Kat’s Film and Book Reviews

A little late for Mothers' Day, but I hop you enjoy it anyway.

Erich Segal, best known as the author of the book Love Story, died Sunday of a heart attack.  His funeral was today in London.

Image courtesy of the Telegraph

Few people know (I certainly didn’t) that Segal was a classics professor at Yale when he wrote Love Story.  I, like many emotional teens, read, loved and wept over Love Story, and even briefly bought into its tag line: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

Obviously, he shouldn’t have been giving out relationship advice, but Love Story still stands as a romantic favorite for readers everywhere.

It was made into a movie in 1970 with Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw.  Segal co-wrote the screenplay, and the movie was nominated for 7 Oscars.

O'Neal and MacGraw in 1970's Love Story

Segal had been struggling with Parkinson’s for 25 years.  His daughter, Francesca, said in his Eulogy today, “That he fought to breathe, fought to live, every second of the last thirty years of illness with such mind-blowing obduracy, is a testament to the core of who he was — a blind obsessionality that saw him pursue his teaching, his writing, his running and my mother, with just the same tenacity. He was the most dogged man any of us will ever know.”

A full list of his novels and works on the classics can be found here.

Rest in peace, Erich.

Lily’s Crossing

By Patricia Reilly Giff

Image courtesy of www.myutopia36.blogspot.com

I was sixteen when I realized that words can have serious consequences. I had become a habitual liar, lying for no reason at all, just because I could. Looking back, I think it was my way of asserting my independence; I could tell my mom I was at Diane’s house when I was really at Heather’s, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. But I soon began to understand that those kinds of lies were shaping my character, and I wasn’t becoming the person I wanted to be. I wanted to be upstanding, forthright, and honorable. Sneaking around and telling pointless lies was moving me in the opposite direction.

Lily Mollahan learned that lesson at a much younger age than I did. In Patricia Reilly Giff’s book, Lily’s Crossing, Lily is an uncomfortable, awkward eleven. She’s not awkward because of her approaching adolescence, but because she isn’t sure where she fits in her own life. World War II is raging, her father has been sent overseas, her mother is dead, and her grandmother keeps a short enough leash on Lily to incur Lily’s resentment. So, Lily tells lies.

As an adult reader, my reaction to Lily’s lies that these aren’t lies at all; they’re stories. Lily is a reflection of Giff herself as a child, spending summers in Rockaway Beach during the war and telling stories to keep herself from worrying too much, so we can watch Lily blossoming into a writer of depth and emotional understanding much as Giff has done. But Lily is a child, and all children know that lying is wrong. Lily struggles with her imagination, her streak of rebellion and resentment, and the undercurrent of loneliness that flows beneath it all.

Then she meets Albert, a Hungarian refugee from the war staying with relatives at Rockaway Beach. Albert teases and challenges her, and Lily finds she has no defenses against someone like him. Before long the two have become fast friends, sharing their loneliness as well as their failures. And, sadly, each has experienced sins and faults in themselves and each other that endanger everything they have built together. Lily tells Albert a beautiful “lie,” designed to make him feel better and give him hope. But Albert believes in Lily too much, and in the end, Lily must rescue him from the danger she put him in in the first place.

Lily’s Crossing might refer to the perilous journey across the bay that Lily is forced to make. But like all good titles, it has a double meaning. Lily’s Crossing is the journey from self pity to self sacrifice, from fear to courage, from resentment to understanding, from shutting others out to letting them in. Through all those things, Lily crosses over from being a person even she doesn’t like, to being a person she can like and accept. It’s a journey we all have to take in our own ways, and Giff explores it beautifully and compassionately in this Newberry Honor Book. Anyone, young reader or adult, might see their own journey reflected in Lily’s.

This article is hysterical! It’s got the whole Karate Kid movie (the first one, of course, duh) done in tweets!  It’s like the 80’s crashed into the 00’s and made a funny baby!

Here are a few excerpts:

Went to find maintenance guy. Found old Japanese dude with Bonzai headband waving chopsticks in air. WTF?!?
12:43 PM Aug 22nd, 1984 from UberTwitter

Today, I was at a beach party, teaching this hot chick some soccer skills & her a-hole boyfriend and his friends jumped me. FML.
4:03 AM Aug 25th, 1984 from Twitter

Not gonna lie, kinda nervous for 1st day of school. At least if it floods I’ll be OK. http://twitpic.com/xz32as
7:45 AM Aug 26th, 1984 from UberTwitter

And later:

OMG, riding home, a-hole guy and his friends drove me off the road. Bike’s busted. I hate the Valley.
9:30 PM Sep 14th, 1984 from Twitter

See I’m not the only one! RT @zackmorris: Valley sucks!
9:34 PM Sep 14th, 1984 from Twitter

Old Japanese maintenance guy fixed my bike. Then trapped me in lecture about bonsai trees. Not worth it.
11:02 PM Sep 15th, 1984 from Twitter

I’m giving you all the best ones!

