Killers & Date Night

Ok, so I don't usually watch romantic comedies. I like them, they just never make it to the top of my list. This weekend though, somehow I ended up watching Killers and Date Night, both of which I would classify as rom coms. They were both pretty funny, but overall nothing to write home about.

Killers felt a lot like Mr. & Mrs. Smith crossed with Grosse Point Blank, with a little Sandra Bullock thrown in for color. Ashton Kutcher plays it with the right amount of seriousness and silliness, and well, Katherine Heigl is in her element playing the lovely wife who discovers her hubby is a contract killer. Date Night felt a lot like Adventures in Babysitting, only with married people. Of course, both movies had decent acting, and well, Steve Carrell & Tina Fey are the awkward comedy masters. They do know how to make you laugh (seriously watch the takes in the credits- hilarious!).

They were both fun, and worth a rental, but I would never watch them again. I don't think either would hold up to a second viewing.

Rating: 3 1/2 purrs for some laughs and general goofiness

- Posted using BlogPress from Bruce

Sumner Island by Michael Cormier

I got a copy of Sumner Island by Michael Cormier as an early reviewer's copy. It's a first novel, and honestly, it wasn't too bad. I thought I was getting a spooky ghost story, but what I got was more like a cross between Somewhere in Time and The Sixth Sense. In fact, I spent the majority of the first part of the novel trying to convince myself it wasn't a retread. Luckily, it picked up towards the end and I got absorbed into the story along the way.

Mitch Lambert is a history professor who, while writing the biography of Maria Boudreau, falls in love with the long-dead heiress. His book increases interest in Maria, and soon people are seeing her ghost walking the island where she was murdered. Mitch believes the man who was accused of her murder was innocent, and is determined to discover the real killer when a psychic comes to the island to have a seance. Along the way, Mitch begins to see things he shouldn't, a sort of time-travel thing, and plays detective. Will he solve the mystery? What do you do when you love someone who has been dead for years?

It wasn't bad, it wasn't mind-blowing. I felt like the ending was a bit of a let down, too neatly tied up I guess. I can't say for sure, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had gotten what I was expecting - a haunted house story. Instead I got a supernatural romance thriller, which was a good read, just not what I was looking for. Go into with the right frame of mind and I think you would enjoy it.

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs

Thirst (Bakjwi)

Thirst was in a word, Wow. I had heard very good things about it, but I wasn't really sure. I mean I have seen a lot of Asian horror, so they all sort of run together at this point. However, Thirst really stood out for its combination of sexy and eerie without resorting to the sexy vampire stereotype.

Sang-hyun is a priest who volunteers for a medical experiment in hopes of helping find a cure for a deadly disease. Instead, he gets more than he bargained for. In fact, he gets some tainted blood that turns him into a vampire, and then gets pulled into helping an old friend try to escape her unhappy marriage and family ties. He struggles with his new inhumanity and his infatuation with the woman from his childhood.

This movie was so much not what I expected. It's a lot less horror in the traditional gore, slash & dice sort of way and much more in the line of beautiful thriller. That white painted apartment is simply beautiful.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who liked Let The Right One In. This is much more like that than say, Near Dark.
Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs

Watch Instantly Day 3

Once again it's laundry day! You know what that means - time for the Roku.

The Haunting of Molly Hartley showed up in NetFlix Watch Instantly recently so of course I had to watch it. I never would have bothered getting a DVD of it to watch, but since it was so easy...well how could I not? Molly's mom goes a bit nuts and tries to kill her to save her before her 18th birthday. Why? Well it seems someone made a deal with the devil, so to speak. This was a fun little movie - not much substance but nothing terrible here.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans also showed up. I went into this one with very low expectations and was very surprised to find a decent, romantic, gothy, slaves vs masters, vampires vs lycans story. It too was short to have a whole lot of fluff and it was interesting to see the backstory of why the vampires and werewolves hate each other so much. I would too, man. I would too. Hello, Michael Sheen & his buff self. Also very nice to look at. Towards the end - totally riveted to the action sword play. Yay for gothy music. Now I feel compelled to watch the others. I know. I am sad.

