Mia

All reviews - Movies (4) - Books (10) - Music (1) -

Potentially My New Favorite Movie

Posted : 7 months, 2 weeks ago on 17 November 2007 07:12 (A review of Snow Cake)

The acting was awesome all around (especially on Sigourney Weaver's part), and I loved the story. It was driven by the characters and their emotions, but it had enough comic relief to keep it from becoming overly sentimental. Plus, it's a movie about platonic friendship between a man and a woman. For some reason, those seem to be incredibly rare.

The script was great; I don't want to post lines here because that might spoil the movie, but I can tell that the writers put a lot of thought into the character development.

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Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) review

Posted : 10 months, 2 weeks ago on 20 August 2007 12:58 (A review of Darkly Dreaming Dexter (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard))

I picked up Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay completely on a whim at an airport. I haven't seen the TV series based on the books yet, but my mother has been raving about it & ordering me to netflix it the nanosecond that the first season is available on DVD.

I can tell already that I'm going to like this series. I think that Dexter may have just replaced the Phantom of the Opera as my favorite fictional psychotic murderer of all time. The writing style is wonderfully snarky. I spent most of this book torn between wanting to vomit and to double over laughing.

To be fair, I was surprised by the main character since I've been pitched the "serial killer who solves mysteries" description so many times. I wasn't expecting the serial killer to be so... socially responsible? Picky? I wanted the really disturbing, mere mortal version of Lestat, not a violent vigilante (Ooh, that's an alliteration! Just like the titles of the books in this series!).

I like the idea of a murderer with whom I can halfway sympathize, but I think that the plot was good enough that Jeff Lindsay could have made him even more of a sick, remoreseless bastard and gotten away with it. Having your sociopathic killer protagonist only kill child molesters & murderers just seems like... cheating, for lack of a better word. Who hasn't fantasized about dismembering serial rapists on occasion? As a reader, I was left not so much disgusted by Dexter's actions and rationale as kind of wanting to go shopping for knives and Saran Wrap with him.

Not that I'm complaining.

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Johnny Dangerously review

Posted : 10 months, 3 weeks ago on 13 August 2007 05:53 (A review of Johnny Dangerously)

This is one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. It's silly and sarcastic- just the type of humor I enjoy.
I'd recommend it to anyone who's a fan of 1930s crime films or Mel Brooks style parodies.

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The Alienist review

Posted : 11 months ago on 5 August 2007 08:33 (A review of The Alienist)

I'm a huge fan of mystery novels that are set during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries because of the nature of law enforcement at the time. The people who are capable of solving difficult cases usually have to find means of getting information other than through legal channels. Techniques such as psychological profiling had not yet been accepted by the general public, & the knowledge of science and psychology were rudimentary by today's standards. Like most "detective stories" set during this period, The Alienist starts as a battle of wits between a motley team of investigators and a serial killer. However, it is deeper than that; The Alienist is also a commentary on society's responsibility for the "human monsters" it creates.

It is 1896, and there has been a series of particularly brutal killings of child prostitutes in New York. Due to the nature of both the crimes & the victims, most of the police department wants nothing to do with this case. Enter an alienist with controversial criminal profiling techniques, a police journalist, and a woman whose ambition is to be the first female detective in New York.

At times, the characters seem very modern in their sensibilities compared to their historical backgrounds. I didn't have much of a problem with that because they were so well drawn & believable. Even against such a grisly backdrop, some of the characters' conversations made me laugh out loud. The petulant narrator, John Moore, is nothing if not sympathetic.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes murder mysteries with a twist or with social commentary.

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Secretary review

Posted : 11 months ago on 3 August 2007 12:02 (A review of Secretary)

I'm aware that I'm in the minority here, but I thought that this movie missed the forest for the trees in terms of feminism and sexual liberation. The core message that it was trying to convey is that sex and relationships do not have to be about political correctness. That's all well and good. I don't know any feminists who care what people do in their own bedrooms, as long as it is between two consenting adults. I also don't have a problem with the positive portrayal of S&M or dominant/submissive relationships. In fact, it was refreshing to see a movie portray it so candidly. Most of the classic screwball comedies and even many of the modern romantic movies have an undercurrent of submission/dependence on the part of the female lead, who discovers liberation by "submitting" to the male romantic lead (It Happened One Night, Shop Around the Corner, etc.) So why am I so hard on this movie? I thought that the portrayal of self-injury was crass and really unnecessary. The female lead is suddenly "cured" when she enters this relationship with her boss. It also begins, offensively, with him spanking her in the office. He doesn't ask if it's what she wants, doesn't even establish a relationship with her beforehand. It seems almost that he begins this relationship with her because he knows she won't fight back.

