1. Avatar (2009): I was not impressed. With so much hype preceding the opening and then the fervor following the opening, there was no possible way the movie was that good. No movie is THAT good. The problem here is that the movie is not good at all and it's made worse because everyone seems to think it's so wonderful and ground breaking and new. It's just not.
a. Blue people are not original. See 1980s cartoons.
b. Cat people are not original. See 1980s cartoons.
c. Earth Mother stories are not new. See the history of mythology and literature.
d. There was no need to relive Titanic through the music. Seriously, adding a few "nature" noises doesn't make it new and it only serves to remind the audience (me at least) about that other annoying James Cameron movie. Try reminding us of the good James Cameron movies (and, no, Sigourney Weaver is not enough).
e. The visuals aren't enough. Sorry. They aren't. They're cool for the first, oh, half hour. The nighttime glow-y forest scene is gorgeous. The rest is just the same.
f. If you're going to use 3-D, use 3-D. This movie really did nothing with it and it's annoying to sit with those glasses for 3 hours.
g. Get your actor (and I mean you, Sam Worthington) to get control of his accent. He really had very little face time on screen so there is absolutely no reason an American jar-head character should have a little Australian accent here and a little British there and a little British trying to be Southern over there and a newscaster midwestern accent everywhere else.
h. "I see you" is only poignant if you don't use it to say "hello."
i. This isn't a movie about everyone coming together to save the natural world. This is about blue people killing human people (while both destroy the natural world, I might add) in order to salvage the natural world. I'm not saying the blue people shouldn't have fought but they (and the audience) can't maintain the self-righteous "we're saving the world" attitude. Blue people blew up shit, too.
j. If you're going to have the human-brain-synapse-like network of nature do something cool to save the world, have it do something cool. Having the animals bend to the will of the blue people is not cool.
k. Don't kill off all of the good human women while saving all of the good human men. Not cool.
l. Have an interesting story. I shouldn't know what's going to happen in the first ten minutes.
m. The villain has to at least be sort of maybe kind of morally ambiguous.
n. That's all I can think of right now but I'm sure the points fill the rest of the alphabet and back around at least once more.

2. Book of Eli (2010): This movie actually managed to be all about The Bible without making me want to shoot myself. While I'd prefer it be about a different book, I very much appreciate the poetry of the end. Denzel Washington surprised me pleasantly and Gary Oldman is always a fun villain. I would have liked a little less let's-keep-everything-secret tension in the beginning but they did manage to roll out the twists and secret info with good timing and in line with the story and characters. Entirely watchable.

3. Australia (2008): Sigh. I love Baz Luhrmann but this was a misstep. It's over-long, over-dramatic, and under-edited. It feels like it's full 165 minutes times 2 and some of the acting is a little over the top but the story and feel of the movie doesn't support that melodrama the way Luhrmann's other movies would. The trouble is that it's an interesting story that could really pull the viewer in but it's just too long and desperately needs to be condensed.

4. Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki (2002; translated by Randa Brown): This is the memoir by the geisha who provided Arthur Golden the inside information for his novel Memoirs of a Geisha (1997) and who he later had to pay an undisclosed settlement for breach of contract when he included her in his acknowledgments. I'm not a huge memoir fan just because I'm much more used to a novelist and his/her art. I often find memoirs lacking in art. And that holds true for this book as well. It lacks a certain structure that might have helped the story-telling. But, it is an interesting look inside the geisha life. I appreciated and liked the first-hand story and was intrigued by the connections and disconnects between her story and Golden's. I found her persistent insistence that geisha are not courtesans or prostitutes a bit too "the lady doth protest too much." She could and should have shown instead of stomping her feet and insisting. And she actually did show that she was not engaged sexually with her clients (save one with whom she had a separate personal relationship) so she could have left it at that. Golden's book is fiction and smart people can distinguish between fact and fiction. I loved her descriptions of everything (especially the kimono and obi) and found the story engaging and found myself wanting to know more about her life post-geisha when I finished the book. I read it in only a handful of sittings and would readily teach it in conjunction with Golden's novel and the film.