Black Hole by Charles Burns

I picked up Black Hole by Charles Burns awhile ago because the cover looked interesting and it showed up as an item in my QPB catalog. I thought Steve would enjoy reading it but never really expected to ick it up myself. Then I read an article on MTV's Splash Page that listed it as one of the contributor's favorite horror comics. Well, that put it in a different light altogether. Of course I had to pick it up then.

In Black Hole, the teens in town either have "the bug" or not. "The bug" is an STD that passes from one to the other, causing some mutation or another. Some mutations aren't so bad, maybe an extra small mouth or your skin sheds. Some are really bad - disfiguring the face so much you can't recognize what the person looked like before. Regardless, once you have it, you have it forever.

The stories are sad and lonely, the art is stark black & white with severe shading that only enhances the feeling of separateness felt by the teens. It's horrific- the mutations, the alienation, the rage these kids feel, but I wouldn't consider it horror, at least not in the sense as I define it. It was however terribly good. I highly recommend it.

Rating: 5 Purrs for a haunting, sad, eerie story told with beautiful art

Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield

I think I found this book via my QPB membership. It's more than likely. I seem to find the best books there. Love Is a Mix Tape is probably one of the sweetest, saddest books I have read in a long while.

In LIaMT, Rob Sheffield tells the story of how his love of music blossomed and how that love of music brought him to Renee, the woman he loved, married, and watched die in his arms one night after about 5 years of marriage. He tells the story using each chapter to show why a certain mix tape was important, the songs that were on it, and why it was even made.

I wondered how gimmicky that would feel after a few chapters, but it didn't feel gimmicky at all. Instead I found a love letter to music, the act of loving a song enough to give it to someone else, to add it in between other songs in order to change it, make it your own, and a love letter to the person we meet that we know will change our lives for the better, forever. Not only could I tell that Rob Sheffield loves music, but I could tell that he loves Renee, even now. It was and is a beautiful story. Anyone who has ever made a mix tape knows the magic in it, and Rob brings that magic, the joy the two of them shared, making tapes together, to the reader.

I got through reading maybe the first 2 chapters before I went into Steve's office and said, "This book - you have to read it. It's like it was written for you by you." I can appreciate it, but Steve, as a true music lover, will be able to get it in a way I can't.

Rating: 5 Purrs for telling the story of two people, so different and yet so right for each other. For making a very sad story into one of love and living.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

I don't know how how many people told me Forgetting Sarah Marshall was hilarious. They were right. It's all in the mix - Kristen Bell plays just the right amount of bitch and cute, Mila Kunis is adorable, the Apatow regulars are a perfect background mix, Russell Brand was funnier than I expected, and Jason Segel was downright perfect. He is such a nice mix of goofball, sweet, funny that he really does seem to be the guy you would love to bring back to the parents.

Am I the only person in the world who would love to see the full production of Dracula puppets? Surely not...

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights is one of those books that has sat on my shelf for years. It's not that didn't want to read it; I always wanted to but just never seemed to get around to it. After reading it, I'm not sure what all of the fuss is about. Maybe I do, but overall, the book just left me kind of angry.

Cathy and Heathcliff grow up together and of course fall in love. But since Cathy has no redeemable qualities whatsoever, and neither does Heathcliff really, of course they don't end up happily ever after. Cathy marries rich, and since Heathcliff overhears her say it's because she can't marry him because it would be beneath her, he decides to seek revenge on Cathy and those who have slighted him. This revenge drive the rest of the book, and he seeks it even unto his and Cathy's own children.

I don't know why anyone would ever read about Cathy And Heathcliff and think man, those two are some of the most romantic characters in literature. Frankly, they are nightmares and deserve each other, if only they could not destroy everyone else in their path. They may talk how one completes the other, that Cathy *is* Heathcliff or whatever, but really, neither character understands one little whit about love. I can kind of see why Stephenie Meyer says Wuthering Heights influenced the Twilight series, because I see a whole lot of Heathcliff and Cathy in Edward and Bella. That's not really a good thing.

I do, however, find it very interesting that Emily Bronte would put two unlikable characters as main characters in her story, considering Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre has such an agreeable main character in Jane. It sort of makes Emily a bit balls-y in my thoughts. You know, like I *dare* you to like my story.

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs for a couple of characters that pissed me the hell off, but yet also Go Emily!

