Trying something new...

Because I keep forgetting to write reviews (since this is a separate blog), I've decided just to integrate it into my main blog. I realized it was wholly unnecessary to keep them different sites, since it just means more posting to keep each one interesting. So... to see further reviews and my other thoughts and words, go to Savour Every Moment.

Doctor Who Series 1, 2, and 3

I have been putting this off for a long time. It looks like now there's going to be a break between me watching the first three new seasons and the fourth, since I ordered the fourth from Amazon. I had seen one or two episodes of Doctor Who previously, and liked it. But what really got me to watch the whole new series was Jeff showing me "Blink," which is the Steven Moffat episode from Season 3, which focuses on Sally Sparrow and the weeping angels. It was terrifying and well-written, and so so good. After that I decided it was high time to watch Doctor Who. Luckily for me, seasons 1 through 3 were on instant play on Netflix. And so it began.

I was hooked after about, oh, one episode. I COULD NOT STOP watching season one. I loved loved loved Rose, and really liked the Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston (who was that invisible guy on Heroes!). I was upset that Eccleston was leaving because I did like him oh so much. But that lasted about five minutes (well, once during the Christmas special the Doctor actually starts doing stuff). And so began my full-blown obsession with David Tennant. And Doctor Who in general. I loved the first season but was completely and irrevocably obsessed by the second one. I cried, hard, at the end of the second season. I loved Rose Tyler. I miss her. The third season Christmas special was ok but I don't like Donna (so... err... hopefully she doesn't suck so bad for the 4th season). I liked Martha, though.

Ok, so a more specific season-by-season review.

Season 1: Best episodes were "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances," the Steven Moffat-penned two-part episode. I have a theory about the dancing metaphor but anyway, ask me about that later if you care. "Dalek," "Father's Day," and "The End of the World" were also good. In addition, I liked the finale, "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways." None of the episodes were particularly bad. I do like Captain Jack Harkness, too.

Season 2: Definitely my favorite season so far. David Tennant, as mentioned, is absolutely brilliant as the Doctor. The Christmas special was great, "The Girl in the Fireplace" was marvelous (Steven Moffat - see the trend?) as was the two-part "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit." I loved the introduction of K-9 in "School Reunion" and our glimpse of Sarah Jane Smith. The two-part Cybermen episodes were quite good as well. The finale was heartwrenching and great. So basically, no duds. However I must say in the first season and the beginning of the second I hated Mickey Smith. I wanted him to go away. He finally gets less annoying in the second season, though, and by the end of it he's alright by me.

Season 3: Rather hit or miss. I do like Martha, she's pretty much great. But there are definitely duds in this season (notably "The Lazarus Experiment," which was just bad, and the two-part Dalek episodes, which were amusing but not great). "Blink" is by far the best episode in the season. I also enjoyed "The Shakespeare Code," "Gridlock," and "42". The final trio of episodes is good too - especially the last one. I like that they brought back Jack Harkness, and that they hinted that he might be the Face of Boe...

I am looking forward to getting my season four in the mail! There's a Pompeii episode, which will be delightful since I'm a Classics major. hehe.

Doctor Who overall rating: A++++++

Season One: A

Season Two: A+

Season Three: B+

People are Unappealing (Even Me)

Author: Sara Barron

Pub. Date: 2009

This is a collection of essays about how quirky and annoying people can be. Rarely does a book actually make me laugh out loud - but this one did, often, and heartily. I would recommend this to everyone. It's fun, interesting, and you might even realize there's something annoying about you (but ultimately, that's what makes you interesting).

Grade: A+!

The God of Small Things

Author: Arundhati Roy

Pub. Date: 1997

Winner of the Booker Prize

This is a well-acclaimed novel, and clearly popular in the UK (it has been on the Big Read and all). At first, while reading it, I found it lyrical and magical. I loved the way it circled around the center action and teased the reader with small bits of knowledge.

But then about 2/3 of the way through it, I got tired of it all. Instead of lyrical, it became tired and repetitive and pretentious. I was just ready to know what had happened and was getting annoyed with all the hints at it.

