Book Catch-Up (What I'm Reading): God's Word, Books About or By God-Believers, Stephen King, Shakespeare, and Conservative Politics

I’ve noticed, while I go on and on about Movies, TV, and even music, I barely mention books.  I suppose that’s because it takes much longer to read a book than it does to watch a sitcom, or even share a movie-watching experience with family and friends, which usually doesn’t last more than a few hours.  Books are less of a shared experience, unless you join a book club, and even then, most of the shared experience is still solitary, except when you discuss what you’ve read.  While I might watch several TV shows in a single day, it takes longer to read a book, of course.

           

Yet I still find that, by the end of a month, I may have read parts, or all, of entire books.  For this reason, here are a few brief descriptions of my top five, and the one I didn’t care for as much:

The Best

1. The Bible (Matthew)

I still read a chapter of the bible every night before going to bed, and this month, it was the book of Matthew.  Reading the bible every night keeps me grounded in God’s word, and always keeps the ideas and ideals of Jesus and His Kingdom at the forefront of my mind, ready to pop in and help me make the right, and righteous decisions, in my daily life.  Not that I always do, of course.  Nobody's perfect, and I still wind up making the wrong decisions sometimes, as do we all, but it also helps more often than perhaps I realize.  Put another way, I’d hate to think of all the lousy choices I’d be making if I didn’t have God and His word in my life.

2. Seven Men by Eric Metaxes

Written by another great Christian role model, this book is about seven Christian men he admires and looks up to: America’s first president, George Washington; European abolitionist William Wilberforce; Olympic champion Eric Liddell; Outspoken Nazi protester Dietrich Bonhoeffer; America’s first black Major League Baseball player Jackie Robinson; Pope John Paul II; and Charles W. Colson, who went to prison for his involvement with Watergate, even though he could have plea bargained for a lesser sentence, and there turned his life around and founded Prison Fellowship and Angel Tree.  Several movies have been made about some of these men, including Amazing Grace (Wilberforce), Chariots of Fire (Liddell), 42 (Robinson), and a 2005 TV movie titled Pope John Paul II, starring Jon Voight.

Doing a little internet investigating, I have again found some dissenters of some of these men, including the author, and as usual, some of their complaints may even have merit.  But I’ll share a quote of Ronald Reagan’s here, he being yet another impressive role model:  “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.”

3. Godforsaken by Dinesh D’Souza

I love some of D’Souza’s books so much, I purchased the audio versions, and have re-read them by actually re-listening to them during breaks at work, when I go for a brief walk.  I enjoy being spiritually and intellectually challenged while I get a bit of a break.  Now I don’t agree with everything Dinesh says in his books – for one thing, he doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with the lack of fossil evidence that shows one species ever becoming another, and tends to embrace the theory of evolution at the same time he discredits Darwinian atheists, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate his attempt to look at this from a purely intellectual view, and defend a belief in God at the same time.  I’ll again use that quote of Reagan’s above, and realize that, despite a few differences in thought, which happens any time any two minds compare notes, D’Souza is still a “friend” and ally in my theological, philosophical, and political "battles".

4. Dr. Sleep by Stephen King

I’ve read a lot of King, and since my Mom’s friends know this, one of them lent me his latest book, which is a sequel to The Shining.  Despite being quite morally rough in the first 50 pages, I finally began to enjoy revisiting Danny Torrence and his struggles with the ghosts of his past, in the form of alcoholism courtesy of his father, or literal ghosts from the Overlook Hotel.  The new character of young Abra Stone, a young girl with an immense Shining ability, draws the attention of not only Danny, but a group called the True Knot, led by Rose in the strangely tilted top hat, a very long lived band who survive by sucking the Shining out of kids.  Although King is very good at developing plot, characters, settings, and even themes, after reading a whole lot of one particular author, you begin to notice the same things over and over again.  In this story, not only does it have many things in common with it’s predecessor, The Shining, but there are strong elements of many of Stephen King’s other stories, such as Carrie and Firestarter (since Abra is a little girl with a tremendous, nearly limitless supernatural power growing within her), the ending of It (as the heroes must come together and make a stand against an ancient evil), Dreamcatchers (Danny must “compartmentailize” his mind in order to overcome the evil that threatens them), and The Green Mile (with a plot twist very similar to what happens between John Coffey and the Warden’s wife).  I enjoyed this tale, but it took a while to get going, and finding it a bit derivative of some of King’s other work, I just didn’t like it as much as some of those older novels it borrowed from.