Run Fatboy Run

"The only serious relationship I've been in ended in a broken collarbone and a dead meerkat. " - Gordon

I love Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran, even better if they are working with Edgar Wright. Well, Mr. Wright wasn’t in on this one, but Run, Fatboy, Run was funny and sweet. It was a good little movie, and anyone who has ever thought about participating in a long-distance run would get a kick out of it I am sure. I think it could have been leaps and bounds better with Edgar Wright back in there with the team, but Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran do a great job of carrying off the movie. These guys are comedy gold. In fact, I feel compelled to wax poetic on the awesomeness that is Black Books rather than say anything about Run, Fatboy, Run, but I won’t. I’ll just leave it at that.

This time around, Simon Pegg is playing Dennis Doyle, a hapless security guard who made a huge mistake about 5 years ago. He left his pregnant girlfriend at the altar after having a bout of cold feet. Now he wishes he could get her back, but instead Libby (Thandie Newton) is dating a new guy, Whit (Hank Azaria). Whit’s not such a nice guy really, although he treats Libby well. To Whit, everything is a competition, and eventually Whit & Dennis end up competing with each other over Libby, which ultimately leads to Dennis saying he will run the London Marathon. Dennis isn’t exactly physically fit, but he is determined to prove to Libby that he can finish something. Will he make it and will Libby see what kind of man he can become?

This was a sweet movie, and the supporting characters are hilarious, but honestly, it’s not as good as some of Simon Pegg's other work. I'm happy to have rented this but I wouldn't own it and watch it over and over like Hot Fuzz or Shaun of the Dead. David Schwimmer’s directing seemed uneven. Sometimes it seemed like the movie couldn’t decide if it was a comedy or a sticky-sweet romance. The birthday party speech Dennis gives Libby is truly touching. Dylan Moran steals the show as the goofball best friend to Dennis, but that’s no surprise. Dylan Moran is my not-so-secret, over the other side of the ocean crush. He had me at “Popsicle” and I’ll never let go. I'd watch him just sit and eat crackers.

Rating: 4 Purrs for Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran. They carry off the story despite the unevenness of the directing.

The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries by Charlaine Harris

I first read Dead Until Dark and Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris several years ago, at the same time I was reading the Anita Blake series. I gave them up after two books because I thought they were way to close to the other series, which had really grabbed me and pulled me in at that time. Later the Anita Blake series got to be too much sex and no plot, so I put those away, and really didn't read the vampire type books at all for a long while. Then I picked up Twilight, and when I was finished with that series, my future sis-in-law said, here read these. So back to Sookie I came, and this time I read every single one as quickly as I could. I couldn't put them down. On the tail end of that came the HBO series True Blood, and the sis-in-law and another fiend started coming over for Sookie Sundays. Now my friend is reading the Sookie books, and we are sufficiently hooked and waiting for the next installment.

The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries, starting with Dead Until Dark, are all about Sookie Stackhouse. She's a telepath, and most of the folks in her small town of Louisiana, Bon Temps, aren't quite sure if they should pity her or fear her, so they do a little bit of both.  In Sookie's universe, vampires are real and they have come out of the coffin, so to speak. There's this synthetic blood developed by the Japanese that allows the vamps to "main stream," so a few try it. Enter Bill the Vampire. One night he walks into Sookie's bar (where she waitresses) and her life will never be the same. Bill's mind is the one she can't read, and so she becomes fascinated. The relationship between those two is at the heart of most of the books, and as the series goes on, more and more supernatural things become a part of Sookie's world. In the process, Sookie realizes her telepathy may not be such a curse, as she can use it to help, sometimes most reluctantly, to aid those in the supernatural community.

I love these books. They are sweet and frothy, not too bad on the violence (except Sookie does seem to get herself into some pickles that can turn bloody), and pretty light even on the mystery. However, Sookie's voice is so refreshing. She's no nonsense, hopeful, sarcastic, and romantic. She's got that Southern thing going on, which on one hand bothers me because we are not all chicken-fried down here, thank you very much, but then again, some of us are. I really detest the clothes. I know that seems weird, but Sookie's fashion sense is appalling, and I wouldn't care except that Charlaine Harris spends a lot of time talking about banana clips, short denim skirts, and big blue bows.  The secondary characters are eccentric and varied, but none are well developed, but you aren't really reading for those guys, you are reading for Sookie and her various cohorts and new loves. 