About the translation: Are all Japanese to English books so clunky? All of those I've read are and it's disappointing.

17 Movies and 1 Book

I'm making these quick-quick since I'm behind so very far and want to be caught up asap. 1-13 are from 2009. 14-18 are from 2010 (well, the McEwan was begun in 2008, I think--sad state of my reading affairs).

1. Away We Go (2009): Smug. Smug. Smug. And some more smug. Piled up on a whole lot of smug.

2. Funny Face (1957): Eh. Fine and I understand why Streisand was praised and whatnot but boring and long.

3. The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933): A J. pick. Odd.

4. W. (2008): Frightening that we let this man run the country. Kudos to Josh Brolin.

5. Paris Blues (1961): Love me some Paul Newman. Wish this movie were more cohesive.

6. The Duchess (2008): Eh. Not the movie it could have been and not the movie it should have been. I don't want to watch a movie of this marriage.

7. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948): Another J. pick. Eh. Not very interesting.

8. The Edge of Love (2008): A strange little movie with a lot of pretty people. Could have been better but wasn't completely terrible.

9. Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009): Completely acceptable fluff. Except that they dropped the Leslie Bibb as villain thing before it played out.

10. The White Countess (2005): Loooooooooong. There are much better movies about China during the war.

11. Last Chance Harvey (2008): Sad little movie. Not teary sad either.

12. Sherlock Holmes (2009): Could have been more but is very very very good.

13. Brick (2005): Good, solid movie with an interesting grasp on language.

14. Up in the Air (2009): One of the best crying scenes ever. And, beyond that, an excellent movie with excellent performances. The end needed to be rearranged a bit but I'll get over it.

15. Igor (2008): Yuck.

16. Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001): McEwan may be a genius. The book is beyond beautiful. I still loathe Briony with every bit of my being and my hopes that the ending to the book would be drastically different than the movie were dashed but I have to give it to McEwan: that's true to her character and he made me hate her.

17. It's Complicated (2009): Wonderful. I can't even pick my favorite thing. Everyone is brilliant in it (little Office guy almost steals it). The story is solid. It's hilarious and poignant and blah blah blah everything I want a comedy to be.

18. Body of Lies (2008): Hmpf. I'm still waiting on a good post-9/11 terrorism movie. You know, the one without the pounding over the head about everyone being culpable. Subtlety people! That said, DiCaprio and Crowe are excellent in it.

9 Movies and 2 Books

Bedtime Stories (2008): Yeah. It was on TV or OnDemand. Boys chose it. It's not good. I'm sad for Adam Shankman having directed it.

9 (2009): The writers clearly watched LOTR one too many times: one shiny round thing to rule them all, one shiny round thing to find them, one shiny round thing to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. This could have been an incredibly interesting movie with minimal effort but noooo. We have to focus on the inane and ignore the profound. Way to ruin it.

Cadillac Records (2008): This movie is ok with a lot of qualifiers. Beyonce is super. Beyonce is not, however, Etta James and should not pretend to be. Every cameraperson within a yard of Adrian Brody should be aware of his nose and I should not, at any point, have a direct sight line into his nasal cavity. Um, also, it's not so great that I didn't know who the narrator was (in terms of history/actual person) until the credits were ready to roll.

Brick Lane (2007): This one is watchable which is more than I usually have to say about movies dealing with the immigrant experience. I haven't read the book yet so I'm interested to see the parallels. I do like how the movie dealt with this one woman's emotions and did not trivialize them.

Prizzi's Honor (1985): I don't know what this is. I don't know what it was trying to do. I don't necessarily dislike it but I certainly don't like it. Even considering my affinity for Kathleen Turner.

Georgia O'Keeffe (2009): Yep, Lifetime Movie event. This is what happens when "Project Runway" is on Lifetime and I see ads and what happens when J is out of town and I'm bored. Actually, this wasn't bad at all. Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons are incredibly watchable and now I know more about an artist I didn't know anything about (well, her personal life), maybe (since it may be completely fictionalized).