There's a fine line between artistic and pretentious, and for me, this book crossed it. Had it been a bit shorter, I would have still been caught up in it and liked it a lot. But no. It dragged on too long for my taste.

Grade: C-

The Geography of Bliss

I wanted to throw this book in a lake (unfortunately, it's a library book). At times it was funny, sure, and it was kind of interesting. But I couldn't get over its shortcomings and so I didn't finish it (maybe you think that makes me unqualified to form an opinion of it, but I don't). First off, a real gripe I have with this these pop science (I use science loosely here, because I couldn't think of another way to describe the genre) books is that they never seem to have a bibliography, or always cite their sources. I mean, the author is no researcher, but still he quotes a whole lot of other works, which it would be nice if he had collected them at the back (and not, dare I say, too hard). In addition, he showed moments of extreme cultural insensitivity. Clearly, the question "are you happy" is not always an appropriate one to ask. Take when he was in Qatar. He even knew it was an inappropriate question, but asked it anyway.

Weiner is also ridiculously ethnocentric. When he talks about culture, he is referring to the American definition of 'high culture', not the definition that you should be using when doing cross-cultural research. The claim that Qatar has no culture is absurd! There is no place without a culture. Sure, it might not have its own arts, literature, music, etc., but those things are not equivalent to culture. He criticizes, ridicules even, parts of some of the cultures he visits. For instance, he sees the Bhutanese use of phalluses as an apotropaic symbol (they ward off evil spirits) and makes fun of it. This would be uncalled for and really offensive even if it was a uniquely Bhutanese custom. But no, he doesn't seem to realize that the use of the phallus to ward off evil is fairly common, and dates back at least as far as the ancient Romans.

Finally, Weiner expects to know all there is to know about a culture's view of happiness by going for a week or two and talking to a few people. This is completely outrageous and presumptious. You can't come to such broad conclusions after a week as a tourist. Basically, thanks to my being an anthropology major, I could not take anymore of this. So, I urge you to be suspicious while reading this book. If you can enjoy it, by all means, do. But don't believe that it's necessarily very true.

I, for my part, am going back to fiction.

Grade: F

Milk

2008

Directed by: Gus Van Sant

Written by: Dustin Lance Black

Starring: Sean Penn, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, Diego Luna, Josh Brolin

This movie, based on a true story, is moving and well-done. Everyone and everything looks prettier than it would have, of course, this is Hollywood after all. But the historical context and events are portrayed and set up well. There are some great performances, notably by Sean Penn and Josh Brolin. I really enjoyed this movie, though it was sad, and it made me think a whole lot. Watch it if you're interested in history, San Francisco, or the gay rights movement!

Grade: A

The Bucket List

2007

Directed by: Rob Reiner

Written by: Justin Zackham

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman

Two old men with terminal cancer decide to leave the hospital and complete their 'bucket list', or list of things they want to do before they die. The beginning, I found, was painful in that it was what you might really go through in the beginning stages of being diagnosed with cancer. The 'funny' parts were more amusing than funny; I didn't laugh much. However, the movie is quite sweet and endearing. The character development is good but sort of cliche. It's sad, though, so be warned about that. It makes you want to do more with your life. As a side note, I love how Morgan Freeman's character is so trivia-obsessed. There's a bunch of Jeopardy in it! Awesome.

Grade: B

The Sharing Knife: Horizon

2009

Author: Lois McMaster Bujold

Genre: Fantasy, Romance(ish)

I love the Sharing Knife series. It's a star-crossed lovers story, and masterfully written. There's a complex world involved and plenty of sex scenes involving a guy with a hook for a hand. The fourth, Horizon, was better than the third, I thought. I really enjoyed it. It's packed full of character drama as well as action. If it is the last one, as I suspect, I won't be too disappointed with the ending, either (though of course I want to know more).

I Love You, Man

2009

Directed by: John Hamburg

Written by: John Hamburg and Larry Levin

Starring: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones

This movie is hilarious, heartwarming, and painfully awkward. A real estate agent (Rudd) and his fiance (Jones) are planning their wedding when it becomes apparent that he has no male friends. He sets out, with the help of his gay brother (Andy Samberg) and his mother, to find some.