One thing that I think kept me from reading the books for so long is the fact that my grandmother had a cow named Sookie, and every time (even now) that I read that name I picture my grandmother standing in the back pasture calling, "Soooo-kie! Come 'ere girl!" I would recommend them to anyone who might like a bit of southern-fried mystery, and who doesn't mind the batter a bit thick. You should also watch True Blood, but don't expect the series to follow to closely to the books. Major characters have been changed, but it didn't bother me too much. The series can be a little heavy-handed when trying to use the vampire as a metaphor for racism and gay rights, where the book does it in a way that you could almost miss it.  It seems like it would be better to have a happy medium in there somewhere. 

Rating: 4 Purrs for Sookie and Bill. No matter what, I'll be Team Bill over Team anyone else Charlaine Harris throws in the mix. 

Terry Gilliam! Windmills! Don Quixote!

I just read that Terry Gilliam is going to restart his production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Whee!

I watched the documentary Lost in La Mancha a few years ago and was so overwhelmed with Gilliam's vision and so sad to see the just *awful* luck involved with the film. Flash floods, back problems, destroyed sets. Just like someone broke 100 mirrors and channeled all of that bad luck into one film. But the pieces of the film that you did get to see, the storyboards and costumes and drawings, gave me just enough of a taste to really wish he would have been able to push on. Wow. I just love his movies, mostly because I have always felt that Gilliam has such vision, such a signature style that creates a fairytale on screen. Sometimes it's dark , like 12 Monkeys, sometimes it's an adventure full of life and bittersweet relationships, like The Adventures of Baron von Munchausen. But what you always get is a dream. A beautiful, eerie, haunting dream.

The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer

I tried very, very hard to not read these books. I looked at them much like I looked at the Harry Potter books when they first came out – I sneered. I said to myself – they are “teen vampire romance novels.” I rolled my eyes. I mocked and said no way. Then I made the mistake of picking one up. (I lay the blame on my brother's girlfriend. It's on her doorstep. She's such an enabler.) I said to myself, okay, fine, fine. I’ll try it out and see what the big deal is. Next thing I know I am voraciously reading Twilight like it’s the next best thing to a full-bodied, aged Cabernet that I can’t get enough of. Honestly though, instead of comparing these books to a Cabernet, I should probably compare them to those iced sugar cookies you can get at the grocery store. You know they aren't good for you, you know there' s nothing good or natural in them, but you can't just eat one. Then, you'll crave them later, like I imagine a crack addict probably craves the rock.

If you haven't been living under a rock, you'll know that there are 4 books in the series, all outlining the ins and outs, the ups and downs of Bella Swann, normal, clumsy (ahem Mary Sue ahem) high school girl and the love of her life Edward Cullen, who also happens to be a vampire who doesn't believe in eating people. That's it in a nutshell. Throw the word teenager in there, think back to when you were one, add a little vampire, and rinse repeat for 4 books. There's drama, there's OMG I want to kiss you/eat you OMG you're so perfect, etc., and there some stalking in there for color.

Twilight starts off with Bella Swann moving from Pheonix, AZ to Forks, WA to live with her dad. Her mom's recently remarried, and Bella wants to give her mom some space, so off she goes to the great rainy Northwest, where the sun hardly shines and Bella is so sure she will be miserable. Here in Forks, Bella meets Edward Cullen. He's a strange boy. He's pale, hangs out only with his family (the equally beautiful Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, and Emmett), and when she sits next to him in biology he acts like she has the plague. He confuses the heck out of her, and naturally she falls head over heels for him. The rest of the book pretty much runs the gamut of OMG does he like me, no way could he like me, oh wow he does like me, oh wow you sparkle in the sun (yes sparkles. see - silly and yet OMG), oh crap someone wants to kill me, oh yeah he loves me.

Rating: 5 Purrs. Yes, it's totally emo. They are both incredibly silly emo kids mooning over each other but I totally loved every second of it, even the creepy stalker vampire boyfriend parts. The story was totally Mary Sue, but I could relate to some of Bella's sad little emo teen-ness and the story was fun. Like I said - sugar cookie goodness.

