It - Terror Boggart-Style

It

Author: Steven King

We all float down here. –Pennywise

There isn't nobody that can live a natural life without having a few bad dreams.
–Mr. Hanlon

You can't be careful on a skateboard.
–Derry kid

Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness. –Narrator

Maybe, there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends – maybe there are just friends. People who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart. –Eddie Kaspbrak

I finished my second Stephen King book about a month and a half ago (I'm behind on writing these posts, clearly). Here's what Audible.com says about It (yes, I listened to the recording of this one rather than read it… so, so glad I did!):

They were just kids when they stumbled upon the horror of their hometown. Now, as adults, none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them all back to Derry, Maine, to face the nightmare without end, and the evil without a name.

I'd been dreading this book ever since someone told me it was about an evil clown. I hate clowns. I debated the best way to approach this one: reading a physical copy from the library or going the audiobook route. I listened to a sample of the reading and knew it was the right way to go (Steven Weber did a fantastic job!). Plus then I wouldn't have to look at Pennywise every time I wanted to read a chapter. *shudder* (Note that I chose a graphic without the clown for this post!)

Evil clowns aside, I loved this book. I liked the way King intertwined the experiences the characters had as children and then as adults. He crafted it beautifully, revealing only what was needed at any given moment. I liked most of the characters (I could have done without Adult Beverly, quite honestly); the lines between the "good" characters and the "bad" were clearly defined and I automatically found myself rooting for the heroes and heroine without feeling pressure to do so.

But I think what I liked best about this book is that the "big bad" was fluid. It took the shape of either what each person feared the most at that very moment or what each person needed the most at that very moment. The evil didn't show up just as a clown, though that was clearly its go-to human form. At times it was a mummy, an old woman, the moon and a spider, among other things. And in each of its states, it was captivatingly creepy.

I'm not going to lie, I mentally compared Pennywise to a boggart (if this word bears no meaning for you, I'm not sure we can be friends anymore). The similarity being that both It and a boggart will take the shape of that which the viewer fears most. It is different for each person, but only the fear of the person on which they are focused will be visible to all. The difference, I found, between them is that It doesn't always take the form of the most feared thing… at times it also takes the shape of that which the person most desires. For Beverly, it became an old woman living in the apartment where her father used to live, just when she needed a friendly face and a connection to her past.

The other reason I preferred this King creation to the other I recently read has to do with the story's climax. The build-up to the final showdown was so big that I feared I would be disappointed when it actually arrived. But I absolutely was not! When the first battle against It – with the heroes as children – and the final battle – with the heroes in adulthood – were interwoven, I was glued to my phone as Steven Weber's voice exploded with excitement and anticipation.

My takeaway: No matter how old we get, we must always hold on to part of the innocence and unquestioning faith we had as children; our lives may one day depend on it. And clowns really are evil.

3 Days of the Condor - The Condor is Redford!

Three Days of the Condor

Director: Sydney Pollack

I work for the CIA but I’m not a spy. I read books. –Joseph Turner

I wish I knew more…  about you… yesterday… today. –Kathy Hale

He's in the suspicion business; he can't trust anybody. –Joseph Turner

Maybe there's another CIA… inside the CIA. –Joseph Turner

No need to believe in either side, or any side. There is no cause; there's only yourself. The belief is in your own precision. –G. Joubert

They'll print it. –Joseph Turner

The Amazon.com instant view (my viewing method of choice for this one) description of the movie:

A mild mannered CIA researcher, paid to read books, returns from lunch to find all of his co-workers assassinated. "Condor" must find out who did this and get in from the cold before the hitmen get him.

This is one of my dad’s favorite movies, and until this project, I had not only never seen it, I'd also never known what it was about. Did you know the title refers to the three days when Robert Redford's character (code name: Condor) was hiding out from the world while simultaneously trying to get to the bottom of the heinous murder that took place in his office? I didn't, but it's true!

Once I was able to get over the "technology" in this movie (they called those things computers?!) and remind myself that it was made in 1975, I could see why my dad likes the flick so much! It’s got the espionage and government conspiracy of a good Grisham and the witty one-liners of well-written and well-acted feature comedy. And there's a bit of a love story.

It also made me realize that I can never work in the CIA (all other reasons – like skill – aside) because I'm far too trusting. If I returned to my super-secret office to find all of my co-workers – including my lover – bullet-riddled and dead as dead can be, I would trust the first cop I ran into to not only NOT blame me but to figure out who did it. If I called my CIA higher-ups, I'd tell them everything and trust every word they say. If I met a handler in an alley, I'd… well, the alley meeting is a bit suspicious. But you get the point.

The fact that the Condor was able to survive three days pitted against the CIA, while digging into the murder motive and find love, is a testament to his intelligence, methodic approach and suspicious nature, all of which were likely characteristics that made him attractive to the CIA in the first place. Imagine what Joseph Turner (the Condor) could have done if he'd had access to the internet, a cell phone and computers that showed more colors than green and black!

My takeaway: Follow your gut and question authority when your gut disagrees with the people in charge. And never let a mailman enter your home unless you know him personally!

