reviews Archives - Page 4 of 16 - Ramblin' with Roger

Reluctant, late BOOK REVIEW: Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library

The premise of the book is that the town had lost its library, and that the 12-year-olds had gone their entire lives without ANY library.

The intrepid New York Erratic asks:

What’s the most recent fiction book you’ve read?

You ask a simple question, and I have a simple, then complicated, answer.

The book was Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library by Chris Grabenstein, which became a New York Times Bestseller.

Lucky Kyle wins a spot as one of the first twelve kids invited to a gala, overnight library lock-in filled with of fun and games. But the next morning, when the lock-in is supposed to be over, the doors remain locked. Kyle and the others must follow book-related clues and unravel all sorts of secret puzzles to find the hidden escape route if they want to win Mr. Lemoncello’s most fabulous prize ever.

Which I’m not sure is quite accurate, from the book I read, but no matter.

It’s gotten good press.

I received a review copy of this book in February of 2013 and read it in a couple of weeks. Then I was trying to write that assessment of the book, but I just couldn’t. The reason was that there were elements of the book that just irritated the heck out of me, and I didn’t know if I were being overly critical, or that Young Adult fiction just wasn’t my genre. Nah, I’ve read other YA books and didn’t have that reaction.

OK, the things that bugged me:

1. The premise of the book is that the town had lost its library and that the 12-year-olds had gone their entire lives without ANY library, but then the benefactor, the toy guru, builds this beyond state-of-the-art structure. I know it’s pretending, but could not this guy had SOME temporary structure operational in the interim?

2. For young people without a library, they know astonishing detail about the Dewey Decimal system, far more than this librarian could glean off the top of my head.

3. The conflict that Kyle had at home was actually quite appealing, but once he got into the library, he wasn’t that interesting a character to me.

4. A minor point, but this was supposed to be a game designed by a toy and game guru. Yet there was a reference to the real game SORRY, with a character going back three spaces. There’s no such card in SORRY; one can go back four spaces with a 4, or one space with a 10. Took me right out of the match.

5. The relationship of one of the other 12-year-olds with a famous librarian was just too convenient for me.

6. There were rebus puzzles that I simply did not understand; it may have been rectified in the actual store printing, but what I saw confounded me.

This obligation to write this review hung over me for months, with the publisher’s representative periodically nudging me, and me trying to write it without finding a satisfactory angle that wasn’t negative.

It wasn’t that it was all bad, though a tad convoluted, but it just didn’t engage me enough, and I couldn’t tell if it were the book or me. And the review hanging over my head prevented me from reading ANY book for three months, figuring if I started reading something else, I’d NEVER write the review. Finally, I gave up.

When there is a nonfiction book for general audiences, or a music album, or a movie, or any number of other items I could be asked to review, I could do it. And if I had LOVED this book, I probably could have written something about it, too. Dissing it, though, when I didn’t feel versed enough in the genre was just not something I was comfortable with.

And, NYE, if you hadn’t forced the issue, I STILL would not have written about it. (The pain and pleasure of Ask Roger Anything.)

Video review: Singin’ in the Rain

After noting in this blog that I had not seen the 1952 film in its entirety, it was total coincidence that The Wife decided the family ought to watch together Singin’ In the Rain.

I did not know this until watching the extras, but the film was MGM producer Arthur Freed’s plan to use his catalog of songs, written with Nacio Herb Brown, and used in previous MGM musical films, mostly from the 1930s. It became the job of screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green to create a script that would make sense. They decided that making a film that shows one studio’s foray into talking pictures in response to the real game changing film, 1927’s The Jazz Singer. Hollywood is usually good at showing Hollywood.

Singin’ In the Rain is mostly marvelous. Gene Kelly not only plays Don Lockwood, “a popular silent film star with humble roots as a singer, dancer and stunt man, ” he also co-directed it with Stanley Donen. He performs the iconic title song sequence, which I had seen often, but it works so much better once seen in context.

