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February 21, 2005
Smoke Signals
Smoke Signals is a movie is based on a book of short stories by Sherman Alexie, titled The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. It was an okay movie, but I thought it had its problems. The acting primarily. And the Indians making lame Indian jokes over and over, like "Indian giver" and how Indians hate to sign papers. The story of the fire is quite compelling, and Victor Joseph (Adam Beach) is so very nice to look at, even in the really bad wig at the end. The characters in the story are all very interesting, like the radio traffic report guy and the girl whose car drives only backwards, but they serve more as setting in the movie. To me the most interesting part was Victor defining to Thomas what an Indian is. He indicts Thomas for wearing a suit and glasses and smiling too much--very unIndianlike he says. He then tells Thomas to act the part of an Indian as portrayed in movies--then he would be more of an Indian. He tells Thomas to have a stoic warrior look, like a hunter. Thomas points out that their people, the Coeur d'Alene, were fishers, not hunters, but Victor will not hear of it. The scene reminded me of The Accountant, when the accountant says that southerners are fed a stereotype of southernness and told that is who they are so that's who they become. It was an interesting movie, but not a great one.
Posted by courtney at 11:05 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
"Tithe : A Modern Faerie Tale" by Holly Black
I grabbed this book off the shelf at work as I was leaving on Friday because I'm all about the young adult urban fantasy novel. Kaye (16 years old, blonde, half-asian, high school dropout) is the daughter of Ellen (singer in a rock band) and some random guy from a new wave band who she has never met. When Ellen has a problem with her boyfriend, they return to Kaye's childhood home where she is reacquainted with her "imaginary friends" from her childhood. As fate would have it in all these books, Kaye turns out to be magic herself and gets wrapped up in a plot between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts of Faerie.
If you like this kind of thing, it's pretty good. Another review I read compared it to the Weetzie Bat books and it is a comparison that I can see. If you are a teen and feel disconnected from your world, you are pretty much hoping that something like this is going to happen. Maybe without so much of the killing.
Holly Black (who keeps a livejournal, actually) throws in enough pop geek culture references to keep me happy (Kaye wears a G-Force shirt at one point, for instance). There is a sequel coming out later this year so I will have to get our library to order it.
Posted by chip at 05:49 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
February 13, 2005
Jamie Foxx on "Inside the Actors Studio"
Generally, this show is heavy on the pretention and that's a thimbleful more of that than I like in my Hollywood breakfast cereal.
However, if you've ever wanted to love this show, if you've ever already declared your love of Jamie Foxx, or you just love good laughter-through-tears at any time, watch it.
Great actor, great craft, great life story, great "real" moments with the audience. Love it all.
Posted by bonnie at 10:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
"Confessions of an American Girl" (2002)
Talent-wise, this should have been a pretty decent film. I like Jena Malone, Michelle Forbes, and Alicia Witt and they were all good in this movie. But, I ended up just liking it OK. There were some pretty funny lines but it was less great than the sum of its parts.
It is the story of a girl and her family and a visit to her dad in prison. I didn't like it enough to go into more detail. You can watch the preview at NetFlix if you are so inclined.
2 out of 5 even though Jena, Alicia, and Michelle are in it.