Gregory's Girl - Switching Dorothy For Susan

Gregory’s Girl

Director: Bill Forsyth

Look Charlie, we've got to get some girls; we've got to make a move. Even Gregory's at it now. We're falling behind. I don't think there's any advantage of putting it off any longer. Besides, it's making me depressed. –Andy

If you don't take an interest in yourself, how can you expect other people to be interested in you? –Madeline

It's just the way girls work. They help each other. –Susan

Hard work being in love, eh? Especially when you don't know which girl it is.
–Madeline

Netflix description of the movie:

Awkward teenager Gregory, who lives in a small Scottish town, has started to discover girls. He becomes particularly infatuated with Dorothy because she manages to get onto the football team and is a better player than he is. Gregory is so unfamiliar with the opposite sex that he relies on advice from his little sister before he asks Dorothy on a date. Bill Forsyth writes and directs this coming-of-age tale.

I really liked this movie. It was made in 1981, it's set in Scotland, and it's about football (or soccer, in America), so I really wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. The movie follows awkward Gregory as he discovers girls and figures out how to get them to discover him.

My favorite character – aside from Gregory, of course, who was a fantastic underdog – was our hero's young sister Madeline. Her purpose in the movie was twofold: she served as Gregory's confidant and gave him advice on how to attract Dorothy, the girl he's crushing after; and she instructed him on what to wear and how to carry himself in general. Madeline's confidence in him gave him confidence in himself enough to finally approach Dorothy for a date.

She also acts a bit as Greogory's foil. While he struggles to make a move, she tends to be in control of her relationship. When her boyfriend (or what I assume is her boyfriend, though she is only 11 years old so "boyfriend" is subjective) approaches her after school offering to carry her bag, she tells him she can’t hang out with him but he can try to reach out to her later. She shows more maturity in dealing with the opposite sex, including with her brother, who tends to talk to everyone from a place of immaturity. She has confidence, he does not; she knows about clothes, he does not; she knows what to say; he does not.

But ultimately, even though she is the seemingly more mature of the two, Gregory is older and feels quite protective of Madeline. When her young man comes to the door inquiring after her, he grills him and then sends him away without allowing him access to his sister. It was a smart scene to show after Gregory's afternoon with Madeline, which he spent acting like a child seeking the advice of a sage.

Once Gregory finally does get up the nerve to ask Dorothy on a date, he is met instead by another classmate, who more or less passes him off to another girl, who eventually passes him off to his third and final. Unbeknownst to Gregory, Dorothy's friend Susan had been crushing on him and had recruited Dorothy to help her set up a date. Gregory is, of course, confused by the whole situation, but goes along with it.

Possibly my favorite scene in the whole movie happens during their date. While in the park, Gregory and Susan engage in the kind of banter that feels so natural and is typically made glossy in the movies. But it feels real with these two, and kudos probably go to the writer and/or director for letting it happen this way. When the two dance, it doesn't feel hokey, and when they kiss at the end of the date, it doesn't feel forced. From the moment Gregory and Susan meet up on the street at the beginning of their date until the movie's credits, I just had this warm, happy glow inside me – the kind that comes from watching something truly organic and beautiful. Well done!

My takeaway: Good siblings help each other with the important things, like love and protection. And in the words of the Rolling Stones, "You can’t always get what you want" (in this case Dorothy) "but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need" (in this case Susan).

The Man Who Would Be King - Beige in 2 Parts

The Man Who Would Be King

Director: John Huston

I'm the correspondent of The Northern Star! –Kipling

Therefore we are going away to another place, where a man isn't crowded and can come into his own. We're not little men so we're going away to be kings. Kings of Kafristan. –Peachy Carnehan

If a king can't sing, it ain't worth being king. –Daniel Dravot

I wouldn't say the world's a better place for our having lived it int. Nobody's gonna weep their eyes out at our demise. We haven't many good deeds to our credit. But how many men have been where we've been and seen what we've seen?
–Peachy Carnehan

You call it luck; I call it destiny. –Daniel Carnehan

The Netflix envelope, aside from warning me that the disc is double-sided (oh dear), the movie was made in 1975 (umm…) and the presentation is 2hrs and 9min long (oy), describes the show I'm about to watch:

Legendary director John Huston adapts Rudyard Kipling's short story about Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan, two bored British soldiers stationed in India who travel to a mountainous Middle Eastern kingdom in search of riches and power. Embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, they con their way into becoming deities in Kafiristan before losing it all. The film earned four Oscar nominations.

I watched this movie in two parts… Disc Side A and Disc Side B in separate sittings. It's not that 2 hours is outlandishly long for a flick, it's just that this movie didn't captivate me the way other equally long or longer films do. It's a good movie, don't get me wrong. But it just didn't grab me the way I'm sure it's grabbed other people. I mean, it DID earn four Oscar noms!

What I liked about the movie:

Rudyard Kipling. I think it's quite grand that he was a character in this movie which was based on a short story he wrote. I don't intimately know any of Kipling's work, and so couldn't tell you if he included himself in his story or merely narrated it as a removed party. But either way, I enjoyed that the author made an appearance as a writer and "brother" of the two main characters.