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008): Mmmkay. I don't know what to say about this one. I liked it just fine but I don't know how to describe it. Unlike, Prizzi's Mess above, this one is good but a bit strange. Quirky. It's lovable and quirky.

The End of the Affair (1999): J told me I should read the book first but I tried for a minute and couldn't get into the swing of Greene's writing. I'll give it another shot now because the movie is excellent. Really very good.

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson (1987): I heart Jeanette Winterson. Seriously. I'm going to have to get another of her books now just to have the promise of reading it. This one has parallel narratives and is set during the Napoleonic Wars but doesn't beat. you. over. the. head. with. capital. H. history. So, brilliant!

Out Stealing Horses by Per Peterson (2003, translated to English 2005): Goodness. This book was on The Millions Best Books of the Millennium (So Far) list. It's Norweigan and quite good. It runs dual narratives, one of which is a flash back, and it manages both and the transitions between the two beautifully. And the novel feels very full despite most of it being in very sparse settings. What might be the best part is that the book leaves threads loose but it feels ok instead of infuriating. Clearly a talented author.

Zombieland (2009): Wonderful.

17 Movies and a Book

1. You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008): It was an Adam Sandler kind of day (I later watched #3). Cute enough movie minus the hummus and something else I thought was gross . . .

2. The Breakup (2006): I've seen this one before but I am not a fan (it was on TV). Sure it's sort of fun in a mean way (and we know I love fun in a mean way) but the ambiguous ending irks me.

3. 50 First Dates (2004): I might have seen this before--I've at least seen parts of it but maybe not the whole thing. It's cute. I like it despite the problems I have with a mother only having limited memory and living on a boat.

4. Cache (2005): Add an accent on that e. What the fuck? An interesting concept but way far out in left field where too many French movies seem to reside.

5. Moon (2009): I liked this one a great deal. A sci-fi movie with a very limited cast--basically Sam Rockwell multiplies--that makes a great character study. I was ok with its limitations. Plus, it was made by Zowie Bowie, how fun is that?

6. Funny People (2009): Sandler needs to do more serious roles like this. A return to Punch Drunk Love is in order. He's just so good at them that he doesn't need to make the nonsense.

7. I Love You, Man (2009): I love Paul Rudd.

8. District 9 (2009): Turn away at the nails. Argh! Otherwise a good movie as long as it gives up the idea that it's an apartheid story.

9. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966): It's not bad but, Jesus, it's long. I, of course, watched the extended version, so more staring at each other. I do like a young Clint Eastwood, though.

10. Priceless (2006): Cute rom com a la Breakfast at Tiffany's.

11. Flawless (2007): Bored out of my mind in 12 minutes so I quit.

12. Persuasion (1995 BBC): The dialogue got a bit muddled in accents sometimes but the love story was sweet and very Austen.

13. Footloose (1984): This was a very 1984 day (we watched Ghostbusters later). I've seen this one before, of course. Awesome. Just awesome.

14. Ghostbusters (1984): I don't think I've seen this one since I was a child. Hilarity.

15. His Girl Friday (1940): How did I miss this one? Cary Grant? Snarky? It's fun. I liked the banter, of course but wish it could have kept up with itself just a bit better.

16. Once Upon a Time in America (1984): It's movies like this that make 1984 look bad. Seriously. I was about to give up at an hour thirty in because nothing happened. Nothing. Another half hour, barely anything. J watched the middle by himself and I caught the end with him. I totally called the "twist" the minute it was a possibility, 10 minutes or so in. Nonsense. Complete nonsense.

17. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944): Again with the Cary Grant and the sort of snarky and me missing it until now. And, again, super fun but wished it kept the pace the whole movie.

