Madame Bovary

Author: Gustave Flaubert

Genre: Classic, Realism

Rating: B+

I wasn't a huge fan of Madam Bovary, for a number of reasons.  While I realize that it's classic literature and it's really well written, I found I really struggled in reading this novel.  On the one hand, I found a good chunk of it to be a bit boring - it's full of really elegant passages and there are moments that are really exciting, but for the most part it's all a bit dull and nothing seems to really happen.  I mean, yes, stuff happens, and yes there is this arch, but a lot of the time instead of showing me what's happening Flaubert instead simply tells me what's happened 

Madam Bovary follows the life of one Charles Bovary and his second wife, the young Emma.  Charles is a not too bright doctor in a provincial town of France who is madly in love with the idea of his wife and extremely devoted to her.  Emma is... well, Emma is basically a bitch who's read too much and as such has developed an idea of what love should be - and it's not what she has with her husband.  Love in her mind is only what it depicted in books and is full of grand gestures and what not. So, eventually, she decides to embark on an affair - and eventually her actions lead to ruin for all.

So, yeah.  Emma is not likeable. Charles is not likeable.  While you might feel bad for them both at various points in the novel - particularly in the end - you don't actually ever like them or even root for them.  The situation that they get themselves into is of their own doing and simply because they're both improperly educated (and aspiring to rise above their station in life, which was a no-no at the time), and because they don't communicate - also a no-no at the time.

The one thing that I did like about this book was the commentary that it makes on French life and French people.  I also enjoyed the commentary that it makes about relationships in general - one issue that was pointed out to me is just how the theme of communication is one that has come up time and time again in fiction surrounding relationships.  If people communicated better within Madam Bovary then the story would have a very different ending.  And maybe the characters would have been likeable.  That's actually the thing about this - there's no one here who I felt I should be rooting for.  I liked some of the more side characters, at least at times, but for the most part everyone sucked.  Except Justin, Justin was kind of great, but you knew he wasn't going to do well through the course of the novel - at least not until he escaped from everyone.

Week in Review: January 21 - 26

Movies - Best movie of the week was indie comedy Sleepwalk with Me, which I loved.  New movie of the week was Gangster Squad and rounding things out was Goon.  Both were good, but neither was amazing.

Books - Book of the week was Crown and Country by David Starkey.  I really enjoyed this, despite a few problems with it overall.

TV - TV show of the week was the second season of Project Runway: All Stars.  I like the overall concept of All Stars in general, but I'm not sure if I'm too much of a fan of the way Project Runway does it - they've changed too much in changing the hosts and judges.

Recommendations - The big movie that I'm looking forward to seeing out this week is Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.  Everything else is just kind of "oh, hey, there's that."

Next Week - New movie next week will be Broken City.  We'll see about the rest of the week; I've got the computer problems worked out, so I'll be around.

Requests - Anything I should do? Let me know.

Project Runway: All Stars (Season 2)

Starring: Carolyn Murphy, Georgina Chapman, Isaac Mizrahi, Joanna Coles

Creator: Eli Holzman

Genre: Reality, Competition, Fashion

Rating: B-

I have to confess that while I do really enjoy Project Runway, I have more mixed feelings regarding Project Runway: All Stars.  While I still like the contestants - although I do kind of question just how some of them made it onto Project Runway in the first place let alone the All Stars installment - I really miss the chore people of the original series - Heidi Klum, Tim Gunn, Michael Kors, and Nina Garcia.  Nothing against the people that they bring in for the All Stars, but we just don't love them as much.

Season 2 of All Stars features cast members from every season of Project Runway up to season 9, with the exception of season 4.  What I did like about this is that they had four runner ups this season, although they also had people who came in 10th and 11th on their original season, which contributes to some of the begging the question as to how some of these people are All Stars.  Despite that, though, as the season progressed I really started to like all of the remaining contestants.  I didn't know all, or really most, of them from their original season, but once the weaker designers were weeded out I really came to enjoy most of them and their esthetic.

I have kind of mixed feelings about the finale.  I really liked two of the designers who made it to the final three, but I wasn't really a fan of the third designer.  In the end, while I did like the person who won, it wasn't necessarily the person who I wanted to win.  I also kind of questioned the way they rated the first and second runner up, as I really thought that the person who came in third probably should have won, and the person who won should have come in second.

I did like the overall challenges of this season, with my favourites being the avant-garde androgynous look and the graffiti art challenges.  I was a bit disappointed by the overall celebrity judges.  There were a couple that I thought were great, but overall it seemed a bit subpar for the series.  A bit of a disappointment, really.