Michael Caine & Sean Connery. I enjoyed seeing these two fine actors – who I really only know as older gentlemen – as younger versions of themselves. They were delightful! I thought they had great chemistry with each other and they did a good job of balancing the humor with the gravity.

The concept. A man pretends to be a god and achieves great power and wealth from his people… until his very blood reveals his falsehood. Two friends make a pact to rule the far-off land and gain its riches… until one becomes too big for his britches.

So I liked the concept and the characters, yet I wasn't really pulled in to the movie. So what didn't I like, then? I'm actually having a hard time pinpointing it. I think the movie lost me a couple times, between accents and translation and quick-talking. And I think the underlying story was something I’d seen done better: two friends set out on a quest & their friendship crumbles when one of them outshines the other; they eventually make up, a lesson is learned, and they part as equals again. Or perhaps it’s just that there was too much beige in the movie for me, on top of the '70s film quality color. I think I have some sort of aversion to movie monotony, even if on a purely visual level. Never could bring myself to watch Cast Away… just seemed like too much water.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that this was an overall good movie, I know that. It just wasn't really my thing. Perhaps it's yours.

My takeaway: True friendships will survive egotistic episodes, if and only if, the episodes don't last forever. And the best proof of your bff's kingship and death is his severed head, still crowned of course.

The Daughters - The Ugly Duckling Revisited

Daughters

Author: Joanna Philbin

Only by being yourself can you be more than yourself. –Mr. Barlow

This woman is taking pictures of me. And this is actually fun. –Lizzie Summers, internally

For the first time, she remembered what it felt like just before she opened her mouth to speak to that reporter. That delicious feeling of letting go, of taking her hand off the wheel, of just being herself – with no filters, no voice in her head telling her no. she put her hands on her hips and leveled her gaze at the camera. She let her smile fade away. –Narrator

That was three weeks ago. […] Everything's different now. Everything. –Lizzie Summers

Amazon.com:

The only daughter of supermodel Katia Summers, witty and thoughtful Lizzie Summers likes to stick to the sidelines.  The sole heir to Metronome Media and daughter of billionaire Karl Jurgensen, outspoken Carina Jurgensen would rather climb mountains than social ladders. Daughter of chart-topping pop icon Holla Jones, stylish and sensitive Hudson Jones is on the brink of her own music breakthrough.

By the time freshman year begins, unconventional-looking Lizzie Summers has come to expect fawning photographers and adoring fans to surround her gorgeous supermodel mother. But when Lizzie is approached by a fashion photographer that believes she's "the new face of beauty," Lizzie surprises herself and her family by becoming the newest Summers woman to capture the media's spotlight. 

This book is not likely to become a “classic” or be taught in schools. But I don't think that's really what Joanna Philbin had in mind when she wrote the first in what is now a series of books about the daughters of the rich and famous. It's a good, fun book that doesn't talk down to its readers. The story is well-written and only mildly forced at times.

I tend to enjoy reading "young adult" fiction, which I'm pretty sure is what this is. I own all the Harry Potter books, have read all four Twilight saga entries and have done my fair share of shelf-perusing in Target's YA section. So, this book was kind of right up my alley. I like the friendship that the girls shared, though I wished the relationships with their parents could have been a bit more diverse.

I get that one of the big bonding points is that each girl is the product of one (or two) celebrities or moguls. But it seems a bit contrived that each would have such a rocky relationship with the parental units. Lizzie and her mother's relationship was the least strained, though the plot centers around the two Summers women misinterpreting the other's words and actions. Lizzie's relationship with her father is also better than most of the other parent-child depictions. But you don’t get to see very much of it in the book, the dominating theme being of mother-and-daughter run-ins.

The book had a good message, too, like most YA books do. It was kind of an "ugly duckling" story. Lizzie feels inferior in the looks department to her supermodel mother, and doesn't like that her mother constantly thrusts her into the limelight when no one else ever seems to want her there. It isn't until someone who doesn't know her at all tells her she's the kind of "new beauty" or "ugly pretty" that is trending in fashion that she comes to embrace her own look. And, as can be expected, she lets herself get caught up in it and gets a big head over it, only to be knocked back down to earth, where her mother is there to catch her. It was fairly predictable, but it worked.

Overall, I liked the characters in this book and have added the other three books to my list of must-reads after my 30@30 project closes.

My takeaway: As hard as it may be, confrontation and direct communication is sometimes the best way to avoid hurt feelings, mixed signals and confusion. And it's always best to lie to a paparazzo who asks you questions about your famous mother.

Knightriders - The Full Life & Semi Death of Billy the King

Knightriders

Director: George A. Romero

Come on. It's a fake; it's all a fake. They try to make it look tough. They try to make it look dangerous. – Hoagie Man

See magic ain't got nothing to do with organs and glands and busted necks. Magic got to do with the soul, man. Only the soul's got destiny. –Merlin

Don't forget to pick up a helmet. It's the thing that looks like your head, only it's got a chinstrap. –Tuck

You gotta have guts to do what we do baby. That's basic number one. –Rocky

There can only be one king, Morgan. –Alan

What the Netflix envelope told me about this one:

Billy (Ed Harris) leads a group of traveling performers who portray knights on motorcycles – an act that's quickly falling apart due to personal problems with members of the group, including Billy himself, who is beginning to confuse his shows with reality. As Billy loses control, cast members fall away from the troupe one by one, leading Billy on a quest to redeem himself and reunite the group – a mission that might lead to his own demise.

