“Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”
Yes, that's really the title of the book by Haruki Murakami, translated from Japanese. I've read a lot by him, principally his wonderful Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and his funny A Wild Sheep Chase. Hard-Boiled Wonderland is the most fantastical of his I've read–Chinese unicorns, allegorical villages, separated shadows, fish-like people living in the Tokyo underground … the list of the bizarre goes on. Alternating chapters, Murakami flips back and forth between two fantastical stories, he eventually combines them together into one story that actually turns out to be kind of moving. If you're interested in Murakami, I'd recommend either Wind-Up Bird Read more…
1100 pages of Stephen King
Under the Dome called out from the bookshelf to me for some reason I can't quite clarify. Maybe it was the similarity of the plot to The Simpsons movie, maybe it was the beautiful cover (which, since I read the book on my Kindle, I didn't get to enjoy). Or maybe it was that it seemed like such a perfect idea for a Stephen King novel. It was just so him. In fact, you've kind of read this novel if you've read much Stephen King. In terms of plot and theme, it's right there with the novella The Mist. Isolated, a Read more…
Madison, WI
We only have a brief stopover in Madison, Wisconsin, with Mary's brother and sister-in-law. Which is too bad because the last time we were here I thought it was a pretty cool city. Tomorrow we've got a 7-hour drive north to Lake Superior (oy). It's only 300 miles or so, but we won't see a freeway–it's backroads the whole way up. The few flakes we saw in St. Louis that constituted a white Christmas have been shown up by the snow up here in Wisconsin. The temperatures have dropped (in the teens throughout Illinois) and the snow banks are much Read more…
Sherlock Holmes as Robert Langdon
There's a certain element of Dan Brown in the new Sherlock Holmes movie–secret societies, symbols drawn over cities, the usual stuff. I can't say it helped the movie, but with the exception of that, I thought it was a lot of fun. A good bit of escapist entertainment. Robert Downey Jr. is great and his chemistry with Jude Law and Rachel McAdams are also very good. The next movie, as there will almost certainly be, could very well start the exact moment this one left off (a la Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace) and it wouldn't be a bad Read more…
Up in the Air, Redux
We took a family outing to see Up in the Air again, which wore well on a second viewing. Not only was it fun to see again, but seeing it in St. Louis–where most of it was filmed–was kind of a treat. There was some random hooting when someone recognized a friend, or a location passed off as Wisconsin or Omaha. We also saw it at one of the coolest theaters in town–the Moolah, a converted Shriners Temple with condos, a movie theater, a bar, and a bowling alley. In between screenings, I also read the novel by Walter Kirn that Read more…
“Merry Christmas, Movie House!”
I must confess to feeling a little proud this Christmas morning. About 5 years ago, I approached the board of the Grand Cinema with a proposal. "The tenant in 608 Fawcett is leaving," I said (I'm summarizing here, but this is the gist of it). "I don't know whether we'll stay at the Merlino Art Center or whether we'll look for a new home, but if we want to stay and expand here, we need to have control of the storefront at 608 Fawcett. It's the only space we could easily convert into another movie theater without major structural changes Read more…
It’s a marshmellow world in the winter …
Merry Christmas from St. Louis, where we’re getting a Christmas morning snowfall. Last night, we went to midnight mass–excuse me, midnight service (Lutherans don’t go to mass)–so today it’s all about good food, a present exchange, and maybe a trip out to see Sherlock Holmes. Again, Merry Christmas!
^