5. No Fear Shakespeare: A Companion

Well, I am an English Major.  I’d have to say I do love the poetic language, intelligent ideas, intriguing characters, and interesting plots of Shakespeare’s plays.  My favorites have always been the ones you might suspect, the ones that are generally considered some of Shakespeare’s finest works:  Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, The Tempest, King Lear, Julius Caesar, and Othello.  Some others I’ve seen, but they didn’t become instant favorites, such as Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Reading them is all well and good, if a person has the time and wants to devote it to these plays, but I was looking for something that described all his plays in simple language I could use as a quick refresher.  This book expertly goes into what life was like back in Shakespeare’s day, and shone a light on what little is actually known about Shakespeare, including all those theories that Shakespeare may not have written all these plays, and it also looks at some other famous writers who didn’t care for him.  After that, it covers all his plays in order, from the most popular I mention above, to ones most people, even fans, just never get around to reading, such as The Two Noble Kinsmen and Cymbeline.  Hamlet and King Lear are one thing, but who has really ever heard of those last two?

I’m 0ne of those types that never wants to stop learning, and this book covers pretty much everything I'd ever want to know about Shakespeare and his plays in roughly 300 pages.  It’s the kind of book I might turn to in the future for a bit of a brush-up.   

Not the Best

Of course, there usually always has to be a worst, even if it's just by process of elimination.  Every so often, I find a book that I’m (sadly) not really all that fond of, and this time it was:

1. Guilty by Ann Coulter

This is why I don’t think I’d be much of a politician or political commentator.  It’s not “in my blood.”  I've always believed I’m more religious than political.  Although I absolutely loved Ann Coulter’s book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, published in 2007, with most of her other books, I usually find that a little bit of Ann goes a long way.  I still like her snarky sense of humor, and when she gives it to liberal dunces who really deserve it.  But after a while, all this political fighting just starts to drag.  And then there’s the fact that everybody has their opinions, and after keeping up with many of her posts on Townhall.com, I find that she often writes some opinions that cause me to raise just one of my eyes quizzically.  Mike Adams may be right.  Here, her arguments are often weighed down by too much exposition or bizarre tangents that go one for too many pages.  Godless, which I loved so much that I downloaded the abridged audio version read by Ann Coulter herself, wasn’t like that.  This book, Guilty, made me realize that, with a few exceptions, Ann is probably best in small little bites here and there, and even then, you might not agree, with either her message or her style, even if you’re a far right conservative.  I often think she writes so many books and appears on so many talk shows simply to sell more books and appear on more talk shows.  Like many famous people, she seems to suffer from just a tad bit of narcissism.      

Music Catch-up (What I'm Listening To): Dancing with the Stars, Janet Jackson, The Oscars 2009, Evita, and a Few Other Favorites

I love music, and every month, I’m always working on my iPod (and now Google Play) transferring music, deleting some (but not off the cloud), adding some others, and listening to them in the car on my CDs, or at work on my iPod, along with the radio.  Out of all the music I worked on this particular month, either downloading or adding from my older CD’s, these are the ones I enjoyed the most this time:

1. Dancing with the Stars – Fall 2013

I love making playlists, and often, I make them based off of the TV shows I’m watching.  I’ve done this with American Idol, The Sing-Off, The Oscars, So You Think You Can Dance, and Dancing with the Stars.  My most recent playlist of this type was from the 2013 fall season of Dancing with the Stars, in which I pick my favorite songs they used from the season (that I hadn’t used from a previous season, so no repeats).  That means there is a LOT of variety, as the songs can be from any time or place, whether I’ve heard them before or not.  Here are the songs I enjoyed the most from this season:

Popular Song – Mika & Ariana Grande

I’m So Excited – The Pointer Sisters

Apologize – OneRepublic & Timbaland

El Tango de Roxanne – Ewan McGregor & the cast of Moulin Rouge

Symphony No. 5 – Beethoven (I chose the version by the Tbilisi Symphony Orchestra)

Come Fly with Me – (I chose the version by John Stevens of American Idol season 3)

Bang Bang – will.i.am (from Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby)

Sing with a Swing (Raf Marchesini Radio Edit) – DKS

Love Me Again – John Newman (but I chose Will Champlin’s version from The Voice)

Maria (Pablo Flores Spanglish Radio Edit) – Ricky Martin

She’s Always a Woman – Billy Joel

Skyfall (from Skyfall) – ADELE

Blue Danube (On the Beautiful Danube) – Strauss (by London Philharmonic Orchestra)

Mad World (from Donnie Darko) – Michael Andrews & Gary Jules

Welcome to Burlesque (from Burlesque) – Cher

The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) – Ylvis

Sparkling Diamonds – Nicole Kidman and the cast of Moulin Rouge

Weird Science (from Weird Science)– Oingo Boingo

I Wan’na Be Like You (from The Jungle Book) – new by Robbie Williams & Olly Murs

Try a Little Tenderness – Otis Redding (I chose the Glee cast version)

What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong

2. Gary’s Grab Bag

Even with all of these playlists I like to do, I often hear old or new music on the radio and think, “Man, I wish I had that one!  I love that song!”  This happens more with older music, particularly from the eighties.  So I started making this playlist with songs I’ve always wanted, such as “Sharp Dressed Man” by ZZ Top, “Venus” by Bananarama, “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan, and “No More Tears (Enough is Enough)” by Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer.  There’s a few new ones in there as well, including one with explicit lyrics – “You Fckn Did It” by Jason Mraz - and “Can You Do This” by Aloe Blacc that didn’t quite make it onto my Dancing with the Stars Fall 2013 playlist.

3. Janet Jackson Jams

I don’t like all Janet Jackson’s music, but like her late brother, she’s got some great jams, heavily weighted towards her earlier hits.  So I created a playlist of what I considered to be her best “jams”.  Her Design of a Decade: 1986-1996 CD contains most of them, weighted heavily on her Control and Rhythm Nation CDs, from “What Have You Done for Me Lately” and “Nasty” to “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” and “Alright”.  These songs comprise most of the first CD from her two CD set Number Ones, but I also included a smattering of interesting grooves from her later period, such as “If”, “Scream” (with her brother Michael), and “The Best Things in Life are Free” (with Luthor Vandross).  On a side note, when I make these playlists, I always burn them to CD and look for cool pictures to use for covers and track listings.  While looking through Janet Jackson Google images, I noticed many of her images were nearly pornographic, and I also noticed that the innocent girl from Good Times, who once sang “Got my own life / I wanna make my own decisions” and “Let’s wait awhile / Before we go too far” eventually started singing songs with lyrics like “Ooh, my body’s yours (spank that) / Spank that back door (like that) / Drive me like a Porsche (yea)” and “If you feel like I do, you can get it tonight / But first you gotta make me say / Ooooooh” and  “Gotta take him home / When I get him alone / I’ll make him scream and moan / He won’t wanna stop.”  I like some of her musical grooves, in her less pornographic songs, but on some of these later ones, she doesn’t leave a whole lot of room to misinterpret her sexual desires, especially with some of her image galleries, which, true to form these days among most pop stars, objectifies her. 