As I watch these 30@30 movies, I keep my computer open to a blank Word doc to capture the quotes I like and to record a few notes as things catch my eye or make me think. For this particular movie, I ended up with a lot of one-sentence observations that did me more or less no good as I tried to come up with a viewpoint for this post. Let me share a few:

• Stephen King made a cameo as "Hoagie Man" (according to the credits), a spectator at the first battle! Oh, "Hoagie Man's Wife" was played by Stephen King's own wife, Tabitha.
• Brother Blue (Merlin) is apparently best known as a storyteller. I could see that.
• Showing the camaraderie among the actors and crew after the show is over is a nice touch.
• I didn't expect this movie to cover the issue of being gay, but it just did!
• Billy went to jail with Bagman. And holy shit they beat up Bagman!
• Domestic violence, too? This movie covers a lot more than I thought it would!
• In the end… is Billy left without a crown AND without a queen? Linet belongs to Alan? And then Billy leaves altogether? And with the Black Bird apparently…
• Billy got hit by a truck! What the…

So I could talk about Stephen King or Brother Blue, homosexuality or domestic violence, police brutality, camaraderie, black birds or death by truck. But, really, none of those topics would really suit the movie.

The movie had an odd premise: a group of traveling motorcyclists dressing and acting as King Arthur and his court experience their own sort of familial drama. It's a movie about the dynamics of a group – there is always a leader and there is typically someone else who wants to become the leader – and about loyalty. It's about choosing sides and choosing friends. I guess maybe it's even about forgiving a friend who wrongs you.

Morgan – a character, by the way, that I despised from the first moment he popped up onscreen – breaks away from the troupe in pursuit of personal fame and riches. He also abandons his on-again/off-again girlfriend mechanic in pursuit of a chicer, more sophisticated snake of a woman. And yet, when he returns to the troupe, both Billy and Angie accept him back. I assume they think he's a changed man; but if you ask me, he'll take off again as soon as something shinier comes along! That part of the movie – lesson in forgiveness that it may have been intended – annoyed me.

I didn't feel Morgan deserved forgiveness or earned their trust. He was still slimy and dirty and it always seemed he had one scheme or another going on. I suppose if I read what I wrote above – the part about this being a family-like group – it makes sense. Your brother, sister, mother, father, etc. often gets the benefit of the doubt, over and over again. With family members, you tend to accept their faults and overlook their wrongdoings in your unconditional love for them. And if Morgan were my brother, perhaps I'd have forgiven him too… even though he doesn't deserve it! Maybe it was a flaw on the writer or director's part for not making me as the viewer connect enough with the good qualities living inside Morgan's character. Or maybe it's my fault for overlooking them.

And then there's the ending. Billy leaves the troupe – after crowning Morgan as his successor – with the Indian who represents the black bird in his dreams, and he seeks out the cop who beat up Bagman. After giving him a thrashing, Billy begins his contemplative ride off into the sunset… or so I'd thought. He seems quite out of it (presumably because of his injury) and is killed by a truck crashing into him. Just like that… cut to the funeral scene. I understand it and yet I don't particularly like it. I get that, after he has moved on from his art, his passion, his life, there's really nowhere else for him to go, and nothing else for him to do other than ride off into that ETERNAL sunset. Still, I couldn't help but feel he deserved a better end.

My takeaway: Sometimes forgiveness among friends is something you can only understand from the inside. And never ride a motorcycle while injured down the middle of the road, even if you THINK there are no trucks nearby!

Fahrenheit 451 - The Fireman's Women

Fahrenheit 451

Author: Ray Bradbury

There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing. –Guy Montag

We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop. There is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.
–as read by Guy Montag (from James Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson)

What traitors books can be! You think they're backing you up, and they turn on you. Others can use them, too, and there you are, lost in the middle of the moor, in a great welter of nouns and verbs and adjectives. –Captain Beatty

It doesn't matter what you do, [my grandfather] said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.

–Granger

Barnes & Noble.com's book description:

Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fires. The system was simple. Everyone understood it. Books were for burning, along with the houses in which they were hidden.

Guy Montag enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs nor the joy of watching pages consumed by flames... never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid.

Then he met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think... and Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do!

One of my favorite things about this book is Bradbury's clever spin on the word 'fireman.' In today's world, of course, a fireman is someone who rushes to a burning building, saves those inside and works tirelessly to extinguish the fire. In Bradbury’s futuristic world, however, a fireman is the starter of fires, and his job is to destroy whatever is inside, including – at least in one instance in this novel – the people who wish not to leave. His twist on the word is such a simple one, but how it changes things entirely!

In this world where fires are created by the fireman, there is but one reason to burn down a building: the occupants possess and read books, an act which is against the law. The thought of reading being an illegal act floors me. I just can't comprehend in my sheltered little anti-censorship world that books could ever possibly be forbidden, that reading them could be prohibited.

