Apr

30

Miscellanea

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I wanted to write another random what-I’m-doing-now post and in considering the title I thought, “I bet miscellanea is a word and if it is, it would be the right title.”  Turns out it is a word with the correct definition.  Love the internet.

I think I’ve referenced a few times that I’ve made efforts to get into The Sopranos and it’s never really worked out.  I finally made it through Season 1 and now I’ve finally settled in.  The first season is pretty slow, there’s not a lot of arc from episode to episode, but near the end stuff actually happened, which was a nice change.  Now I’m on Season 3 and I’ve figured out why people like it so much.  Each season some random new characters enter the show, and it’s up to you to figure out which of them will get whacked and why and when before the season is up.  This doesn’t mean it’s my new favorite show.  It still has many of the same problems.  For example, I still don’t know the name of one of the main characters even though it’s been three seasons.  It took me the whole first season to figure out the other one was named Paulie.  And it only gets worse when they introduce a handful of new mobsters each new season.  Where did these new guys come from?  How come I never saw them before?  Why don’t you just tell me what their names are and how they fit in instead of making me spend all season figuring it out?  At least the FBI has a nice little map with pictures and names, that would be helpful.  I must say, though, one of the recent episodes I watched, Employee of the Month, may possibly be the most affecting hour of television I’ve ever seen.  (Partly because it wasn’t all about the mobsters.)

In reading news, I’m motivated to read more and am going to the library today to pick up some new blood.  And probably to finally drop off a couple I haven’t managed to get through even though it’s been a few months.  Before I go, though, I’ll have to finish Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron, simply because I’m only 20 pages from the end.  I haven’t liked it, though.  I heard that it was one of the great mid-century novels, but I guess I forgot that mid-century novels have this tendency to be all about depression and suicide and melancholy and alcoholism.  And it is.  Very little happens, though a suicide starts the book, and then the main character spends the whole time thinking back to other times in his life, but it turns out he wasn’t happy in any of those times, either.  I got it because I read Sophie’s Choice, also by Styron, a couple years ago and loved it insanely.  But Sophie’s Choice actually had a plot, it wasn’t just about some guy in some kind of existential crisis who then through his misery made everyone else miserable.  But I’m going to finish it because I’ve invested too much time for it not to make my book list.

As for audio books, I recently finished Goodnight, Nobody by Jennifer Weiner.  I have never read any Weiner and it turns out I had a good justification for doing so.  I read this one because it’s a mystery and I thought it may be the kind of fluff that you want in between the big heavy stuff now and then.  Turns out, no.  Definitely fluff.  But fluff usually has a main character who you actually like.  I hated the main character.  She was always way over the top clumsy and awkward, so much so that it made no sense.  I could tell it was just Weiner trying to be “funny.”  Didn’t work.  She was this mother whose husband had moved the family out to Connecticut in one of those rich suburbs.  And she didn’t seem to like her children, didn’t seem to like her husband, and had the most obnoxious best friend ever.  And again, Weiner seemed to think we’d all find this best friend charming and awesome.  Wrong.  She met the main character because they were both taking a proofing test for a job and the friend kept talking and wouldn’t shut up and convinced our heroine to ditch the job interview.  And later after best friend slipped a guest some Ecstasy at our heroine’s big party, instead of our heroine getting really mad at her, she just got upset about how her party was ruined and sat there while her husband yelled at her for ruining the party.  Made no sense.  The husband also seemed like a gigantic jerk who she never should have married in the first place.  I thought, you know, I guess a book can be about anyone, I like books about different kinds of people and there are definitely people with miserable marriages.  However, they don’t belong in fluff.  Save it for the big important books.  It isn’t jaunty enough for the light stuff.

