The King's Speech - (2010) Quite simply this is the best movie I've seen in a very long time. Fabulous script, incredible acting, wonderful story. THIS is what movies are supposed to be about. This is the story of a man who was never supposed to be king and never wanted to be king. Albert was raised in a fairly nasty family that took great pleasure in mocking his speech impediment, a stutter. When his older brother David (King Edward VIII) abdicates his throne for the love of an American divorcee who is loathed by his family and advisors Albert becomes the king. He knows he must conquer the stutter and ends up in the hands of a decidedly unorthodox and irreverent speech therapist. It's funny and poignant. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this movie. The swearing scene (you'll know it when you see it) is one of the funniest things I've seen in years. Yes, it is FILLED with obscenities (to be perfectly honest there's basically not any clean language in the entire section) but it pushes past the whole "dirty words" issue and becomes fall down on the floor laughing funny. I know a little bit about the history of the story and got a couple new insights into it all. There haven't been many (any?) sympathetic looks at Wallis Simpson but this may be the most unsympathetic of them all. Colin Firth is great as Bertie, Geoffrey Rush is amazing as the Logue the therapist, Helena Bonham Carter plays Bertie's wife Elizabeth (one of three Harry Potter alums in the movie along with Michael Gambon as King George V and Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill). A definite front runner for Best Movie I think. Go see this movie!
DreamGirls (2006) I expected to like this movie but not as much as I did. Based loosely on the story of Diana Ross and the Supremes it is a story of the Black music industry of the '60s and '70s. The cast is stellar with Beyonce Knowles (who needs anyone else after that?), Jamie Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover, and Jennifer Hudson in the role that launched her. The music is incredible, the story is engaging, the acting is outstanding. The movie was a Broadway musical hit first and some of the numbers remain very Broadway stagy but that's pretty much the worst thing I can say about it. The rest of the movie is wonderful. Enjoyed it a lot!
The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) In looking at some of the reaction to this movie I see a lot of folks trying to draw a connection to "The Big Lebowski" which also starred Jeff Bridges as a counterculture shaman. There really is NO connection at all. Based VERY loosely on some real life experiments done by our military back in the '60s and '70s it tells the story of an Army unit that worked on psychic powers as for intelligence purposes. Now straight up that might be moderately interesting. You could certainly play it for laughs too and that might be moderately interesting. Instead it's presented as satire, played without so much as a wink at the audience. These guys BELIEVE in what they're doing despite the obvious absurdity and repeated failures. Great cast - George Clooney, Bridges, Ewen McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Root, and Robert Patrick lead the way through a story that is madness itself to everyone except those in the middle of it. This is a funny movie in its own slightly warped manner. It may contain the only funny IED moment in movie history. In the end I'm not sure the story "goes" anywhere so the ending left me feeling a little unsatisfied. But at just over 90 minutes long it's a quick, funny journey into the madness of male bonding, war and the institutional military. Well worth your time.
The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis - A Hugo AND Nebula award winner this is just one of many award winners for the author. And somehow I had never heard of her prior to reading her book "Black Out" (which I reviewed earlier). The story involves the same general group as that other book, a group of historians in the very near future (2048) who travel back through time to do their research. In this one a graduate student gets caught in the Middle Ages at the time the Plague arrives in England. I've enjoyed both books with one small complaint. Her characters tend to dither a bit when things go wrong. But then these are historians who clearly start from the position that they've got the process under control. When confronted with the truth that things go badly rather quickly they react like academics rather than story book heroes. So they're realistic. I just want to slap them sometimes. Willis has won 10 Hugos and 6 Nebulas and has been inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame so she's the real deal. Enjoyed the book a great deal and I'm looking forward to reading more.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles (a Poirot mystery) and The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie Haven't read a lot of the Grand Dame of mystery but enjoyed both of these. Secret Adversary introduces two minor characters for Christie, Tommy and Tuppence, who appear in a couple more books. The Mysterious Affair at Styles of course is one of her great characters the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. Both very English in tone and both a lot of fun.
Death at the Excelsior (And Other Stories) by P.G. Wodehouse Don't think I've ever read any of Wodehouse before although I think I listened to an audiobook of one of the Bertie Wooster and Jeeves books a couple years ago. This is a collection of short stories by the English humor author that include some mystery stories along with other lighter stuff. Lots of fun and a quick read.
Soul Identity and Soul Intent by Dennis Batchelder One of the very first current books I got for my NookColor was Soul Identity. It was free and looked interesting. It was all of that and more. The story revolves around the idea that "soul identities" pass down through the human race. Not reincarnation but a shared soul that is separate from our personality. It is charted by the lines in the iris of the eye. Soul Identity is also the organization that is the caretaker for items passed along from one bearer of an individual soul identity to the next. No matter how long it takes for that soul to be identified. Put this in the same category with Dan Brown's stuff but without the dubious history and bad theology. Batchelder apparently couldn't find an agent to touch his novel so he self published. I'm astounded they all passed but it's quite good. The second novel in the series isn't quite as good because it's much less about the concept of soul identities and more about a hunt for Nazi gold. Still good though. I recommend them both.
Septimus Heap, Book One : Magyk by Angie Sage Also one of the first current books for the NookColor. This is the first of 5 novels in a series about a young magician. Very much a Harry Potter kind of read but in a completely different world. Like Harry Potter they read very well for both young and adult readers I'd think. The writing is very readable and the story perks right along. Septimus is the seventh son of a seventh son but gets lost by his family. His adventures end up with lots of people in places they never expected to be. I really enjoyed this one too and will be looking for the following novels as well. Word is that the movie rights have been purchased and I would expect that once the Harry Potter series is done with we will see these hit the screen. I'd think they'd do well.
That's enough for now.
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