Recommendations: January 25

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters - The latest from Jeremy Renner, I really, really want to see this movie.  I like the new take on the fairy tale genre, with the badassery, so I'm looking forward to this one.

Movie 43 - This is a series of interconnected shorts based on the idea of three kids browsing through the internet in the search of the most banned movie in the world.  It sounds a lot like New York, I Love You or the director version of New Years Eve.

John Dies at the End - This one's getting a limited release so it'll probably be a challenge to find. However, based on the book of the same name, it follows two college dropouts as they try to save the world from an otherworldy invasion.

End of Watch - I really enjoyed this movie, and really recommend checking it out.  It was a lot better than I expected it to be, simply because it didn't go in the direction that I expected it to.

The Paperboy - This is the movie that's kind of surprised me this year.  I haven't seen it yet, but the response that it got really surprised me.  It's gotten rather mixed reviews, but it's also been nominated for more than a few awards.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower - I love, love, love, loved this movie.  If you haven't seen it yet, see it now. If you've already seen it, then hey, see it again.

Ysabel - this is an urban fantasy novel by Canadian author Guy Gavriel Kay.  If you haven't read any of Kay's work, then the best reasoning I have for why you should read Ysabel or anything else by him is that when Christopher Tolkien was editing the unpublished work his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, had left behind, it was Kay who helped.  This man literally learned to write by editing the works of Tolkien, so if you're a fantasy fan he should be right up your alley.

Sleepwalk with Me (2012)

Starring: Mike Birbiglia, Lauren Ambrose, Carol Kane, James Rebhorn, Cristin Milioti

Director: Mike Birbiglia

Genre: Comedy

Rating: A

"And that's what love is. It's this giant mound of pizza-flavoured ice cream and delusion."

I came across this movie by accident.  Actually, I came across this movie through Joss Whedon: he told me not to see it.  Except, the way he did it was the same tongue-in-cheek way that he told me to vote for Mitt Romney because he would create the perfect setting for a zombie apocalypse, so I took it as a sign that I should watch Sleepwalk with Me.  All I can say having watched it is that I'm really glad Joss Whedon told me not to.

Sleepwalk with Me follows aspiring comedian Matt Pandamiglio (Birbiglia) as he comes to terms with a series of denials: his girlfriend, his career, and his sleep disorder.  He's been with girlfriend Abby (Ambrose) for eight years now and things seem to be moving in the direction of marriage - but Matt isn't too sure about it, considering marriage to be something that should only be done when he's certain that nothing else good will happen in his life.  His career is going nowhere; while he calls himself a comedian he actually works as a bartender and has yet to accept the fact that his jokes really aren't funny.  And underneath it all is his sleep disorder; for reasons that he doesn't understand he's taken to acting out his dreams while still asleep.

The whole thing is based on Birbiglia's actual life, his rise to fame, his relationship problems, his sleep disorder.  While the names, places, etc, have been changed, the actual story is his story.  Instantly that makes it all so much more real, and when Matt tells you in the opening that he's going to tell you a story and it's real, he's being serious.  As such, the drama of the film is so much more real.  The fights feel real, the problems, etc.  The struggles of Matt and Abby and the fact that they're together when it's questionable whether or not they should be - and all the time hoping that Matt gets his shit together while also realizing that in reality, people don't always do that.  Life doesn't fit into the perfectly timed operations of a script, and that's what makes Sleepwalk with Me work.

This is a movie that's rather subtly funny.  I didn't really laugh out loud a lot, at least not until Matt's comedy started getting better, but I still enjoyed the humour to it. It was more one of those smile as you watch it and think about what's going on type of comedy than an actual laugh out loud type.  Even though it's actually billed as a comedy I found it to be a lot more of a drama, which worked for me - I tend to prefer dramas to comedies in general.  I also want to make note of the acting.  I love Lauren Ambrose and have since she was in Six Feet Under.  I think she's a great actress and I love how she totally sold me on why Abby was with Matt.  I also really liked Mike Birbiglia's performance.  I haven't seen him in anything before, not even his comedy, although I now want to see more of him.  I also totally want to give him props for the direction that he took this film in. He wrote it, he directed it, and he starred in it, and it all really worked.  So, yeah.  Unlike Joss Whedon, I'm not going to sarcastically tell you to boycott this film.  Instead I'm going to unsarcastically tell you to see this movie.  It's great and definitely worth your time.