Now that I’m through that, I’m on my last audiobook from this round of library checking out.  It was a risky gamble, but my library doesn’t have many audiobooks and if you don’t reserve any you’re stuck with what’s there.  So I got The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.  Even though I read about a hundred pages a few years ago and hated it.  I have this unnatural hatred for Franzen and I thought finally getting through it would help me either have merit for my hatred or get over it.  The first disc was very tough.  But I think I’ll get through it.  Partly I got it because Dylan Baker was reading it and I know from a previous audiobook that he is an excellent audiobook reader, even when the text is quite complicated and there are many characters.  I’m several discs in now and Franzen has laid off a little bit.  But still.  He’s just so excessive.  He’s overly descriptive and he always sounds condescending, even when read by someone as non-condescending as Baker.  I don’t mind books that use big words I don’t know, Michael Chabon does that often and he’s one of my favorite authors.  But his books are good and I learn from them.  With Franzen I can’t help but feel like he sat there and threw in a bunch of nasty words on purpose to be snobbish instead of because they were the best descriptions.  He seems especially fond of the word “corpuscular” and it never seems to be used in just the right way.  And his similes are really pushing it.  Similes can really bug me in a novel, they’re the reason I hated Memoirs of a Geisha, the narrator would make these crazy similes that didn’t even make sense and were far beyond her experience or education.  The only one that sticks out in my mind from Franzen right now is something like, “She ran her tongue along under her upper lip like a cat beneath blankets.”  What??  This does not give me a more full view of what’s happening.  And I’ve found this to be true of most of his similes.  And then there’s the fact that I hate all the characters.  Again, forgivable, and much more allowable in a big ambitious book.  But still, it’s hard for me to see what this is driving at.  Yes, it’s certainly big, ambitious, and intelligent.  But I think it could have been such a tidier novel.  It’s too big and too intelligent, it is as snobbish as its characters.  I don’t really get why everyone loves it so much.  I’m going to finish it and we’ll see if there’s some masterful ending that finally convinces me to sing its praises, but for now I’ll stay in the minority of anti-Franzen-ites.

My trip to the library is this afternoon and hopefully I’ll stock up on some better stuff.  I need it.  My book list is pitiful and needs some help.

Apr

29

More Nabokov

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I don’t do as well these days at keeping up with the news. So it was only by chance that I found out that Vladimir Nabokov’s son Dmitri has decided to publish Nabokov’s last unfinished novel. I’d been keeping up on the story from some articles on Slate about the ongoing crisis. (In the little summary of links I just linked to, the author then boldly tries to take credit for getting the guy to make up his mind, which strikes me as incredibly presumptuous.)

The news has finally become official and I’m very pleased. It was quite the dilemma. Nabokov had specifically asked that the novel be burned. And while I understand the sentiment, I can’t help but want more Nabokov.

However, this inevitably makes me feel guilty. I haven’t even read Ada, which I’ve often heard is his best work. And since it seems like everyone these days puts Lolita on their best-books-list, it’s not like that’s enough to really get Nabokov anymore. Though, in my defense, I have read Pale Fire, Speak Memory and The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. I must get on that. It’s going on my library reserve list right away. Perhaps I’ll be sufficiently guilted into reading it.

Apr

27

In Cold Blood Revisited

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I read In Cold Blood in college, without any understanding of its place in the literary pantheon or who Truman Capote was. I remember not having much of an opinion about it, my guess is that I went through it relatively quickly waiting for something that wasn’t there. But recently I’ve wanted to re-read it, now that I actually know something about the context. I especially thought so after seeing both Capote and Infamous, which came out a couple of years ago.

I ended up listening to the audiobook of In Cold Blood during my drives for a couple of weeks. This time I felt a much deeper connection with the book and liked it immensely. I tend to fill my time with a lot of books involving crime in some way, and I rarely come across one that covers the subject so thoroughly or leave such a heavy impact. (I must also say that I am relieved that our legal world has moved forward in the last 50 years. These days, preaching a sermon for a closing argument is an automatic reversal, no matter how backwater you are.)

After reading, I decided to do another revisitation and re-watch both the movies. They were released several months apart to try and relieve some of the Two-Truman-Capote-Movies tension. It wasn’t successful. Capote came out first, Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar, and by the time Infamous came out no one paid it much attention. My memory was that Capote was a mediocre film and Infamous a much better one, but I thought since a decent amount of time had passed I would do better judging them back to back.

