Books & Films / December 2004
Friday, December 31st, 2004 19:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwakeThis month's must read book is "City of Saints and Madmen".
This month's must see movie is "Napoleon Dynamite".
Books Read
Full Moon - P.G. Wodehouse
City of Saints and Madmen - Jeff VanderMeer
The Air Loom Gang - Mike Jay
The Christmas Books - Charles Dickens
The Hothouse on the East River - Muriel Spark
Weetzie Bat - Francesca Lia Block
The Barbie Murders - John Varley
Treason by the Book - Jonathan D Spence
Here is my December reviews post to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50bookchallenge.
Cinema Trips
Roboclaus
Napoleon Dynamite
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Closely Observed Trains
House of Flying Daggers
"Roboclaus"
A 10 minute comedy short made by local filmmakers and shown before "Napoleon Dynamite", concerning the decision of Geoff Nimrod, manager of the County Shopping Centre Leicester, to replace the mall's Santa with a robot. One of the most amusing parts was when Mrs Claus was being interviewed about how they were going to afford to feed the reindeer and the elves now that Santa had lost his job. When the builders of the Roboclaus (runners up in Robot Wars, chosen for the project because NASA wanted too much money) were adjusting it and we saw through the robot's 'eyes' the words 'Yul Brynner' and 'HAL 2000' appearing across its screen, it was obvious that Roboclaus was going to be trouble!
"Napoleon Dynamite"
High-school school student Napoleon lives with his 32-year-old brother Kip, their grandmother and a llama called Tina in rural Idaho. When their grandmother has an accident, their Uncle Rico comes to stay and enlists Kip in his money-making schemes, which leads to embarrassment for his other nephew.
Napoleon, a badly-coordinated loner with a shambling run and glasses that reflect the light so much that it looks as if his eyes were permanently closed, makes friends with Mexican new boy Pedro and Deb who takes glamour photographs (not the page 3 type!) and handicrafts to save money, and Pedro runs for class president. Annoyingly, the post-credits sequence was only added part-way through the American run, and instead of including it for the UK run the money-grabbing distributors have decided to do the same here - Grrr!
"Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events"
Best things: The production design, the timeless setting, Jude Law's Lemony Snicket voice-overs and the paper cut-out animation during the end-credits.
Annoying things: It seemed both a bit rushed and rather lightweight - three books may just be too many to squeeze into one film. Jim Carrey's over-the-top Count Olaf.
"Closely Observed Trains"
A Czechoslovakian film from the mid-1960s, about a newly-qualified train dispatcher starting work at a small rural station and his attempts to make love with his conductor girlfriend. I have seen it before, although I had somehow forgotten the fact that it was set during WWII even though that is intrinsic to the plot. The closely observed trains of the title are the ammunition and troop trains of the German occupiers.
"House of Flying Daggers"
I wasn't terribly impressed really. It started off well with the echo game in the brothel, but went downhill from there. It perked up a little with the fight in the bamboo forest, but the only really interesting thing was the unexpected plot twist at the Flying Daggers hideout. I guess I find romance films tiresome and I find Ziyi Zhang quite an uninteresting actress when she isn't either fighting or dancing. I also have trouble suspending disbelief when daggers dodge round shields and make 90 degree turns in mid-air and someone shoots off four arrows in succession and yet they all arrive at the target at the same time (somehow I don't have that trouble with people jumping 20 feet in the air and doing somersaults during fights, but that's probably due to being exposed to "Monkey" and "The Water Margin" at a young age).
And as to the admittedly wonderful visuals, it seems to me as if the film-makers thought "Well we've had a fight in a deciduous forest, a meadow full of wild flowers and a bamboo forest, so how can we top that? Ah yes, let's have an unseasonal blizzard to finish off with". Yes, it all looks beautiful, but it is beginning to seem rather cynical and contrived.