Gangster Squad (2013)

Starring: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, Robert Patrick

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Genre: Action, Crime, Drama

Rating: C+

I'm going to predicate this by saying that while I'm not exactly giving this a good review, I did enjoy it.  Gangster Squad was definitely over hyped and possibly even wrongly promoted, and as such going into it I was expecting one type of movie and got something a bit different.  This is a movie created by the guy who did Zombieland, and as such it's a movie like Zombieland kind of trying to be a movie like Godfather or something similar.  As such, it kind of ends up in between the two, to the detriment of the film, although throughout it it still manages to be entertaining and fun.

Gangster Squad is the kind of true, but not really, story of Mickey Cohen (Penn) and the police officers who formed a squad, the Gangster Squad, to stop him.  The head of this squad is Sergeant John O'Mara (Brolin), a decorated war hero who doesn't fit into the L.A. police scene simply because he won't take bribes and wants to persecute Cohen and his thugs.  O'Mara is joined by detective Coleman Harris (Mackie), wire-tapper Conway Keeler (Ribisi), gunslinger Max Kennard (Patrick), and his partner Navidad Ramirez (Peña).  His friend, Jerry Wooters (Gosling), who has rejected an offer to join the squad, meanwhile is carrying on an affair with Cohen's lover, Grace Faraday (Stone).

Okay, so let's see.  The action was fun, I enjoyed it.  With the exception of the Chinatown incident it all really flowed well and was, while not exactly believable, definitely entertaining.  There were a few moments that were a bit hockey, and a few add ins that made me feel like the film was trying to be the 1960s Batman - more than once I almost expected a "POW" to be displayed across the screen - but for the most part it was fun.  The humour was good too and really on key.  It wasn't an overly funny movie, but there were definitely a number of points when someone would say something that made me smile or chuckle a little.

I really liked the relationship between O'Mara and his wife, played by Mireille Enos, and really wanted more of it.  From the get go I felt the love and chemistry between the two of them and I worried about what was going to happen to each of them, and between each of them, more than any other character.  Actually, with all honesty, the only other characters that I really cared about here were the ones played by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone - although more because I like the actors themselves than because of any development of their relationship.  I do think that Gosling's Jerry was developed, and I really enjoyed the character, but Stone's Grace was less developed, and their relationship... somehow, despite the fact that I already know the two as a couple from Crazy, Stupid, Love and know that they can have amazing chemistry, the two don't really have chemistry here.  It's lacking, which sucks.  I want to see more from the two of them as a couple in this film so that I could really love them as a couple.  And now I just want to go watch Crazy, Stupid, Love again.  I will stick this out there, though, if you're filming a movie with Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn in it one of them should appear shirtless and the other should not.  I'm sorry, Gangster Squad, but you made the wrong decision there.

Goon (2011)

Starring: Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill

Director: Michael Dowse

Genre: Comedy

Rating: C+

So, in celebration of the NHL Lockout coming to an end and hockey being back, I've decided to review the hockey film Goon.  Inspired by the biography Goon: The True Story of an Unlikely Journey into Minor League Hockey by Adam Frattasio and Doug Smith, Goon follows Jewish dimwit Doug Glatt (Scott) in his rather accidental journey into minor league hockey.  Doug is the son of a stereotypical Jewish doctor who's long felt a bit ostracized in his family owing to the fact that he's not nearly as smart as his father (Eugene Levy) or brother (David Paetkau) - his brother, Ira, is also a doctor, and a gay one at that.  One day, Doug goes to a minor league hockey game with his friend, Pat (Baruchel), where he gets into a fight with one of the players who uses the word "fag."  This fight inspires the coach of Doug's home team to recruit him as an enforcer.  From there, Doug is called up to Canada to play for the Halifax Highlanders.  The Highlanders have a problem with their best player, Xavier Lalfamme (Marc-André Grondin); three years prior he was concussed by Ross "The Boss" Rhea (Schreiber).  Laflamme is now scared of being hit again, and is struggling, while Rhea has been demoted to the Minors again and is looking to go out with a bang. Oh! And there's a girl, Eva (Pill), who is a real puck bunny, who's charmed by Doug even though she has a boyfriend.

Um... okay, so this movie is kind of filled with stereotypes and archetypical characters.  No one seems to be really all that well developed and things tend to fall on the basic path of "good," "bad" or "good but in need of redemption" that one typically expects in a movie like this.  It's a fun movie, but there's no real depth to it, which is in itself a bit disappointing.  I also kind of found that there was no real suspense to it.  It doesn't take a genius to figure out the direction that the film is going in, or what the end result will be.  It's not hard to figure out.

That said, it is fun. In a way, it kind of reminds me of the old Slap Shot movies, just with a new cast.  It's pretty much everything you expect from a movie about hockey starring Seann William Scott.  I donno, I'm not sure what more to say.  It wasn't great, but it was good.