Don’s leading lady in the silent films is Lina Lamont, played by Jean Hagen, doing her best Judy Holliday routine. She has a voice made for silent films.

Donald O’Connor, as Don’s best friend Cosmo, is marvelous dancing with Kelly, particularly in Moses Supposes, a Roger Edens/Comden and Green piece new for the film. But O’Connor is most extraordinary in his solo stint, Make ‘Em Laugh.

Debbie Reynolds, not yet 20, plays Kathy Selden. Don, avoiding his fans, accidentally lands in Kathy’s car. She feigns disinterest in his “undignified” film career, but later Don discovers she is not a stage actress but a chorus girl. Eventually, romance is kindled.

After the disastrous preview of The Dueling Cavalier, Don, Kathy and Cosmo come up with the idea to change it into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier. It’s at this point the marvelous dance Good Morning with those three characters takes place, up and down a flight of stairs, among other tricks. Reynolds, a gymnast but not previously a dancer, managed to keep up with Kelly and O’Connor.

I understand it from a historic context, but the one part of the movie I wish were a bit shorter was the flashy Broadway Melody Ballet. Not sure what I would have cut out, although it would NOT have been the parts with Cyd Charisse as Kelly’s dance partner. Incidentally, Reynolds’ rendition of You Are My Lucky Star, sung to a billboard showing an image of Don, was cut; nicely performed yet unnecessary in advancing the plot.

All in all, Singin’ in the Rain is a quite enjoyable film, and a cultural icon to boot, referenced in everything from A Clockwork Orange to Glee. The extras, showing where the songs had been used in previous films, was entertaining, as was Debbie Reynolds’ recollections of the filmmaking.

MOVIE REVIEW: Stories We Tell

It shall have to suffice to say that the narrative structure was extremely clever, very much like the layers of an onion being peeled away.

This hasn’t happened in a very long time: the Wife arranged for a babysitter, and we went to a movie about which I knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. When we got to the Spectrum Theatre in Albany on Monday night, I noticed on the movie poster that the director of Stories We Tell was Sarah Polley, who starred in the very good, but kind of depressing The Sweet Hereafter (1997) and directed the very good, but kind of depressing Away From Her (2006).

This movie was a documentary about the family of Sarah Polley. There’s a lot of chatter early on with several players you can’t possibly keep track of- but you will soon enough. The conceit of the title is that we can all tell a story, but it may not be the same one, even regarding the same person and the same events.

I could spend two or three paragraphs explaining how the narrative weaves from Sarah recording her father Michael’s recollection of Sarah’s late mother Diane to others remembering her, not always the same way. But it shall have to suffice to say that the narrative structure was extremely clever, very much like the layers of an onion being peeled away.

In the exploration of the story, which involves incredibly personal revelations, it seems that most of the players were in a better place as a result of the journey that the film captured, reconstructing the truth of their collective and individual lives. Sometimes the participants reacted to Sarah as director, whereas other times as daughter or sister, as they muse on family history.

It’s interesting to me that the critics liked it more on Rotten Tomatoes (95%, at this writing) than the movie-going audience (82%). The Wife and I, and especially the guy sitting in front of us, who had a hearty laugh, really liked the film. Yet I noticed that three or four people of the 14-16 people in the room left the film with about 15 minutes to go, when a film technique was revealed; did they think it was a cheat in a documentary? (I thought it was, if not obvious, then a likely tool.)

I don’t really want to say more, except that I think you’ll find it quite worthwhile. If you see it on DVD, try to see it in one sitting to glean the maximum effect.

Movie review: 20 Feet From Stardom

Merry Clayton sings on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”; juxtapose that with her cover of Neil Young’s “Southern Man.”

It pretty much starts off with Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”: “And the colored girls go do doo doo, do doo …”. The movie 20 Feet From Stardom is an exceptional documentary about the generally ignored, unknown, but tremendous backup singers, often black women, who perform on some of the biggest hit songs and albums of all time.