Shaking that incomprehensible thought aside, I want to focus this post the women in this book. There are not many women mentioned: Mildred Montag, Clarisse McClellan, Mrs. Bowles & Mrs. Phelps and a nameless woman whose house Montag's unit is sent to burn. While their space in the book's pages is limited, their impact is huge.

Clarisse is the first one we meet, on Montag's journey home after a day's work. She only exists a few days in the story before reportedly being hit by a speeding car. It is Clarisse who sets to motion the change in Montag. She, unlike most people in their world, is happy, optimistic, reflective. With her incessant questions, she leads Montag to begin analyzing his life, his happiness and his job. Her sudden disappearance only serves to deepen his introspective scrutiny.

The day after meeting Clarisse, Montag's fire squad is called out to a house ripe for destruction. The woman Montag encounters inside – a woman whose book-hoarding has brought them in the first place – chooses to set fire to herself rather than live a life without books. This leads Montag to wonder why books hold such power (see the first quote above).

The woman with the most page space devoted to her is Mildred Montag, our hero's wife. The relationship these two share is very strange, in that they seem quite detached from each other with little to nothing in common, yet Montag assures us he did at one point love her very truly. But Mildred is everything Clarisse is not: she blindly believes what she's told to believe, she has stopped thinking on her own, she questions nothing. Mildred accepts life as it is, no more, no less. She spends most of her free time with "her family" on the parlor walls. There is little need for human interaction when you can be constantly surrounded by walls of, essentially, television screens that have the ability to virtually converse with you.

The final two women – Mrs. Bowles & Mrs. Phelps – are more or less clones of Mildred Montag. They are the only human contact Mildred requires (as her husband's presence doesn't seem to mean much to her one way or the other).

Why are all these women important? Because their very presence propels this story forward. With Clarisse, we see Montag begin to question his whole world when she asks him if he's happy; with the book-hoarding woman, we see him start to question the worth of books and therefore the validity of the laws against them; with Mildred, we see him explore the boundaries by asking her if she remembers how they met and seeing her reaction to his hidden books; with mindless Mesdames Bowles & Phelps, we see him reach the conclusion that things have gone too far when he explodes at them and recites poetry, to their horror. Each of these women make an impact on his journey to enlightenment.

That is the only reason I can accept Clarisse's disappearance, the book-hoarding woman's death by fire, Mildred's maddening complacency with her life, and the Mesdames' brainwashed devotion to the world as it is given to them and the laws set forth by those in authority. If they were merely unnecessary dressing to the story, I don’t think I'd much have been able to stomach these things.

My takeaway: You cannot live without questioning the world around you; nothing should be taken as truth until you've made it a truth within yourself. And a character's literary importance cannot necessarily be judged by the number of pages on which he or she appears.

The English Patient - Tragic Optimism

The English Patient

Director: Anthony Minghella

Have you noticed there are chickens? In Italy you get chickens, but no eggs. In Africa there're always eggs, but never chickens. Who's separating them?
–David Caravaggio

My mother always told me I would summon my husband by playing the piano. –Hana

I have to teach myself not to read too much into everything. It comes with too long having to read so much into hardly anything at all. –Madox

So yes, she died because of me… because I loved her… because I had the wrong name. –Count Laszlo de Almásy

The Netflix DVD jacket:

Adapted from Michael Ondaatje's acclaimed novel set against the backdrop of World War II, Anthony Minghella's Oscar-winning drama stars Ralph Fiennes as a horribly burned pilot who recounts a tale of doomed romance to the nurse tending him (Juliette Binoche). As his story is revealed via flashback, so too are secrets about his identity and the depth of his passion for the woman he loved (Kristin Scott Thomas).

I'm going to be honest: I'd been dreading watching this movie (sorry, Michele) because not only is it a war movie (which is a genre I'm don't particularly seek out or enjoy), it also happens to be 2 hours and 42 minutes long. And while it's probably not a movie I'll revisit, I will admit that it was more enjoyable than I'd expected. The music is beautiful, and any time Colin Firth can grace my television with his face and voice is a time well spent.

This is a love story, wrought with tragedy, focusing on Count Laszlo de Almásy and Katharine Clifton. However, the real tragedy in this movie, if you ask me, is Hana. We first meet her as a woman cursed, having her "sweetie" die in the war, and watching her friend get blown up by a landmine. She then stays behind as her company moves on and chooses to care for a dying burn victim. He leaves her, too, and goes so far as to ask her to help him die. She falls in love with Kip and he leaves her. Alone, she seems to have no choice but to move on. Perhaps she is optimistic that she will find a new life, a new love, a new purpose in Florence. And perhaps it is this optimism which I find so tragic.

I suppose you could look at it as quite the opposite though. Each person who leaves Hana makes her stronger. Her happy idealistic view of the war is shattered when she loses her Love. And the death of her friend leaves her open and free, with no real ties, to leave her company and care for the badly burned Count Almásy. Her dependence on him for purpose, as well as for company, lasts as long as it needs to. He asks her for release from life only after he has finished his story, which restores Hana's faith in love. Having been scarred by the deaths and then healed by the story, her skin is thicker and her outlook optimistically guarded. I'd like to think that by the end, she has learned that optimism is okay, as long as you know how fragile life is. But I still think she's a tragic character.