Capote is a mediocre film. Granted, Hoffman’s Capote is a fuller portrait, more than just an imitation. There’s little to criticize in him, though his physical differences do leave something to be desired. I normally don’t mind having actors with different body types in biographical roles, but when the person is practically defined by their very small stature, it’s odd to have a burly guy like Hoffman, even when he’s lost a lot of weight. All the acting in Capote is lovely, Catherine Keener especially, but also Chris Cooper doing his stoic thing and Clifton Collins Jr., who plays Perry Smith. But it’s just so solemn. The score really doesn’t help, if anything I found it distracting in its imposed gloom. There are two main problems, though. The direction lacks, well, direction. It never finds a good balance. But I think the writing is the bigger problem. The script tries to incorporate this gigantic story, but to focus on how the whole thing really destroys Capote. Every bit of the plot moves towards that end. Sure, there are significant subplots, like the one where Capote has to convince Smith to tell him about the murders. But the script so wants to make Capote a tragic figure that everything else just falls by the wayside. I just want to yell at the screen, “I get it! He’s miserable! Move on already!”

Also this film had many substantial deviations from the real story. For example, two close friends of Nancy Clutter, the girl in the murdered family, play significant roles in the book. One is Bobby Rupp, Nancy’s boyfriend, and the other is her close friend Sue Kidwell. But the movie calls them Danny Burke and Laura Kinney. At first I thought maybe the book changed their names since they were only teenagers at the time, but a quick internet search shows that Capote used their real names. There doesn’t seem to be much of a point in changing them. And I can’t understand why they legally wouldn’t be able to use their names.

The largest change was one that bothered me a lot. The murderers, Smith and Hickock, both confessed shortly after their arrests, before they arrived in Kansas in custody. Their confessions were used in the trial, and I don’t doubt that they were covered in all depth. But the film makes a major plot point out of Capote trying to get Smith to describe the murders to him, and presents it as if Capote knows hardly anything about the actual events. In actuality, he would have known already what Smith said. His confession as given in the book is quite detailed. And while I can understand wanting to hear it again for your own purposes, it felt too heavy-handed, which was my problem with the film in general.

As for Infamous, I think it’s probably the film Capote himself would have preferred, though I doubt he would have liked much how both the films show him in a tragic light. There is a lot of overlap, and some scenes in the two films are nearly identical. But I always prefer the ones in Infamous when these similarities happen. Infamous is a very different film, and it takes some big risks with its style. They don’t always work, but I appreciate the effort. The film starts with Capote and a friend watching a song in a club, where Gwyneth Paltrow basically sums up the entire film in one minute. It shouldn’t work, but it really does. Throughout the film, Capote’s closest friends comment to the camera, documentary style. This is less successful in terms of continuity–the rest of the film isn’t a documentary at all–but it much better acquaints you with the man and those around him. He gets to feel more like a full person.

Toby Jones, who plays Capote in Infamous, doesn’t have the subtleties and nuances of Hoffman. But he doesn’t feel like a man trying to do a spot-on impression. Instead, he focuses more on Capote’s attitude and in some ways it feels more genuine. Often, though, it can get a little one-note. (I love Toby Jones, though. He was very good in two other films I enjoyed recently, The Painted Veil and The Mist. Totally different movies, but he’s solid.) Still, physically he is perfect for the part and has a strong resemblence to Capote. You really believe it when people call him “ma’am.”

Sandra Bullock plays Harper Lee, replacing Catherine Keener. I like both performances, though Bullock gets a lot more to work with and her accent is very soft and down home. You also get a slight peek at her own tragedy in Infamous, which is missing in Capote, where her successes are more of the focus.

The main risk of Infamous, though, isn’t a stylistic one but the plot. Reading In Cold Blood you cannot help but notice that Capote obviously cares deeply for Perry Smith. Hickock’s point of view comes up only occasionally. Smith and Capote had similar childhood sadnesses and you can see how the two would bond. Infamous takes it a step farther and posits a romantic relationship between them. It’s not that hard to imagine from the book. There are hints here and there about Smith’s indeterminate sexuality, and Capote’s was well known. The scenes between Capote and Smith sometimes feel over the top, but they’re vivid. Daniel Craig, aka James Bond, plays Smith in this film and gets just what the script is getting at. When their relationship settles down into friendship and longing, you really see it in both characters.