New Moon is all about Edward running away because he thinks he has no soul and that he or one of his family members will probably kill Bella. Enter Bella the zombie-girl and Jacob the best friend trying to get into her pants (so to speak. Also *werewolf*). Also, lots of I must keep up appearances, oh wow I am so using you to hide how craptastic I feel, let's go do dangerous stuff so I can try and kill myself but not really, really try to kill myself, oh I shouldn't treat you this way, holy crap will he really go off and kill himself, I can save the day if I don't trip, and BAM oh shit, you love me, really?

Rating: 4 Purrs. Kind of silly, but not too terrible follow up. You can see why he left and why she saves him.

Eclipse is pretty much about the continuing love triangle between Jacob, Bella, and Edward. Edward's decided to stick around, and now Jacob's out to try and convince Bella she wants him instead. In doing so he becomes way too close to a previous relationship of mine for me to like anymore (angry boy, let's say). So it's pretty much: oh somethings up out in Seattle with some mysterious deaths, oh crap could it be a leftover bad guy from the previous books, oh yes it might, oh crap Bella's in danger, grr we will fight over who can protect her best, oh shit I really love both of them but I choose him, can we save the day whoops maybe I shouldn't have done that, awesome new wolf friend Seth high-fiving Eddie, whee we can get married way too young cause of course I don't mind your antiquated sensibilities my dearest sparkly vampire boyfriend.

Rating: The controlling nature of the two boys irritates me here, but I like Seth a lot so I can't give it less that 3.75 stars.

And then there was Breaking Dawn. Oh man. Seriously. Married at 18? Really? Feather biting, bedframe breaking vamp on human sex? Not too bad but woefully under written (of course this is a teen book, so I can forgive that) I'm sorry, did this really include a vamp-human hybrid mommy-killing baby? Yes it did. This one was broken into 3 parts, and I could have done without the second one completely. In fact the whole Nessie storyline could have gone away and I would have been so much happier. So this one was: married! Sex! Uh oh human killing, blood drinking baby on board, whoops - you imprinted on my baby? Whee I'm a vampire (finally I might add. Seriously it took 4 books?) and I am so good add it (ahem Mary Sue ahem again) and I save the day cause I really love my new family grrrr I will protect you with my mind-shield.

Rating: 3 Purrs - Bella the vampire was the awesome. She was fun. Edward became a seriously whiny bitch that ruined him as a character to me and Jacob creeped me out even more. Seth however was a win. Alice - always love her. What I hated the most - that Bella didn't have to really give up *anything.* After 3 whole books of knowing what she would give up to follow the life she wanted, she ended up having it all. It would have been nice for there to have been some consequences to her actions. I know it's fiction and a fairy tale. I wouldn't feel cheated if it hadn't been an underlying theme in all the books previous.

Overall, I loved these books. They were totally silly. They were totally not good fiction and most definitely not the "next Harry Potter," (J.K. Rowling has much better character development and plus, people actually face the repercussions of their actions in Potter books.) but I loved them anyway. My brother's girlfriend and I have midnight tickets to see the film and are debating which t-shirt to buy to wear to the festivities. I am embarassed at my love for these books. Having a devastating crush on Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart doesn't help matters (Ed & Bella in the movie) The books are just.so.bad. and yet I just.can't.stop. In fact, writing about them makes me want to run home and read all four again back to back. I am addicted to Twilight Tuesdays on the MTV blog and cleolinda's livejournal posts about the books.

I am sick. Please send help. (If he's sparkly, a vampire named Edward, and writes music even better.)

See? I'm a lost cause.

Sigh.

Ah vacation...

Vacation - the days where you can read a million books, take a million pictures, relax...

Well, I didn't quite get a million books read, and maybe not a million pictures, but I did read a whole heck of a bunch (I was only gone a week or so) and took so many pictures it's going to take me weeks of cropping, etc., before I can get them all posted.

I took about twice as many books as I actually read on my trip last week, which is pretty normal. My goal was to take things I wanted to read, even if I had read them before many times. I took some new stuff too, but I took some old favorites to revisit because I can never seem to convince myself to re-read things when it's "regular" reading.

