This movie was helpfully recommended by the great book, "1001 Movies You Must See." It's a wonderful read with many, many movies that I had no idea ever existed. Some are so obscure even the powerful Netflix doesn't have them, go get yourself this book and a Netflix subscription and enjoy some of these films. It's a treat.
"Gun Crazy" is a film noir from 1949 and begins with a twelve year old boy staring at a revolver in a store window. He's staring lovingly and longingly at it. He immediately takes a brick and smashes the display window to get at it. And that's just the first five minutes.
It gets darker and more intense from that point on. One of my favorite lines (it's corny but it's got flair) is when the main character is talking to his wife (they stick up stores together) and says "We go together like guns and ammunition." Another really dark but great line is when the main character has doubts about his life of crime but his wife drives him to it and he says something like, "This is all so unreal." He turns to his wife, "You're the only thing that's real. The rest is a nightmare." Good quality noir. Check it out.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
I was initially going to read "Huck Finn," but I opened the first pages and "Huck" makes references to this book and I decided to go ahead and read Tom Sawyer first.
Like most people, I read Huck Finn in High School and remember very little of it. I remember a raft and floating around the Mississippi that's about it. But I thought I remembered the scene where Huck and Tom attend their own funeral as being from Huck Finn, but the scene is actually in Tom Sawyer. There might have been a movie they showed us in school that was a composite of both books, I'm not sure.
"Tom Sawyer" was actually a very good book, and though written for children it's better written than most contemporary books. The language is just as complex (if not more so) than today's literature because of the time it was written, 1876 when writing was a craft unlike today. I'm not going to write that everything was better back in "the good old days" of 1876 but just read this book and tell me that it's not much richer than the last 10 books written after 1980 you've read. Go on, try it.
"Tom Sawyer" brings one back to how boys got along quite well amongst themselves and makes one wonder how the impact our present "upbringing" of boys is hurting them in the long run. We're bringing boys up very differently than what's depicted in this book and I don't think that's a good thing. They had that book "The Dangerous Guide for Boys" or something a few years ago (followed quickly by The Dangerous Guide for Girls) about how to maybe put some of the "danger" back into being a boy that's missing from our feminized America. But read this book to see some real danger: smoking, murder (witnessed not committed), hidden treasure and raft stealing are all here.
Like most people, I read Huck Finn in High School and remember very little of it. I remember a raft and floating around the Mississippi that's about it. But I thought I remembered the scene where Huck and Tom attend their own funeral as being from Huck Finn, but the scene is actually in Tom Sawyer. There might have been a movie they showed us in school that was a composite of both books, I'm not sure.
"Tom Sawyer" was actually a very good book, and though written for children it's better written than most contemporary books. The language is just as complex (if not more so) than today's literature because of the time it was written, 1876 when writing was a craft unlike today. I'm not going to write that everything was better back in "the good old days" of 1876 but just read this book and tell me that it's not much richer than the last 10 books written after 1980 you've read. Go on, try it.
"Tom Sawyer" brings one back to how boys got along quite well amongst themselves and makes one wonder how the impact our present "upbringing" of boys is hurting them in the long run. We're bringing boys up very differently than what's depicted in this book and I don't think that's a good thing. They had that book "The Dangerous Guide for Boys" or something a few years ago (followed quickly by The Dangerous Guide for Girls) about how to maybe put some of the "danger" back into being a boy that's missing from our feminized America. But read this book to see some real danger: smoking, murder (witnessed not committed), hidden treasure and raft stealing are all here.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Shutter Island Directed by Martin Scorcese
I guess this blog should be called "The Watching Experience" also but I saw this movie last night and had to comment on it and warn everyone, Do Not See This Movie. It started out very good. It had kind of a noir feel with Leo Di'Caprio in a fedora. It was directed with a heavy hand in the first twenty minutes and when you get to the end you realize why it started out the way it did but it's not worth the wait to get there. The "twist" ending was something out of M. Night Shamalan (I don't know how to spell that sorry) and I don't mean the Sixth Sense ending, I mean like The Village ending. Very, very disappointing. If anyone has seen this and liked it, please let me know.
Libra by Don Delillo and Case Closed by Gerald Posner
I recommend reading these two books together. I read Libra first and then Case Closed. Libra is Delillo's interpretation of the Kennedy assassination. It is written in an impressionistic fashion, good writing but in a 400 page novel dealing with Lee Harvey Oswald and intrigue about mobsters it does get a little wearying at times. It's amazing how many details Delillo uses from the actual incidents in Oswald's life to create a layered personality and he takes the loose ends surrounding Oswald to create a very loose "conspiracy." It's a good way to see Oswald as an actual person and not the cipher that most conspiracy books paint him to be.