The love story between Almásy and Katharine Clifton annoyed me. I don't appreciate that they are having an affair and betraying Geoffrey Clifton. Not to go all Moral Police on them, but it does bother me that they feel their love is above the law. This, of course, leads to Geoffrey's murder/suicide attempt. That's not to say that he wouldn't have attempted something similar even if they'd told him, but it would have made them aware of the possibility of such actions, at the very least. And at most, Geoffrey could have accepted the affair with decorum and appreciation of their honesty. Who really knows?

My takeaway: Some people possess in innate sense of optimism that cannot be crushed even by the deaths of loved ones; though I may find these people tragic, I can appreciate their sunny outlook on life, as it takes a lot of faith and conviction not to be dampened. And Ralph Fiennes's future role of Lord Voldemort was secured the moment his burnt face was unveiled in this movie.

Cutting Loose - Confusing Passion & Drama

Cutting Loose

Author: Susan Andersen

I am not a passionate person. I refuse to be a passionate person. Please tell me I am nothing like my parents. –Jane's journal entry

All this time she had imagined herself immune to passion. Or if perhaps not entirely impervious, at least smart enough to prevent what little she had experienced from ruling her. She'd felt a bit smug about it, actually often reflecting that the world would be a far more manageable place if everyone would exercise their willpower a bit more often. –Narrator

Dev realized that neither Mike nor Dorrie had hugged or kissed [their daughter Jane] – not in greeting, not in goodbye. In his family no one got in or out of a relative's house without one or the other […] Up until tonight he'd taken that for granted […] Suddenly, however, he had a new appreciation for his family that he hadn't possessed half an hour ago. –Narrator

Thank God for girlfriends. What a screwed-up world this would be without them.

–Jane's journal entry

Book jacket:

Jane thinks nothing can make her lose her cool. But the princess of propriety blows a gasket the night she meets the contractor restoring the Wolcott mansion. Devlin Kavangh's rugged sex appeal may buckle her knees, but the man is out of control! Jane had to deal with theatrics growing up – she won't tolerate them in someone hired to work on the house she and her two best friends have just inherited.

Dev could renovate the mansion in his sleep. But ever since the prissy owner spotted him jet-lagged, exhausted and hit hard by a couple of welcome-home drinks, she's been on his case. Yet there's something about her. Jane hides behind conservative clothes and a frosty manner, but her seductive blue eyes and leopard-print heels hint at a woman just dying to cut loose!

This book was a much-needed easy read, after getting through such monsters as The Autobiography of Malcolm X (tough content) and The Stand (tough length). I could have probably finished this book in one solid weekend if life hadn't been happening at the same time. I've read several fluffy romance novels in my day – and I’m perfectly happy admitting that. Of those I've read, I have to say that this one, though fairly predictable – yes, the guy gets the girl in the end – was well-written with a few unexpected moments. I don’t recall if I've mentioned it before, but I’m keeping a list of books I want to read when this project is complete. The list contains books other people suggested too late to make the 30@30 list and sequels to books I've read or books by an author of a 30@30 book. Susan Andersen’s two companion books to this one have been added to that list.

One issue I have with this book – and it's not alone in this atrocity, by any means – is a character's fanatical adherence to an idea or compulsion. In the case of Cutting Loose, that idea is, "I must not be passionate, for passion always equals drama, and I refuse to be dramatic like my parents." This thought belongs to the story’s female lead character, Jane, who not only links passion and drama but also assumes that those are intrinsically entwined with alcohol. While her childhood reveals the reason these arbitrary linkages were made – her mother and father, a stage actor and playwright, respectively, were nearly always engaged in overblown arguments followed by passionate reunions, drinks in hand – it does not convince me that the adult Jane is not capable of separating passion from drama from alcohol.

She seems like an intelligent character in every manner except this one. This is what annoys me. It is out of character for her to be so close-minded and set in her ways on that one particular aspect of life. She doesn't let herself get emotionally involved, fearing that will lead to passion which will lead to drama and ultimately to an unhappy home. She doesn't allow herself to drink more than one glass of wine – and even then, rarely one! – for fear it will lead to drama and passion and fighting and an unhappy home and now we've come full circle. She sees this as black-and-white with no possible way to have passion free of drama, a drink free of fighting and love free of an unhappy home.

Of course, without this stalwart view of hers, much of the tension between Jane and Dev wouldn't exist, making this story pretty much pointless. I simply wish the conflict between the two could have been better played than an "I can’t have passion because my parents are dramatic!" attitude. It just annoyed me.

My takeaway: Love is often found in the most unsuspecting places when you let down your guard and free yourself to it. And passion, my friend, is not the same thing as drama or fighting – consult your thesaurus!