Rudd is so funny and awkward, as is Segel - I love him from HIMYM. There's some great cameos, as well, including one from Lou Farrigno. There's so much Ho Yay it's ridiculous, but it makes it even more awesome. Basically, I really enjoyed this movie. And it has some great quotable lines - even better!

Grade: A-

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

2008
Directed by: Bharat Nalluri
Written by: David Magee and Simon Beaufoy
Starring: Amy Adams, Frances McDormand, Ciaran Hinds, Lee Pace

This is a movie about a governess (McDormand) in the 1940s who gets fired and finds herself desperate for work and a place to live. She ends up becoming a social secretary for an American starlet (Amy Adams) and helps her navigate her complicated love life.

The movie is adorable, happy, and ultimately even triumphant. It's a sweet story of love, and of not being ashamed of who you are. There are themes of choosing love over advantage and being able to find love even after you've given up hope. The filming is gorgeous and the costumes are pretty. I really liked it! Also I already loved Amy Adams (Enchanted) and Lee Pace (from Pushing Daisies)

Grade: A

The Graveyard Book

Author: Neil Gaiman

Year: 2008

Newbery Medal Winner!

This is a charming book about a little boy who, through rather unfortunate circumstances, grows up in a graveyard, raised by ghosts and other not-quite-living-things. Each chapter is a different but related adventure from the young life of Nobody, or Bod, as he is called. I am already a big fan of Neil Gaiman (he's my favorite author) but I hadn't yet read any of his children's/YA fiction. I was highly impressed. It's easy to forget that it's for young readers. Sure, it doesn't have hugely adult themes, but also, it is as complex and well-written as Gaiman's adult novels.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable book. I would recommend it for fantasy fans of any age.

Grade: A

Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go is shocking and profoundly moving. As you read, Ishiguro ever so slowly unfolds the twist, the reason the kids are 'special.' This book broke my heart a little, probably because of how ordinary the characters and their lives are. They know what is to become of them, but in other ways are naive. And, like I said, they are just so ordinary. I identified very closely with the main character, and long before the end I knew what was coming. Not in a bad way, because I wanted to see how it would unfold. This book is thought-provoking and masterfully crafted. I loved it.

About a Boy

This is a touching movie about an immature, shiftless, womanising man who grows up a little due to the influence of a troubled young boy. He finds love, and the boy's mother doesn't commit suicide. He pulls through for the boy. It's also funny. I liked it.

Grade: B+

Oil

This book began interestingly enough. At first I found Sinclair's style quite compellingly descriptive, and was rather excited about the rest of the book. It captured my attention immediately, and I had high hopes for it.

Somehow, though, I grew further and further distanced from the book as time went on. Sinclair overemphasizes how great Socialism is and how terrible capitalism is. The book is far too political and it starts to feel like you're being beat over the head with the ideology. The main plot of the book is that Bunny, the protagonist, can't make up his mind. After a while, he gets incredibly annoying.

I was really disappointed in the book overall. It seemed to have so much promise, and then everything changed for some reason. I haven't seen There Will Be Blood, but it's comforting to know it's only loosely based on the book.

Grade: C

Prozac Nation

Elizabeth Wurtzel’s memoir Prozac Nation is an incredibly intimate look into the nature of depression. We get an extremely personal glimpse into the mindset of someone who is clinically depressed, and learn exactly how it feels. We follow Wurtzel through her first overdose as a young teen at summer camp, to the abandonment of her father at age fourteen, to her enrolment at Harvard, to her first real heartbreak, to her diagnosis of atypical depression, and finally to her first real suicide attempt and eventual recovery. At times the narrative is a bit tedious and repetitive, but nonetheless it is highly illuminating.

