Random Reviews

Things I've done lately worth sharing:

Sophie's World: Franny was reading this book, but thought it was too dense to finish. It was too dense, but I finished it anyway. It was a pretty good overview of western philosophical thought for the last few thousand years. Unfortunately, it was contained in a very stupid story. The main character, Sophie, starts receiving philosophical essays from an unknown sender and then ends up in an increasingly absurd mystery. This part of the book was fairly pointless and just served as a reason to expound on philosophy. The philosophy part I found interesting. I've always liked the idea of philosophy, but I'm very uneducated about it. This was a cool primer in the various ideas people have had through the ages about the nature of the world and people. I would hardly consider myself an expert after this book, but at least now I understand some of the references I see elsewhere. It also made me think about what I think about things. Which I guess was the point.

The Bookseller of Kabul: This was another Franny-Book-Club recommendation. It was a pretty quick read and totally worth it. It is a slightly-fictionalized story about the Afghan family that the author lived with for a while in 2002, after the removal of the Taliban, but before Iraq was a huge issue. It is a very interesting and detailed account of the lives of women in Afghanistan living under a system that is even more repressive than I had imagined. It gets into other aspects of life there, but it is mainly focused on the lives and treatment of women. I would definitely recommend this one.

All the King's Men: The new version of the movie with Sean Penn. Franny and I watched this last night and it sucked. The reviews I read that liked it suck. If you liked it, then you suck too. (No offense. I think I'm safe since I can currently count my entire readership on one finger. Thanks F.) This movie was badly written, badly directed, badly acted, and badly scored. It did have some beautiful scenes, but they were mainly cut shots of natural places that didn't have anything to do with the story. There were some atrocious lines. ("It stunk like a cat buried in the back yard.") There were far too many overly symbolic images and moments. Good movies will include subtle symbolism that is interesting if you catch it and understand it. This movies puts it in the middle of a scene and then beats you over the head with it. Was this piece of crap directed by a high schooler? And the acting. Good lord. Penn was a ridiculous parody of Huey Long, who was ridiculous to begin with. Judd Law seemed pretty bored most of the time. The bodyguard was written with exactly one dimension. (He liked his gun. That's it.) Even though the mistress was part of the political story, her main point was apparently to give sarcastic looks that somehow cleared up everything in a scene. The fact that Kate Winslet got naked didn't make her useful either. Tony Soprano was in it too, although I think he was supposed to be someone else. It was hard to tell. The music was pretty bad too, although maybe appropriate for the rest of the badness. To paraphrase Franny, Batman music was great for Gotham, but not for Louisiana. (Mad props, F.) There are just so many things wrong with this movie. I just don't understand how you can base a movie on Huey Long and make it so bad. The man gave material to work with every time he opened his mouth. I also don't understand how I could write a four-line review of a movie I liked and then have this much to say about one that I didn't enjoy at all. I guess I want to save everyone else in the world two hours each.