Her Fearful Symmetry - A Moral Matter of Death & Life

Her Fearful Symmetry

Author: Audrey Niffenegger

The thing that made the twins peculiar was hard to define. People were uneasy when they saw them together without knowing exactly why. –Narrator

One may do many things in a long life. I also played a great deal of tennis and brought up three children. There's time for all sorts of adventures. –Jessica Bates

Elspeth? […] I won't forgive you.
–Robert Fanshaw

Julia had never thought of death as something that would happen to her, or to people she knew. All those people in the cemetery were just stones, names, dates. –Narrator

She would sacrifice everything. All this sadness for nothing. –Narrator

Book description from Amazon.com:

Julia and Valentina Poole are twenty-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. Their English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions for this inheritance: that they live in the flat for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the girls' aunt Elspeth and their mother, Edie.

The girls move to Elspeth's flat, which borders the vast Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Stella Gibbons, and other luminaries are buried. Julia and Valentina become involved with their living neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth's elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including—perhaps—their aunt. 

While this book started out fairly plausible, it didn't really surprise me when it took a turn for the supernatural. Audrey Niffenegger's previous book is, after all, The Time Traveler's Wife, which focuses on a man who jumps time and space. The turn that Her Fearful Symmetry makes is one toward ghost stories and resurrections.

But more than just a supernatural leap, the storyline veers into the moral grey area within the ghostly realm. There's no way to approach the discussion of the moral dilemma without revealing one of the story's major conflicts. So, if you have the desire to read this book and don't want to learn of the ending beforehand, you should probably stop reading now.

The deceased Elspeth assists in the premature death of her "niece" Valentina and then attaches her own soul to the body. This is in opposition to the original plan agreed upon by the women, wherein the soul of Valentina was to be returned to her body following her funeral. It is Elspeth's argument that the soul, freshly removed from the body, would not have been strong enough to return only a few days later; and she took over the body herself so that it would not go to waste.

Elspeth's participation in the plot that Valentina hatches is questionable from the start. Being a ghost herself, and having experienced the first few months where she was barely more than a ball of mist and jumbled emotions, unable to do much of anything at all, she would have known from the start that the goal of reuniting body and soul would not be possible in the short time they had before the body began to decay. Yet she kept her knowledge and experience to herself and agreed to assist. In the end, all Elspeth's greed got her was an unfamiliar body, alienation from her lover and a load of guilt.

I'm not reserving all my judgment for Elspeth, however, as Valentina was the one who felt it would be better to appear dead to her family than to confront Julia about no longer wanting to mirror her twin sister's whims and life choices. And in the end all that Valentina's cowardice rewarded her with was a bodiless soul unable to live the life she so desperately wanted to be her own and not her twin's. Fools, all of them.

My takeaway: Confrontation, though rarely my first choice in any situation, is pretty much always preferable to a death-to-life scheme hatched with a greedy and resentful ghost. And being a twin is as much creepy hotel hallway as it is Doublemint commercial.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Foreshadowing Evil

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Author: Malcolm X, as told to Alex Haley

The main thing you got to remember is that everything in the world is a hustle. –Freddie, the shoeshine boy

As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive. –Narrator

I wouldn't have considered it possible for me to love any woman. I'd had too much experience that women were only tricky, deceitful, untrustworthy flesh. I had seen too many men ruined, or at least tied down, or in some other way messed up by women. Women talked too much. To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carry a gun, or telling a hen not to cackle. –Narrator

Awareness came surging up in me – how deeply the religion of Islam had reached down into the mud to lift me up, to save me from being what I inevitably would have been: a dead criminal in a grave, or, if still alive, a flint-hard, bitter, thirty-seven-year-old convict in some penitentiary, or insane asylum. –Narrator

First, let's get the book description out of the way (copied from the back of the copy I borrowed from the library):

If there was any one man who articulated the anger, the struggle, and the beliefs of African Americans in the 1960s, that man was Malcolm X. His Autobiography is now an established classic of modern America, a book that expresses like none other the crucial truth about our violent times.

Second, let's establish the fact that I'm white; I am not African American… and I'm a woman. Those two facts should tell you something about my reaction to the first two thirds of this book if you've read it. Malcolm X, until his trip to Mecca, preached on the evils of the white man. And not just SOME white men, but ALL white men. Being born white meant that I was evil before I had my first thought, shed my first tear or screamed that first scream. And my being a woman… well, see his quote above about how all we do is bring down any man we get our hooks into.

I want to break this book down into three (uneven in length) sections: Detroit Red, Malcolm X and El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. The first section focuses on Malcolm's delinquent and drug-fueled adolescence. This part of the story was surprising and fairly enjoyable despite the unending foreshadowing, which I'll address later in this post. I knew very little about Malcolm X going into this reading and I learned that he was fully immersed into the Harlem drug and music culture. He gambled and thieved; cops hated him and he hated them. He survived on marijuana, cocaine and alcohol. I'll admit to being impressed that someone with such a seedy background grew to be such a prominent figure in an entire culture's history.

From Detroit Red, we move on to Malcolm X. This is where I started to get peeved at the book. I realize that it wasn't really written for a 30-year-old white woman in the 2010s to read; remembering this is what got me through the pages. Because in this section, Malcolm X expounds on the evil of the white man, the "history" of the white man's initial existence on the planet and the insignificance of the woman. His turn to Islam while in prison is clearly what saved his life – religion is powerful that way – and for this, I applaud his family for introducing it to him. However, as a human being, I do wish the religion hadn't been so hateful in its doctrine where non-African American people were concerned. I can't imagine the turmoil of those times when Malcolm X's preaching was at a controversial high, but I can understand why so many people were appalled at what he had to say.