4. Best of Oscars 2009

I love making these Oscar playlists.  This one features such varying music as “You’re Heart is as Black as Night” by Melody Gardot, from the film An Education, the wonderful instrumental track “Discombobulate” by Hans Zimmer, from the Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack, “Gone, Gone, Gone” by Colin Farrell from Crazy Heart, the French track “Loin de Paname” by Nora Arnezeder from Paris 36, and the song “Unusual Way” from the musical Nine, which was sung by Nicole Kidman in the movie, but I was just as impressed by Griffith Frank’s rendition on the soundtrack album, so that’s the version I downloaded.  A few other enjoyable tracks from some of these same films include “The Weary Kind” by Ryan Bingham, “Cinema Italiano” by Kate Hudson, and “Smoke Without Fire” by Duffy.  Those are just eight of the 22 tracks from that years’ films that were nominated for Best Song, Best Score, Best Picture, or that won other awards. 

5. Evita

It’s sometimes hard to believe this movie is already almost 20 years old, until you look at Madonna these days, trying to act like she’s still the young ingénue she was back in the mid 80’s.  She’s still shocking people, but in a different way than before.  She used to “push the envelope” with her immoral behavior, but now people are more disturbed by the fact that it’s a senior citizen is doing these kinds of things.  As far as motion picture musicals are concerned, Madonna will never be better than she was in this film.  It was the perfect vehicle for her.  In the hands of an expert director, the role was all one long music video.  She was able to sustain it throughout the movie, and we can just thank our lucky stars that Andrew Lloyd Webber didn’t leave her any room to actually speak.  And aside from those musical interludes and cues, and compositions that are more dialogue set to music without the concept of a song, there are a few really good songs peppered throughout the production.  Both Madonna and Antonio Bandaras managed to do some expert work here, and I still love the pull this old Soundtrack out sometimes and run through it.  Highlights include “Oh What a Circus”, “Buenos Aires”, “Good Night and Thank You”, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, and “You Must Love Me”.

TV Catch-up: 20's Gangsters, Zombies, Nerds, Comedic Cops, and Harry Connick Jr. Beat Out a Late Night Latecomer, an Ancient Vampire, Dads, the Voice, and a Mentalist

Here's 5 recent TV Shows I've Liked, and 5 I've disliked.  Do with it what you will.  Agree, disagree, agree to disagree, or take my advice and try one of my favorites.  Three of them are on regular TV, and you might be able to catch the others on Netflix, Hulu, or other services.  Don't say I didn't warn you about the five I didn't like (and yes, despite some talent like Tessanne Chin and Will Champlin, I still much prefer American Idol over The Voice)

Five Favorite Recent TV Shows:

1. Bonnie and Clyde was Murderously Good

I love a good mini-series, and like last year’s Hatfields and McCoys, this one didn’t disappoint.  Unlike the Lifetime movie Lizzie Borden Took and Ax, the production here, including editing and use of music, were very well done, and I was invested in the characters and the story.  Holliday Grainger and Emile Hirsch were very charismatic and heartless in the lead roles as these two iconic bank robbers and murderers who got exactly what they deserved:  Fame AND an Early Death.

2. Still Walking with the Dead

The best drama on TV (though Elementary, Once Upon a Time, and the new Almost Human are also favorites), this gory series is very addicting, and more than halfway through season four, the producers and writers keep everything interesting from many different views, whether it’s the characters trying to survive in an unforgiving landscape, the plot twists, or the hoards of rotting zombies who’d like nothing more than to sink their teeth into warm, living flesh. 

3. The Big Bang Theory is still Big with a Bang!

I love The Middle, but Big Bang is still the best sitcom on TV, and it’s not quite as raunchy as it was in previous seasons, now that Howard’s married and Amy and Sheldon are an official item (even if Sheldon doesn’t quite know it yet).  There aren’t that many TV series that are still going strong after seven seasons, but this show only seems to be getting better.  It’s Friends for the nerd set.