Case Closed by Posner is the most detailed account that I've seen to depict Oswald's actions as being consistent with someone who would be capable of killing a president by himself. The only book I've ever read about the assassination of Kennedy was Crossfire by Jim Marrs which the movie JFK was loosely based on. Crossfire read by itself is convincing that Oswald was involved in some sort of conspiracy if only by the evidence that most of his actions the year before the assassination make little sense. But the case that Posner lays out in Case Closed puts all of his actions into context. The context is that Oswald was a delusional and unhappy person who thought it was impossible for him to be happy as long as corrupt governments, whether it be in America or the Soviet Union, existed to oppress him and others like him.
The trouble most people have in accepting the lone gunman theory is that it seems so hard to comprehend that one crazy person can change the course of history in such a large way. But Posner states the facts so clearly and the almost incredible chain of coincidences that lead to JFK's assassination, it's hard to argue with him. For better or worse most of who we are and what are lives consist of (where we work, who we love and the very fact that we exist) exist from chance and being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. It's difficult to think that world history can change by circumstance and blind chance, but it did.
Case Closed by Posner is the most detailed account that I've seen to depict Oswald's actions as being consistent with someone who would be capable of killing a president by himself. The only book I've ever read about the assassination of Kennedy was Crossfire by Jim Marrs which the movie JFK was loosely based on. Crossfire read by itself is convincing that Oswald was involved in some sort of conspiracy if only by the evidence that most of his actions the year before the assassination make little sense. But the case that Posner lays out in Case Closed puts all of his actions into context. The context is that Oswald was a delusional and unhappy person who thought it was impossible for him to be happy as long as corrupt governments, whether it be in America or the Soviet Union, existed to oppress him and others like him.
The trouble most people have in accepting the lone gunman theory is that it seems so hard to comprehend that one crazy person can change the course of history in such a large way. But Posner states the facts so clearly and the almost incredible chain of coincidences that lead to JFK's assassination, it's hard to argue with him. For better or worse most of who we are and what are lives consist of (where we work, who we love and the very fact that we exist) exist from chance and being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. It's difficult to think that world history can change by circumstance and blind chance, but it did.
Bag of Bones: Conclusion
Bag of Bones Conclusion:
I stopped posting updates because the plot of this book became so convoluted, while not impossible to post a synopsis of every development it became ponderous to do so. The ending of this book was something only a King lover could appreciate, ridiculous. I still like this book and I also think that the beginning of the novel showed that King could write a very nice “mainstream” work if he ever took the trouble to. His collection of mainstream novellas containing, The Body, Apt Pupil and Shawshank Redemption prove this. I wish he would do more in that kind of vain.
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I also read Under The Dome a thousand pager King recently released. It’s kind of a small scale version of The Stand only dealing with the destruction of small town instead of the entire world. The “villain” in the piece while evil was not a supernatural evil just a very “evil” man but of a human sort of evil not a demon like in The Stand. The ending was worthy of a sub-par Twilight Zone and the two main male characters were so interchangeable that they may as well have been the same person. If you could wade through the mountains of poor dialogue you got a halfway decent story. Slight praise I know, but for a 1,000 page novel it was slight.
I stopped posting updates because the plot of this book became so convoluted, while not impossible to post a synopsis of every development it became ponderous to do so. The ending of this book was something only a King lover could appreciate, ridiculous. I still like this book and I also think that the beginning of the novel showed that King could write a very nice “mainstream” work if he ever took the trouble to. His collection of mainstream novellas containing, The Body, Apt Pupil and Shawshank Redemption prove this. I wish he would do more in that kind of vain.
*****************************************************
I also read Under The Dome a thousand pager King recently released. It’s kind of a small scale version of The Stand only dealing with the destruction of small town instead of the entire world. The “villain” in the piece while evil was not a supernatural evil just a very “evil” man but of a human sort of evil not a demon like in The Stand. The ending was worthy of a sub-par Twilight Zone and the two main male characters were so interchangeable that they may as well have been the same person. If you could wade through the mountains of poor dialogue you got a halfway decent story. Slight praise I know, but for a 1,000 page novel it was slight.
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