Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Reviewed Books

Having recently covered all of the reviewed movies, I might as well mention the reviewed books (including those in the 'BOOK VS MOVIE' segments, which are indicated with a *). Much like the movie post, this will be updated every time a book is reviewed.

~#~
1776 by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards*

~A~
All My Sons by Arthur Miller
American Prince by Tony Curtis
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis*

~B~
The Beguiled by Thomas Cullinan*
Being There by Jerzy Kosinski*
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth*
Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill*
Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovic
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh*
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding*
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin*

~C~
Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman*
Carrie by Stephen King
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams*
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell*

~D~
The Danish Girl by David Ebershoff*
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Disobedience by Naomi Alderman*
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick*


~E~
East of Eden by John Steinbeck*
Equus by Peter Shaffer*

~F~
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy*
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk*
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool by Peter Turner*
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters*
The Film Club by David Gilmour
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally*

~G~
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard*
Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen*
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet*
The Godfather by Mario Puzo*
Golden Boy by Clifford Odets*
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn*
The Good German by Joseph Kanon
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Grifters by Jim Thompson*

~H~
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad*
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby*
High-Rise by J.G. Ballard*
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson*
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton*
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III*

~I~
The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill
Include Me Out by Farley Granger
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote*
Indignation by Philip Roth*
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon*
Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee*
In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick*
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer*

~J~
Jaws by Peter Benchley*
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

~K~

~L~
Lady Susan by Jane Austen*
The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry
Lean on Pete by Wally Vlautin*
The Leisure Seeker by Michael Zadoorian*
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov*
Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill*
The Lost City of Z by David Grann*

~M~
Macbeth by William Shakespeare*
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett*
The Martian by Andy Weir*
Maurice by E.M. Forster*
Misery by Stephen King
Mr. Peanut by Adam Ross
Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility by Patricia Santana
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier*

~N~
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy*

~O~
Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham*
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan*
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey*
Ordinary People by Judith Guest*
Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams*
Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré*

~P~
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky*
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith*
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw*

~Q~

~R~
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry*
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
The Revenant by Michael Punke*
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates*
The Road by Cormac McCarthy*
Room by Emma Donoghue*
Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin*

~S~
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen*
The Shining by Stephen King*
Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter*
Silence by Shūsaku Endō*
A Simple Plan by Scott Smith*
Slam by Nick Hornby
A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin*
Sophie's Choice by William Styron*
Still Alice by Lisa Genova*
The Stranger by Albert Camus
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams*
Suddenly, Last Summer by Tennessee Williams*
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway*
Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams*
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks*

~T~
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain*
Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans*
The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer
A Thousand Clowns by Herb Gardner*
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee*
True Grit by Charles Portis*
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

~U~

~V~
A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller

~W~
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets
Wildlife by Richard Ford*

~X~

~Y~
You Were Never Really Here by Jonathan Ames*

~Z~
The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman*

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

My Life in Film

A week ago, Andrew did a small post on a game he made up. The only requirement is the answers have to be movie titles.

Gender: Working Girl
Describe Yourself: Rebel Without a Cause
How Do You Feel Right Now: Dazed and Confused
Where Do You Live: On the Waterfront
What's the Weather Like There: Sunshine
Where Would You Like To Go Right Now: Sleepless in Seattle
What's Your Biggest Fear: Crimes and Misdemeanors
Your Life Is A Film, Give It A Name: As Good As It Gets
What Will You Be Doing Today: Dirty Dancing
Give Us A Piece Of Advice: It Happened One Night

That was actually harder than I thought it would be.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

War Movie Blogathon

If you noticed from the last two blogathons I did, I wasn't pleased by the lack of posts on the subjects. A fellow blogger suggested I should do a theme for a blogathon rather than have it focus on one subject. So I figured I would do just that.

The subject for the blogathon (if you couldn't guess from the title of the post) is war movies. Whether set on the battlefront or the home front, I'll take them. But there are some requirements:
  • War has to be a main theme in the movie.
  • The following wars can be used: Revolutinary War, Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, War on Terrorism
  • I'll also accept old posts.
Anyway, my e-mail is PoofyPuff1000@aol.com. The deadline is April 11. Get those posts in!