What I read while I was gone:

• Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs - I picked these up because I love Bones. While the characters in the book are quite different from the TV Show, I still enjoy the dual mystery and forensics detailed in this series. I didn't think this was nearly as good as some of the former entries in the Temperance Brennan series of books. Here Dr. Brennan is trying to take a vacation with the hunky cop from Canada, but instead she find a big cache of bones that might be bear and might have some human there too. The investigation, death threats, and gore ensues. There's a lot of detail about endangered species here and you can't help but think that it's a topic close to Ms. Reichs' heart. I'd recommend it if you like forensics and want a pretty detailed look at the science.
  
• The Dispatch by Bentley Little - I like Bentley Little. His books are like horror cotton candy. They are tasty, fun, easy to eat up, but sometimes they give you a stomach ache after. This one is a bout a guy who writes letters. The letters he writes end up making things happen, and someone notices and wants to use him for something not so ethical. It's not his best work. I'd recommend The Walking or The Collection (short stories) first.
• The Maul and The Pear Tree by P. D. James and T. A. Critchley - A non-fiction work about the Ratcliffe Highway murders that took place in the early/mid 1800's. The book was very thoroughly researched, but the story felt sort of dry. Not nearly as engrossing as P.D. James' mystery stories. It's nice on a completist's perspective to have read this too, but I think I'll stick to her fiction from now on.
• The Mummy : or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice - I can't help it. I love this book. Always have, always will. Julie's dad dig's up Ramses' tomb, only to discover he's an immortal. An immortal who fell for Cleopatra. Chaos ensues. Romance blooms. Things blow up and people die. Seriously, it's not Pulitzer Prize material, but I love it anyway. It's my favorite Anne Rice book, ever.
• No Escape by Heather Lowell - It's a romance/thriller/mystery. I know. So sue me.
  
• Sunshine by Robin McKinley - Robin McKinley, one of my favorite authors of all time, writes a vampire novel. It's an interesting take - Rae, nicknamed Sunshine, likes to bake things. She's the Queen of Cinnamon rolls. She wants to just do that, but when some vampires kidnap her, she remembers what her Grandmother taught her - how to transmute objects. When she decides to save the life of Con, the vampire chained to the wall (she's supposed to be his lunch but he won't eat her), her life will never be the same. What I like about this book is that Con isn't a sympathetic, romantic vampire, at least not that much, and definitely not for most of the book. He's flawed, not really all that handsome, and Rae doesn't really find him attractive. In fact, she thinks something is very wrong with her for even helping him. I've read this before, and I picked it up again because of my sister-in-law getting me hooked on all of these Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels and those Twilight books. This one was much more complex and a completely different voice. I highly recommend it - and please Ms. McKinley, write the darn sequel.
  

Coupling

Steve: You bring these things into our homes. They sit on our chairs. They watch our televisions. Now, I just need to know, on behalf of all men everywhere, I just need to ask, please... What are they for? I mean, look at them! Look at the chubby little bastards! Just sitting around everywhere! What are they, pets for chairs? 

[to shop assistants] 

Steve: Come on, you sell them. What are they for? 

Junior Shop Assistant: Well... 

Senior Shop Assistant: You sit on them. 

Steve: Ah! Ha ha ha! You see, that's where you're wrong! Nobody sits on them. Okay, watch this. Here's the cushion. I'm putting it on the sofa. Now watch me. I'm stting down. And what do I do on my final approach? I - oh! - move the cushion! You see? It's not involved! It's not part of the whole sitting process. It just lies there. It's fat litter! It's a sofa parasite!

I watched Coupling at first under duress. We have these friends who said, oh, you’ll love it. It’s hilarious. I thought, isn’t it a British “Friends”? The first episode didn’t impress me much, but I kept watching, and I ended up laughing my ass off for 3 seasons.

Coupling is all about a group of 6 friends. You have Steve & Susan, who start dating at the beginning of Season 1. They bring along their friends Patrick (who used to date Susan and is a real ladies’ man), Sally (Susan’s best friend who is completely obsessed with getting old), Jane (Steve’s ex who just can’t believe that Steve broke up with her), and Jeffrey (Steve’s best friend who is completely inane when it comes to the opposite sex). The show follows their swapping and pairings and dates and constant talks about sex. It’s really quite funny.

