of the Kanopy service, there are dozens and dozens of really good movies available for free on the Kanopy app. Normally, a library system allows something like 4-6 movies per month, per patron, to be streamed, but right now because of the pandemic de jour, there is no limit on how many movies you can watch. So...check it out. So there you have it. Libraries are very frustrating right now...and very, very rewarding. And, two "verys" are better than one very.
Thanks to what Diane is doing over on Bibliophile by the Sea, I've come to realize that our blogs are a useful tool to keep track of how we coped with this period of isolation, something that we can look back on a few years down the road for a reminder or two of what it was like. So, using Diane's basic format, I plan to start off each new week with a summary of what life is like for me in my Houston suburb. Virus Stats from Johns Hopkins: In the last week, Worldwide cases increased from 1,272,115 to 1,846,963, United States cases increased from 337,274 to 555,398, and Texas cases went from 7,231 with 138 deaths to 13,741 with 286 deaths. Outside: I was surprised this morning to find that a mini cold front came through the area sometime during the night. It's almost noon as I write this, and the temperature is only 57 degrees. That's a huge drop from the 90 degrees we reached on Saturday. According to the weather app, we got down to 51 early this morning and the high will be 66. I see that we can expect lows of around 48 degrees the next two mornings - and that just seems weird. The painters showed up early this morning to prepare the outside of the house for a fresh coat of paint, and it was a bit of a jolt to walk out into this sunny and windy surprise of a morning. It most certainly woke me up. Reading/Watching/Listening to: I'm reading about 60% of the number of pages per day that I was reading before all this started, and part of the reason for the drop is that I'm watching more movies and listening to a whole lot more music than I was before. I've even gone back to just reading one book at a time, something I haven't done for years. I'm about 25% of the way through Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles, a really good piece of historical fiction set in Texas just after the conclusion of the Civil War. Jiles is a wonderful writer and I'm counting on her to help me break my reading slump. Next up for me is The Case of the Negligent Nymph, a throwback read, something I probably read decades ago when I was really into Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason books. It will be interesting to see if the Gardner books pass the test of time. The Jiles book is to be released tomorrow (April 14), and the Gardner book is from 1950. I've been searching for "literary" movies a lot lately, and I managed to find a few good ones last week with the help of Epix (we are getting a free preview right now that ends on 4/16), Kanopy, Showtime (recorded from a free preview weekend), and Netflix. A Brilliant Young Mindis a British movie about an autistic child who proves to be a mathematical genius but is suffering emotional problems because of the tragic loss of his father in an automobile accident.
The other three movies are all based on books, two of which I read a few years ago. Sarah's Keywas a huge book for Tatiana de Rosnay back in 2007, and it was followed by a movie version in 2010 that does a good job of representing the novel. The concentration camp scenes are sometimes difficult to watch, but in a way, this is a beautiful movie. The Virgin Suicidesis based on the 1993 debut novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, an author who writes some really unusual books. The 1999 movie version seems a little dated but that's not a huge
problem because the movie is set in the 1970s. The Best of Enemies is based on Osha Gray Davidson's 2006 book about a racial confrontation in Durham, North Carolina, over school segregation. Hard as this one may be to believe, it is based on a true story - with video of the actual people involved shown as part of the closing credits to prove it.
Listening To:
I've listened to the occasional bookish podcast during all of this, but it's also been great fun to revisit some of the music I haven't listened to in way too long. I've been spending time with lots of country classics, including music from George Jones, George Strait, Randy Travis, Dwight Yoakam, and Johnny Cash. Roots music. And for me, just about perfect for the times. In the Kitchen: Life goes on. The biggest difference in our lives regarding meals is that I'm cooking more of them outside on the grill than before. Part of that is a function of the better weather we've been having, but we're also finding the grilled meals to be a nice change from the kitchen-cooked ones. It's still hit and miss at the local groceries, but I'm finding about 90% of what we're out of when I make my weekly scavenger hunt to refill the pantry and freezers. It's slowly getting better, however, even though I'm still finding it difficult to find our preferred brands of peanut butter, flour, corn meal, etc. - and some cuts of meat seem to have completely disappeared. The Outside World: No matter that we are all trying to keep our heads down right now in hopes that we are helping the situation, the outside world keeps intruding. We discovered a plumbing problem late Friday night that had to be taken care of on Saturday morning, meaning that a masked plumber spent a couple of hours with us. And today, the painter we contracted with prior to the shutdown began work on the outside of the house - with minimal contact to all. Last week, I also had to pick up the license plates for the car I bought in early March, meaning a trip to the dealer where I had to wait for 15 minutes for someone to figure out where they put them. The best laid plans...
Looks like there's another new Jane Austen movie coming out in February 2020, but that's not really why I'm sharing this new trailer for Emma today.
What really caught my attention is how cleverly this particular trailer is edited, and just generally so well done that I would now love to see the movie itself. It perfectly captures the sense-of-humor on display in the novel and leads me to believe that this one could really be fun. What do you think?