Twitter Conversation #5

Man, I haven't done one of these in awhile. Let's see if I can remember. Conersationlists are me, Ryan of A Life in Equinox: A Movie Lover's Journal, Brian of Brian's Film Review Blog and Michelle of We Are Movie Geeks. Oh, and also the author of Common Sense Movie Reviews (don't know their name). And it went like this:

MovieNut14: Just saw The Great Escape. One word: sch-WEET.
ohman4 (Michelle): @MovieNut14 isn't Steve McQueen great in it?
MovieNut14: @ohman4 Hell yeah. No wonder he's the "King of Cool".
ohman4: @MovieNut14 next McQueen film..Towering Inferno...omg. Plays it so smooth
bpdreview (Brian): @ohman4 @MovieNut14 Towering Inferno was a mess!
ohman4: @bpdreview @MovieNut14 great Irwin Allen schlock from the mid 70's plus every big name at the time was in it....great fun to watch
MovieNut14: @ohman4 @bpdreview Hey, for what it's worth, next movie I see w/ McQueen: Bullitt.
Univarn (Ryan): @MovieNut14 @ohman4 @bpdreview I think Bullitt gets underrated far too much these days. It just oozes cool
ohman4: @MovieNut14 @bpdreview BULITT...way to go. Also his last movie, THE HUNTER...good one too
MovieNut14: @Univarn To answer your question on what's the best WWII escape movie, it's The Great Escape.
bpdreview: @Univarn @ohman4 @MovieNut14 I haven't seen Bullitt yet. Now I really want to.
MovieNut14: @ohman4 @bpdreview @Univarn Oh, and The Magnificent Seven.
bpdreview: @ohman4 @MovieNut14 @Univarn I really liked him in The Thomas Crown Affair. The film doesn't hold up, but McQueen's coolness does.
bpdreview: @ohman4 @MovieNut14 @Univarn Plus you get a supposedly erotic chess scene that will make you laugh out loud.
bpdreview: @ohman4 @MovieNut14 @Univarn I forgot about my favorite McQueen film (out of the 4 I've seen) Peckinpah's The Getaway
MovieNut14: @bpdreview To calm your desire to see Bullitt, it's on Netflix Watch Instantly.
bpdreview: @MovieNut14 Cool, though unfortunately so are 127 other films I really want to see.
Univarn: @bpdreview @ohman4 @MovieNut14 love The Getaway. The movie didn't even need a plot. McQueen and MacGraw's raw sex appeal alone was epic.
bpdreview: @Univarn So wonderfully violent and so wonderfully strange. The subplot with Sally Struthers makes no sense. I love it!
MovieNut14: @Univarn And it was thanks to that which lead MacGraw to leave her husband to be with McQueen. No woman can resist the McQueen charm.
ohman4: @Univarn @MovieNut14 @bpdreview the chess scene is over the top delicious in THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR...its lol funny what they do
bpdreview: @MovieNut14 @Univarn And few men can as well.
bpdreview: @ohman4 I blush whenever I play my bishop.
Univarn: @ohman4 @MovieNut14 @bpdreview I've always held a strong soft spot for Sand Pebbles though. Such a darker, deeper, McQueen performance.
MovieNut14: @bpdreview Of course The Getaway is "wonderfully violent", as you say. What do you expect? It IS directed by Sam Peckinpah after all.
MovieNut14: @Univarn That movie got McQueen his only Oscar nod.
MovieNut14: I gotta go to bed, I'm beat. That conversation w/ @ohman4 @bpdreview & @Univarn may or may not end up on my blog.
ohman4: @bpdreview LOL...I'm sure....quite a scene
ohman4: thanks to @MovieNut14 @Univarn for the walk down McQueen lane @bpdreview checkmate
CSMovieReviews: @Univarn @bpdreview @MovieNut14 A totally irrelevant Steve McQueen fact, his grandson is in The Vampire Diaries tv show.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Stalag 17

Along with Tim Burton, I'm a fan of the work of Billy Wilder. Although I've only seen five of his movies, I know enough that he's a versatile director.

Life at a German POW camp is considerably normal, excluding the numerous attempted escapes. However, the prisoners in one barrack grow suspicious of Sgt. J.J. Sefton (William Holden), who always seems to get what he wants from the guards and he bets against the aspiring escapers. Is he a spy?

I really admire the tense writing of Wilder. I also like how Holden's character you want to like, but you can't bring yourself to do that. The movie itself is brilliant.

My Rating: *****

Friday, March 26, 2010

Back to the Future

As I stated before, I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi. But now and then, I take a shine to it. Case in point, I'm reviewing Back to the Future.