4. Brooklyn Nine-Nine gets 9-9 out of 10-10 stars (twice)

The best new comedy, and, in fact, the best new TV series this season, is this sitcom starring Andy Samberg that takes the popular and modern police procedural, like all those endless Law and Order or CSI spinoffs, and about one or two dozen others, and makes it all so funny.  I wasn’t the biggest Samberg fan when he was on Saturday Night Live, but here, his character is perfect for him.  The rest of the cast are equally great in their roles, except, perhaps, Chelsea Peretti’s annoying Gina Linetti, but in a strong ensemble cast centered by a superb Sandberg, Joe Lo Truglio as Det. Charles Boyle manages to stand out as a somewhat endearing but courageous sap. 

5. Still Idolizing American Idol

Last Season, I found the rivalry between Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj off-putting, and even though the girl contestants were quite good, the guys pretty much sucked, none of them making it into the top 5.  This year, with JLo coming back and Harry Connick Jr. joining the judging panel alongside last year’s Keith Urban, things are back on track.  And after having sat through all of The Voice this season for the first time, I’m finding that American Idol is still the singing competition to beat.

Five Recent TV Shows I Disliked:

1. Dracula Sucks!

I tried to get into this.  I liked Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the movie August Rush and the little I saw of the cable show The Tudors.  I was also looking forward to what they may be able to do with him at the center of the Dracula legend.  Right off the bat (no pun intended), I noticed his voice and his accent didn’t seem quite right, and the show started off presenting him disguised as a turn-of-the-century businessman with political plots mixed in, and doctor Van Helsing trying to create a formula that will allow him the ability to walk about in daylight.  These are tired old plots (remember the Ben Cross TV remake of Dark Shadows from the early 90's?  No?  See what I mean?), and this is actually a tired old formula, and after the third show, I asked myself why I was wasting my time.  Boring!  This is not something you can really sink your teeth into!

2. Arsenio Hall (pass)

I’ve only caught a little of late night hosts Jay Leno, David Letterman, Craig Ferguson, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon over the years, and of the little I’ve seen, I’m happy to know that Jimmy Fallon is now taking over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno.  He’s the best of them.  And now, after winning Celebrity Apprentice, and embarrassingly kissing Donald Trump’s butt on nearly every episode, Arsenio Hall has his old gig back.  I’ve seen it.  It’s not very good.  In fact, I’d have to say he’s the worst of the current crop of late night TV hosts.

3. Dads needs some good parenting

Despite what the critics say, it’s not the worst sitcom on TV.  I’ve already stopped watching the worst ones (or never watched them to begin with).  It is, however, far from being the best.  I finally decided to stop watching it when I realized I didn’t care if I saw another one.

4. I didn't hit my Button for The Voice

We started watching this, and started to see the formula: How a singer, whom the judges can’t see, gets them to turn their chairs around on the strength of their voices alone.  From then on, it’s a virtual love-fest, as the judges heap praises on their charges in an attempt to win, with nary a criticism among them.  After all, why would they want to criticize someone they chose?  The whole show comes dangerously close to being nothing more than grandiose self-congratulation, for both the contestants and the judges, and it runs thin, especially after 3 to 4 hours a week!  I’d have to say I generally like Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, and Christina Aguilera, though they all have more than just a bit of an ego.  I don’t care a lick for CeeLo Green.

Besides, I just barely got done with the last season on my DVR, and now they're starting yet another new season!  Can you say "Overkill"?

5. Is The Mentalist finally done with all that RED JOHN shenanigans?

Of the fictional police procedurals we enjoy, I’m most disappointed by this one.  Simon Baker’s schtick as a mentalist can get a bit tiresome, and that whole unsolved Red John storyline started taking over every single show until I no longer cared who the hell he was.  Now that it’s been solved (apparently, hopefully) the writers are shaking things up, just like the old drama House.  Is that a sign of the end?  This one is in its sixth season, and I’d have to say, unlike NCIS (even minus Ziva David), it’s not going very strong.

