Movies -- A Recap -- Part XXXV -- British Leads

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is the second in the Knives Out series.  I watched the first one, but I don't recall whether I wrote about it.  Regardless, I enjoyed this one more; it had some genuinely funny moments.  Daniel Craig stars (again) as Detective Benoit Blanc, with a pretty good supporting cast behind him.

I was surprised that I had never heard of Croupier.  It came out in 1998 and stars Clive Owen in the lead role.  I love the film noir style of storytelling, and it was a pretty decent story to boot.  A bit dark, but I like that. Also imagine my surprise to find ER's Dr. Elizabeth Corday (played by Alex Kingston, who is also British) with a role in this one. What a treat that was!

The Dig has two British leads: Carey Mulligan (whom I love) as Edith Pretty, the landowner, and Ralph Fiennes as Basil Brown, the archaeologist.  Despite her failing health, Ms. Pretty engages Mr. Brown to excavate a portion of her property.  Things do not seem to be going well, but turn around with a huge discovery.  It's based on the true story of the discovery of the Sutton Hoo treasure in the 1930s.

Little Women is a mixed bag in terms of where folks are from, but there are enough who are British or British-adjacent that I'm counting it.  Here's who we've got: Emma Watson (British, but French-born) as Meg; Saoirse Ronan (Irish, but American-born) as Jo; Eliza Scanlen as Beth (Australian); and Florence Pugh (British) as Amy.  Nothing, for me, will top the 1994 version of this movie, but S has a crush on Saoirse, so we needed to see this one; his description of her with short hair, though, was priceless: "She looks like a pencil eraser." I did not like that the story was told out of order; I know it well and still had trouble following it.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is a strange story about an eccentric artist.  Obviously, Benedict Cumberbatch (another one I love) was perfect for the role. Claire Foy (who plays Queen Elizabeth in a season or two of The Crown - how much more British can you get?) plays his wife.  I don't really remember the details of this one, but I do remember that I was impressed by my boy Benedict.

I loved Still Life.  It was sad, but also oh-so-sweet.  It stars Eddie Marsan as a quiet bureaucrat whose job is to track down the next-of-kin of people who died alone.  London, though the backdrop, is visible throughout, which of course I adored. It was a quiet little jewel, with the pleasant surprise of Joanne Froggart (Anna from Downton Abbey) as an added bonus.

Benediction stars Jack Lowden as Siegfried Sassoon.  Those folks who are interested in the niche area of World War I poetry will immediately recognize the name of Mr. Sassoon.  The film is clever, even - dare I say? - poetic at times.  It's the backstory about the poet's family, how he came to serve in WWI, and his experiences, but also who he was after the war, the impact that it had on him, and the impact that he had on government and policy.  Not the best movie I've seen, but good enough and tells a little-known piece of history.

Another British-ish lead, Hunger stars Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands.  The actor's father was German and he was born in Germany, but his mother was from Northern Ireland.  This film was recommended to S and I during our recent visit to Northern Ireland, as a way to get a little more perspective on the Troubles. It was dark - though not in a fun way like Croupier - but with some more artistic shots.  The film really turns Bobby Sands into a hero, which is quite how the Catholics in Northern Ireland appear to view him.  What he - and anyone else who goes on a hunger strike - did, is quite astonishing.  And also horrifying.

Laundry Love -- Take 2

I finished reading Laundry Love, which S says is now the most expensive book I've ever read.  I'm not sure he's fully right about that, but I see why he says so:

- I have bought new laundry soap;
- I have bought new stain remover;
- I (by which I mean K) have painted my laundry room a sunshiny yellow.

Regarding the last item, this is something I have wanted to do/have done for some time, prior to even knowing about (much less reading) Laundry Love.  The book was just the final kick in the pants that I needed to make it a priority.

I have attempted one radical washing experiment since getting this book.  I washed a many-years-old (and accordingly many-years-soiled) goose down sleeping bag.  It had gotten a touch mildewed in our basement, so my choices were either (1) trash it right now, or (2) attempt to wash it and see what happens.

It did not start out promising. First of all, the bag was so dirty that gray water was coming out of it after even several rinses.  But bedtime approached, the bag was still soaked, and it of necessity became a project for tomorrow me to deal with. 

I squeezed as much water out of it as I could, but I had to go to work when it was still dewy outside.  S obliged me by spreading it out in the hot summer sun to bake when the dew cooked off.  He turned it over midway through the day.  He put it in the dryer with some dryer balls for hours to try to break up the clumps.  We went to bed.

I went back to work the next day.  To hear tell, the dryer smelled like a moldy dead animal, and the bag wasn't much better.  

But, we repeated this cycle for several days.  Ever so gradually, the smell decreased.  And once enough water dried out, the clumps broke up, the dryer balls did their magic, and the bag was fluffy again.  I'm not sure it's fluffed quite to its original level -- or perhaps more to the point, I think due to the age of the bag, many of the internal baffles are busted and so the down shifted around quite a bit during this process.

