Explorations: Alison's April Reviews

OK, good comments first. The voice acting was great—no, awesome. The animation was impressive.

Even though the "songs" were actually fun for a musical, they were better left out. And, for the most part, it does seem faithful to the book. Howevah, the film was a sour experience for me because of the bratty, unavoidably bad performance of Dakota Fanning (whom I have liked before).

Her character's insolence ended up one of the main themes of the story: if you're a jerk to your parents about saving an animal who just happens to end up winning universal acclaim, they should apologize to you. Needless to say, I don't think my kids will be watching this one. 2 3/4 stars.

(**)

This movie is such a heartfelt exploration of women's lives, it's hard to believe it was written by a man. Based on a true story about a lovely girl who struggles with diabetes — and crazy townspeople — in a Southern town, this one will require a box of tissues for most any female viewer. Hilarious in parts, with great acting from Sally Field, Julia Roberts and (surprise!

) Dolly Parton. 3 1/4 stars. (***)

Idealistic teacher takes on troubled high schoolers.

No, it's not Dangerous Minds. This one has a true story, a much better actress (Hilary Swank), even better music, and more realism. Sure, it's still cheesy here and there, but for the most part, Hilary captures the naivete of her main character, and we still get a thought-provoking lesson on the difficulties of inner-city minority life.

And that's worth it. 3 1/4 stars. (***)

Though this started out as an over-the-top British comedy (think: a marriage of Guy Ritchie and a spoof), its second half quickly turned into the most bizarre experience I've ever had in the theatre.

The plot: a London cop is so good that he's putting the police force to shame. So they move him to the countryside, where he begins to smell trouble. Hilarious, yes.

Wild, yes. POE, oh yes. Not for the faint of 'art.

3 stars. (***)

One of the most brilliant films made by the ingenious Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who also directed The City of Lost Children and who's helming next year's adaptation of Life of Pi). It's the story of a curious girl who becomes a curious young woman, bent on affecting others' lives — for good or for mischief.

One of the most luscious, whimsical, imaginative, fun-loving movies ever made. 4 stars — at least. (****)

Bunuel is one of the most acclaimed directors of all time—and one of the strangest.

I remember seeing bits of this film on Schaeffer's How Shall We Then Live movie, but I don't think he realized that Bunuel was agreeing with him about the human condition. On the surface, it's a fairly shocking premise: a mild-mannered housewife becomes intrigued by her discovery that a friend from her circles has become a prostitute. Through negative example, this POE film reaffirms both marriage and morality through a captivating, sometimes dreamlike tale.

3 1/2 stars. (***)

You could call this lovely realist masterpiece by Vittorio de Sica a kind of artsy Harry Tonto. An aging man, barely scraping by on his pension, faces being thrown out when he gets too far behind on his rent.

The one thing that keeps him going is the love of his scruffy mutt, Flike. Beautifully restored, and genuinely moving, especially in the film's final scenes. 4 stars.

(****)

This Grand Jury Prize winner of the 2002 Sundance festival comes to us from writer-director Rebecca Miller (yes, her pops is Arthur; and now her husband is Daniel Day-Lewis). Three women, three stories, no resolutions. But despite the low-grade image quality, the unpolished stories, and many no-name actors, this film has an engaging, real quality to it.

I was reminded in a way of Paul Auster. Worth it? Ah, probably not.

3 stars. (***)

Keane, the recent British trio sensation, has been called "Coldplay with pianos" (since they are piano-based instead of guitar-based). I've only heard a few songs of their first album, and this second one took me a week or so to get into it, but it's now one of my favorites on rotation.

Wonderful, wonderful alternative sound, brilliant/mature lyrics, and catchy hooks. My faves: "Hamburg Song," "The Frog Prince," "Leaving So Soon," "Atlantic," ..

. aw heck, I love all of em! (****)

A great, great album by Joni Mitchell, that wonderful singer-songwriter with the smoky voice.

She decided in this album to make a song cycle that traces the progress of a relationship. And her arranger evidently decided to take orchestration lessons from John Williams and then do him one better. Astonishingly beautiful.

(****)

Some brilliant stuff is happening in this album, the solo effort of Frou Frou's lead singer (you've heard them if you watched Garden State). To be honest, I've only listened to the 30-second snatches of songs on itunes, and downloaded "Hide and Seek," which seemed to be the best one. But I've been enjoying the snatches!