Meet Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer, Merry Clayton, Tata Vega, Claudia Lennear, and Judith Hill, most of whom are or were figuring out whether they had the egos necessary to be solo artists, or whether the craft they engaged in, making the star performer look good, was good enough. Love, who was thwarted commercially by producer Phil Spector more than once, was cleaning houses when she heard one of her own songs on the radio and had to come back as a singer. Listening to Clayton’s voice on the Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter, bare without the instrumentation, is chilling.

There is some insight from folks such as Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, and music producer Lou Adler, among others. We also hear wisdom from former Raelette (background singer for Ray Charles) Mabel John, who has a second career. The film touches briefly on some of the folks who were background vocalists and became stars, such as Luther Vandross.

A couple highlights for me: the segment on Clayton’s role in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”, especially juxtaposed with her cover of Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” the latter of which is on the soundtrack album for the film. Also on there is Love’s cover of Bill Withers, appropriately with three of the background singers we had already seen in the movie.

How shall I put this? If you have enjoyed the popular music of the past six decades, see 20 Feet from Stardom, if you can. There were only a dozen people at the Spectrum in Albany when my wife and I saw it Thursday night. Certainly catch it on video, because it’s quite likely NOT playing at a theater near you.

Movie Reviews: Oscar-nominated live-action short films for 2012

On my birthday this month, I decided to see the Oscar-nominated short films at the Spectrum Theatre in Albany. This was predicated on the fact that I might see Zero Dark Thirty on video, but might be less likely to find these. As it turned out, it was the very last day of its three- or four-week run. The program ran for 115 minutes. The films were interspersed with commentary by Luke Matheny who won a couple of years ago for God of Love, which as I noted at the time, was probably my least favorite of the nominees. Unlike the commenters for the animated films this year, I didn’t think Matheny brought that much insight to the table. It didn’t help that he was trying to be wryly humorous and the films, for the most part, were not.

Film descriptions were from the Spectrum website.

Death of a Shadow (France and Belgium/Dutch, 20 minutes) – A soldier attempts to ransom his soul from Death and return to the girl he loves. Directed by Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele.
This was the darkest of the five, and quite metaphysical, taking photos of people’s shadows at the moments of their deaths, any time in history. It was well done, but most uncomfortable.

Henry (Canada/English, 21 minutes) – Henry, an elderly concert pianist, undergoes a series of confusing experiences as he searches for his wife. Directed by Yan England.
The audience may be a bit confused by the action at first, intentionally so, but ultimately this is a very sweet story of aging. I’ve seen a couple of full-length films about getting old recently. This is not as cavalier as Quartet, but not nearly as depressing as Amour. In fact, this movie showed far more of the couple’s good times than Amour did. This was my favorite of the five.

Curfew (USA/English, 19 minutes) – A young man on the verge of committing suicide receives a call from his sister asking him to babysit his niece. Directed by Shawn Christensen
This film was the Oscar winner, and I can see why. It’s about second chances. The protagonist is the last person his sister knows she’d want to leave her daughter with. Possibly the most whimsical of the five, despite its beginning.

Buzkashi Boys (Afghanistan/Persian, 28 minutes) – Two boys in Afghanistan, a blacksmith’s son and an orphan living on the streets, dream of winning a popular and fierce polo match. Directed by Sam French and Ariel Nasr.
In many ways, Kabul, Afganistan itself is the star. Can you get out of this bleak place, or are you stuck by birth to your destiny? Very magnetic lads, especially the one playing the orphan. The ending is vaguely unsatisfying, but it was still a good film.

Asad (South Africa/Somali, 18 minutes) – A boy from a poor Somali village must decide between piracy and life as a fisherman. Directed by Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura.
The pirates are some scary dudes who our young hero has to deal with, which he does with great skill. Then he is put to another test. An interesting, somewhat peculiar story, though I’m not sure of the ending belongs in this film, which, not incidentally stars a cast of actual Somali refugees.

All in all, a good crop of films worthy of nomination.