The best parts of the show, to me, are the all of a sudden rants that Steve ends up having. He bottles things up and then BAM - enter the sofa cushion conversation that I quoted above. That’s the episode that had me in tears, literally laughing and bawling because I have had that conversation with Pandabob, only he never involved Daleks. That’s the episode that now has my parents watching Coupling too. I was watching it on my laptop one night up at the condo in Red River and they couldn't figure out why I was laughing so damn hard.

Coupling is definitely not a British Friends. In fact, I never liked Friends. Coupling is funny in the way Friends should have been. My only caveat is that Season 3 isn’t as funny – Jeffrey leaves the show and is replaced by Oliver, who is just as hapless but somehow not as funny. Jeffery just gets himself into these situations that are just so hapless and impossible. 

Rating: 4 Purrs – Coupling isn’t Black Books (which I will HEART forever because of ‘Popsicle! Popsicle!”) but it’s pretty damn funny.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa Pessl

I heard so much about Special Topics in Calamity Physics before I bought it that I had very high expectations. There was so much buzz about this book that it could have been disastrous, but really it was a pretty good book. It had its moments of feeling a little too gimmicky, but overall it was a good story with entertaining characters and a nice mystery to boot.

In Special Topics in Calamity Physics, you meet Blue Van Meer, very studious and very smart daughter of a self-absorbed scholar. Blue and her dad travel from college town to college town, her father working his way through girlfriends and Blue working her way through schools. Eventually they end up in Stockton, North Carolina at the very preppy St. Gallway school where Blue becomes entangled in a mystery, in a small group of the “elite” students, and in her first true romance. Blue’s experiences with this group of kids, the “Blue Bloods,” and their mentor, Hannah Schneider, the electric and odd film teacher, change her forever. Blue’s relationships with these new people divert her from fawning over her father, but also bring her deep into a mystery – why do they even involve her at all, why is Hannah so interested in her, and who is the man who drowns in Hannah’s pool? Blue and to some degree, the BlueBloods, try to decipher the truth behind Hannah, and eventually behind Hannah’s death.

The shtick here is that Blue Van Meer is writing this story as a report in one of her college classes, and thus annotates it madly with references to books real and imagined, includes drawings, and even has a final exam at the end. Blue writes this way, mostly due to her father telling her once to “exquisitely” annotate her works. It can be fun to follow along with the literary and pop culture references she includes, but if you don’t like footnotes and that sort of thing, just stay away.  Occasionally, Pessl uses these affectations to hide the fact that some of her secondary characters are thinly written as well. It occasionally leaves you wanting more meat and less fluff.

Overall, I can see why the book got such good reviews – the idea, the gimmick are fresh and those literary types love to be able to laugh and think – ha I got that lit geek reference (I’ll admit it, I did it once or twice myself. ) It’s a fun read, and Blue Van Meer is a character that sticks with you for a while.  It’s a very good first novel, and I hope Pessl continues to grow and write even more.

Rating: 4 Purrs for some truly creative and bittersweet moments and some fairly memorable train wrecks as the Blue Bloods.  

Recent Acquisitions to the Library

I love birthdays. I spent the Amazon love from my brother and his girlfriend (who somehow got me shamefully addicted to these ridiculous vampire novels everyone has been raving about...seriously, I am embarrassed to say it. 

Books:

• Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
• Rising Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

DVDs:

• D.E.B.S. - Love this movie. It's so adorable, and it fosters my Jordana Brewster crush.
• Imagine Me & You - So sweet. Plus Piper Perabo and Lena Headly fall in love.
• Commando: Director's Cut - I love this movie. It's one of those that I watch every time it's on. I thought Alyssa Milano was so cool in this movie (I was also, maybe 11 when I first saw it.)

Recent Acquisitions to the Library

Thanks to the pater and mater, I had a nice run at the used DVD store and Barnes & Noble for my birthday (it's Wednesday, if you are curious). Thanks to my brother and his girlfriend, I also have some Amazon love still to spend. 

DVDs

• Catch and Release  - Yes, I know it was silly and sappy and all that, but I just had to have it.
• Bats - Yes, that movie. My Dina Meyer crush knows no bounds.
• The Ruins Unrated - Loved the book, movie was alright
• Nightbreed - Gotta love Clive Barker
• The Shining (BluRay) - I absolutely love this movie. Now I can see it in super crisp definition.
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - As much as I fought it, I love Harry Potter.
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Clash of the Titans - Ray Harryhausen - genius
• DOA: Dead or Alive - Chicks and karate. Need I say more.
• The Cave - Lena Headley. Piper Perabo. Slimy cave creatures. It's not The Descent, but it is too fun to pass up for 5 bucks.
• Vampires - James Woods is such a smart ass. Plus, my pal at work used to date Sheryl Lee's cousin. 
• The Tripper - Slasher killer in a Reagan Mask. Hee!
• Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life - I dunno. I couldn't help it.
• A Clockwork Orange (BluRay) - Kubrick. BluRay. How could I not?
• Ghost World - Loved the comic. Loved the movie. Love Scar Jo.
• Mars Attacks! -  I don't know how I never got this on DVD. So funny.
• 30 Days of Night - So bleak. Danny Huston is pretty good, but mostly I just love vampire movies.
• Spaced: The Complete Series - I also love Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Pandabob got this for me. 

Books

• The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore 
• Snow Angels by Stewart O'Nan
• New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

Sydney White

I rented Sydney White because I think Amanda Bynes is just adorable. What a Girl Wants was a  cute little movie and I liked She's the Man. Amanda Bynes makes the movies - she's cute, funny, not afraid to dress like a boy or fall down - very Lucille Ball. Sydney White was a disappointment, especially after seeing She's the Man, which was really very goofy and funny. 

Sydney White is a retelling of Snow White, with Amanda Bynes starting her first year of college and finding herself facing the "evil witch" aka head of the big time sorority and crushing on the handsome prince aka the fraternity boy next door. Sydney ends up at The Vortex becoming the "Snow White" and taking care of the resident outcasts (the seven dorks), and of course ends up making changes all over campus, true fairy tale style.

It's a cute idea, it just falls flat. I'm not sure if it's the directing, the script, the fact that Bynes seems almost manic in her humor, or that she seems a little too fake-baked to be appealing. I don't know, I just know that I was disappointed. (One thing that didn't disappoint me was the scene where Sydney is shaving her legs at the sink and one of her friendly dorks walks in. It's a shot of her oh-so-very long legs and wow. She's got legs and she knows how to use them. (Have I mentioned before that I am very much a leg person?) It feels slightly wrong to have that kind of reaction to someone 13 years or so my junior. It makes me feel like a dirty old lady, but seriously, she's become kind of a hottie. But I digress...)

Sydney White - it's not quite a fairy tale but you can't have everything I guess. 

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs - it would be more if the movie had seemed less forced and contrived. I can accept rom-coms to be that way but this seemed stilted rather than fantasy.

The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler’s Wife was talked and talked about as an excellent read, so I had to pick it up and see what all the fuss was about. What a surprise – it was a good as the critics said it was.

In The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger tells the story of Henry and Clare. Henry is a librarian (yeah for librarians!) who has an unfortunate affliction – he time travels, spontaneously and without any real control over where he ends up.  The only real guarantee is that it ends up being sometime and somewhere in his lifeline. One of these leaps in time brings him to Clare’s field outside of her family’s large house in the country. She is pretty young at the time, and from there begins a life-long friendship and eventually romance. Time travel can be a problem for a relationship, though, as Henry’s age and his meetings with Clare end up varying from middle-aged Henry to young man Henry while she continues in a normal lifeline and ages normally. 

It sounds like it could be silly, a gimmicky, sappy love story, but Niffenegger never lets the story reduce itself to that. Henry and Clare build a life together as they can, and along that love and relationship all the struggles of a normal relationship are aired. It’s a beautifully detailed story, further enhanced by all of the secondary characters and plots. There is Henry’s musician father, their eccentric best friends, Henry’s other girlfriends, Clare’s family, the doctor brought in to study Henry’s genetic abnormality that allows him to travel in time, and Clare and Henry’s child. It’s a very rich and engrossing fabric that enhances rather than takes away from the story. 

Part fantasy, part romance, part bittersweet story of life lived; The Time Traveler’s Wife was one of the best books I have read last year. It was engrossing, thought provoking, and beautiful. You end up with a picture of life lived is worth the weirdness and struggles.  Instead of focusing on the eccentricity time travel brings into their lives, you really are left with one thing: Henry is Clare’s savior and she, his.

Rating: 5 Purrs for a story that sticks in your head for a long, long time