3 1/2 stars (***)

A beautiful CD, a brilliant failure, and evidence of a talented singer-songwriter. This is the guy you thought was Dave Matthews when he sang, "I'm fif-teen years for a moment." There are some great songs here, and then there are some other songs, too.

My favorite: "If God Made You," half love song, half doxology. (***)

Billie Holliday is a wonderful singer. I was a little surprised to read in the liner notes, "though she was not blessed with a magnificent instrument.

..", which I suppose is one way of describing her charcoal voice.

But she makes you feel comfortable, and I always thought she was earlier in the twentieth century as a result of her sound. Holliday was the most significant influence on Frank Sinatra, and she's at her best when she's singing the slow ballads (like "God Bless the Child" and "The Man I Love"). But there are some songs that are really not worthy to be on a "best" collection, and many reviewers were upset that the disc didn't include her standard "Strange Fruit.

" (***)

A dreamlike myth, for children of all ages. A singer of tales falls into danger when the kingdom is overtaken by the Usurper and the land becomes overrun with Tookesheims. Who will save them?

Perhaps the princess? (***)

OK, probably the most briliant, loveliest, most powerful novel I've read in a long, long time. This is Foer's second novel, after Everything is Illuminated.

I must confess, after I read a naysaying review of Foer's books, I hesitated to read his work. Foolish, foolish. (****)

One of Piper's newest, this 200-pager ends up as a sort of compilation of most of his previous ideas (future grace, desiring God, and so on).

I thought the opening chapters (his spiritual upbringing) and the last chapter (Making Most of Christ from 9-5) were the best. (***)

A gripping book that tracks the journey of Lewis's heart and soul after the death of his wife. Bitter at times, brilliantly blessed at others.

A short read, but one of the better things that Lewis wrote, in my opinion. (****)

Buechner is probably my favorite Believing writer (fiction or non-fiction). got an pre-press copy of the book for me, probably at one of those book conferences he goes to.

Thanks! This is a collection of some of his more famous "sermons" from over the course of his lifetime. "The Magnificent Defeat," his talk on Jacob's wrestling with God is, I was surprised to learn, one of his earliest sermons, from soon after he finished graduate school.

I am just getting into the first third of the book, but I am confident this will be one of my favorites that I will turn to again and again. (****)
Mornings Like This: Found Poems, by Annie Dillard.
A found poem is shaped from a collection of words or phrases found in one text.

According to Dillard, she has not added any words to the source sentences and phrases that make up the poems in this collection. She may have altered their shape, order, or dropped a word here and there, but she didn’t add anything. Thus there are poems such as “I Am Trying To Get At Something Utterly Heartbroken,” as shaped from Vincent Van Gogh’s (translated) letters, or “Index of first Lines,” which is, actually, the index of first lines from The Penguin Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry and Poets from the North of Ireland.

Some of them, like “Learning to Fear Watercolor” from Nicholson’s Peerless Water Colors, instructions, 1991, don’t do anything for me, but about half of these “poems” seem comfortable in the genre.
Rhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse, by John Hollander
This is, hands down, the ultimate layman’s guidebook to English verse forms. For anyone who keeps forgetting the difference between a villanelle and a sestina (like me), or who needs a quick refresher course on the difference between anapests and dactyls, look no further.

What is remarkable about this book is that Hollander, in the process of describing what a ballad is, for example, does his describing by using the verse form itself. His description of a villanelle is one of the most brilliant renditions of the villanelle I’ve ever seen. This guy was a real genius.

I’m sure his friends looked at him like he was crazy when he decided to write a handbook of poetry in verse form.
Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966 – 1996, by Seamus Heaney
Heaney writes accentual poetry, much like Hopkins did, with lots of alliteration. I enjoyed the poems, although many times Heaney speaks of things completely unfamiliar to me (like agriculture or Irish history) and uses distinctively Irish vocabulary (like “wain” or “gundogs”).

I’m sure, however, that his poems communicate powerfully to his Irish readers. A few poems stood out to me, most notably, “Follower,” about a father now dependent on his once-dependent son, and “Limbo,” about a mother who drowns her child. This collection demands a second reading and I look forward to making time to do that.

