Update from me

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately, but life has thrown me a couple curveballs that I've had to deal with.

Also, I've undertaken a very special project, details of which will be announced here in the near future. It's all good!

Watch this now: The Joy of Books

Beautiful.

DON'T watch this now: Trailer for The Lorax

It was great to see The Adventures of Tintin over Christmas break - twice! It was everything an adaptation should be - a translation of the work into a different medium, with storytelling and character introductions to suit the medium; with lots of in-jokes for the fans but easy for those unfamiliar with the work to understand; and most of all, true to the spirit of the original work.

The downside of all this was having to see the trailer for the abominable-looking adaptation for The Lorax. I shouldn't be surprised, really. Shitty adaptations of Dr. Seuss' work have been the status quo since Ron Howard's bungling of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. But the trailer alone for The Lorax sent me into a hissy fit, because it is wrong on so many levels.

The Lorax isn't high on most people's list of favorite Dr. Seuss books. But I've always loved it, and I have the feeling it instilled in me my love for fiction that's depressing yet somehow just uplifting enough to not be nihilistic. So it distresses me to see one of my favorite childhood books adapted into something so wrong-headed.

What's wrong, you ask? I'll tell you. First of all, the look. Yes, the Truffula Trees are beautiful, but everything in the trailer has the same candy-colored, plastic-coated look. It's hard to feel the loss of the Truffula Trees and Humming-Fish and Swomee-Swans when the world without them is indistinguishable from the world with them.

What's also wrong is the motivation for the lead character. It's not enough for him to wonder how the world got into its drab, dirty state. No, he wants to find a tree so he can impress a girl. Please.

The voice casting is also completely off, particularly for the Lorax himself. I mean no disrespect to Danny DeVito, but he's not the Lorax.

Maybe the trailer is misleading, but I suspect it isn't. I suspect the moviemakers have taken a very simple (some would say simplistic) cautionary tale and turned into into an overstuffed CGI-fest full of slapstick and vulgarity.

I'm not providing a link to the trailer. Seek it out if you must, but it won't get any clicks through me.

Books read in 2011

Once again it's time for my annual salute to my own anal-retentiveness as I provide the list of all the books I read in the last year.

It was an iffy year, with lots of things that didn't click for various reasons. I did notice a trend of the more crazy stuff being memorable this year (read some particularly good narration by batshit-crazy characters).

1. Grendel - John Gardner
2. The Auctioneer - Joan Samson *
3. The Forest for the Trees - Betsy Lerner
4. The Cider House Rules - John Irving
5. Dark Places - Gillian Flynn
6. Lily of the Nile - Stephanie Dray *
7. Magic - William Goldman
8. The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
9. Boys and Girls Together - William Goldman **
10. The Little Sister - Raymond Chandler
11. Poison - Sarah Poole
12. A Quiet Belief in Angels - R. J. Ellory
13. Candy - Luke Davies
14. The Preservationist - David Maine **
15. Tinsel - William Goldman
16. Blind Submission - Debra Ginsburg
17. Because the Night - James Ellroy *
18. How Right You Are, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
19. Another City, Not My Own - Dominick Dunne
20. Drop City - T. C. Boyle **
21. The Keep - Jennifer Egan
22. The Princess Bride - William Goldman
23. Carrion Comfort - Dan Simmons *
24. Daughters of Rome - Kate Quinn
25. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
26. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
27. One Fearful Yellow Eye - John D. MacDonald
28. The Help - Kathryn Stockett
29. A Dance With Dragons - George R. R. Martin
30. Naked Heat - Richard Castle
31. The Love Machine - Jacqueline Susann *
32. The Light Bearer - Donna Gillespie *
33. The Collector - John Fowles
34. Night Walker - Donald Hamilton
35. Cry to Heaven - Anne Rice *
36. Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
37. Burnt Offerings - Robert Marasco *
38. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett **
39. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy - John LeCarre
40. L.A. Confidential - James Ellroy **
41. The Woman - Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee
42. Right Ho, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
43. Anything for Billy - Larry McMurtry
44. Tideland - Mitch Cullin
45. The Getaway - Jim Thompson
46. Free Fall in Crimson - John D. MacDonald
47. The Milagro Beanfield War - John Nichols **
48. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
49. Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn
50. The Last King of Scotland - Giles Foden *
51. The Gamble - LaVyrle Spencer
52. The Boleyn Inheritance - Philippa Gregory **
53. The Butcher Boy - Patrick McCabe
54. Pop. 1280 - Jim Thompson
55. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven - Sherman Alexie
56. 11/22/63 - Stephen King

