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Movie Review: Knocked Up

Knocked Up: Torgo approves

I don't know if I would have found this movie as funny if I wasn't married with two kids. But I am, so I did.

While parts of the final act were made-for-movies labor & delivery (even I knew the decels response was incorrect), the bit about the doctor being away and the attending doctor being awful are pretty accurate. That's why there are doulas. That's what doulas are for.

Anyway, that's all I have to say about this. It's funny. You should see it.

Where The Hell Is Bill?

That's a Camper van Beethoven song that isn't very good, but it's catchy. It mostly consists of the line: "Where, where the hell is Bill?"

My point is this:

"You Remind Me of Me" -- ended badly. Very badly.

Here's something odd: all throughout the book, someone had drawn underlines and made various demarcations, as though to indicate key plot/character elements, themes, etc. I kept wondering, is someone reading this for a class? If so, why? Does Dan Chaon make his students read his books? Does he have a friend at some SF college?

Usually, in books I read with somebody's notes in them, the notes peter out quickly. Not here. In fact, the first time I get a better sense of the mysterious, tortured student is at the very end, where she (I'm presuming she based on handwriting style -- I could be wrong) adds a coda:

"Characters with a trailer trash mentality, absolutely clueless, screwed up and insuring continuity by screwing up the lives of their hapless offspring. Life is a meaningless dead end, a hell on earth. Author Chaon should add an R to his surname and call himself Charon."

There are so many interesting things about that note.

The author seems literate -- how many people use the adjective 'hapless'? She also uses the phrase 'trailer trash,' which is degrading. Then there's the Charon thing.

I'll admit it, I had to look up Charon. Turns out the note-writer was more clever with her literary allusions than Chaon. That makes me smile.

But it also brings me to that Michelangelo picture of Charon. I know Big Mike is supposed to be a great artist, but aren't the proportions all off? Look at his head in relation to his arm. And what the hell is going on with his abdomen?!

The picture weirds me out.

Little Dude (not) in the water

Yesterday was Little Dude's first swim lesson. He'd been swimming in the g'rents pool in Arizona, but that was a much smaller pool.

I think he got freaked out by the big pool. We got there early, which meant we watched the class before us for about 10 minutes. Even though one of his friends from the neighborhood is in that class, I think it gave him time to solidify his opinion that he wasn't going anywhere near the water.

A few weeks ago, as you might remember, he went running into the ocean. The Pacific Ocean. The biggest body of water on the planet. On the Northern California coast where attacks by great white sharks happen (and one just happened recently -- a kayaker got attacked about 10 miles away).

But an indoor pool freaked him.

I was sympathetic. I remember taking swim lessons at the Y in Green Bay. There were two pools, the swimming pool and the diving pool. The water in the diving pool was about 10 feet deep. That meant that I knew there were sharks in it and whenever I dove I had to get out of the water as quickly as humanly possible.

The shallower pool also had sharks, I was sure, but if you stayed near the walls you'd maybe be ok.

(I blame Steven Spielberg for all of this.)

We'll take Little Dude back next weekend and try again. Things were complicated by the lesson time. It was 1:30. He usually naps from about 11-1. If he's doing something fun, that can get pushed back. But he slept late so we didn't force a nap at 11, then it was too late to start a nap before we went, so we figured we'd try holding off. That was a mistake. He was scared and tired, which is a rough combo for a 2-year-old.

The only good news that, while trying to encourage him to get in the water, I fearlessly went in the pool. I guess I've gotten over the whole shark thing.

I'm not going to show him "Jaws" when he's six. I'm also not going to just throw him in the water -- ok, I would, but M-N says no. Hopefully, next week will go a little better.

Movie Review: The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada: Torgo disapproves

I was about to say I never see Meryl Streep movies, then I looked it up. I've seen "Adaptation," "The Hours," "The River Wild," "Lemony Snickett," and "The Deer Hunter." So I guess I do see Meryl Streep movies.

Except the "The Hours," though, the ones I see tend to be comedies or horribly bleak and depressing yet amazing Vietnam movies.

"The Devil Wears Prada" is a bad movie. But Meryl Streep is fun to watch. I could have told you that before seeing it. Having just watched it, I can confirm that that's true.

Anne Hathaway is entirely uninteresting. Not only is she bland as an actress, but she's not even particularly attractive. I don't mean that as a sexist comment -- but I'd be more inclined to watch her then even if she displayed no significant talent (read: Angelina Jolie).

I've never seen her in a movie before and this one didn't make me want change that.

Stanley Tucci is here, which is nice. He plays a stereotypically effeminate somebody who is into fashion, which is less nice.

That's about all I have to say. Oh, and M-N liked the clothes.

