Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is a creepy book to read, for obvious reasons. Even the nickname “Lolita” has become synonymous with sexually precocious children. Most people know at least the premise of the story, but it is much more than just a creepy older man grooming a young girl.

Humbert Humbert (pseudonym for the first-person narrator of the book, as all names have been “changed”) is an admitted pedophile. Early in the book he openly discusses his attraction to what he calls nymphets, or girls between the ages of 9 and 14, who are in that class between young child and developing woman. More than just a specific age group though, Humbert is attracted to girls who are becoming aware of their sexuality, and flaunt it, even if in a subconscious manner. He knows this is not a normal attraction, but he doesn’t provide excuses. For Humbert it simply is what it is, and he doesn’t want to change it. Somewhere it his late 30s, he has spent his entire life hiding his desires, even marrying once before, and recalls fondly his one sexual encounter with a 14 year old (when he was the same age).

Humbert’s life changes when he becomes a boarder at Charlotte Haze’s house. Charlotte is a widower and is raising her 12 year old daughter Dolores on her own. In Dolores, whom Humbert nicknames Lolita, he sees the perfect specimen for what he has always been seeking. Lolita is a typical hard-headed, rebellious girl, clashing with her mom on many topics, and in Humbert, she instantly recognizes someone she can manipulate. When Charlotte threatens to send Lolita away to a boarding school, Humbert even goes so far as to marry Charlotte and begin to plot her murder, so as to gain custody of Lolita. The decision is taken from him though. One morning Charlotte finds Humbert’s diary and notes, explaining in detail his unrequited love of Lolita, and in her rage and anguish, she walks in front of a car and is killed. Humbert picks Lolita up from her summer camp, and so starts their love affair.

For the next two years, Humbert and Lolita are lovers. For a year they travel the country under the guise of father and daughter, never staying in one place long enough for anyone to grow suspicious. Eventually they return to school, but by then, Lolita is becoming more brazen. She has Humbert wrapped around her finger, and withholds sexual favors for anything she wants, and of course, he always gives in. She’s become spoiled and unruly, and Humbert has become jealous of anything or anyone who might take her away from him. He researches her friends and forbids many social engagements. When he pulls her from the school play to which she’s been very excited to be in, she runs away for a short time. When Humbert finds her, she asks if they can go on the road again, and he agrees.

They aren’t out long before the jealous and paranoid Humbert begins to think they are being followed. He starts watching Lolita even more, looking for her to make calls or meet strangers at gas stations, and his worry seems to be well founded when one day, she just vanishes. Humbert spends two years looking for her, to no avail, and finally settles down with a young alcoholic named Rita, another person he can manipulate. When he gets a mysterious letter from Dolores one day, he drops Rita cold though and heads to his beloved Lolita. He finds her, now 17 years old and pregnant, but not by the man she fled with those years ago. Turns out that mysterious pursuer was another older man, Quilty, not much different than Humbert himself, and the playwright of the school play she was to perform in. After pleading one last time for Lolita to return to him (to which Dolores smiles sadly and says “no”), Humbert hunts down Quilty and kills him. At the end of his memoir, in jail for Quilty’s murder, Humbert asks that this book not be published until Lolita’s death. Little did he know that she would die in childbirth, and Humbert would follow shortly after due to heart failure.

OK, so lets set the creepiness factor aside, as much as we can. Yes, it gave me the shivers reading Humbert’s regaling of how lovely he thought the creamy, unblemished skin of 12 year olds is. But this book is so much more than its surface. For one, Humbert is a well educated and socially conscious man, and the book is chuck full of literary and cultural references. I hear there is an annotated version out there, that is probably well worth picking up, just to catch all the little subtle clues and ticks that point to other pieces. “Humbert” is an extremely funny writer too, so reading his narrative is seamless and engaging. That makes the perverted nature of some of his ramblings a bit easier to take. On a larger perspective, many have praised the way the book is told. We only hear Humbert’s side of the story as the aggressor. We know nothing of how Lolita thinks or feels about the situation, and that is done intentionally. Her voice as the victim in all this is completely silenced. I read somewhere that the book can even be taken as a criticism of the tyranny of soviet Russia, from which Nabokov and his family fled. I’m just a humble reader, so I won’t get into all that, but it is definitely worth thinking about. On the whole, it is a fascinating read and worthy of all the praise it has received over the years. If you can set aside your morals and just get into it, you should enjoy it.

Auggie is a short drama with a sci-fi twist. Reminiscent of the popular Spike Jonze film Her from a few years ago, it is about a man, Felix, who begins a relationship with a digital assistant named Auggie, a person only he can see when he puts on his augmented reality glasses. The premise makes it sound like it will set up a comedy of sorts, but it is actually a sad, introspective film. Felix is recently retired and is coping with his new, undriven lifestyle. He feels depressed in an empty house, with his wife still working (and in fact, putting in more hours thanks to a big promotion) and a daughter who’s recently moved out. Along comes Auggie, who can read his subconscious and give him everything he wants. It is a person who always has the right word of encouragement to say, and knows what he desires before even he does. Even her appearance is exactly what Felix would define as beauty. At first their relationship is platonic, but it develops into something more, obviously creating strife in Felix’s family. It’s a decent, short film (80 minutes). It took me a few minutes at least to take lead actor Richard Kind seriously, since he’s most well known for being the goof in comedy roles, but he is actually quite good here. I think the film could have explored more about the meaning of a relationship; it just touches on the repercussions of Felix’s decisions and, reciprocally, his wife’s own part, but a solid movie that I’d watch again.