Movie Catch-Up: The Way Way Back, Walter Mitty, Carrie, and The Lone Ranger

The Way Way Back is Way Way Cool

Films about estranged, misunderstood teens featuring rather shy and introverted, eccentric kids struggling with finding their way in a rather cold, cruel world, such as with last year’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, remind me so strongly of my own quirky youth.  I see myself quite clearly within some of these socially awkward geeks on the fringes of their worlds, with their sometimes darker but heartfelt emotions showing through and a bit of superior intellect that only helps to further separate them from normalcy.  I’m right there with them!  I often felt like I was at the bottom of a swimming pool in my own out-of-my-depth existence.

This film, like Perks, features a young man of such caliber, 14-year-old Duncan, played with just the right amount of disaffection by Liam James, forced to tag along with his emotionally venerable mom Pam (Toni Collette), her rather smarmy, demeaning (and cheating) new boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) – two great performances here, by the way - and Trent’s hideously self-absorbed, bratty little princess Steph (Zoe Levin) on their summer vacation.  Stumbling into a job at the local water park, which is its own magnet for quirky misfits, Duncan makes a connection with the unreserved Owen (Sam Rockwell) and starts to come out of his shell, making a stand, for both himself and his somewhat fragile mother.  He also develops a crush on a sweet local girl Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) that makes his vacation the most memorable time of his young life.  The film is filled with great moments, characters, and dialogue, both downhearted and jovial, like the best of dramas.  It was a surprising delight to watch! 

It's No "Secret" I Liked the Life of Walter Mitty

I wasn’t expecting much from this film.  Usually, if they remake an old “classic” almost no one these days has ever heard of, it’s ravaged by the critics as unnecessary, even if we happened to like it.  The film that comes the closest, in my mind, is Mr. Deeds from 2002 starring Adam Sandler and Winona Ryder, which was based on the 1936 original, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, starring Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur.  Critics ravaged it, yet I found it to be one of Sandler’s better movies.

            

This film follows suit.  I can’t speak to the original from 1947, starring Danny Kaye, because I’ve never seen it, but going in, I knew basically three things:  It was a remake of an old comedy, the plot concerned a quirky loser with an over-active imagination going on an adventure that apparently put his fantasies to shame, and that it stared Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, and Sean Penn in a cameo as a hotshot, globe-trotting photographer whom Mitty must find.  Like Sandler, I sometimes like Stiller, if the role and movie are just right (including Mystery Men), but I often find him over-exaggerated and grating. 

            

Not this time.  This time, the plot of the movie is so well written, it fits Stiller’s character to a T, and winds up being a real and inspirational crowd pleaser, as inventive as what is usually running through its main character’s head.  The dull and directionless Mitty, with the crazily vivid thought-life, not only went on the adventure of a lifetime, trying to track down a missing negative that was to become the cover shot for the last physical issue of Life Magazine, but, in the midst of losing everything, including his job, and having no purpose, he finds not just his reason for being, but finds out he had that purpose all along.  It's a brilliant twist at the end, I thought, once that final, elusive missing negative is found.  Another delight!

Didn't "Care" for the Remake of Carrie 

I’ve been wanting to see this remake of Carrie since it came out in October.  I even rated all the Stephen King theatrical movies around Halloween when it was released (linked here)

            

I think I got it out of my system.

“Chloe Grace Moretz!” I thought to myself.  “She was the one who played that little vampire girl in Let Me In!"  And despite the violence, that Kick-Ass movie was at least inventive, and once again, as Hit Girl, she was more than a match for anyone she was up against, no matter how big.  "She’s playing Carrie in this remake!" I thought, "and Julianne Moore is playing Margaret White.  And those previews, with all the updated CGI effects!  It should be sooooo good!”