Infamous suffers from some of the same inconsistencies. The reenactment of the murders isn’t right at all. (In fact, they follow Smith’s first confession where he pins two of the shootings on Hickock instead of his second where he admits to all four, which the book proposes as the correct one.)  Smith’s family history completely omits that his mother was Native American and deliberately leaves out his sister who killed herself.  It also never mentions why he walks funny, but takes pains to show us how he walks funny.  Smith and Hickock are sent to prison before their trial, taking away some prime potential storytelling since Smith’s cell was in the Sheriff’s kitchen.  Like Capote, it really skims over any investigation and gives Capote himself far too much credit for interpreting clues at the crime scene. But it also opens up a wider door, showing how Capote took the facts and bent them to suit his needs.

Mostly, Infamous is more fun and more interesting. It manages to cover the same tragedy that Capote is so concerned with, but actually fully imparts it to you without having to resort to overtly sad music. The hanging of the killers, shown in both films, really hits the details in Infamous and is better (or worse, depending on your stomach for such things) for it. And Infamous gives a better look at Capote’s New York life. He had his own little circle of rich Park Avenue wives that he constantly gossiped with, and it’s his visits with them where you get to see Truman Capote as he presented himself to the world. It’s an essential part of the story. It’s up to the viewer to mix that part with the parts he exposes to his lover, his friend Harper Lee, and the killers themselves to see something of the full person and Infamous simply presents every one of those sides more fully. The story is ultimately about the conflict between those sides, so this is simply the better approach.

I shouldn’t play up Infamous too much. I definitely have quibbles and criticisms. It feels a little bit too jumpy between Kansas and New York. But ultimately I enjoy too much watching Capote chat with Sigourney Weaver, Hope Davis, Juliet Stevenson, and Isabella Rossellini to bother picking at the problems. Also, the jokes in this one are funnier.

I’m considering looking at some of Capote’s writing beyond In Cold Blood. Perhaps Other Voices, Other Rooms. Definitely not Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’ve never cared much for the movie and I’m not sure I could find the motivation to plow through the book. Then again, I’m having trouble with reading in general these days so maybe I should wait a while.

Apr

12

More News

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I posted about a day too soon last time. Not only did I get my filmspotting appearance, but yesterday my podcast was released on Books You Should Read. It’s run by Simply Syndicated, a group of Brits who put out a number of podcasts, including my favorite, Movies You Should See. BYSR is their newest podcast and it’s all listener contributions, meaning you can record your own podcast and send it in. Shortly after I started my new life of leisure, I decided it would be a fun thing to do. But I wasn’t pleased enough with most of the recent books I’d read to devote a bunch of time talking about them. Right around then I finished listening to I Am Charlotte Simmons, which I’d read before and enjoyed a lot. I thought that was almost a good podcast, but that for me, a girl who went to the Stone Cold Sober college to talk about a book all about college debauchery may not be the best fit. So instead I picked one I read slightly before that, also by Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full. Mostly I just think Tom Wolfe is overlooked by those who didn’t catch on in the 70’s or 80’s to how great he is. And A Man in Full may well be his best book. So I put together my podcast, which is more work than you’d expect, recorded it, edited out all the strange sounds I made, and sent it in. I was shocked when it was posted just the other day.

To check it out (it’s only 20 minutes) go to the Books You Should Read website to download the mp3. Also available through iTunes, go to the Podcast directory and search Simply Syndicated. On iTunes it’ll be easiest to find on Simply Hear, the Simply Syndicated podcast that has all their shows as they come out.

As for how things have been going lately, I’m still not reading as much as I’d like. I feel like so far my year hasn’t had a whole lot of great new discoveries. Both my Tom Wolfe books were re-reads, so they don’t really count. I loved Richard Price’s new book, think it’s his best since Clockers. I just finished Then We Came to the End, which was the NY Times best book of 2007. I have to disagree. It’s a great book, really amazing for a first novel, and one of the only books I can ever remember that’s narrated in the first person plural. However, while it captured so much of the randomness of office life, I don’t know that I’d call it the best book of 2007. A good one, certainly, but I think it was a bit overpraised. For me it had the unfortunate distinction of being finished just after Howards End, which was just beautiful.