* = unfinished

** = reread

My favorites of all the non-rereads were (in no particular order)

• Cold Comfort Farm
• The Hunger Games trilogy
• A Dance With Dragons
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• The Getaway
• Sharp Objects
• Dark Places
• 11/22/63
• The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
• The Crossing

First book for 2012 is Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses Don't They.

Watch this now: Video essay on David Lynch's movies

Here's a lovely video paying tribute to David Lynch's films. Nice to see some of his lesser-viewed works like The Straight Story, Dune, and Fire Walk With Me get time.

David Lynch in Four Movements - A Tribute from Richard Vezina on Vimeo.

Kelly's big score: Santa's got a brand new bag edition

The bad news is that Christmas, my favorite time of year, is now over. The good news is that I scored some good books.

As gifts, I received:

The Babylonian Trilogy - Sebastien Doubinsky

Nightmare Movies - Kim Newman

11/22/63 - Stephen King

Bistro Cooking - Patricia Wells (am dying to make some recipes from this)

With gift cards, today I got:

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Horace McCoy

Hell House - Richard Matheson

Here be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman

I also bought The Complete Calvin and Hobbes as a Christmas gift for the whole family.

Watch this now: Trailer for The Hobbit (part 1)

Make no mistake, I love the Lord of the Rings movies. But I've been skeptical about the upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit. Does it really need to be split into two movies? And what's with shoehorning in characters from LOTR who weren't in the book of The Hobbit (we see Galadriel in the trailer, and I've heard rumors that Legolas and even Saruman (!!) will be in it as well).

At any rate, the trailer is here and it's a weird mix of the new and the familiar, and is a little too vague for my taste - shouldn't we mention the reason for Bilbo's adventure? And what about Smaug? However, I do like the fact that most of the dwarves don't look like Doc and Sleepy.

I'll reserve final judgment until the film's actually showing (next year), but for now I'm cautiously optimistic.

Review: The Reflecting Skin

My review of the brilliant, beautiful, and often horrific film The Reflecting Skin is up at Horrorview.

Imagine if David Lynch directed a Ray Bradbury adaptation, and that sums up this movie. If that lights up all your dials, then watch it as soon as you can.

Review: Kill the Irishman

My review of the disappointing Irish vs. Italians gangster movie Kill the Irishman is up at Horrorview.

Kelly's big score: Here we go a-wassailing edition

For the weekend after Thanksgiving we did our usual thing and went up to the town of Solvang, which was decorated for Christmas, and where we indulged in shopping and pancakes to take our minds off the mess the recent winds made of our yard.

I also went to the town's three bookstores and came home with:

Mary Ann in Autumn - Armistead Maupin

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven - Sherman Alexie

The Executioners - John D. MacDonald

Separate Beds - LaVyrle Spencer

The Other Side of Midnight - Sidney Sheldon (shut up, sometimes you need to read some trash)

Diary of a Mad Housewife - Sue Kaufman

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan - Alduous Huxley

Track of the Cat - Nevada Barr

The Two-Bear Mambo - Joe R. Lansdale

Fine Just the Way it Is - Annie Proulx

Revenge of the Rose - Nicole Galland

That ought to keep me occupied for a week or so!