Kinda wondering what happened to my neighbor @freddyfernandez — hung out with him the first night in town then never saw him again.
1:06 PM Dec 2nd, 1984 from Twitter

@mrmiyagi is totally hiznammered. LOL! Oh… wait… sh*t… he’s crying and just passed out.
12:33 AM Dec 11th, 1984 from UberTwitter

Random question: How much do you think you could get for a Japanese WWII medal on ebay?
12:33 AM Dec 11th, 1984 from UberTwitter

Image courtesy of TheAvanti.com

Okay, go check it out!

Image courtesy of LibertyU.com

Hitch

2005

Directed by Andy Tennant

All my sources said that Hitch was a perfect date movie. Will Smith plays Alex Hitchins, or Hitch, a date consultant, whose job is to help men get over themselves and approach the women of their dreams. He guides these men through their approach and the first three dates, by which time the guys are on their own, but on solid ground. He tends toward the pithy saying, “Ninety percent of what you’re saying isn’t coming out of your mouth,” but also says things that ring of truth and maturity. “She wants to see the real you, just not all at once,” and “My clients actually like women.”

He takes on a client named Albert Brennaman, an overweight, dorky accountant, played by Kevin James. Albert is in love with one of his clients, a rich, jet-setting glamour girl with whom he has absolutely no chance. This glamour girl, Allegra Cole, played with sweetness and depth by model Amber Valetta, is the current project of tabloid gossip columnist Sara Meles, with whom Hitch finds himself falling in love.

It’s complicated. A bit too complicated. But my sources were right, this is a lovely date movie. The eye-candy factor was high and very inclusive. There were good-looking people of every race and couples of every racial combination. I could look at Will Smith all day, and Eva Mendes, Amber Valetta, and even the cute Southern best friend, played by Julie Ann Emery, gave my sweetie something to watch in every scene. It was just sexy enough to merit the PG-13 rating, but it didn’t depend on nudity or cheap innuendo to carry it.

But it was a good movie from a film-student’s point of view, too. There was a lot to appreciate, and enough to criticize to make for good driving home conversation.

This movie rested on the shoulders of its actors. Led by Smith, the cast offered humor, angst, charm, warmth, and more character development than they should have been able to, considering the script they were given to work with. There is real chemistry between all the couples.

The direction by Andy Tennant was fine, but unremarkable. It relied too heavily on the ethos of New York City and too little on the fleshing out of a compelling story. But if Tennant was too light-handed, at least he had the sense to get out of the way and let the actors do their jobs. They saved his movie for him.

The script was probably the weakest part of this film. The plot hinged on a very slight misunderstanding, so slight it could not carry the weight of the events that supposedly came from it. Inner conflicts that were supposed to create the tension between Smith and Mendes were introduced late in the story. The writer, Kevin Bisch, set up better conflicts early in the film than he used when it was time for the “boy-loses-girl” piece of the story. Is it a coincidence, for example, that the illustrious date doctor only guides his clients through three dates, and that he has himself never been on a fourth date? What happens when he meets the woman who makes him want to ask for a fourth date, and then some? But that intriguing piece was dropped in favor of a lame convention that made parts of the film seem longer than they were.

Excellent performances aren’t enough to make an excellent film. But the very strong acting of the films’ stars was enough to make this film worth seeing. Perhaps next time Tennant and Bisch could take some advice from their own characters and hire a script doctor.

The Hanging Woods

By Scott Loring Sanders

Houghton Mifflin, 2008

Image courtesy of Houghton Mifflin.com

The Hanging Woods is the story of three friends, boys hanging out together in the summer before they begin high school.  The story is narrated in first person by Walter, who, we learn in the first chapter, has read his mother’s diary and learned a secret.  The knowledge of the existence of that secret—though not the content of it—drifts in and out of the book, not revealed until the end, when it serves in some ways to tie the events of the story together.  We also learned that Walter has killed a fox by bludgeoning it with a stick—a rite of passage that taught him not only respect for life, but the thrill of controlling it.  The act and the secret become tied together as the book progresses.

Walter’s two best friends are Jimmy and Mothball.  At first glance, Jimmy is the rougher, more angry of the boys, Mothball is the weaker of the three, and Walter spends much of his time mediating between the two.  Jimmy goads the boys into more and more dangerous activities, and the other two follow along reluctantly.  Jimmy seems to be the one driven most by his anger, but that is a bit of a red herring to direct us away from some other things that are going on under the surface.

