You Gotta Love A Good Movie, Which Is Why I Don’t Love The Breaking Dawn Saga

 

Last year, the girls dragged me out in the middle of the night for the opening of the new people turning into dogs movie, Breaking Wind. No, wait, that’s not right. Breaking Dawn. Sorry.

This year, Grace saw it with college friends, and Libby was out of town with her dad, so Aubrey and I went to see Dogs Into People, Part 2, just the two of us. This one was a better movie than the Part 1, but that’s like saying shooting yourself in the foot is better than shooting yourself in both feet.

 

When Libby came back, it turned out that she hadn’t seen the movie, like I thought she said she would, so she and Aubrey and I went back to the theater. Only Aubrey was excited about a second viewing. It was fun being with the girls, especially going out for doughnuts after, but I’m glad this is the last of the Twilight movies.

 

 

 

In the past two years, I’ve seen Breaking Dawn 1, Breaking Dawn 2 twice, and The Lorax (read about it here). So I’m not a big movie goer. Perhaps the reason is that the movies just don’t move me like they used to.

 

 

Years ago, I went with a buddy to see one of the Rocky movies, where Stalone fought the Russian. We were the last two people seated, back row, middle. The movie progressed like all the other Rocky movies, and everyone was caught up in the excitement when Rocky began his inevitable comeback. But no one more so than my friend, who, when Rocky finally delivered the telling blow, leaped to his feet, shook his fist at the screen and screamed, “Take that, you Commie fag.”

 

You gotta love a good movie.

In Honor Of Zig Ziglar’s Passing

 

Zig Ziglar passed away last week, at age 86. He was one of the best.

My first exposure to motivational books on tape was Zig Ziglar. At age 18, I applied to a want ad that said “Christians Wanted,” and ended up selling cookware across the state with a bunch of boys from one of the local Baptist colleges. While I sometimes doubted the level of their Christian devotion on the road, there was no questioning the quality of their listening material. I enjoyed Ziglar’s humor and humility, and what he said sounded good to me.

I have lots of favorites among Ziglar’s many stories, but there’s only one I shared with my students every semester. During the lesson on language and word choice, I’d run through this exercise, swiped from Ziglar. You take this simple sentence:

I did not say your wife was ugly.

Then you change the meaning of the sentence just by which word you emphasize. Try it yourself.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

For speech students, it’s an effective illustration. What makes it memorable for me, though, is that as I would work through the list, changing the emphasis on each repeat of the sentence, I couldn’t help but assume a distinct southern accent, like Ziglar’s.

So Zig, now I guess we’ll see you at the top….

Great Book Idea, Yours For The Taking

 

I have this great idea for a book. You know how some books are about houses that are built over ancient grave yards, and the spirits rise to haunt the poor people who live there now? You know how some houses, like ours, are built on property that belonged to an orphanage that burned down 100 years ago and three children died, and they sometimes wander the attic and stairs at night?

Those kind of books seem to do well, especially when they are made into movies, and the author gets a check for half a million dollars. So here’s an idea you can take, straight to the bank.

A young couple moves into an old house that was built on an ancient golf course. Yeah, a golf course. And the house is haunted by two bad golfers who don’t get along and a caddy who died there long ago.

I would write the book, but I just don’t know enough about golf. I mean, I thought a Mulligan was when you put whiskey in your coffee, for Pete’s sake.

But if you know golf, maybe you’re the one to tell the story. Let me know how it turns out.

 

____

 

Photo swiped from here.

Scarfing Up The Hunger Games

 

I bought and downloaded Mockingjay: The Final Book of The Hunger Games, from Audible last night. If you knew me, you would be shocked. I am a slow shopper. I was the last person in America to buy a VCR. I was the next to last person to get a CD player, because I researched and compared for years. I still wouldn’t have an iPod had Kelly not given me her old one.

 

 

 

It took six months for me to decide to buy The Hunger Games, despite my daughter Grace telling me over and over that I would enjoy it. And sure enough, I liked it, and I mean a lot. It is a wonderful and compelling story, well told. I listened to it twice, in fact, and it is better the second time.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I rushed right out and bought Catching Fire, the second book in the trilogy. It took me 182 days to convince myself to do it, because it so often happens that sequels, those sloppy seconds, are inferior to the original. Grace assured me that was not the case, but still I waited. I didn’t see how the story could continue any other way than the obvious one, so I didn’t want to waste a credit on it.

 

 

 

Man, I’m sorry I waited. Catching Fire is fantastic, simply wonderful in every way. The progression from the first book is perfectly logical, once you see it, but totally unexpected. The character development continues, and we know them well enough to know what to expect, but also enough to accept the unexpected as believable. And once the big shock came, I was well and truly shocked, and stayed shocked right to the end. I still can’t believe it on one hand, but on the other hand  I say “of course, of course.” But, you know… wow! Kudos to author Suzanne Collins.

Once started, I had a hard time not listening to book two. I had the headphones on everywhere, all the time, even when I should have been sleeping. Catching Fire is completely satisfying. Except for the cliffhanger ending that demands that you rush out and buy Mockingjay.

Which I did yesterday. But you already knew that, didn’t you.

Move Over, Dickens, Seuss, And O’Henry, There’s A New Holiday Classic In Town

 

If they can put Christmas decorations in the stores in September, then surely it isn’t too early to recommend a Christmas book. Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror is an original, a great read, imaginative and funny.

 

The story begins in sunny, warm California, the traditional setting for Christmas action. A little boy, shortcutting home through a stand of pine trees, sees an unhappy wife smack her husband, dressed as Santa, in the head with a shovel. Afraid to tell anyone, and afraid that Christmas is ruined, the boy is visited by the Archangel Raziel, sent to Earth following a string of botched assignments.

 

That’s enough set up. You will want to read it straight through, it is that good. I guarantee you will laugh, too. Ho ho ho.


Note: I just learned that The Stupidest Angel is available as a Kindle book for $1.99. Now there's a deal.

Nothing Against John Moe Personally, But….

 

I paid $1 for an abridged CD version of John Moe’s Conservatize Me, an account of his attempt to “become a righty with the help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, and beef jerky.”

The insights weren’t worth half of what I paid.

To be fair, my copy was abridged, so perhaps any intelligent or interesting points he made were edited out in this shorter version. As it is, he spent five hours and 55 minutes bashing Conservatives – not Conservatism, mind you, but Conservatives, with hard core, mean spirited, relentless mocking and insulting attacks – and devoted five minutes to glorying in the wisdom of his so-called profound conclusion.

I am conservative, in many ways, but the conservative culture he describes is foreign to me, implausible, ridiculous. The book was nothing but sweeping, unkind generalizations and vicious stereotypes, condemning anyone who shops at Walmart, eats meat, drives a truck, listens to country music, lives in Rexburg, Idaho, wears anything red, white or blue, or actually believes in the Constitution and appreciates our country and our past. It’s just more hate speech disguised as (attempted) humor, flat, mean humor, again illustrating why some think that the liberal view of freedom of speech applies only to people who think like liberals do.

The weighty, insightful conclusion that Moe seems so proud of – that none of us is 100 percent conservative nor 100 percent liberal, and that we should all get along – is something most people already know, you know, but to John Moe and people of his ilk, it is a hard-earned epiphany.

Of course, he had this epiphany before writing the book, so judging from the condemning, critical nature of his words, his ah-ha moment didn’t take.

____

Photo from this site.

Is It Sexist To Not Buy A Book About Mickey Mantle Just Because It Was Written By A Woman?

Audible is having one of their frequent sales, a BOGO from selected books. There were half a dozen I wanted, including a biography about Mickey Mantle – until I saw that The Last Boy was written by a woman.

As I continued my search, Kelly – a woman and sometimes baseball fan – walked in, so I asked her: am I being sexist? Somehow, I thought she would laugh it off, pass it off as just some other fleeting, nonsensical notion that I seem to have. You know, another joke.

Instead, she glared at me, gave me the one raised eyebrow look, and said “of course it is sexist” with much more passion than seemed necessary. She said more, but the details are fuzzy now, something about men writing about women and women’s issues and women’s points of view for centuries blah blah blah….

So I selected the one book I really wanted – written by two men – and deliberated over the others, and finally downloaded the Mantle book. I could say that my interest in baseball generally and Number 7 specifically won out, but I suspect I bought Jane Leavy’s book so Kelly would have a bit more respect for me. Either that, or just so I’d have something to blog about today.