Rosie is a film I’d been wanting to see for awhile, but like a lot of small indie films (especially ones made outside the USA) it took awhile to land somewhere where I finally got the chance. Filmed in Ireland, it is about a family and, particularly, its matriarch, and their struggle in a “working homeless” lifestyle. Every day John Paul goes to work, while Rosie takes/picks up the kids from school, doing laundry at various friends’ houses, and trying to phone hotels to find a place to stay that night. Their situation is made tougher because they are relying on a government assistance credit card to book the room, and not every place wants to deal with that. Rosie is literally making phone call after phone call, all day long, and so far it has worked for the last couple weeks that the family has been living out of their car. With the kids starting to get bullied at school for smelling, and teachers starting to ask questions about their well being, eventually their luck runs out, and they are unable to find a place one night. Really heartbreaking film. I can’t help but be reminded of that old Sound of Music quote, “When the Lord closes a door, somewhere He opens a window.” In Rosie, unfortunately, the windows all appear bolted shut. Outstanding acting by Sarah Greene as Rosie and Moe Dunford as John Paul (also the star of recent film The Dig, which I highly recommend). Even the kids were great, and as all my friends know, I generally despise child actors. Very heartfelt, emotional film.

If you’ve been following my blog, you know the importance of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books to me. His Lord of the Rings are my favorite books; I’ve re-read them more than anything else. So it is tragedy that the film based on his life, Tolkien, is such a bore. The biopic follows his life from a young boy, sent to a prestigious school after the death of his mother, through adulthood and his fighting in France during World War I. It follows many subjects, including his relationship with his future wife, his friends at school who were important in shaping the man he became, and his love of crafting languages, which was vital to his creation of the entire mythology of the world he built in Lord of the Rings. But all of it is treated as matter-of-factly. There are moments, hints of stirring emotion, but nothing that comes close to the climaxes found in his books. And worse, it portrays some of his muses as nothing more than hallucinations or fanciful daydreaming that he later put down in word. A total bummer for fans like myself.

Ash is Purest White is a Chinese film from a well-regarded director in that country and around the world, Jia Zhangke. I’ve not seen any of his previous films, but this one is highly reviewed, some calling it his masterpiece. It follows a young woman named Qiao, whose boyfriend Bin runs a small-time group of gangsters out of their gambling establishment in 2001. The whole film boils down to Qiao’s constant enabling and protecting of Bin, and his greedy nature to take everything she gives him without returning anything, even affection. She saves him when he is attacked by a younger mob of thugs, even going to jail for him when she tells the cop the gun was hers. When released 5 years later, he has moved on to a new girl and doesn’t have the guts to tell Qiao to her face, getting the new girlfriend to give the news. Years later, after a stroke has left him penniless and alone, confined to a wheelchair, Qiao once again cares for him, paying for rehab and nurturing him back to his feet. Think he will stick around this time? The “professional” reviewers are heaping the praise on this one, correlating the film with China’s rapid rise to modernization and what it has lost in culture in doing so. I’m not smart enough to see that connection, so looking at the film on its own merits, I just don’t get it. Ponderously slow, feeble acting from everyone outside of its lead (and even then, the stone-faced Zhao Tao as Qiao is passable, though far from spectacular), and really no plot to speak of all add up to a dreary film. I’d like to talk to someone who really, truly liked this movie to explain it to me.

Trial By Fire is a drama based a true story, about a man named Cameron “Todd” Willingham, who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for setting a fire that killed his 3 young kids. The film starts powerfully, portraying the violent day when the kids died, with a distraught Todd trying to get back into the house, despite it going up in flames. He is arrested for murder the afternoon after the kids are buried, and his trial is shown as a farce. The state’s experts say it was arson, and all the witnesses paint Todd as a troubled man who beat his wife and even worshiped the devil. His only defender was his wife, who said Todd would never hurt their kids. After the trial, Todd gets put on death row, and we see the hell that life is in that dreadful place. He’s still there seven years later when he gets in touch with a woman who starts looking into the sham that was his trial. She doesn’t know if Todd is innocent or guilty (even we viewers are unsure, purposefully so), but she knows he didn’t get a fair shake at his own trial, and she fights to try to get him an appeal. There are a lot of good moments, some even great, but the story is uneven and the dialogue can at times be worse. The film is very heavy handed too. I don’t mind having my emotions tugged at, but not so much when they are beating me over the head with it.

John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is one of those books that was always on the reading list in high school, but somehow never in any of the classes I was in. So I missed it until now.

It’s a short one, only about 100 pages or so, and it’s a quick read. It follows two men, Lenny and George, as they are on the run from one town and looking for work out on the open land. Lenny is a big guy but mentally slow, with the reasoning of a child. George is the brains of the duo, and he is always trying to save Lenny from himself. Lenny has a child-like compulsion to touch and pet things, but always forgets his own strength, so he is constantly killing the mice he picks up to pet. In fact, the two are running away from the town of Weed, where Lenny was hunted for harassing a young girl, though he and George insisted there was no ill intent.

After spending an evening by a lake, the two come to a grain farm where they get hired on to buck barley, and meet and hang out with the fellow workers. To particular interest to the story is an old worker named Candy, who’s been around forever. Candy’s old, decrepit dog can hardly walk anymore, and Candy is convinced to finally put it out of its misery. He can’t make himself do the deed, so he lets another man, Slim, do it, with an old luger Slim had. Afterwards, Candy regrets the action, saying he should have been the one to put down his old friend. Meanwhile, George regales Lenny with stories of their life after the farm, when they will have enough money to buy their own place and Lenny can raise rabbits. Lenny finds joy in playing with a new litter of puppies just born on the farm.

George sees trouble brewing, because the farm owner’s son Curley has a new bride who likes to flirt with the guys, which drives Curley crazy. Curley also has a boxing background, and he likes to show off his dominance in fighting. When Curley antagonizes Lenny, Lenny grabs Curley’s hand and crushes it. Shortly thereafter, Lenny accidentally kills one of the puppies by being too rough with it, and when he is consoled by Curley’s wife, he tries to pet her. She gets spooked and tries to scream, which scares Lenny and he accidentally breaks her neck. Lenny flees back to the lake, knowing George will come there and the two can make their getaway again. George does indeed find Lenny there, and tells him to look south to where they will have their own farm. As Lenny looks off, and George re-tells the story of their future together, he pulls out the luger and shoots Lenny in the back of the head.

Honestly, I’m not sure why this book is so high up on this list, other than maybe Steinbeck’s reputation. His Grapes of Wrath is coming up in the top 10, and that one I probably agree with (I did read that one in high school). This one’s good, but hardly earth shattering good. The characters are deep and developed, even for such a short book. Even Lenny, who on the surface doesn’t have much going on, has layers to get through to understand what makes him up. But it is a simple story with not a whole lot going on. A pleasant enough read, I just quibble about its placement on this list.

Up today is a set of films from Terry Gilliam. Gilliam, the original animator for the Monty Python troupe (remember all those funny cartoons in The Holy Grail?), he later became a full acting member of the group. After his time on the Monty Python’s Flying Circuis show, he went on to filmmaking, making quite a name for himself. Some of these are a bit “newer” films than I traditionally review, but I’d never seen them before.

Jabberwocky was Gilliam’s first solo director credit (he co-directed Monty Python and the Holy Grail with Terry Jones). Filling out the “story” of the short poem inside Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, a poem we had to memorize in school and of which I can still remember parts (“Beware the jubjub bird and shun the frumious bandersnatch!”), the movie stars fellow Monty actor Michael Palin as Dennis. Dennis is a bumbling idiot in the middle ages, trying to get enough money or prestige to gain the attentions of a girl he wants to marry. He travels to the big city for an opportunity, but finds nothing but misery there. Meanwhile, a monster has been killing local villagers and King Bruno the Questionable is looking for a knight to vanquish the beast. I like The Holy Grail and Life of Brian, but I’m otherwise not a huge Monty Python fan, and this film is very much like those skits, which is understandable. At this early point in his career, Gilliam made a film in a style that he was comfortable with. While there are darker elements to the story, it has the same slapstick comedy and inane style of a Python piece. If you are in for silliness, there’s plenty on display here, but that’s about all there is. I laughed plenty, but ultimately I don’t think its a movie I’d watch multiple times.

Time Bandits, from 1981, is a kid adventure/fantasy in the style of many films of this era (a la The Neverending Story). Kevin is tired of his dreary life and his unloving parents, when one night he is visited by a group of dwarfs (ahem, “little people”) who are on a quest to steal from history’s treasures. If God is the architect of the world, these these ageless dwarfs are its builders. Aided by a magical map that shows them holes in space and time, stolen from “The Supreme Being,” they go on an adventure to rob Napolean during his wars and King Agamemnon in ancient Greece, among others. All is not fun and games though, as they also end up on the wrong side of Robin Hood and the Titanic, and all while being pursued by The Supreme Being and “Evil” (the devil), who wants the map for his own dastardly purposes. It’s a fun (and funny) escapade throughout. It’s a definite PG rating, as it never gets too scary for the kids who may be watching, but there is plenty of humor thrown in that will be over their heads. It also is filled with a who’s who cast, including Sean Connery, Ian Holm, Shelley Duvall, John Cleese, Katherine Helmond, David Warner, and R2-D2 himself, Kenny Baker, as one of the troop of anti-heroes. I’m sorry I missed this one as a kid, it’s the kind of film I definitely would have enjoyed.

Time Bandits was Gilliam’s first commercial success, but Brazil has become a much more lasting hit. It wasn’t a success at the box office* (for reasons, see the next paragraph), but has gone on to be a huge cult hit since. A dystopian darker-than-black comedy, it is Monty Python meets 1984. In the near-future where everything is controlled by computers but nothing works, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce in his breakout role) works at the Ministry of Information, watching over the population and rooting out problems. Sam really cares for people, unlike his cold, heartless, technology-obsessed coworkers and family. A terrorist person or organization has been bombing public places for 13 years now (“beginner’s luck” is the official government response), and meanwhile, Sam is trying to hunt down a girl that he noticed at work and in his dreams, but whose past is classified at his pay scale. The main target of the government is a man named Tuttle, a “rogue” repairman who ignores bureaucracy and goes around fixing AC units without the proper government licenses. When a computer glitch kills a man named Buttle instead of Tuttle, Sam’s investigation into it ultimately leads to his own downfall. The film pokes fun at big government and big technology run amok, but the satire hits a little too close to home, and some of the humor, while hilarious at face value, is a bit disturbing when you consider some of this stuff can really happen today, such as corporations trying to control everything through regulation and paperwork, creating more work in the process. The movie has an all-star cast of Pryce, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Robert DeNiro, Katherine Helmond, and a slew of minor roles for before-they-were-famous actors that you’ll recognize. There are 3 versions of the film out there, including a much-edited “happy ending” version, but I watched the longer “director’s cut” and it was fantastic. Extremely funny but also equally dramatic and at times even suspenseful, this is a tremendous film that I highly recommend. Gilliam hit his stride on this one, making a movie that resonates for the ages.

*The smaller “happy” version was made by the studio without Gilliam’s input, and Gilliam went to bat to protect the film he originally intended. It had all ready been released in Europe to rave reviews and box office success, so he put pressure on the studio (Universal) to release the film as he wanted it. They fought back by delaying its release, but it backfired on them when the Los Angeles Film Critics Association did something unheard of: they awarded all their top prizes (best director, best film, and best screenplay) of 1985 to Brazil, even though it hadn’t even been released in the USA. Ultimately Universal Studios made just a few changes to appease American censors and released the movie, but by then (1986) the hype had cooled and they didn’t recoup their expenses. Fascinating behind-the-scenes stuff.

The Fisher King is one of those newer movies (1991) that I should have seen by now, but never did. Jeff Bridges stars as shock jock Jack Lucas, whose popular show and high class life are thrown away when he says the wrong thing to the wrong caller on his show. The listener ends up doing a mass shooting at a local nightclub in a murder/suicide, and three years later, Jack still hasn’t recovered. He’s blaming his run of bad luck on karma. On a wild night, he meets Perry (Robin Williams). Perry is half crazy and homeless, and it turns out he hasn’t been the same since his wife was murdered right in front of him, at that terrible nightclub tragedy. In helping Perry, Jack thinks he can finally get some good karma, but Perry seems to have unattainable goals. He wants to steal what he thinks is the Holy Grail from a businessman in uptown, and he wants to meet a woman that he has fallen in love with, but whom he hasn’t had the nerve to approach. But first, Perry must conquer his literal demons, as he sees a premonition of a fire breathing red knight on a red horse chasing him whenever he starts to feel some normalcy. Bridges is passable, but it is Robin Williams who shines. He was on a roll at this point in his career (made just after Good Morning Vietnam and Dead Poets Society), and he is great here again. Bridges on-screen girlfriend Anne (Mercedes Ruehl) gives the performance of a lifetime as well, and it won her an Oscar. Part comedy, part drama, and with some fantasy thrown in, it’s a very good film, though maybe not-quite-great, and you just hope for a happy ending as it approaches.

So much for saving the best for last. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is total shit. It is unfunny, boring, and probably only interesting for a viewer who is as high as the characters in the film. Based on the famous Hunter S Thompson book of the early 70s, it follows a journalist and his lawyer, Duke and Dr Gonzo (Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro) in their drug-fueled work covering first, a bike race, and later, a narcotics symposium, in the city of sin. The first solid hour is nothing but the duo’s reaction to the world around them as they trip acid, snort coke, and inhale ether. 30 minutes in, Duke dialogues to the viewer (about the bike race), “I had witnessed the start, I was sure of that much. But what now? What comes next?” I was asking myself the same thing. I totally understand the film is a bit of a metaphor on the craziness of the times in which it takes place (1971) and the film, when it is coherent, is definitely anti-war, but man it is a tough watch. How this film has gone on to become a “cult hit” is beyond me. The only bright spot is the acting chops of Depp and Del Toro, who are so good in the roles, you forget who the actors are, but they aren’t enough to save this mess.

I don’t know if, growing up, I ever read E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web or not. I remember the cartoon, but not the book. Honestly they are just about the same, the film is a pretty literal translation. Everyone knows the story (or should anyway): Wilbur is a runt pig saved from a premature death by the love of others, first by Fern, a girl on the farm, and later by Charlotte, a spider and his best, true friend. All the farm animals know that Wilbur will be slaughtered for meat once he gets big enough, but Charlotte makes him famous by spinning adoring words in her web to describe Wilbur as “radiant” and “humble.”

Like most good childrens’ books from back “in the day,” this one has a lot of metaphors in place for greater meanings. The most obvious is to help kids deal with change in their lives. Fern grows up and moves off to play with boys instead of animals; Charlotte dies and her kids (and later grandkids) become good friends to Wilbur too, though he admits to the reader they will never replace Charlotte.

It is just a kid’s book, but it is beautifully written and deserving of an afternoon read by adults too. I dare you not to tear up when Charlotte inevitably dies near the end. It’s a charming tale that hasn’t lost anything through the years.

Skin, based on a true story, tells about Bryon Widner, a former neo-nazi with hateful tattoos all over his body and face, who gained some fame about 10 years ago when he had all those face tattoos (painfully) removed (instead of flashbacks, we get “flash-forwards where we see him getting them removed, interspersed throughout the film). Bryon was adopted by a leader in the hate group as a child and has lived within it his whole life. However, he starts to wonder what he’s doing there, and the film lets you come to that conclusion on your own. There are subtle spots you have to notice, like how he gives the new recruit a hard time, asking him why he wanted to join. Things start to change more when he meets a woman and falls in love with her and her kids. She was raised in hate groups herself (her dad was in the KKK) but swore it all off, and Bryon decides to leave his family and marry her and move to a new city. Unfortunately the family won’t let him go that easy, and follow him there. Jaime Bell is solid as Bryon Widner, and Danielle Macdonald is always good (check out Patti Cake$ if you haven’t), but the movie is a bit stale and paint-by-numbers, the same trap a lot of biopics fall into. Like many indie films with star power in the acting roles, the movie may be worthy of a watch by film lovers like myself just to see the performances, but as a movie itself, it isn’t very memorable.

I’ve decided I’m just not a man for comedies anymore. Used to dig them when I was younger and could watch them over and over again. Now, even on good ones, I laugh during the film, but afterwards just shrug them off, and they don’t leave any lasting impression on me. Long Shot is the latest, and it is indeed a very good comedy, but still didn’t do much for me. This one is about the unlikely relationship between a popular and powerful politician, Charlize Theron as Charlotte Field, currently Secretary of State but getting ready to run for President, and a quirky, left-wing journalist, Seth Rogen as Fred Flarsky. They were childhood friends, in fact, Charlotte babysat the slightly younger Fred, and they find each other again years later. At first, Charlotte just hires Fred to write speeches for her, but they quickly find a shared attraction for each other. As romantic comedies go, it is very good. Lots of laughs, though a bit crude for maybe my parents to watch, but like many films of this genre, it is awfully predictable. I did enjoy the gender change from the usual way this kind of film is told, putting the woman in the power role and having the man run to her for a change, but otherwise it is pretty standard fair.

To Dust follows an orthodox Hasidic Jewish man, Shmuel (Geza Rohrig), having a hard time getting over the recent death of his wife. More than her physical loss, he is having nightmares about the decomposition of her body, buried in its pine coffin. Having been raised without science and not knowing how long the decomposing can take, he “sins” by seeking answers from a local college science professor, Albert (Matthew Broderick). Thus embarks a funny yet heartfelt journey about loss, coming to terms, and moving on. At first Shmuel goes simple, burying a pig in the ground with plans to see how long it would take to become dust, but as Albert points out, “If you brought me a pig about as large as your wife, no offense, and buried her like a Jew, no offense, then we’d be cooking, but this is a mockery of science.” They get a bigger pig and bury it in the manner that the wife was buried, and go on to exhume it every month to see how far along it is getting. Along the way, Shmuel goes through his grieving process, saying good bye in his own ways. It’s a lovely film; Broderick mostly provides the comic relief and isn’t bad, but Rohrig is great, as he was in the Hungarian film Son of Saul, released a couple years ago and winner of that year’s Oscar for best foreign film (check this and that one out for some great stuff).

Midsommar was a hit last summer on the Indie circuit. It was billed as a great horror film. It is certainly unsettling and disturbing at times, but I’m not sure I’d call it a horror film, and honestly, I thought it fairly average. It is about a group of American college students who go with a Swedish friend to his hometown, a commune-like group off in the middle of nowhere. You get creepy vibes from the moment they arrive, with pictures on the walls showing rituals and whatnot, but our unsuspecting Americans seem completely oblivious. They don’t even freak out enough when a couple of old adults jump from a cliff in suicidal fashion, hearing the explanation that they were giving their lives to replenish the energies of the youth or some such nonsense. The film mostly follows the lone girl of the group, Dani (Florence Pugh, also known recently as the main actor in Fighting With My Family, and the one bright spot in this film). Dani recently lost her entire family when her sister killed their parents in a murder/suicide. She’s facing those demons as she faces the cult in Sweden, but the film doesn’t do enough to explore the correlations. Outside of some gross-out scenes inserted just for shock value, the film is pretty benign, and a bit long for a “scary” movie at 2 ½ hours. Not worthy of the hype.

In my opinion, Breaking Bad is one of the greatest shows ever made. I was one of the hoards of fans who eagerly anticipated every episode, and so when a new movie was surprisingly announced by Netflix, I couldn’t wait to see it. El Camino resolves the mystery of what happened to Jesse Pinkman, last seen on the final episode of Bad driving off in the eponymous car, being one of the few to survive the blood thirsty show. Rotten Tomatoes describes it as “entertaining if not essential” and I think I agree. We see Jesse dealing with the aftermath of having been tortured and caged for a year, and see some of what he went through in flashbacks. The film is a wonderful walk down memory lane, with many of the original cast returning in the those flashbacks. I was a little worried that I wouldn’t remember important plot elements after all these years (I can’t believe it ended way back in 2013!) but the film reminds you of the important stuff, without holding your hand and re-hashing old tales. It isn’t “necessary viewing,” and the show still stands on its own from beginning to end as a masterpiece all by itself, but El Camino is a fantastic curtain call.

Ok James Joyce, you got me. Finnegans Wake was a super hard read, and deserving of its reputation as one of the hardest challenges of the English language. But after finishing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce’s first novel, published in 1916), I realize that he’s just a tough author in general. Granted, Portrait is no Finnegans Wake, but you still can’t speed read it.

Portrait is largely autobiographical and follows a man named Stephen Dedalus from his time as a young boy up into adulthood. Each chapter depicts a major moment in his life, moments that would shape his views on life and the world around him. Though it isn’t written in first person, the style of the writing changes too as Stephen grows older. It begins in a wondrous mood, since kids’ eyes are open to the wide world around them, but as Stephen ages, he (and the writing style) loses some of that luster and, while still called “the artist” or “the poet” by his friends because of what he enjoys doing, he becomes more pragmatic.

Stephen is a boy raised in Ireland at a time when nationalism is at an all-time peak, and at times, there is a conflict between the government and the church, which is often seen as being a bit corrupt. Of course to the young Stephen, he is blissfully unaware of all of this, and only sees glimpses of it at home in arguments between his devout mother, his one-of-the-guys father, and their surrounding family, who like all families, fall across all lines of the political and religious landscape. There are moments that seem to push Stephen away from the church (such as when he is physically punished by a priest for having lost his glasses at school) and other times when he feels the call of God personally. Through much of it, Stephen often just goes with the flow and doesn’t seem to speak up for himself until he is much older. You get the impression of a young man who takes in all, but doesn’t show his cards.

At 16, Stephen commits his first big sins, and begins sleeping with prostitutes. He does this for awhile before, overcome with shame, he goes to a priest to confess. This leads to a renewed sense of Stephen feeling the presence of God, and he devotes himself again to leading a better life. He wants to feel something, and in so wanting, he dives in headfirst. This only lasts so long though. In college, Stephen finally realizes that he is unsure if there even is a God (but he is equally unsure if there isn’t too). He’s lost faith in man, and feels constricted by the ropes everyone wants to put on him, whether those ties come from his family, the church, or his community. He decides to leave it all behind and go into a self exile, where he can finally become the artist that he has always dreamed to be.

In some of my other reviews, I’ve praised the beautifully crafted language of some authors (William Faulkner comes to mind). James Joyce’s works are equally brilliantly built, and while it most definitely has a lyrical quality, it is much more challenging. You have to devote all of your attention to your reading, because if you get distracted for even a breath, you seem to lose the cadence and flow of words that Joyce is carrying you along through. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a difficult read, but it is rewarding for those with patience and care to read (slowly) and enjoy the journey along with Stephen.

Michelangelo Antonioni was an Italian filmmaker whose films became very influential in the art house circuit. I’ve never seen any of his stuff before, so will look at some today, including 3 of his arguably most famous pictures. Le Amiche (The Girlfriends), released in 1955, is about a group of five girlfriends as they deal with relationships in a changing society. Two of the five, Rosetta (coming off a recent suicide attempt because of an as-yet unknown reason) and Nene are in love with the same man: Lorenzo, Nene’s husband. This love triangle is the focus of much of the film, but the dynamics with the group of girls is heavily explored too. Momina seems to care for not much more than herself, Clelia is a woman who puts career before love (still a bit taboo in 1955), and all of them tiptoe around Rosetta because of her attempt to end her life. It’s a very lovely picture and acts as a snapshot of the time; it feels very real in a certain sense, but some of the characters feel like caricatures and too one-dimensional. Not a very deep film, but I can see how it heralds the more well regarded films that were to follow.

Some art films are often guilty of placing characters before plot (not necessarily a bad thing, but you have to be in the right mindset to watch a film like this). L’Avventura fits the bill, because it has hardly any plot, but I was still riveted. The film follows a spoiled rich girl named Anna who seems to hold the world on a string. She craves everyone’s attention but returns no feelings, either to her father, her boyfriend, or her best friend. After yachting with some friends, she disappears suddenly on a secluded island, and no one can find her. In searching for her for the rest of the film, her best friend Claudia and her boyfriend Sandro begin a relationship with each other. The film is all about these two and their circle of friends, and what makes them tic. But also, the film is a showcase of Antonioni’s style. He has a way with the camera, creating stark and empty landscapes where it seems our actors are the only people in the world. The scenes where the party is searching on the rocks of an empty, desolate island for Anna are almost surreal-feeling in a very real environment. You’ve heard of a slow burn, well this one isn’t even that, it’s more of a slow simmer. But I was enthralled. Light on plot but heavy on character development, L’Avventura is movie magic.

La Notte (The Night) is the story of a couple on the rocks, told over the course of a long day and night. Actually “on the rocks” may not be the best description, because that would imply that one or both of them would like to save their marriage, and it becomes increasingly apparent throughout the film that these two hardly have anger for each other. In fact, it is almost extreme apathy. Lidia walks around looking completely uninterested in her life and is almost certainly depressed, while Giovanni flirts with any woman that catches his eye. He is a popular writer among the intellectual (and pretentious) crowd, and enjoys all the attention, but isn’t wealthy himself, having gotten “into money” when he married Lidia. However, he internally fears that he is a fraud and isn’t nearly as talented as everyone thinks he is. The lack of talent does seem to bother him though, it is the threat of loss of status that he may care more about. Our vapid couple fit right in with the societal circles they hang in. It’s a very beautiful (if slightly depressing) film with wonderful, subdued acting by its two leads (Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni). Like L’Avventura, not much a real “plot” to follow along, and it does move slow, but it is a very rewarding film.

L’eclisse (The Eclipse) was heralded upon its release in 1962, as a film showing the disconnect between people in a modern “connected” society. Once again starring Antonioni’s muse, Monica Vitti, it is about a woman who can’t find love. Vittoria is a beautiful young woman, too beautiful for her own good, because men just want to sleep with her, but she seems to be looking for something more. The film begins with her breaking up with her previous boyfriend, who becomes a bit stalker-ish by showing up at her place the following night and hanging out outside her window (when she calls the ex-boyfriend’s friend to let him know to look out for his bud because he might need a helping hand at the moment, the friend hits on her as well). The next day, Vittoria meets Piero (a young Alain Delon, just two years after his break-out role in Purple Noon), a stockbroker whose lifestyle is as frenetic as his work. Vittoria likes him immediately, but like all men around her, he is singularly focused on one thing. She rebuffs him for awhile, but does eventually give in and the two sleep together. They agree to meet the next day at “the usual spot,” but as Antonioni shows with his brilliant camera pacing again, neither show up. I thought this movie had a very good-to-great beginning, and a transcendent ending, but the middle was a bit boring honestly. The ending makes up for it, but bring your patience. A brilliant film overall, showing the alienation of individuals from each other in world that was growing increasingly connected, and looking back on it from eyes in 2019, it has only gotten worse. As a side, I finally put my finger on how the director gets these films to feel so expansive. For one, he obviously picks locales where, often, there are few if any bystanders walking the streets, creating a feeling of emptiness. But more importantly, he uses the widescreen format to perfection. Whereas a lot of those old black and white films are 4:3, Antonioni’s films fill a widescreen television, and he often places the camera just a hair lower than you typically see done. It isn’t so much that you get a feeling of “looking up” at the actors, in fact it is easy to miss, but you do see the expansive sky above and around them while the walk around. Outstanding filmmaking, and I feel like a buffoon for missing it on the first couple films.

The last film is, unfortunately, the one I couldn’t get through, and I was probably most looking forward to this one initially. Red Desert is about a lonely, self-isolated woman (again, Monica Vitti) who feels disconnected from everyone around her, even her husband and son. She shares a bit of kinship with a coworker of her husband’s, who has similar feelings but has learned to live with them, and the two start an emotional affair. The affair maybe got physical by the end, but I didn’t make it that far. After about 80 minutes into the 2 hour film, I gave up. I wanted to like this one, because to add to the feeling of isolationism the main character feels, the film has an almost post-apocalyptic feel, and I typically dig those kinds of films. The industrial workers live in cold, concrete buildings, and there is pollution and dreary, foggy, miserable conditions all around them. But honestly the film is a slog. It lacked the trepidatious feeling of the previous 3 films, and watching our leading lady struggle through life seemed more challenging for the viewer than for her. I might attempt this one on another day in the future, but lacked the patience for it today.

For myself, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 was one of those books that, while reading, I knew it was good stuff, but for whatever reason, it never really grabbed me and held my attention. Some books just get a hold of you and you can’t put them down, turning page after page for hours. Catch-22 was good, almost unarguably great, but I never got that sense of urgency to find out what happened next.

The book is almost entirely a piece of satire, focusing on many subjects but primarily the asininity of the US military chain of command and the bureaucracy that goes with it. It follows a unit of air force bombers stationed in Italy during World War II, and almost all of them are nearly certifiably crazy (as the book points out, you’d have to be to fly repeatedly over enemy territories in slow planes while getting shot at, wouldn’t you?). The main character is Yossarian, who seems to be the least insane of them all, because he realizes that everyone there is trying to kill him, from the enemy combatants to his own commanders, for continually sending them on suicide missions, and he wants out. However, every time the unit gets close to meeting their quota of bombing runs, Colonel Cathcart, who is obsessed with impressing his superiors so as to become a general, keeps raising said quota. The big “catch 22” referenced in the title is Yossarian’s conundrum for getting sent home. A person would have to be crazy to do what he’s doing in his bombing missions, but to apply for reassignment he’d have to be of sound mind, thus not crazy, and still capable of flying more missions.

If Yossarian is sane for wanting to get out of his situation, everyone around him is most certainly not sane. His cohorts are all nutty, and include: Milo, the mess officer, who runs a “syndicate” trading in black market goods, even to the enemy; Orr, a pilot who gets shot down on every single mission, but always survives along with all of his crew; Major Major (rank and name), a recluse who hates meeting with people, so he makes sure his aid only lets visitors in to “see” him when he isn’t in the office; McWatt, Yossarian’s pilot, who Yossarian considers completely insane because of how sane he appears during the war; Nately, who is in love with a prostitute who will sleep with anyone but Nately; and a host of others. The doctors don’t know anything about medicine and the commanders don’t know anything about combat, leading to some very funny exchanges throughout the novel.

Through a multitude of seemingly unrelated events but which ultimately all tie together in the end, the book does have a nice plot, but there’s far too much of it to get into here. I’ll suffice to say that, like stated above, it is a good (great?) book, but just not engaging for me personally. Some of the humor had me chuckling, other parts rolling my eyes, and a few spots genuinely offended, such as the pilots’ treatment of the female nurses in the medical tents. Of course, it was written in a different time, published when “men were men” in 1961. I can’t argue that it is wonderfully written. Starting on it, it seems like it is jumping around a bit too much, but you realize after awhile that it is logically following certain ideas down paths to their conclusions, and then exploring something new, which may have started earlier but may finish later, if that makes sense. I’m not sure I’d place it as a top 15 “greatest of all time” novel, but it is a very nice book and I’m glad to have finally read it to see what all the hype is about.