I saw the movie of Howards End, but my first introduction to the story was actually On Beauty by Zadie Smith, which is a giant homage to Howards End. I really loved the book, enough that I decided I needed to read Howards End… but then got distracted. I’m glad I finally got around to it, and I’m going to have to re-read On Beauty now to see how I feel about it after reading Howards End. It was funny to read because I remembered only a few important plot points and forgot most of them. I remembered most of the ending, and so I spent most of the book trying to figure out how on earth the characters would get from where they were to where they’d end up. But I did love it passionately. I listened to it as an audiobook and would always feel choked up when I listened, especially once I hit about halfway through. It showed the weakness of movie adaptations. In the movie, when Margaret decided to marry Mr. Wilcox, I thought she was crazy. But through the book I understood all her decisions perfectly.

I admit, I’m not quite sure what Forster is getting at. I can’t decide whether there’s legitimate societal commentary in the book or whether he’s actually decided to have none whatsoever. I tend to lean towards the latter. Mostly I enjoy his characters, who all feel very real and full of surprises. I suppose I’ll now have to read A Passage to India. (A Room With a View, which is what finally convinced me to read Howards End, as a movie is far too recent in my mind.)

When I’ll fit this in I’m not sure. Because not only do I have an ambition to read better fiction, I’m trying to squeeze in some non-fiction. In class I’ve been reading Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It’s pretty massive, but I’m a good way through, we’re deep in the Civil War now and I’ve learned so much. Especially of interest was the crazy convention that got Lincoln elected against huge odds. And I thought politics today was nuts. It’s somewhat comforting to know there’s always been the craziness and backstabbing. Mostly I go back and forth from being hugely impressed by Lincoln to really frustrated that they have lost yet another opportunity to win the war. The book focuses more on Lincoln and his cabinet, and I wish there was a little more analysis on why Lincoln chose the generals he did, because they certainly seem to be gumming up the works as much as is humanly possible. Still, I guess there are about a million Civil War books out there if I really want to know.

After that, I finally got from the library My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams. It’s next on my list and I’m very excited to read it. Adams has always been my favorite founding father, with Madison in 2nd. While we were in San Diego our hotel had HBO and I watched a few bits of the John Adams miniseries, which mostly impressed me with how hugely boring it was. It just made me want to watch 1776, the musical about the Declaration of Independence. It’s one of my favorites of all musicals, but a lot of people haven’t heard of it and it’s always made me feel like a big dork that I like it so much. But I have been validated. The NYTimes review of John Adams also noted that they liked the guy who played Adams in 1776 better, too. Some wonderful soul has posted bits on youtube. So if you are unexposed, you can go here to watch a video of one of my favorite parts. I need to move 1776 up in my queue otherwise I’ll just be annoyed the whole time I read the book.

As for my netflix queue, it is steadily growing. Yesterday I watched The TV Set, a movie about making pilots in Hollywood, which made me think that I should re-watch The Player, another great Hollywood movie. Watching Goodfellas last week, which I found rather lacking given its hype, I figured I should watch Heat and Casino. At this rate, I will never get through them all. 68 and counting…

Apr

10

I Make the Cut

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One of the things I like to do while I’m in the middle of something around the house is put on a podcast. This happens a lot while I’m cooking or driving or doing something where it’d be kind of nice to have something to listen to. I have several favorites that I listen to every week, but being the film buff that I am, Filmspotting is near the top of the priority list. (The other top priorities are RadioLab and This American Life.) Filmspotting has recently turned up most often while I’m at the grocery store, so that it’s inevitably associated in my mind with picking out produce.

Recently Filmspotting has introduced a new mini-cast currently called the Director’s Cut where they take listener feedback and yours truly had the first email read on last week’s episode, #203. Matty even pronounced my name correctly. What I say may not make a lot of sense to you if you haven’t seen the beautiful and psychotic Funny Games, but you will get to hear my name, which is all that really counts, right? (To hear, go to the Filmspotting website, scroll down to episode 203, and just click the title of the post on the website and it will play the mp3. Or just click here to get it directly.)