It's time for another "Movies for Readers" post, this time on the soon-to-be-released film called Motherless Brooklyn. This one is based on an award-winning 1999 book of the same title written by Jonathan Lethem.
The movie stars William Dafoe, Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, and Edward Norton, but Norton was really the driving force behind getting the movie made. Norton started developing the novel into a film sometime in the early 2000s, and both Willis and Baldwin are said to have practically done the movie for free because of their friendship with Norton. Norton wrote, produced, and directed the movie.
1999 Book Cover and Author Jonathan Lethem
Shooting of the movie began in early 2018 but was halted because of an apartment building fire that started in an apartment being used as a movie set. A New York fireman was killed in the fire, and the fireman's widow (along with many residents of the building) ended up filing a lawsuit against Norton and his production company. Norton filed his own suit against the building owner, claiming that the man's negligence caused the fire and let it get out of hand before firefighters arrived. (It appears that this is all still ongoing - at least, I haven't been able to find any information regarding any kind of settlement of the suits.)
The story is set in 1950s Brooklyn and the main character of this hardboiled crime thriller is a private detective with Tourette Syndrome. I really like the look of this one, and it makes me want to go back and find the book, another one that flew right by me back in 1999 when it was published. I'm a big fan of Edward Norton and Bruce Willis, and I have generally been impressed by William DaFoe's work (and I can just about tolerate Alec Baldwin's acting) so this is one I want to see.
We have both Prime and Netflix in this house, and over time I have come to appreciate how unpredictable and surprising the movies on Prime can be compared to those on Netflix. And today, it is one of those Prime movies that has made my day: The Bookshopstarring Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy, Patricia Clarkson, and Honor Kneafsey. The film is based on the supposedly well received novel of the same name by Penelope Fitzgerald (a novel I am completely unfamiliar with). The movie had a very limited showing in the U.S in August 2018, and it is worth searching for on Prime or on disc. Just take a look at this trailer, and you will see what I mean:
I read a review copy of Where'd You Go, Bernadette? back in 2012 (can't believe it's been almost seven years) and I've been hearing speculation about a movie version for what seems like forever. Well it looks as if the movie is finally going to be released in August and will star Cate Blanchette, Laurence Fishburne, and Billy Crudup, among others. I'm a bit surprised that the official movie trailer reveals so much detail about the plot, but I have to admit that it looks really good. Honestly, I'm just thankful that studios are still making movies for adults; I suppose that all those computer-generated comic book things are subsidizing what I consider to be the good stuff.
In case you are interested in reading the book before its movie version is released in August, I'm re-posting my September 2012 review below to help you make up your mind as to whether or not this one is for you. ======================================================
No one in Seattle really knows much about Bernadette Fox.And that it is precisely why the other mothers at her daughter's prestigious private-school love to gossip about her so much.Oh, they know that her husband is one of the stars on the Microsoft campus, and they all like her bright fourteen-year-old daughter, Bee, just fine.But Bernadette has committed the cardinal sin among the private-school mother set: she refuses to "volunteer" for any of the little jobs that take up so much of their time.
Bernadette does not even pretend that she wants to be involved.Not only does she not speak to them in the school drop-off zone, she doesn't even notice when she runs over the foot of one mother insisting to speak with her.Something is wrong with this woman; they are sure of it, and they are going to make her pay for it.
Elgie knows that something is going on with Bernadette but his top secret project for Microsoft, and the huge amount of money he brings home for managing it, allow him to ignore the problem - or, at least, postpone dealing with it.Things do seem to be going well enough, after all.Bernadette is managing the home front efficiently (although with help he knows nothing about), and Bee is doing so well in her studies that she has qualified to claim her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica.
Then all hell breaks lose, Bernadette disappears, and, after a while, Bee seems to be the only one still looking for her.
Believe it or not, serious as all of this sounds, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is the funniest novel I have read this year.The book, a satirical look at the whole Microsoft/Seattle lifestyle, is filled with laugh-out-loud moments that will have the reader wondering just who the "crazies" in the story really are.But, although it sometimes borders on slapstick, the novel does offer some touching reminders and insights into the relationship between mothers and daughters.It will be young Bee, after all, who refuses to give up the search for her missing mother - even when others are certain that she is lost forever - and the precocious teen is determined to go to the ends of the earth to find her.
Among the memorable "little moments" in the novel, is the scene in which Bee discovers the wonder of Abbey Road, the 1969 Beatles album that was to be the last the band ever recorded.Bee's shock and embarrassment when her mother sings along with every one of the songs - in perfect sync with the recorded vocals - is a smile-inducing reminder that children find it impossible to believe their parents were ever young enough to be "cool."Even Bee, a girl who considers her mom to be her best friend, cannot quite make that leap.
Adding to the fun, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is very cleverly structured to tell its story largely via a series of email messages, handwritten notes, transcripts of conversations, and the like.This places the reader inside the heads of a variety of characters who reveal more about themselves than they want to reveal - probably even to themselves.This one is hard to put down. ===============================================
And as a bonus, here's the video that first caught my attention:
