It’s always hit or miss with David Sedaris. His most brilliant work often involves his family and always involves some personal flaw. His worst work, which can be offensive, belligerent, and nausea inducing, usually involves his views on politics. I don’t mind David Sedaris having political views or hating conservative-I just don’t want to find these tirades grouped together with his more traditional humor and nostalgia pieces. Like Squirrel Seeks Chipmonk, I’d like it better if he wrote this stuff under another name and collected them in separate books, perhaps only available in Iran or North Korea and then…
Tag: finial
Tom Cruise’s Oblivion
Oblivion is yet another movie about a world where the bulk of the earth’s population has been wiped out and a handful of survivors with virtually no chance of beating a vastly superior enemy-uh wait, that’s a lot closer to the end. We start off with Tom Cruise and a cute British woman with over-sized pupils going about the routine business of sucking all the water off the Earth’s surface so it can be shipped off to Titan, a large moon orbiting Jupiter. There are pockets of aliens hiding here and there that sabotage the equipment and Tom has to go out and repair it. Tom is Tech number…
Fiction Ruined My Family
Jeanne Darst recounts a life filled with wrong choices, poor decisions, and a general lack of interest from her alcoholic parents and her apathetic sisters. As might be expected, this is not a happy story, but it has it’s occasional funny bits. I can’t think of any at the moment, but I did smile once or twice. Fiction Ruined My Family is not really about Jeanne Darst, it’s more about her father and his quest to write the ultimate tell all book about Zelda and Scot Fitzgerald. By the time I finished this collection of personal horror stories I found that…
Homeland on Showtime
There are some shows that should only be one season. Heroes and Prison Break would have made pretty good one season shows, as they quickly lost their way after the first season. Damian Lewis had his own short lives series, Life, which should have been left off at one season. The first season of Homeland had a lot of promise. A forgotten POW is found in a locked room after being held hostage for eight years, but is he a hero or a villain? That’s the big question our hero, an ambitious CIA agent, has to answer. We are shown…
Contagion
Contagion was not what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be more 28 Days Later and less PBS Special on Diseases and how they are spread. So instead of a tense story about the end of the world, we had a rather dry and boring story about the spread a virus and how it brings out the worst in people. Contagion was not a good movie. None of the characters were likeable, starting with the first person we see who is screwing around on her too good to be true husband. This moves the story from…
You Don’t Know Jack
Barry Levinson’s made for HBO movie is about the completely eccentric retired Doctor Jack Kevorkian, who believes that it is his duty to put people out of their misery. With the help of his sister and his only friend in the world, who happens to run a medical supply business-Doctor Death starts to help people who no longer want to live, kill themselves. Each death has a small number showing how many people died with Dr Kevorkian’s assistance. We end around 130. The cast of You Don’t Know Jack is impressive. Al Pacino, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, and blast from…
Hit List:Antia Blake and Edward Ride Again
Laurell K Hamilton goes old school with Anita Blake in the 20th book in the series. Hit List is more monster hunting and vampire slaying and a lot less wicked sexual powers and Ardeur induced orgies. This is a good thing. The story opens up with Anita and Edward investigating a series of murders where weretigers are the victims. It seems that the Harlequin are following the orders of Marmee Noir and that they are still after Anita. The story takes place far from Jean Claude and Richard and the rest of the cast of thousands that make up Anita’s…
Genghis Grill-In Awe of The Master
I’ve always been a fan of all you can eat places-who doesn’t love having more food than they can possibly eat? Genghis Grill sell their buffet as either one bowl-about the size of a cereal bowl- or all you can eat. The result is that some people don’t want to spend another couple of dollars and do their best to get all their money’s worth out the first bowl. I tend to get about one third meats and two thirds veggies and spices. There are 13 different forms of protein from shrimp and scallops to beef and sausage and chicken.…
Never Let Me Go
British Sci Fi never ceases to amaze me-the same people who bring us Doctor Who and Space:1999 also bring us The Prisoner and Outcasts. From the very silly to the simply baffling, British Sci Fi is never predictable. Never Let Me Go was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, best known for his love song to the serving class in The Remains of The Day. Like that film, Never Let Me Go starts out slow, and pretty much stays that way. The film opens with a little slug card telling us there were some serious advances in medicine in 1952 and that…
Why We Get Fat
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It talks about how the world changed after World War II and how everyone who has been drinking the Calories In/Calories Out Kool Aide is wrong. Once upon a time some serious people studied why humans get fat, why rats get fat, and why old Doc Atkins was right. I have my own theories as to why no one cares-it has to do with the billions and billions of dollars made from fast food, dieting, supplements, exercise products, and doctors who have no interest whatsoever in curing anyone of anything. Ok,…