18. The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee (2009): I have a few problems with this book; the first of which is the fact that the book is not about a piano teacher. There is a piano teacher and she plays a vaguely important role but she is not the center as the author imagines her to be and she is not interesting. Further, she could be basically eliminated from the book with little to no ill effects. She is nothing more than a trick to move the plot forward. Ok. So, the book runs dual narratives in Hong Kong, one in the early 40's before and during the war and the other in the early 50s. That works just fine except the pacing is off. There is a whole chunk in the middle that is only the 40s (the piano teacher is only in the 50s sections) and the end has to play with sequencing in an unnatural and unprecedented way (for this book) to make the suspense work. The book more or less is about the privileged in Hong Kong and what one will do to survive in war and afterward. It is an interesting read and the end is suspenseful but it leaves a few holes that should be filled in rather than passed over with a "things happen during the war." The book also suffers for its misguided and lazy focus on the piano teacher (not to mention the useless and silly epilogue) when it should be focusing in on one of the main players in the action. It could, for example, have focused in on Will (the piano teacher's lover who was imprisoned during the war and the lover of another of the main characters before the war--he's a definite main player) and just had the piano teacher as a side thought. She still could have served the same plot furthering but not pretended to be the main character. She doesn't have the heft or the purchase in the main action to be the protagonist. It's just too easy to make the main character a woman who saunters in en medias res. I wish the author had taken the challenge and gotten her hands dirty.

13 Movies and a Book

Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1955): I'd seen this one years ago but re-watched because a book in my supposedly-being-read stack (The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee) reminded me of it in a the-movie-is-being-ripped-off way. I haven't finished the book but it is certainly following the movie's footsteps very closely in certain ways. Regardless, the movie is about a woman who is half Chinese, half British but who identifies as Asian who reluctantly falls in love with a married (sort-of) British news correspondent. Nothing much happens and it isn't that interesting.

White (1994): The second in the Three Colors trilogy. This one isn't terrible but it is (again) heavy handed with the color imagery. We follow a Polish man, Karol, as he deals with the fact that his wife (Julie Deply) has divorced him because of his impotence (both sexually and in life in general). Karol flees to Poland in an interesting way and sets about changing his life in equally interesting ways. I can't say too much and not give away the plot but I did like it better than Blue.

Red (1994): The last (and the best) of the Three Colors trilogy. This one centers on a model who forms a friendship with a questionable man after rescuing his dog. Still heavy handed with the color imagery, this one manages to be both subtle and interesting in terms of plot. It may be worth watching the other two to see this one (although they're not related really, so you could skip the other two).

The Rookie (2002): I thought I'd seen this but I'm not so sure. Anyway, it's a cute movie about baseball if you can look past Kevin Costner's "acting."

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006): Cute but seemingly driven by video game development.

Night at the Museum (2006): About what I'd expected: cute and fun, just don't ask too many questions.

I Could Never Be Your Woman (2007): Paul Rudd's dancing is worth it. Having to deal with a script in serious need of editing, eh. What could have been a fluffy rom com has been made into what tries very hard to be a commentary on nature v. nurture complete with a Mother Nature character who can only be seen by Michelle Pfieffer. Ick.

Doubt (2008): Brilliant. Everyone acts beautifully. The movie is beautifully shot. The script is tight and manages to consider both sides of the story without picking one (and without seeming wishy washy for not picking one) while making sure that whatever side you've chosen is riddled with doubt.

The Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa (2003 Japan, English Translation 2009): I don't know what I read that recommended this one but I should have known better the minute I picked up the book. Right there on the pretty blue with cherry blossoms cover is a blurb by Paul Auster. While it is better than anything Auster could produce, it lacks a lot. The book is about a housekeeper who starts work for a retired math professor who, because of a car accident, has a 90 minute short-term memory. The story is almost touching because the housekeeper forms a friendship with a man to whom she has to re-introduce herself every morning (or when she returns after errands if she's been gone more than 90 minutes). And her 12 year old son also forms a friendship with the professor. But, and it's a huge but, the story becomes increasingly more concerned with showing off that the author understands the math and the baseball (introduced by the son) so the friendship becomes overshadowed by the author (remind anyone of Auster?).

