Review Revue

Welcome to the quick hits edition of some Jonesian reviews. I'm gonna spend one short paragraph (and try not to be my usual long-winded self) on each in the five books I've read in the last few weeks and the three movies I've seen (not counting The Bourne Supremacy which the beck and I watched on the tele the other night which was SWEET - one of the coolest, most implausible car chases in recent movie memory - but a 2/3 viewing on TNT doesn't really warrant a review). Here goes:

Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: 74

An excellent love story that doesn't over-rely on its central gimmick yoo much, even though it is a superb gimmick - the interwoven lives of the two principles and the beautiful family / friend backdrops work great, and I love the "ships passing" aspect of their antiparallel lives. I did find the Gomez character ridiculous and the entire "let's incorporate hip 90s alterna music - specifically the Femmes concert - was horrendously executed. And Clare's failure in post-Henry life was a disappointing - actually, for a book named after her character, she reeked of wet-blanket. But otherwise a warm and intricately crafted romance.

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo: 75

This book gets the halfway between very good and great rating specifically because it middle-roads by definition: the characters are ice-cold, the action brutally and artificially episodic, the plot stagnant and haphazard, and the entire schmeel unrealistic. But all of these things can be excused by artistic intent, as its all seemingly a statement on the times and not misplaced writing. Still, this narrative featured a hokey assassin and lacked the meta-artifice meets reality of White Noise - sans warmth, a cynical co9mmentary on our postmodern finance-driven present comes off as tragically cold and uninteresting. It's easy enough to excuse all of Delillo's sentiments as the pointed commentary of a master, but in the end the simple fact that the story just isn't the "grand" and the characters imminently un-sympathetic/interesting leave this one short of greatness.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen: 70
A novel that contains a trite love triangle, a far-reaching but failure at biblical allusion, but ultimately enough realistic setting and backdrop to make a circus romance worthwhile. A+ on the research / world created, C on the plot...

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: 76

Beck was entirely correct about the fact that the half-assed Haight-Ashbury, strip club sleaze ending killed this book. But up to that point, it was an epic familial tale of the collusion of incest and genetics to create an utterly nonstandard existence. "The Other" section of the book was by far my favorite and vindicated the entire work with its lovelorn beauty; the historic Detroit section had its value, too, but I did not hook-line-sinke rthe book's epic quality the way others have.

Three Junes by Julia Glass: 80

I love the idea of novel as triptych, as a mirror of a work of art. This is a beautiful overlapping work of familial and personal love that breathes its creations to life. Its undoubted power is the treatment of a heavy-handed subject with subtlety - AIDS is a roaring dragon in the book, but Glass does so many great things to keep it grounded that we are merely left with the heartfelt tales of life external to it but still suffering at its presence. I will fault the book because each section was a seaweed drag to get into, but once the tales were rolling, it was near impossible not to feel these characters and families through and through. Fenno is a perfectly illustrated character if not the most interesting in the history of lit; still, its this realism that makes Glass's artful world stand out.

Pan's Labyrinth: 65

Special effects: great; story = trite cliched account of a sadistic general and do-gooder rebels. Boo-urns; I was let down.

Babel: 66

AS Dan said, meh. I appreciated the interwoven and poignant story but not its shovel-upside the head nature. Still, the Asian universe treatment was enthralling.

Knocked Up: 70

Sophomoric and I don't think this was as good and/or as funny as a lot of critics have claimed. I mean, it was ridiculously funny, don't get me wrong, but a ton of it was in a somewhat weak, stoners being funny genre that I just couldn't be wowed by. Highly enjoyable, very good indeed, but nothing near an A.

That's about it. Pretty lame, I know, but that's what you get when I'm suffering severe undermotivation and a general lack of willingness to wax on and on about things experienced a few weeks past. Until next time...