Gack!

Aaaaaaarggh. Hulk Smash. So angry about the terrible quality of a best-seller PI book I attempted to read a few days back. Still haven’t washed the taste out of my mouth. Every once in a while I get an outsider’s view of my culture and think that I understand terrorists just a little better, ‘cause I wanna blow it all to hell too. The writing in this book wasn’t just lazy it was flat-out aggressively poor and so transparently and cynically formulaic as to make me feel ill. I’ve read many baaaaad books (portions of the anyway), but most of them weren’t big ass deals in the publishing world. I'm going on about it a bit more over at Ransom Notes. Why just last week I posted there about Russel D. McLean’s The Lost Sister and my hopes for a good series from his J. McNee. What happened?

Fuck.

Gotta seriously cleanse my palette before I hate books forever. Be sort of the opposite of Steve Weddle – only watch movies from now on. Seen some good ones lately. Dogtooth anybody? Waaaay messed up movie about… know what? Better if you don’t know what it’s about, just check it and prepare to be creeped out. And what’s the deal with all you Big Love fourth season haters? Just wrapped that one up and loved it. Right up my twisted, soapy alley. I would love to see any outtakes featuring Grace Zabriskie and Bruce Dern or Harry Dean Stanton. Those three especially just inhabit those fucked up characters and make them breathe and whine and curse so well, I can’t imagine growing tired of them. Also really enjoyed The American with George Clooney recently. Gorgeously shot and deliberately paced (read – slow, but sometimes that’s what I want), it had a couple of unfortunate moments borrowed from a lesser film thrown in, but overall quite nice and a helluvan opening sequence. The Disappearance of Alice Creed was one of those smart, well-acted, really effective little pictures that turned its small budget into an excuse to leave out everything but the essentials and focus on three sharp performances in a super tightly controlled environment. Way to be Alice Creed.