It’s hard to know how to talk about this book any further without giving away the big reveal at the end.  Nobody is quite what they seem, and everybody has secrets…some of them revealed far too late.  But the fact is, it wouldn’t have mattered when Walter came to know the rest of the story,” because Walter isn’t all that he presents himself be.  Walter doesn’t do the things he does because of a lack of information.

The story, set in Alabama in 1975, has some intriguing elements, such as a homeless young Vietnam veteran everyone calls the Troll, some racial tension and the free use of the N word, intelligent law enforcement officers (a nice switch, since cops usually get a bad rap in youth fiction), murder, rape, sexual abuse, alcoholism, psychosis, and Mothball’s attempt to get into the Guiness Book of World Records by keeping a headless turkey alive longer than the previous record holder had done.

What fascinated me most was the use of the unreliable first person narrator.  Walter has created an alternative reality that is sometimes questioned by his companions, but never by Walter or the reader.  It’s not until the end that we realize how far things are from the way Walter has told us they are.  It’s fascinating, but it made me shudder, too.

I finished this book in one evening…an evening that didn’t end until nearly 3 a.m., because I couldn’t put it down.  It’s extremely compelling, with the consequences of actions playing out in horrifyingly unpredicted ways, and small mistakes spiraling into deadly results.  When I finally finished, I’m not sure I can say I had that satisfied feeling that comes with finishing a book.  I was disturbed, shocked, and a little confused.

But I thought about it for days afterward, so maybe the story did what it was intended to do.  It doesn’t coddle the reader, but it sure does keep the reader thinking.

I did tell my 8^th grader that I wasn’t sure she should read it.  I would recommend it for high schoolers.

image courtesy of www.moviedownfree.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m a big fan of Hitchcock. I love how he can be scary, quirky, philosophical, sexy, and funny all in the same scene. I have always thought that he brings out the best in his actors and his crews. Every Hitchcock film is a masterpiece of lighting, sound, editing and unparalleled performances from some of the best actors of the age. He even drove writers and producers to new heights of their crafts.

So, what happened with North By Northwest? I mean, all the elements are there. Hitchcock, of course. Cary Grant in the male lead, looking older but dashing with his character lines and salt-and-pepper hair. A young and beautiful Eva Marie Saint as the duplicitous but beautiful spy (or is she?). James Mason and Martin Landau are excellently creepy bad guys. And to top it off, it was written by Ernest Lehman, who wrote things like Sabrina (both the 1954 and 1995 versions), West Side Story, The King and I, and Hello Dolly.

For some reason, the elements just don’t come together in North By Northwest. The plot involves advertising exec Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant, who for reasons never made clear is mistaken for a spy. He gets caught up in a rivalry between some CIA-like government agency and some KGB-like enemy agency. He forms a strong attraction to Eve Kendall, who turns out to be…something. I was never quite clear on this, either. An enemy agent? A double agent? As much a victim as Roger is? Whatever she is, he’s really into her, and he can’t just leave her behind, even when it would be safer for him to do so, and even when it seems like she’s betrayed him. 

Somehow this movie got an Oscar nomination for Lehman for Best Screenplay. But how good can the writing be if an intelligent viewer, who already expects to like the movie, finds herself not knowing what’s going on, and worse, just not caring? I only stuck with it for the whole 131 minutes because I believed so strongly in Alfred Hitchcock that I was sure he was goint to pull it out, to make it all worth it. He didn’t.

There are a few iconic scenes in this that were interesting to see, and gave us glimpses of Hitchcock’s usual unique touch. Near the beginning, when Thornhill is kidnapped, force-fed liquor, and sent off behind the wheel of a car, we see the journey down a winding mountain road through his bleary, unfocused eyes. I don’t like POV-cam much—it makes me dizzy—but this was some of the best, earliest use of that technique, and it’s pretty scary to watch. I found myself leaning away from the turns as he attempted them.

About halfway through the film, we get the most famous shot–the one everyone knows even if they’ve ever seen the movie.  Cary Grant is in the middle of nowhere waiting for someone he thinks can give him some information, and he gets chased by a cropduster.  That is a great action scene, made all the most powerful because it’s presented with no music  Just silence, panting, and gunshots. 

Then, at the end, when Roger and Eve consummate their love, the train they’re on enters into a tunnel—get it? It’s a blatant Freudian symbol, but all the more entertaining for its utter disregard for subtlety.

Those touches are fun, but don’t salvage the movie. Almost any other Hitchcock movie would be a better use of your time.

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