Movie Review- The Wolverine

The Wolverine

Last weekend I had some free time and decided to go and spend it watching the new Wolverine movie.  I enjoyed the movie but I can't recommend it unless you're a big Xmen fan.  The movie was well acted and had some great story tie ins from classic comic books but for a casual fan I'm not sure it hit the mark.  The movie mostly takes place in Japan where Logan is brought to say goodbye to a dying man who's life he once saved in WWII.  Obviously he's full of shit and becomes the primary antagonist of the movie while Logan falls in love with his granddaughter who is in danger.  There were some good actions scenes and all the acting was really well done but the story never really came together like it should have.  To me I think it would have been better if there were less plot threads and they concentrated on less things.  This is also a pipe dream but these movies really need to be rated R and more hardcore.  Wolverine should be a ball of rage with really sharp claws.  All in all, if you're a huge Xmen fan or love the Xmen movies I'd check it out, if not I'd give it a pass.

The Best American Short Stories 2012

The Best American Short Stories 2012 edited by Tom Perrotta & Heidi Pitlor


Another year and another ridiculous collection of short stories.  This years editor Tom Perrotta did a great job of picking the stories that made the collection seem varied and rich.

This years edition includes the following stories;
Carol Anshaw. The Last Speaker of the Language from New Ohio Review
Good start to the book. This story is essentially about a dysfunctional family.

Taylor Antrim. Pilgrim Life from American Short Fiction
This story would feel right at home in the mid 90's slacker genre. A slacker dealing with some family issues tries to leverage his roommates new found internet fortune. Ends up being a bit of a coming of age story too, just slacker late.

Nathan Englander. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank from The New Yorker
Love his fiction and was excited to read this piece that's the title of his newest collection of short stories. The story revolves around the question, would the person I'm with risk their life to save me?

Mary Gaitskill. The Other Place from The New Yorker
This was probably my favorite story from an author I wasn't that familiar with. I don't know how to describe it without ruining it but it deals with a topic that evokes a visceral reaction. MUST read!

Roxane Gay. North Country from Hobart
Sweet story about a woman who moved up to northern Michigan to take a teaching job.

Jennifer Haigh. Paramour from Ploughshares
This is another story I don't really know how to summarize without giving away too much. She spoke at the Boston Book Festival last year on a panel that I liked a lot. Glad the fiction lived up to my imagination, she set a high bar.

Mike Meginnis. Navigators from Hobart
Loser father and impressionable son bond over playing a video game where the goal is to become nothing and ascend to heaven. Odd in a great way.

Steven Millhauser. Miracle Polish from The New Yorker
Millhauser has consistently stood out in every anthology I've read with him in it and this story is no exception. Excellently written with more than a touch of magic.

Alice Munro. Axis from The New Yorker
Brilliant story about two college women when most women only went to college to find a husband. The story follows their lives primarily through a brief relationship between one of the friends and her boyfriend then the boyfriend's chance encounter with the other friend decades later.

Lawrence Osborne. Volcano from Tin House
This story followed a sad lonely middle aged woman on vacation in Hawaii and was really well done. Creepy, excellent finish to the story.

Julie Otsuka. Diem Perdidi from Granta
Brilliant story about a woman dealing with her mother's dementia. The format of the story is what really separates it from the rest.

Edith Pearlman. Honeydew from Orion
Messed up family and dad cheating on mom, done a million times but rarely as well as this.

Angela Pneuman. Occupational Hazard from Ploughshares
Story starts with an inspector stepping in raw sewage and it goes on to deal with family & death.

Eric Puchner. Beautiful Monsters from Tin House
This is the second time I've read this story as it was included in the Best American Non Required Reading and it was even better the second time. Trouble comes into a society of all children in the form of a grown man.

George Saunders. Tenth of December from The New Yorker
He is as unique a genius as there is writing today. Fantastic story about a man who is saved by a boy in the act of saving a boy. Mind #$%# in the best way.

Taiye Selasi. The Sex Lives of African Girls from Granta
Disturbing story about a girl living with her aunt and uncle in Africa. Dirty privileged old men are the same in everywere unfortunately.

Sharon Solwitz. Alive from Fifth Wednesday Journal
This story was inspired by the authors own experiences with a mother being with her 2 sons on a day at a ski resort. The oldest son is battling cancer and the story is told from the point of view of the younger son. Poignant, gets into your soul.

Kate Walbert. M&M World from The New Yorker
A complex story with a simple set up of a single mom taking her 2 young daughters to the M&M store in Manhattan.

Jess Walter. Anything Helps from McSweeney’s
I'd read this story before and really liked it. It's about a homeless recovering addict dealing with his addictions and trying to connect with his son who's a ward of the state.