Bull Durham (1988): I've seen this one a bazillion times before but always love being reminded that they used the bar in which I spent quite a bit of my MA.

Public Enemies (2009): Yeah, it's not the best Johnny movie. Yeah, it's not the best gangster movie. But I think it's a good movie. I liked the subtlety of it and the look of it and the balance between shoot-em-up and love story.

Soylent Green (1973): Jesus. The late 60s/early 70s were bizarre. This was interesting to watch, I guess, but it lacks a lot in terms of character development, plot development, etc.

Brideshead Revisited (2008): Eh. Watch the mini-series instead. I haven't read the book but I do know that the mini-series remained fairly faithful--this was very different in some regards and almost a direct re-film of the mini in serious ways.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009): I like these movies well enough (ok, so I sort of hated the last one in a serious way but really liked the really dark one, whichever one that was--so that evens out to well enough) but I think the viewer who has not read the books is missing out on a lot. Like the kid in class who is a little confused during discussion because he/she only read the cliff notes, the non-reader viewer is left out in the cold with plot and character development. For example, while I've been told and I assumed Harry and Dumbledore had been on other adventures and this was the reason behind their closeness, the movie did not tell me that. I think, basically, the movies don't stand on their own in most cases and it's only getting worse as they film the longer books. I also think the sequel aspect of the films is getting in the way of each individual film. A lot of time is spent at the end of each one to set up the next instead of wrapping up the current one. Threads are left loose and the non-reader viewer is left ambivalent.

11 Movies

State of Play (2009): Terrible, convoluted, nonsensical movie with faux "twists" (totally given away in the previews), mismatched character "development," and preachiness about print v. blogs.

Grey Gardens (2009): The HBO movie, not the documentary. Very well acted and interesting enough but it feels much longer than its hour and 44 minutes.

Blue (1993): The first part of the Three Colors trilogy. I like the idea of this movie much more than the actual execution. Nothing happens--at all--and that gets a little tiresome. Also, the use of the color gets a little heavy-handed and, therefore, trite.

You Got Served (2004): I have more street cred than this movie. And this movie so desperately tried to have it.

Wet Hot American Summer (2001): I love Paul Rudd and I newly love Christopher Meloni dancing but this movie just didn't appeal to me. It lost my attention because it seemingly went haywire about a third of the way in--like they all said, screw the script and plot, let's just be wacky. It didn't work for me.

Traitor (2008): Can we say preachy? And kind of wrong about terrorism?

27 Dresses (2008): Cute enough for a chick flick but also bad bad bad for women (as chick flicks are wont to be). And was it just me or was Katherine Heigl's hair a funny color?

In the Heat of the Night (1967): I used to watch the tv show when I was young but had never seen the movie. I liked it quite a bit. It's just a good, solid movie with solid acting that tackles an issue but doesn't so much beat you over the head with it repeatedly.

Made of Honor (2008): There is no honor in this movie. None. I don't know who is supposed to be made of honor but I have a feeling it's Patrick Dempsey since he's the "maid of honor." But, no, not realizing you love your best friend of the opposite sex until she goes away and then trying everything to ruin her engagement (I don't care if he was "infiltrating"--that's still ruining) and then only telling her the night before the wedding and only being able to say "I love you" to dogs until the exact moment the "hold your peace" line comes into play at which point you crash (literally and figuratively) the wedding to take the bride away because you're too selfish to realize that you've been an ass is not in any way imaginable having honor. The movie COULD have been saved IF the bride had backed out of her own wedding because SHE realized she was marrying the wrong person. It is in no way acceptable to have her HAVE to get married just because her retarded best friend can't open his eyes. AND it is in no way acceptable for her to have been silent about her feelings for him. Hello! Grrrrr. Stupid movie that manages to be bad for BOTH genders.