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood is 3^rd or 4^th on my reading queue, so I’ll let you know how it turns out. And I’ll let you know when Kelly starts speaking to me again.

Women....

If You Will Hold My Hand

 

“If you will hold my hand, then I will hold my breath and cast my fate in the direction of my heart. I will put on hold my lesser dreams and reach for what is truly mine.”

It is rare to find a collection of words and ideas so profound that you stop and say “That is exactly right, perfect,” and you read and reread to take it all in. I’ve read millions of words, but few have changed my mind and my desires like Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power Of Intimate Relationships by Marianne Williamson, who I looked up because I quoted her once.

Find it, read it, if you dare. Then try to live it, if you can.

Here are parts of paragraphs from pages 26-27:

"Our deepest human need is not material at all: Our deepest need is to be seen. We need meaning. We need identity. Most people bear the terminal stress of walking the world unseen, a mere number or cog in a lifeless machine. Mystical romance is a space of resurrection and repair. It does more than help us survive a soulless world; it helps us to transform it.

"So many people say that they are looking for love, yet they are actually committed to never finding it. Many people would really rather not know of the scars and triumphs of the person who lies in their arms.

"Real love entails readiness to die to who we were, in order to be born again prepared for love, truly worthy of the romantic heights. In becoming romantic artist, we must pierce the armor that hides our hearts, and that piercing is not comfortable. It is horrible and painful. It can take years of tears to melt the hardness that develops in this world, covering our tender, gentler, inner selves. Tears for every devastating loss. Tears for every humiliating failure. Tears for every repeated mistake. Those who allow those tears, even honor those tears, are not failures at love but rather its true initiates. First the pain, and then the power. First the heart breaks then it soars."

Summer Reading: It’s Hard To Beat A Convention Of Dental Hygienists In Atlanta For Rediscovering Friendships

June is nearly half-way done. If you haven’t picked a book for your summer reading fun, let me suggest one – All Summer Long by Bob Greene (not Oprah's Bob Greene). Greene was a long-time columnist for the Chicago Tribune who appeared in hundreds of newspapers, and has published more than a dozen books. He also has excellent taste in music.

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Las Vegas -- Viva Vegas! Viva Elvis!!

The idea behind the book is simple, three old high school buddies who, 25 years later, decide to spend one last summer together. They leave behind jobs, homes, families and just take off, visiting places like Wrigley Field, a state fair, the Hilton Elvis suite in Las Vegas, a movie house in California, and a convention of dental hygienists in Atlanta. It’s hard to beat a convention of dental hygienists in Atlanta for rediscovering friendships.

It’s a personal, humorous, genuine and satisfying adventure, and if you’re over age 30, you’ll feel at home reading it.

Let me know what you think.

Books Butchered By Their Movies

Jurassic Park is third on my list of favorite books, behind Lonesome Dove and The Dollmaker. I had read it three times before the movie came out, and was overflowing with anticipation and joy standing in line to watch Jurassic Park, the movie. I just could not wait.

Five minutes into it, however, I could not wait to get out. The name of the movie and some of the lead characters are about all the book and movie have in common. I don’t know whether Jurassic Park is a good movie, because I haven’t had the heart to watch it since that first time.

The Natural, on the other hand, was just the opposite. The novel, by Bernard Malamud, is compelling, but desperately dark and degenerate. Roy Hobbs in the book is insatiable, selfish, sadistic. Every bad thing he can do, he does. I liked the book, but I would not want to see it in the theater. Roy Hobbs in the movie is heroic and hopeful, despite a tragic flaw. I don’t want to give anything away, but the endings could not be more different.

I’ve read every Tom Clancy book, up to Rainbow Six, and can tell you that those books and their movies (The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, to name three) are virtually unrelated to the print version, but that’s okay, because a true retelling of a Clancy book would make a 43-hour movie you could only enjoy sitting between a five-star general and an engineer. I’ve enjoyed the Clancy adaptations for the big screen, because I know going in not to hold them to the same standard as the books.

What about you? What excellent novels have you read that made a bad movie? Or what movie have you liked better than the book?