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a teenager who's unsure of what his future holds for him. His band was rejected from being the performing band for the school dance, and the only bright spots in his life are his girlfriend Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells) and Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd), the town's crackpot scientist and Marty's good friend. Doc is working on a time machine, which is fitted into a DeLorean sports car. Marty accidently gets sent to 1955, the date Doc entered, and is stuck there until he can find a way to power up the car. Along with that, he interferes with his parents' first meeting, causing his mother Lorraine (Lea Thompson) to fall in love with him instead of his father George (Crispin Glover).

If you read the premise on paper, you would've thought it was another B-movie or something of the sort. In reality, it's actually a pretty good sci-fo movie. The special effects are also good, though I think they're a little dated compared to, say, Avatar.

My Rating: ****1/2

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Goodfellas

"What's the best gangster film?" people always seem to ask. Some say it's The Godfather (or its sequel), others say Scarface. But for me, it's Martin Scorsese's 1990 gem Goodfellas.

The movie opens with a line in Henry Hill's (Ray Liotta) narration: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." Hill achieves that goal and maintains his status for 30 years as a "wiseguy". But tensions between him and his fellows "wiseguys" Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) may tear that dream apart.

As I watching it, I realized how immense and intense Scorsese can get with his directing. It reminded me of the themes in The Godfather and the intensity of the violence in Raging Bull. But much like Raging Bull, Goodfellas shows the vulnerability of man. That, and it lost Best Picture to a lucky first-time director. Anyway, Goodfellas successfully managed to BLOW MY MIND.

My Rating: *****

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Philadelphia

It's always movies that get on the touchy subjects (homosexuality, mental disorders) that tend to get more attention during award season. Well, in my opinion anyway.

Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a successful lawyer who is hiding two secrets: he's gay and has AIDS. He gets fired from his firm for the latter. He calls upon fellow lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), who's a bit of a homophobe, to fight against his firm.

It's always interesting to see an actor known for their comedic roles do dramatic parts (ie, Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses, Mary Tyler Moore in Ordinary People, Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls, etc.). Hanks definitely solidified his status as a serious actor with this role. Washington delivers a strong supporting role. If you need a good cry, here's your movie.

My Rating: ****1/2

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Raging Bull

Martin Scorsese definitely has one of the most elite careers in Hollywood. He has directed some of the greatest movies ever made, maintained an eight-film collaboration with Robert De Niro, and is now working with Leonardo DiCaprio. And to honor his career with De Niro, I thought I would review one of the more famous movies they've done.

Jake LaMotta (De Niro) is a small-time boxer who later becomes middleweight champion. His violent behavior in the ring tends to interfere with his personal life, particularly his relationships with his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) and wife Vickie (Cathy Moriarty). But there is one opponent Jake cannot defeat: himself.

I said I could see how Ordinary People won Best Picture for that year. Now I'm eating my own words; Raging Bull is AMAZING. I can clearly see now why so many were (and still are) pissed off at it losing Best Picture. De Niro delivers the performance of his career as LaMotta. Had he lost, all hell would've broken loose.

My Rating: *****

Monday, March 22, 2010

Official Christopher Nolan Blog-a-thon

Judging from the lack of enthusiasm and/or interest last time, I was hoping there would be more posts on this subject. Which, thankfully, was true. Much like last time, these posts I found from browsing through blogs I normally read:

Following
The King Bulletin
ThisTimeitWillBeDifferent

Memento
A Life in Equinox: A Movie Lover's Journal
Brian's Film Review Blog (NOTE: The Sting is also reviewed in the post)
The Real Reel
Movie Mobsters

Batman Begins
ThisTimeitWillBeDifferent
Common Sense Movie Reviews
Movie Mobsters

The Prestige
Strange Culture
Foolish Blatherings

The Dark Knight
The Dark of the Matinee
The Movie Encyclopedia
Common Sense Movie Reviews
John Likes Movies
Brian's Film Review Blog
CINEVIEWS
The Movie Trust
Movies Kick Ass Blog
Stop the Planet of the Apes... I want to get off.
film babble blog
Movie Mobsters

Other Posts of Interest
~Film Experience calls Nolan a "modern maestro"
~The King Bulletin ponders on what if The Dark Knight got a R rating
~The Dark of the Matinee examines Nolan's take on the Batman franchise

If you find any other posts on Nolan, feel free to mention them in the comments.