            

I was soooo wrong.  Director Kimberly Pierce’s first mistake was doing the same thing Gus Van Zant did with the remake of Psycho.  Though they didn’t make a shot for shot remake, they still obviously used the same script as the first one, changing only just a few plot points here or there.  It made a person who might be familiar with the first one aware of the lesser acting, not only from the leads, but everyone from Judy Greer as the gym teacher to Portia Doubleday as Chris Hargensen.  A few people came out relatively unscathed here, from an acting standpoint, most notably Ansel Elgort as Tommy Ross, and Moretz and Moore don’t do too bad with their roles if you don’t compare them too closely to Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie in the original movie.  Still, it’s disheartening going in, expecting something a bit fresher, and finding almost the exact same dialogue from the original movie, like the scene where the gym teacher punishes the girls and Chris refuses to take it, or when Carrie is about to go to the prom and her mother says of her dress, “Red… I might have known it would be red…” and “I can see you’re dirty pillows…” and “They’re all gonna laugh at you.”  They also copied the tone, from the comedic prom preparation of Tommy and his buddies to the prom scene itself, with Carrie backlit when the stage catches fire, and Carrie’s fatal knife fight with her mother at the end.  Yet everything in the original was better, even those crazy, inexplicable candles all over Carrie’s house when she got home.  The only thing different here, besides the workmanlike direction of Pierce (of Boys Don’t Cry and Stop-Loss), are the CGI effects, which actually take the place of Brian DePalma’s expert direction, Mario Tosi’s superb camera work, and Paul Hirsh’s inspired editing from the original.  The 1976 film is a classic supernatural thriller in the great Hitchcock tradition.  The prom scene is almost a case study in how to make a classic Hitchcockian thriller, with Sue following the line of a rope with her eyes, up to the rafters, attached to a bucket right above Carrie's head, and then looks for the other end, finding it underneath the stage, held by Chris.  It was scenes like this that turned into a fondly remembered, bonafide classic horror film from the 70’s.  Even with the CGI effects, and Moretz doing her crazy best as the freak, dripping with blood, unleashing her awesome telekinetic power, it still just feels like such a cheap knock-off. 

            

And what about those effects?  DePalma had wanted to do Carrie’s rampage on the town from the novel, but didn’t have the money for it, so he settled for a quick shot of Carrie rolling and blowing up Chris and Billy’s car.  Here, she stomps her foot and makes the road nearly swallow it, then holds it in midair as Chris’s face pushes slowly through the cracked windshield.  It’s okay, but overall, still can’t compare with the original.

            

And the fact of the matter is, this special effects update has been done once before, with the two night TV miniseries from 2002 starring Angela Bettis and Patricia Clarkson as Carrie and her mother.  That one wasn’t as good as the DePalma classic either, but at least it used a different script, one much closer to the novel.  Despite finding Moretz and Moore doing an okay job in the acting department here, if you’re looking for a better remake of the novel with an original script and updated effects, I suggest you check out the TV miniseries.

The Lone Ranger Really IS Lone: Nobody Went To See Him in Theaters

Wow!  Cut it some slack, guys!

It’s already gone down in history as one of the biggest box office flops of recent years, right next to R.I.P.D., also from this year.  But don’t let that stop you from enjoying a mindless and fun action comedy starring Armie Hammer as the masked cowboy of legend, and Johnny Depp as his (somewhat) faithful sidekick Tonto.  I found this to be in the same vein as the Antonio Bandaras Zorro movies and the Brendan Fraser Mummy flicks.  I’ve certainly seen worse of this type.  The Will Smith Wild Wild West comes most readily to mind.  This one had about as much action and comedy as the Zorro and Mummy movies, so I don’t understand why it was such a flop, unless cynical critical and audience reaction merely kept more audiences away in droves.  Sure, it’s not Shakespeare, but then, neither are any Hollywood action comedies.  Just what was it about this one that made it so much worse than all the others that it deserved such a moniker as “one of the biggest flops in Hollywood history”?  Beats me?  Maybe they did overspend, but so did the makers of Hudson Hawk, and this thing is light years beyond that one! 

            

There, see.  And I barely even mentioned Johnny Depp’s very weird turn here as Tonto.  That’s because, if Johnny Depp is in it, playing anything even slightly unconventional, you can best believe it’s going to be a very weird turn.  But like all his other bizarre characters – and there have been many – I enjoyed Tonto too.