Adam Wilson. What’s Important Is Feeling from The Paris Review
Dysfunctional movie crew makes shitty movie. Pretty funny story and makes fun of some Hollywood cliches. I liked it.

Audio Book- The Shining by Stephen King

Audio Book- The Shining by Stephen King narrated by Campbell Scott

My recent run of audio books continue with The Shining. I've read a ton of King but oddly haven't read a lot of the classics before now including The Shining, Carrie & Kujo. It's possibly because I thought I knew what the stories were about but I'm not positive. In any case I'm kind of glad because it's really nice to go back and read the classics. Some of the themes of his career are seeded in this book, an atypical hero, a strong sense of good v evil forces and strong foreshadowing for example. I see a lot of Jack Sawyer from The Talisman in Danny Torrance and that's strong praise as The Talisman is one of my all time favorite books of all time and my favorite by King (co authoring counts). Both are children that have extraordinary powers tying to battle evil forces that are attacking their parents and you can't help but put your full support behind them. While I prefer King as a narrator, Campbell Scott did and amazing job and the argument can be made that he's better at the job because of his range of character voices. He also managed the scary scenes really well, there were quite a few scenes that were really creepy and I think if the narrator wasn't excellent he could make the scenes come off as campy.

Movie Review- Man of Steel

Man of Steel

Loved it. Great story and acting. Going into the movie I had seen pictures of Henry Cavill who plays Superman during the movie's publicity tour and I wasn't sold. I was wrong, Cavill did an amazing job with the perfect happy medium between Christopher Reeves and Tom Welling. I'd also heard that the chemistry between him and Amy Adams playing Lois Lane wasn't great and that is a fairer criticism. I thought she did an ok job but she could have played it with more attitude and the romance could have been a lot better. She's gorgeous and the romance wasn't as important as some of her other scenes so I thought she did well overall. Personally I thought the two best performances in the movie were by Michael Shannon who played General Zod and Russell Crowe who played Superman's father Jor-El. Michael Shannon in particular really stole the show for me, he was absolutely brilliant. I was also glad that the story was so good and dark. Lately with a lot of the reboot movies I've been a little bored by the origin's story but this movie handled that really well starting off with Clark as a young adult and covering his childhood through a few well done flash backs. Really enjoyable move and highly recommended!

Movie Review- World War Z

World War Z

I went to see the movie as a Sunday matinee after finally starting to feel better from a brutal hangover on Saturday. I'd read the book and thought the previews looked really good. Brad Pitt's an actor I like and the zombie effects looked pretty cool. The movie itself just didn't really perform, they did an ok job building tension and it was really cool when the zombies swarmed but overall it never really came together and the last quarter of the movie was pretty boring. I also had a really hard time with the camera constantly jumping around, I was feeling about 95% better but left the movies really nauseous again. Nausea aside, I think the real issues with the movie were not developing characters outside of Pitt's and the story seemed rushed and unorganized. A friend said they could have added 30 minutes and really tied it together a lot better. Ultimately I have to agree. Cool special effects does not make the movie.

Audio book- Needful Things written and read by Stephen King

Audio book Needful Things written and read by Stephen King


This is the second book I've listen to by Stephen King that he also read and it was another amazing experience. I couldn't stop listening to it and listened to all 250 hours in a little over a week. The story itself is about a nefarious shopkeeper who opens a shop in Western Maine and almost immediately starts trouble by escalating longstanding small town feuds. I'm not sure I would have liked the book as much as I did if I wasn't one of King's constand readers. Castle Rock has been featured prominently in a lot of his other works, the main protagonist Alan Pangborn was awesome in The Dark Half and there's a strong tie in to the Dark Tower series at the end of the book. It was nice to revisit old friends and familiar places but the key to me was the Dark Tower tie in at climax. I won't ruin it but I'm not sure I wouldn have completely understood it if I wasn't aware of King's the world outside of this book. That being said, this book is still excellent on it's own but if someone wanted to listen to one of King's books and haven't read much of his catolog I'd recommend starting with Bag of Bones because while there are still tie in's they're not really all that important and you'd still get to enjoy listing to King read his own work.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Summer finally showing up in Maine was the perfect time to read a good mystery and this one comes highly rated being included on just about every best books of 2012 list. Obviously I had high hopes when I started reading and to me the book left me unsatisfied. In order to avoid spoilers I won't get into too many plot specifics but overall I didn't like either of the 2 main characters, the plot twist was good but too early in the book and then the psychology for behind the ending had me rolling my eyes. I don't expect the plot complexities or prose in literary fiction but I just can't believe how flawed the plot feels to me looking back. Can't say I'd recommend the book and am a little baffled about why it was so highly lauded. Good but far from great.