I was also annoyed at the portrayal of her fiancee. He's a nice, dependable guy and obviously cares for Lee very much. Instead of simply having her break off the relationship with him, the movie portrays *him* as the bad guy. In his position, I probably would have reacted with the same incredulity.

It made one point very well, which was that not all people are the same and that submission can be liberating if it makes both people feel fulfilled. But I think that most people who practice BDSM would probably agree that it is not a cure for low self-esteem or depression. The "safe, sane, and consentual" motto would need to apply here; though Lee found the relationship to be a positive experience, the fact that she did not give her consent before it started makes it questionable in terms of its message.

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Music and Lyrics review

Posted : 11 months ago on 2 August 2007 09:24 (A review of Music and Lyrics)

This movie is like ninety-nine point ten percent of all romantic comedies: two people meet, they end up spending time together through a highly improbable series of events, one of them does something to destroy the relationship, & then they finally reconcile at the end.

What makes this movie awesome is the characters & the script. The main characters, Alex and Sophie, have problems; what makes them so charming is that they're well aware of just how screwed up they both are. The supporting cast and characters are also sweet and believable.

The dialog is snappy and the jokes are tightly woven. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore deliver them without missing a beat.

I wasn't crazy about the songs they used on the soundtrack, but I've been told that I have terrible taste in music.

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Dark Satire

Posted : 11 months, 2 weeks ago on 21 July 2007 03:21 (A review of Amsterdam: A Novel)

The plot is excellent, and very clever. Wow, did I ever not like the main characters of the book. The story's most likable character dies before the book even begins, and the book spends several chapters detailing the self-aggrandizing pomposity of Vernon and Clive.

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Informative and Interesting

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 25 March 2007 07:52 (A review of Expletive Deleted: A Good Look at Bad Language)

This author presents a playful and appropriately irreverent look at one of the most often overlooked aspects of the English language. She defines swearing, profanity, cursing, and blasphemy clearly and concisely. What I love most about this book is that it contains a decent amount of information, but it isn't written in what I consider "high, academic language." It's straightforward, easy to read, and fun- as books about swear words should be!

However, this isn't a book I'd recommend if you were doing academic research. Though it's great as an introduction to some of the concepts on English linguistics and profanity, it doesn't provide a detailed explanation of some of the historical events and documents the author mentions. That being said, the tone makes it obvious that Expletive Deleted was never intended to be a textbook. It's for people who love words, especially those that are taboo.

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A good read, despite flaws in the transl

Posted : 1 year, 4 months ago on 21 February 2007 01:30 (A review of Nana, Volume 1)

The English translation could have been better; the use of slang felt forced & unnatural, and made the 20 year old college students sound younger than they were. Despite that, I can tell I'm going to be a fan of this series; the characters are complicated and multilayered. My favorite character was probably Junko, and I hope she features more prominently in the other volumes.

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Perfect mix of humor and sincerity

Posted : 1 year, 5 months ago on 24 January 2007 11:03 (A review of A Dirty Job: A Novel)

When people die, their souls have to make their migration through inanimate objects. "Death Merchants" are responsible for making sure that this happens.

This is exactly the type of story I love. It's snarky, satirical, and pulls no punches, but it's not without heart. Though they're exaggerations and parodies, all of the main characters are sincere and sympathetic. My favorite character was Lily, the high school goth who works in Charlie's secondhand shop. At times, it's almost sugary sweet, but Christopher Moore manages to keep it irreverent enough that it doesn't put you into a diabetic coma.

I was a little disappointed in the ending; I felt like the writer sacrificed an otherwise poetic ending for a cheap one-liner, but it still works. Overall, I'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes screwball fantasies and has enough of a macabre sense of humor to appreciate a satire of life and death.

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