Mid-term Book Report: You Remind Me of Me by Dan Chaon

You Remind Me of Me (the first 3/4ths): Torgo disapproves

So after "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "Winning," I've decided to sometimes write my reviews of books before finishing them, because sometimes the end completely changes how I feel and then my review is tainted.

I see that happening with "You Remind Me of Me."

I picked this book at random off the library fiction shelf. I wanted something that was contemporary American fiction. I felt like reading something closer to my present world.

That's always a gamble, I find. If I'm reading a classic, and I can't get into it, or it seems to suck, I'm inclined to stick with it because it's a highly regarded classic, so there must be some merit (except "War and Peace," which I've tried to read twice and failed. Also, "Lord of the Rings" -- tried once, didn't get past the prologue).

I'm becoming something of a grumpy reader of contemporary American fiction, apparently. All these writers seem to be English professors at mid-level colleges. Sure, I'd love to be an English prof who writes books over the summer or while taking a semester off. But their books too often feel like books written by college professors who are just aspiring writers and aren't particularly gifted at either field.

I don't know much about Dan Chaon. But I know I wouldn't want him as a professor. In this book, it's like he's showing off his literary skills while still being bland, formulaic, and immature.

There are distractingly named characters, like Gary Gray and Mike Hawk (say it out loud), and Chaon brings attention to his own "cleverness" in naming characters.

Also, like many contemporary American novels, Chaon tells his story out of sequence, as though that adds depth and purpose to a shallow and slight narrative. It doesn't.

The story is about a guy named Jonah (so named because his mother felt like a whale when she was pregnant -- get it? If not, don't worry, he devotes several pages to how clever that is). Jonah has a long lost half-brother named Troy (so named because his mother longed for names from ancient Greece -- and yes, I think we hear the origin story of every character's name, as though Chaon never taught a fiction class in which he needed to explain that you, the writer, should know these things about your characters, but we, the readers, don't give a crap and, in fact, are better off not knowing every mundane detail).

(Ok, worse still, Jonah's a Biblical reference, Troy is an ancient Greek reference. If there's a handbook for seeming like a high-brow writer, it says to name-drop from these two sources. But it probably also says to name-drop something less common, something a 2nd grader might not immediately get. Read Louise Gluck.)

So Jonah's looking for Troy, finds him. Troy's life sucks. So does Jonah's. Troy has a kid he can't see b/c he got arrested for being a drug dealer. Jonah is all scarred from being attacked by a dog as a kid. Flashbacks to their mom tells us her life sucked, too.

I'm about 300 pages in and this book can end one of two ways:

1) Bleak. There's nothing worse than boring books that end miserably. At least give us the hope that your characters will go on to do more interesting things.

2) Happy. Which would be a total sellout and contradict the tone of everything that's come before.

Yet I keep reading it. Oh well. Maybe the end will someone be great and I'll have to change my disapproval.

Movie Review: The Science of Sleep

The Science of Sleep: Torgo approves

The world's a better place for having Michel Gondry.

His music videos (The White Stripes, Bjork, Foo Fighters, etc.) and his movies (that I've seen: "Eternal Sunshine" and "Science of Sleep") are visually compelling. More than that, they're visually fun. He takes full advantage of special effects and even low-tech effects to make things that don't show off what he can do (like a Spielberg) so much as utilize special effects to convey theme and tone.

Whereas "Eternal Sunshine" uses splashier, computer-generated effects, "Science of Sleep" opts for stop-motion, simple cardboard and paper, and basic optical illusions. The effect is that this movie has an innocence and charm at its core.

When the lead (Gael Garcia Bernal) dreams his hands are huge, it's even the same props Gondry used in the Foo Fighters' "Everlong" video, so not only is it low-tech, it's recycled.

I feel like I appreciate "Science of Sleep" more for having seen "Dave Chappelle's Block Party," where Gondry was in front of the camera, going through the process of creating a film. I was more willing to go along for the wacky ride.

M-N isn't a huge fan of this one, though she likes "Eternal Sunshine." Her complaint is valid: the dream sequences intersect with the non-dream sequences so chaotically, especially during the first half, that it can be difficult to find an entry point. Plus, it's a tri-lingual movie, with Bernal a native Spanish-speaker, Charlotte Gainsbourg a Brit, and mostly everyone else being French. All three languages get jumbled, again, especially in the first half.

I studied all three of those language, so that helps.

But I find the first half bothersome, too. It's complicated by the final act, in which the dream sequences mostly disappear, and the basic love story at the movie's heart is left on its own. I wonder how developed that story truly is, and how much I care after taking so long to get a grip on the movie.

Ultimately, though, I'm always a sucker for stories about awkward, creative boys who fall for girls in creative, awkward ways -- that just speaks to me.