Reviews

I found this book and author so inspiring that in order to do them justice, I felt compelled to share how I first became aware of the author and my response to hearing the author speak and reading the book.

This 2009 film may remind you of "2001: A Space Odyssey". Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) is stuck on the dark side of the moon with only Gerty the robot for company. He gets occasional pre-taped video messages from his wife, but otherwise his three-year stint working for Lunar Industries mining fuel from lunar soil is devoid of human contact.

I'm not even sure how to describe this book. It is set in an apparently familiar place - 1980s England - but this is an alternate universe in which the Crimean War is still going on after 175 years, time travel by government agents called Chronoguards is commonplace, and people can not only travel to and live in books but can interact with characters who, like actors in a play, lead independent lives within their books in between the scenes in which they appear.

I picked up the movie Tenderness because it starred Russell Crowe and the cover states "edge-of-your-seat thriller". But I would consider this more of a drama than a thriller. This is a story of, Lori, a girl that has fantasized about one kiss she witnessed between a boy and a girl 2 years previously. It just happens that Eric, the source of this kiss, is being released from juvenile prison for murdering his parents.

I was a big fan of the first Universal Soldier when it came out in 1992, so I was hoping for a fairly decent version. After all, both Jean-Claude Van Damme and Doph Lungren were returning for a repeat performance. Oh, but what a big disappointment! There was alot of violence and alot of fighting and alot of blood. But what was lacking though was the story. Or perhaps it was the director's rendition of the story. Either way, I wish I wouldn't have wasted my time.

I almost didn't watch this movie because of all the apprehension among those that I talked with. But I am so glad I did. It is a story of a young girl who perseveres through physical abuse, poverty, incest--which produces 2 pregnancies, illiteracy and she is harrassed because of her weight. The parts that did include the incest though were fairly short and Precious had a habit of fantasizing when things got too much for her. The audience would accompany her to her safe places. Gabourey Sidibe, the rookie that plays Precious, did a wonderful job.

You might remember my appreciation for last year's Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger. She has a graphic novel coming out this fall called The Night Bookmobile and I think it looks every bit as mysterious and wonderful as her last book.

Wendy is a 30-something television newscaster with a 17 year old son. Her husband was killed by a drunk driver when her son was young and Wendy is holding a grudge.

Nat Swanson didn't expect his flight from Texas to California to be easy, not with the friends of the man he recently killed (in self-defense) on his trail. He certainly wasn't expecting, in the middle of the desert, to find three nuns and seven orphans holed up and surrounded by Apaches (who have already brutally murdered a nun), and then to be regarded as their savior.
Nat struggles between his conscience and his desire to escape alone, all the while devising a daring plan to get them all to safety.

I  like reading movie reviews, but tend not to see them until the DVD releases.  I read Robert Butler's  KC STAR review of  THE GHOST WRITER  in early March---it's hard not to read a review that says something about making Hitchcock proud.  Anyway, the movie is based on the novel THE GHOST written by British author Robert Harris.  I had been intending to read one