Dubliners, by James Joyce
In keeping with my Irish theme, I read this short-story collection from which the famous Araby comes. In these character-centered, painfully realistic stories, nothing really “happens.” With textbook Naturalism, middle-class Irish people live mundane lives and die unpretentious deaths.

Which makes it all the more amazing to think that Joyce could turn “nothing” into such interesting reading. It just goes to show – write what you know. Interestingly enough, these stories were really on the edge when Joyce published them, although he got away with a lot by “showing and not telling.

”
Christianity and Culture, by T. S. Eliot
This book encapsulates two famous essays by Eliot, “The Idea of a Christian Society,” and “Notes towards the Definition of Culture.

” The first is a thought-provoking study on how Christianity might ideally mold our contemporary culture. Eliot was an idealist in many ways, but here, the proposition of an ideal Christian culture seems naïve. How could such a thing ever come about short of heaven?

Eliot realizes this and covers his bases by saying that he has no false hopes about implementing a Christian culture here on earth. Call me a pragmatist, but an idealistic philosophy that cannot be implemented is little help here on earth other than to point us in the right direction. This is not to say that I did not appreciate what Eliot was saying; he made a number of good points, including the fact that democracy is not necessarily the perfect governmental system for a Christian culture.

In the second essay, Eliot attempts to reexamine the basic definition of “culture.” He aims to answer the question, what does it truly mean for a nation of people to be said to possess “culture?” At one point he offers a simple definition: “Culture [is] that which makes life worth living.

” His main point in this essay, besides rescuing what had become a vague and all-inclusive word, is to assert that religion plays an integral role in the development and maintenance of any culture. “Any religion, while it lasts,” he says, “and on its own level, gives an apparent meaning to life, provides the framework for a culture, and protects the mass of humanity from boredom and despair.”
While reading on a today, I came across a comment which directly contradicts Eliot’s belief: “Do you actually need proof that religion is poisonous?

Look at the world around you. Protestants believe the key to heaven is intolerance, the Church is mired in its own mediocrity suffering indelibly from indifference to intellectualism, Islam is being humiliated daily, called out for what it is a laughable tradition, Hindus want to arrest Richard Gere..

. “
Sadly, this is what the world thinks of religion and Christianity in particular – it’s no use and in fact is detrimental to society. These essays by Eliot (who was at one time friends with Bertrand Russell and who certainly dealt with comments like the one above) are just as relevant now as they were sixty years ago.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, by Roddy Doyle
To continue in the Irish vein, I picked up this little book, which does a strikingly good job of getting into the mind of a 10-year-old boy as he deals with the typical trials of boyhood and his parents’ increasingly adverse relationship. One scene in particular stood out to me when, after his ma and da have a fight one evening, little Paddy forces himself to stay up all night, convincing himself that this will keep them from fighting again. He even goes into the bathroom and pours cold water on his pajamas so he won’t get too comfortable and fall asleep.

This is a bittersweet coming-of-age story with a healthy (though sometimes foul-mouthed) dose of Irish realism. It won the Booker Prize in 1993.
The Little Friend, by Donna Tartt
This long and poetic novel describes a family ruined by the death of the oldest child, a boy named Robin.

And that’s in the very first chapter, so I’m not spoiling anything. The remainder of the story follows Robin’s youngest sister, Harriet, as she boldly and rambunctiously aims to find and punish Robin’s killer. In the process, she rubs shoulders with some of the most memorable characters of all time.

In many ways, it reminded me of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. Both stories are told from the point of view of young tomboyish girls. Also, both novels are set in the South (Lee’s story takes place in Alabama, Tartt’s in Mississippi).

And both authors deal with themes like racial prejudice and the true nature of the human spirit. But the books are different, too. The Little Friend is not as tightly-written as To Kill a Mockingbird and its ending is certainly not as triumphant.

However, even though I love To Kill a Mockingbird, in many ways I felt that The Little Friend portrayed humanity even more truthfully. Yes, the bad people get what’s coming to them, but the “good” people aren’t quite as “good” as they might seem. People, deep down, are not inherently good — they’re inherently bad.

Some would say that’s a cynical view of life, but in reality, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Overall, I enjoyed The Little Friend and believe it’s earned a place on the bookshelves of good Southern literature.

The best film reviews from the Christian perspective on the web.