As Wurtzel tries to make sense of her depression, she explores possible causes, thereby exposing popular thought surrounding this illness in psychology and mainstream culture today. She holds her family situation as a partial cause, and also the state of society in general. She also considers a biochemical explanation, but ultimately concludes it is probably a mix of all of these factors.
Wurtzel goes on to examine the prevalence of Prozac prescriptions in American society today. She accuses America of becoming a “Prozac Nation” in which everyone with the slightest case of morose feelings is prescribed Prozac or some other antidepressive. She points out the rising occurrence of depression among young people, so much so that it has become a part of our culture. Prozac Nation was written in the 1990s, at the height of grunge, and it would be interesting to examine how depression fits into culture today. Of course, there are certainly subcultures centred on depressive thought, what we know as ‘goth’ and ‘emo.’

Depression is a huge part of the lives of many Americans. There are fewer and fewer people who don’t at least know of one person who suffers from this disease. As someone who has a close relative who struggles with depression, this was an important read to me, if for no other reason than it allowed me to understand much better what depression is. It also brings up interesting social questions. Do social, political, and economic factors in America breed depression? The answer, it would seem, is yes. This book also leads one to ponder what place mental illness holds in society, and how much it has to do with biology versus social problems. Is it appropriate that so many people take a pill to get better instead of other therapeutic measures?

Grade: B

PS I Love You

AKA PS This is a terrible movie.

I'll admit, the premise is sort of sweet. At the same time, it's sort of creepy and even a little disturbing. It seems almost wrong that someone would do something like this to someone and not let them move on in a normal process of grieving. I'm not sure what Hilary Swank was thinking; she's much better than this. Romantic 'comedy' is not her thing at all. The characters were sort of annoying, the dialogue was terrible, and the acting was pretty bad as well. There's not really a lot of romance, and I was pretty unsatisfied with the ending. Basically, not at all good.

Grade: F

A Complete History of My Sexual Failures

This was a hilarious, endearing, and moving documentary. It also included several scenes of nudity. It is about a man, Chris Waitt, who attempts to interview all his ex-girlfriends to find out what is wrong with him, since they all dumped him. We are taken on Chris's journey of self-discovery to the sad realization that this whole project was really an attempt to get back together with one particular ex. It is the kind of documentary that pulls you in, you feel like you become friends with the somewhat-pathetic Chris during the course of the film. And you cheer at the end when he gets a great new girlfriend, and wonder how he's doing now.

Grade: A+

Man On Wire

Man On Wire was about a Frenchman, Philippe Petit, who wirewalked between the Twin Towers in the ‘70s. It was an amazing documentary – it explored the reasons the guy wanted to do this, what he had done leading up to it (Notre Dame and Sydney Harbour Bridge), and his relationships with his girlfriend and his friends and how they changed as time went on and as he became famous. He saw that the Twin Towers were ‘going to be built at some time’ when he was 17, and it was his life’s dream to walk on a wire between them. The movie was beautiful, funny (he got arrested each of these times and it was kind of hilarious – like the police report for his Twin Towers request said “Description of Complaint – MAN ON WIRE”), and extremely interesting. The music is wonderful as well. I am really glad I saw it. It is an excellent documentary.

Grade: A+

The Dark Knight

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. I had to wait a week because it came out late in New Zealand. I must say, I was not at all disappointed. Christian Bale was great. Heath Ledger was phenomenal. It was less weird to watch than I had expected, it was like he was someone else entirely. It was sad, truly moving. It explored deep moral and social issues. The 'social experiments' the Joker does are especially intriguing. I don't want to give too much away. It was a deep, heavy movie. And I loved it.

Grade: A+

Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story

Christopher Moore is one of my favorite comedic authors. Wikipedia calls his style "absurdist fiction" - that fits quite well, in fact. I have read several of his novels, but there are still a few I've not gotten around to. Bloodsucking Fiends was in my closet, and while looking for anything light after Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I found it and immediately knew it would be perfect. It's about vampires: a beautiful girl gets attacked and wakes up to discover she's now a vampire. She finds a random guy to live with, who happens to be a young aspiring author. Craziness ensues, and well, you just need to read it. It's about an unconventional way of finding love. I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel, You Suck: A Love Story.

Grade: A+