I was near the end of my patience with his hatred by the time I got to the section I call El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. In this section, Malcolm takes his trip to Mecca, and – hallelujah – learns the truths about the Islamic religion. It is a religion more of peace than hatred, of brotherhood than segregation, of spiritualism than war. In Egypt and Jeddah and Mecca itself, Malcolm is met with and welcomed by people of all colors, races and languages, and he begins to understand the differences in between Sunni Islam (which he came to know overseas) and The Nation of Islam (which he left behind in America). He returns from his Hajj with a better sense of internal peace, though he faced a tough crowd of confused and angry followers. The leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, was none too happy to be opposed and many men were tasked with taking Malcolm's life at his command.

In the end, I'm glad I finished reading… if I'd given up during the Malcolm X section, I never would have learned how he became a great leader and a civil rights activist, working with – instead of in opposition to – other activists of his day. I would have continued thinking that he was a hateful man preaching black supremacy and the evil of the white man. 

Before I conclude this post, I can't help but write about the thing that annoyed me more than the  Malcolm X's hate preaching. Nearly one out of every three paragraphs in this book used a very elementary and obvious form of foreshadowing. I can't tell you how many times I read things like, "I'd soon find out how wrong I was" or "Little did I know how true those words were" or "I didn't know then how important that moment would be." And it just got old. I like foreshadowing as much as the next literature lover, but subtlety is the key to effective foreshadowing. All this served to do was add ammunition to the argument that I should stop reading the book immediately. I don't know whether this was Malcolm X's storytelling style or a technique employed by Alex Haley. All I know is that I did not like it.

My takeaway: Religion – even if it's not the religion in which I've chosen to put my faith – has the power to save a life otherwise destined for prison or death on the streets and turn it into a life dedicated to human rights and civil liberties. And overusing a literary device lessens its effectiveness and annoys the reader, a fact which I'd soon find out to be truer than I'd ever thought before.

28 Days - Predictably Enjoyable

28 Days

Director: Betty Thomas

Gwen, you make it impossible to love you. –Lily

Man, this is not a way to live. This is a way to die. –Cornell

I don't need any more stories; I have enough stories. I would like a life. –Gwen

Don't drink, go to meetings, find a sponsor, ask for help. –Daniel

Don't ever be someone's slogan, because you are poetry. –Gwen

Even the pain in the ass needs someone to take care of them. I didn't do that… I didn't, and I should have. –Lilly

With as many stars as this movie has in it – not least among them is Sandra Bullock, of whom I'm a fan – I'm really surprised it never made it into my Netflix lineup prior to this project. And as far as casting goes, it's chock full of good and great actors who play the smaller roles quite well! Viggo Mortensen (yep, Aragorn), Azura Skye (who, oddly, I remember most as Jane in an old TV show Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane), Steve Buscemi (he's been in so many movies, yet sadly the first mental image of him I have is of his putting on lipstick at the end of Billy Madison; sorry, Steve), Elizabeth Perkins (seeing her makes me want to re-watch Indian Summer), Alan Tudyk (Steve the Pirate), Mike O’Malley (unfortunately no matter what he does, he will always live in my mind as the host of Nickelodeon’s Guts and Global Guts)…

Let's see what Netflix.com has to say:

After her drunken antics ruin her sister's wedding and result in major property damage, journalist Gwen Cummings enters rehab, where she runs afoul of the program director – and soon meets a fellow resident who changes her outlook.

This movie does a pretty good job of delivering a good message about overcoming your worldly demons by dealing with your inner ones. Predictable though it is – did you really think Gwen wouldn't be able to lift the horse's leg in the end? or that she wouldn't overcome her addictions, both to alcohol and pills and to her destructive boyfriend-turned-fiancé? – the predictability doesn't get in the way of entertainment. And the writers, seemingly aware enough of the possibility of a predictable plot leading to a bored viewer, added a few unexpected moments to keep the plot from stalling out.

The story revolves around Gwen Cummings and her court-mandated trip to rehab to overcome her alcohol and pill abuse. While she ultimately is successful (see previous paragraph on predictability), she has a relapse or two and nearly gets kicked out of the facility. One of Gwen's biggest problems – drinking and drugs aside, of course – is that she never asks for help. This comes up several times in the movie. Cornell notices it and eventually Gwen herself even admits it to her sister. And it's when she finally shouts it out on a New York street that she's able to get the horse to lift its hoof. That moment leads her to leave Jasper and it seems that it's at that moment that she knows she can make it outside of rehab.

This is a good movie with a great cast – l laughed at times and will admit to tearing up when Lily and Gwen talked it out near the end. Did this movie change my life? No. Do I think it's Sandra Bullock's best film? No. Would I watch it again? Most definitely!

My takeaway: Sometimes it's the internal conflicts that need to be resolved before the external addictions can be rehabbed. And horses are much more intuitive (and stubborn) than I thought.