I didn’t set out to do this on purpose, but ended up watching 5 films in a row that all featured subjects involving people on the fringes of society, mostly the poor but also the disenchanted. Mobile Homes is about a family eking out an existence beyond the fringe. Ali and her boyfriend Evan are total white trash, subjecting her son Bone to a life he should not be a part of at any age, much less the 8 years he has. They bet on cockfighting, Evan has Bone sell drugs, and they float from motel room to motel room with nothing permanent in their lives. One night Evan hits Ali and she and Bone run for it, spending the night in a mobile home under construction. The next day they meet the contractor building the homes, Robert. Robert allows them to stay, offering Ali and Bone some normalcy for perhaps the first time in Bone’s life, in exchange for Ali working around the site. Their short-lived idyllic setting is put to the test when Ali spots Evan’s van, and she can’t help herself but to accept him back. As bad a mother as Ali is, Evan cares for nothing but himself. It’s a tough film to watch; even the opening scene when Ali is trying to get Bone into a shelter, basically to abandon him so she and Evan can do their thing, and the receptionist tells her that Bone just walked out the door, Ali isn’t dismayed at all, quipping, “He knows how to get home.” That sets the table for the kind of people that make up this little trio. I liked the film all right, and I think Imogen Poots is really good as Ali, but the camera work doesn’t do her any favors to show off her talents. Like a lot of independent films these days, they have too much “shaky camera syndrome” in an effort to make it feel “real.” Decent film for indie movie lovers.

Savage Youth is another better-than-average indie film, and apparently based on a true story (though I admit I didn’t look up any info on it to verify). The first 20 or so minutes introduce us to the half dozen main characters, a group of young 20-somethings that are acting like a lot of kids these days. There’s a rough-and-tumble guy, his artistic girlfriend, her slutty friend, a closet gay man who acts tough around his friends, and, on the other side of town, a pair of black brothers who can’t escape the color of their skin to succeed in life. But just because most of the characters seem a little aimless, don’t think that the movie itself doesn’t have an endgame. It builds quietly but surely to a tremendous climax. Like a lot of low budget films, there’s a mixed bag of acting chops in this one. Some are really great, others not so much (there’s definitely some over-acting here and there), but the quiet tension and slow-building suspense get you past the rough patches, and I really enjoyed this one too. Bring your patience, there’s not a lot of “action” to carry the story, but some of the performances are really quite good, especially the subtle styles of Grace Victoria Cox as Elena and Tequan Richmond as Gabe.

We the Coyotes (retitled Anywhere With You upon release in the USA) follows a young couple, Amanda and Jake, as they move to LA for a fresh start, but mostly to escape Amanda’s disapproving parents, who see Jake as a loser/floater/stoner with no ambition. Amanda has a job interview lined up and they are planning on staying with her older sister for a few days until they get established, but a family fight leaves them without a place to stay, and the job doesn’t pan out. Later in the day, their car gets towed and they spend all the rest of their cash on getting it back. Broke and homeless on their first day in the city, they have no options. Amanda is portrayed by Amanda Saylor, better known as the snotty daughter in the first few seasons of Homeland, the girl everyone loved to hate. She’s just not very good, and shows the same perplexed looks now as she did on that show 7-8 years ago as a kid. The film is as aimless as its characters, and the ending is just dumb, because (SPOILER) they get super excited that Jake unexpectedly lands a minimum wage job and Amanda becomes a “manager” for a homeless local musician. Yay, we can afford to stay in LA! Really?

Concrete Kids is about a couple kids (no older than 10 it seems) who set off across LA over night to reach the Staples Center by morning for a silly contest where the winner gets $1000. Edison is from a solid middle class family and is doing it for the adventure of it, but Sage comes from a poor family and really wants the cash to prevent being evicted. The beginning felt pretty cliché, skateboarder kids and all. I don’t know why I thought I’d like this one; I hate child actors, because they usually deliver their lines like they are reading a book in front of class and their mannerisms seem forced because (nearly always) they are just doing exactly what an adult told them to do. Those observations are true here again, but the film isn’t terrible. It is mostly about Sage (who, as a poor kid, is exposed to a lot more than his friend) opening Edison’s eyes to the world around him, warts and all. Edison begins by being scared of everything from the bus to the metro to the plentiful homeless around the city, but comes out of his shell as the night progresses. However, Sage isn’t the only one with problems, and Edison’s come to light at the end. Fairly ho-hum film, nothing to get too excited over.

Little Woods takes place in a small town in North Dakota and follows two sisters, Ollie and Deb, who are at a crossroads. Ollie is just getting done with her probation after having been arrested crossing the border with Canada with a backpack full of prescription drugs. She had been going up there to buy, and giving pain pills to their dying mother and selling the rest for cash on the street. Though she’s the one with the record, sister Deb is really the trouble child. Ollie was just doing what she needed to do to take care of mom, but Deb has one child already, another on the way, and the father is a drunk and a dead beat. Deb’s been living out of a trailer under threat of eviction, and the family house that Ollie is staying in now that mom has passed is also back due on taxes and mortgage. With money due on the house and no prospects of a decent job on the horizon, Ollie agrees to make one more drug run to get them in the clear. At the same time, Deb decides to have an abortion, but since they can’t afford it in the states, she will go north with Ollie and have it done in Canada. The film was marketed as a western (not really, though it does take place in the back woods of the northern frontier) and thriller (not really again, though at times it has a quiet suspense), it is more of a family drama. I thought it was just all right, not worth a second viewing, but the two leads, Tessa Thompson and Lily James, both give stellar performances. Thompson has gained traction in the last five years with roles in Selma, the Creed films, and as Valkyrie in Avengers (and a good part in the HBO Westworld show). James too is on the rise lately after parts in Baby Driver, the latest Mamma Mia sequel, and Yesterday. However, both are better in this film than anything I’d seen before. It is worth watching once for their performances alone.