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Current books:
  • Lonely: A Memoir

    Lonely: A Memoir by Emily White

  • Dark Heart of the Night (French Voices)

    Dark Heart of the Night (French Voices) by Leonora Miano


Recent books:

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Favorite Film Friday: Reds

Love stories don’t rank well on my list of preferred movies. When you get right down to it, though, one of my favorite movies — Reds — is just that, a love story, albeit one played out on an epic background. It’s the background that gets me.

Written, produced and directed by its star, [...]

Favorite Film Friday: Midnight Cowboy

For whatever reason, I don’t recall where or when I first saw Midnight Cowboy. But I do know that from that very first time, one scene and piece of dialogue has stuck with me.

“Ratso” Rizzo, played by Dustin Hoffman, and Joe Buck (Jon Voight) are crossing a street in downtown New York City against [...]

Favorite Film Friday: American History X

There’s a couple reasons American History X makes my favorite movies list. One is simply that it’s a compelling look at a disturbing topic — neo-Nazism among young American men. Another is that it was a major step in Edward Norton becoming one of my favorite actors.

At first, you may not think this [...]

Favorite Film Friday: Network

I’ll be honest. Network only recently became one of my favorite films. I saw it shortly after it was released in late 1976 but let some 30 years elapse before watching it over Thanksgiving. When I first saw it, I considered it biting commentary. Now, sadly, I consider it prescient.

Perhaps best [...]

Favorite Film Friday: Good Bye Lenin!

It’s been too long since the last installment in this series and the celebrations this week over the fall of the Berlin Wall create a perfect opportunity to talk about Good Bye, Lenin!. While the movie is about the fall of the wall and Communism, it presents an innovative and fun take on it.

The [...]

Favorite Film Friday: The Great Escape

I was just shy of seven years old when The Great Escape came out. I’ve watched it perhaps more times than any other movie and loved the book on which it was based almost as much. And in the course of three months this summer, it’s received some manly recognition: it not [...]

Favorite Film Friday: American Beauty

I’m modifying an idea I saw on a book blog recently — revisiting favorites from your past. While that concept was favorite books, mine is going to be favorite movies. These aren’t going to be reviews of the films, just a link or two to assembled opinion on the films and my thoughts [...]

Lawyers on film

The cover story of the latest ABA Journal is the 25 Greatest Legal Movies. I’m not at all surprised at that top two but was very pleasantly surprised that My Cousin Viommy ws third. I never tire of this movie, which contains perhaps the most concise opening statement ever: “Everything that guy just [...]

A touch of listmania

A while ago I discovered Lists of Bests, a site that is just what the name implies. It is a list of “bests,” whether by award or personal preference. Looking at it this weekend, I wondered if the fact I hadn’t read any of the National Book Critics Circle award winners this year [...]

Dystopian movies — and acknowledging reality

In light of my recent post about modern life and dystopias, the Dystopian Movie meme I found at SFSignal seemed timely. The rule is simply to put in bold the movies you’ve seen from the following list of top 50 dystopian movies.

Metropolis (1927)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Brazil (1985)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Blade Runner (1982)
Children of Men [...]