Sense and Sensibility (1995): I've seen this several times before but don't think I realized Hugh Laurie is in it in a tiny but perfect role. No wonder he was hired for House. Regardless, I like the movie a lot although I wish Kate Winslet would have been a little less red in the face the whole time.

For the Love of the Game (1999). I hated it. No, not even. I was so bored that I couldn't form much of an opinion. And I only made it halfway through before I couldn't watch anymore. So I won't say much about this one because it may have redeemed itself in the second half (doubtful) but the hour I watched felt like 4.

Star Trek (2009): Thank you. A good, solid, dramatic, funny, well-acted, fabulously cast (I can't say how much I enjoyed seeing Simon Pegg as Scotty), movie that both pays homage and its dues to the decades of original material and goes forward. Wonderful. I'll take a few more of these, please.

6 Movies, 1 Book

Sunshine Cleaning (2009): I want it to be Sunshine Cleaning Company. I liked this one a lot but I like dark wry comedies and I love Amy Adams and Emily Blunt is only rising in my opinion. Adams does a good job of at once being completely pitiful, a little cheerleader annoying, but completely likable. I don't know what else to say, I like it.

In the Mood for Love (2000): Bleh. Not all that interesting. The premise is very interesting: a man and a woman in 1960s Hong Kong (the film is Chinese) find out that their respective spouses are having an affair with one another. The man and woman then decide to be friends but to never cross the line their spouses crossed. What develops, of course, is a very complicated relationship in which they play act conversations they might have with their spouses (confronting them about having an affair) or how they met/began the affair. All of that is, of course, sexually charged and intimate. The movie, however, fails to build much tension and then just falls off, dropping everything. I appreciate subtlety but too much subtlety and you have nothing.

Monsters vs. Aliens (2009): I want it to be Monsters v. Aliens. We saw it in 3D and that was ok enough for a little while but it made my eyes go wonky (probably just a symptom of my particular eye dysfunctions). The 3D added some interest to the film and that was cool. Otherwise, it was cute. Probably better if you love the old monster movie genre and know those films well enough to catch all of the references.

Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton (2009): I can never remember that title. The closest I get is "Personal Artifacts." Luckily that works in the B&N search engine when I look up the title for the bazillionth time. I had my doubts about this one. It's completely formatted like an auction catalog (so, photos of objects with brief descriptions), yet it is supposed to tell the story of the demise of Lenore and Harold's relationship. Strangely, it works quite well. There are a few letters, postcards, e-mails and whatnot included to give the object descriptions a slight push forward but, for the most part, the objects tell the story and you find yourself engrossed in the relationship. It's annoying only in the fact that I wished I'd thought of it and was talented enough to pull it off. There is supposed to be a movie made of it. I don't know how exactly that is going to work . . .

Rachel Getting Married (2008): No. No. No. I cannot stand people like Anne Hathaway's Kym in this movie. Perhaps I took the movie a little too personally but I really hated it. I didn't like the contrived faux-multi-ethnic, tragically hip wedding. I didn't like the bride having to coddle and bathe her sister on her wedding day. I didn't like the dynamics of the family. And the list goes on. The only thing I vaguely liked was Kym's mother punching her in the face and I wish that happened in the first scene. Terrible movie.

Role Models (2008): I'll watch just about anything in which Paul Rudd dances. My only complaint is that he didn't dance enough. I did, however, really appreciate him dressed as a Kiss-inspired Role playing game member (is there a more precise word for such people?). Not brilliant but a funny fulfillment of the genre.

I've Loved You So Long (2008): Here, Kristin Scott Thomas is a French/English woman (the movie is French) just released from a 15 year prison sentence, for murder, who begins living with her younger sister whom she has not seen in years (and the sister is much younger). The film is very very very well-paced, especially for a film in which nothing much happens and Thomas's performance is remarkably restrained and precise. Somehow I managed to figure out the motive behind the murder almost as soon as who was murdered was revealed but I don't think this was given away by the movie (maybe I just watch a few too many murder mystery oriented tv shows). Anyway, I liked it very much.