But the takeaway is that -- though this was a much longer and much more complicated process than the book makes it sound like it should be -- it worked.  I have a home-washed goose down sleeping bag.  I always thought it couldn't be done.

I'll count that as a win.

What I Read -- Listen for the Lie

On the recommendation of a friend, I read Listen for the Lie.  The friend is a fellow true crime lover, and though this is a novel, it pulls in the whole podcast world.  Between podcasts and Netflix shows, I think we can explain most of the current fascination with true crime, so despite being not true, it certainly pulls on those same strings.

This is a quick, easy whodunit.  The writing is not great but it's good enough to keep things moving along.  What I can say about it, and part of the reason I kept on with it, is that it has an unreliable narrator.

I love an unreliable narrator.

What you learn quickly is that the narrator is suspected for, though was never charged with, the murder of her best friend.  She has no memory of the event.  As the story unfolds, you -- and she -- figure out how everything went down.

What I'm Reading Now -- The Ultimate Journey

I have skipped a few months of reading, and also skipped ahead a few months in my 2024 Reading Challenge, by beginning The Ultimate Journey: Canada to Mexico Down the Continental Divide.  I may explain my reasons for skipping ahead later (or not).

I read Eric Ryback's first book, The High Adventure of Eric Ryback, as part of my 2022 Reading Challenge.  As I said in my post at the time, I found it more readable and less and-then-this-happened than many travel books are.  Plus, controversy always makes things interesting to talk about, even if it's the second book.  We'll see if it's as interesting.

How Did That Happen?

So, it's summer.  Somehow it went from April to June.  I missed all of May lost in a fog of work.  June is better.  July will be better still.  

Also, Happy Father's Day!

Happy Birthday, K!

 

What I Read -- Love Her Wild

My March selection for the 2024 Reading Challenge was Love Her Wild, by Atticus.  The category for March was "a book that will stretch you," and poetry always does that for me.

Poetry is one of those genres that seems to have a pretty broad definition, so I suppose this all does count as poetry.  But if you asked me to describe this book to a friend, I would describe it as a cross between poetry and one of those page-a-day collections of inspirational sayings.  Why does it feel that way?  For one thing, most of the poems are quite short, often not more than a few lines.  For another, many of them are positive, or at least could be interpreted that way. 

I've lent the book to a friend, but when I get it back, I probably will go back and read it again, but one poem at a time rather than in the drinking-from-a-fire-hose style that I read it in for my first go-around.  I think it will be a good one to keep around and dip into when a tiny breath of goodness is needed.

And if that's not high praise from me for a book of poetry, I'm not sure what is.

Isaac's Storm -- Take 2

Have I been gone so long that you think I washed away in the surge caused by a hurricane?  It would be a reasonable assumption, despite the fact that I live a long way from hurricane country.  Alas, work has just been kicking my butt and I have consequently neglected both reading and blogging -- and likely will do so for another couple of months. 

But I will take a few moments to get you up to speed on where I am with Isaac's Storm.  

I finished it.  That is all.

Kidding, kidding.  I mean, I did finish it, but that's not all.  I liked it.  And now that I've been finished with it for a couple of days, I like it even more.

The good: the descriptions of the weather phenomena and the strange things that were happening were quite evocative.  I really enjoyed the background pieces about the development of what was then called the Weather Bureau, and how a lot of these guys, and sometimes even the forecasts, were just pawns in a political game.  (I thought the National Weather Service was the one thing we could count on to just give the facts and likelihoods as best as they can be estimated!)  

The bad: perhaps because I took such a long break in the middle of the book, I really had trouble remembering who was who.  Isaac is obviously our titular main character, and his brother Joseph was pretty easy to keep track of.  But the various friends, neighbors, and other Galvestonites whose stories were featured were hard for me to keep straight. 

But all in all, it was a good read, and pretty quick once I set aside a bit of time to devote to it.  And what a story.

What I'm Reading Now -- Isaac's Storm

Isaac's Storm is a book that has been in my collection for some time.  I have no good reason for not having read it.  I've read a couple of Eric Larson's other books -- The Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck -- and enjoyed them immensely.  Several more of his books are on my To Read list as well.  

For some reason this one escaped my notice for years.

But, when a category came up in the 2024 Reading Challenge for a "book based on a real event," I dusted it off.

Andorra -- Take 2

I finished up Andorra while S and I were skiing in Colorado recently.  This is the first book in my 2024 Reading Challenge, so I'm only about a month behind ... and about a month in ... so maybe we're not off to a great start. 

I didn't love this book, and I think it's because I didn't really like the characters much.  The main character is sort of a bumbling doofus through much of the book, and I never developed a liking for him.  The one character I thought had potential to be very interesting -- one of the Rickys -- played only a bit part that served mostly to provide a few setting-based nuggets that the author comes back to later.  So in that sense, I suppose it was constructed reasonably well.  

It also drew a lovely picture of the town of La Plata, in Andorra, and the sparkling seaside harbor around which the town was constructed.  The only problem is that Andorra, in real life, is a land-locked country.  So there were a few liberties taken there.

Overall, it was a quick and easy read, but had some problems.