Apr

3

Living Episodically

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I have a lot of time on my hands these days, some would argue too much. And while I had grand schemes (read D.H. Lawrence! watch Bergman films!) so far they have come to naught. Instead I’m watching a lot of television. Not daytime tv, not even stuff that’s on right now, just lots of shows. For some reason I’m having trouble getting through a book. Even a movie is feeling too long. Instead I take things in small doses.

There are the shows I’ve mentioned in prior posts, of course.  Mad Men, Veronica Mars, and Freaks and Geeks.  There was Dexter, too, which had a brief mention back when I was a bit annoyed with it.  I have to give it props, the second season turned out to have many awesome tricks up its sleeve.

The last few days have been practically a Weeds marathon.  I have gone through all 3 seasons in about a week or so.  This is my just desserts because I teased Eric when he went through the whole show in a few days several months ago.  I never got a chance to join in because he stayed home sick for a couple days and watched a whole season without me.  From there it was hopeless catching up.  I thought he was nuts, but now I see how quickly you can get through a 30-minute show.  Really quickly.  Especially when they love to end episodes with these big twists.  I have only tired of it a couple of times, mostly because it’s a very well-written show.  Though I think at times they verge a little heavily towards the madcap.  Still, I tend to feel stressed when things get too difficult, which happens often, so I guess madcap is okay.  I definitely think that if you don’t want middle-class kids dealing pot, they should watch Weeds.  Being a drug dealer is not as cush as you’d expect.  (It’s much worse when you’re not middle class.  Read Clockers for the inside look there.)  Mary-Louise Parker is consistently great.  Kevin Nealon has finally found his niche, even better than his days on SNL.  And I love seeing Justin Kirk with his Angels in America co-star.  I have a craving to watch Angels now, yes, he’s good enough that he makes me want to sit through a six-hour downer-fest.  (It’s not all downers.  Much of it is hilarious.  But it was where I first noticed both Parker and Kirk as well as Patrick Wilson and Jeffrey Wright.  But it’s about AIDS, so even the funny stuff has a downer edge.)

I tried to get into another big cable series with The Sopranos, which I tried to watch years ago but couldn’t get into.  Still can’t get into it.  It didn’t help that I watched Goodfellas the other day and felt like I was already over the gangster thing.  And I’m only 3 episodes in.  Bad sign.

So I’ve netflixed some even older stuff while I’m considering my options.  There’s Prime Suspect, the British miniseries series, with Helen Mirren.  I know they just had the last one on a few months ago and I’ve gone all the way back to the first one in 1991.  It’s weird to see a story revolve almost completely about how none of the men will take a woman seriously.  It would be hard to play that storyline now.  Nice to see it’s changed.  I’m halfway through with another disc to go and if I still feel okay with it I’ll go on to the next one.  Each miniseries has about 4 episodes with its own mystery.  And there are 7 of them over the years.  So far I’m still not sure about it.

The other old one I have is Homicide: Life on the Streets which I regularly hear referred to as an example of really good television.  They’re right.  About 20 times better than any cop show currently on the air and the stuff I’m watching is from 1993.  Very sad that we haven’t learned from their greatness.  I like that the cops aren’t necessarily portrayed as heroes or good guys, just as people trying to get their job done.  They focus more than usual on the relationships between the group.  But the best thing is that there are multiple story lines as you follow the different partnerships of detectives, and you can’t be sure that you’ll solve one in just one episode.  Different cases last as long as they take until they’re solved.  It looks like there are 7 seasons, which I’m very happy about.

As for my queue, there’s not much else.  We’re planning to watch The Wire soon, but we’re going to do it together so I can’t watch during the day.  I’ve got The Singing Detective, another Brit miniseries that I’ve thought about getting for a long time, but nothing else.  I’m sure there’s something else on that’s great that I haven’t gotten around to yet.  But I’m struggling to think of something.

And it’s very likely this is a phase.  I go through book phases and movie phases, maybe TV phases will just get added to the list.  And I’m about to get deprived of it when we go for a trip for a few days without all our shows.  I suppose I’ll finally be forced to spend some time with my books.  We’ll see if it takes.