And here is a list of all the books that I read during 2004:
1 - The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
2 - How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Julia Alvarez
3 - The Life & Death of Lord Errol - Errol Trzebinski
4 - Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith
5 - Suckers - Anne Billson
6 - Last Tango in Aberystwyth - Malcolm Pryce
7 - The Desperate Remedy by Martin Stephen
8 - Antic Hay - Aldous Huxley
9 - Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley
10 - The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
11 - Join Me - Danny Wallace
12 - A Time of Gifts - Patrick Leigh Fermor
13 - Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett
14 - The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett
15 - The Map of Love - Ahdaf Soueif
16 - Oranges are not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
17 - Grendel - John Gardner
18 - Beowulf - Anonymous (tr. Seamus Heaney)
19 - Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban
20 - Lavondyss - Robert Holdstock
21 - The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
22 - Between the Woods and the Water - Patrick Leigh Fermor
23 - Paint Your Dragon - Tom Holt
24 - Expecting Someone Taller - Tom Holt
25 - Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd
26 - Fairy Paths and Spirit Roads - Paul Devereux
27 - e - Matt Beaumont
28 - Here Comes the Sun - Tom Holt
29 - Silk - Alexander Baricco
30 - The Book of Ultimate Truths - Robert Rankin
31 - Wayne's Dead - Christy Tillery French
32 - Bright and Shining Tiger - Claudia J Edwards
33 - Bite - Richard Laymon
34 - Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
35 - Marabou Stork Nightmares - Irvine Welsh
36 - Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
37 - Wise Children - Angela Carter
38 - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
39 - Treasury of Tree Lore - Josephine Addison & Cherry Hillhouse
40 - The House of Doctor Dee - Peter Ackroyd
41 - Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler
42 - Unless - Carol Shields
43 - A Dog Called Demolition - Robert Rankin
44 - Flatland - Edwin Abbott
45 - Red Dog - Louis de Bernieres
46 - Are YOU Dave Gorman? - Dave Gorman & Danny Wallace
47 - The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
48 - The Unlimited Dream Company - J.G. Ballard
49 - Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
50 - Walking on Glass - Iain Banks
51 - Jingo - Terry Pratchett
52 - The Last English King - Julian Rathbone
53 - Pompeii - Robert Harris
54 - The e Before Christmas - Matt Beaumont
55 - The Icelandic Sagas - W.A. Craigie
56 - The Jesus Mysteries - Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
57 - Surfacing - Margaret Atwood
58 - Crow Lake - Mary Lawson
59 - With Nails - Richard E. Grant
60 - Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
61 - Jeeves in the Offing - P.G. Wodehouse
62 - Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
63 - Lizard - Banana Yoshimoto
64 - The Player of Games - Iain M Banks
65 - Fireworks - Angela Carter
66 - Momo - Michael Ende
67 - Something Fresh - PG Wodehouse
68 - Summer Lightning - PG Wodehouse
69 - Heavy Weather - PG Wodehouse
70 - The Portable Door - Tom Holt
71 - The Conscience of the King - Martin Stephen
72 - The Screwtape Letters - CS Lewis
73 - Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
74 - Nathaniel's Nutmeg - Giles Milton
75 - The Songlines - Bruce Chatwin
76 - A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M Miller
77 - Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self - Claire Tomalin
78 - The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
79 - The Book, the Film and the T-Shirt - Matt Beaumont
80 - Demons and Dreams - ed. Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow
81 - The Little Earth Book - James Bruges
82 - Dreams Underfoot - Charles de Lint
83 - 253 - Geoff Ryman
84 - The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
85 - Sleeping in Flame - Jonathan Carroll
86 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K DIck
87 - Emperor of China - Jonathan D Spence
88 - Adventures in Persia - Reginald Teague-Jones alias Ronald Sinclair
89 - Full Moon - P.G. Wodehouse
90 - City of Saints and Madmen - Jeff VanderMeer
91 - The Air Loom Gang - Mike Jay
92 - The Christmas Books - Charles Dickens
93 - The Hothouse on the East River - Muriel Spark
94 - Weetzie Bat - Francesca Lia Block
95 - The Barbie Murders - John Varley
96 - Treason by the Book - Jonathan D Spence
This month's must see movie is "Napoleon Dynamite".
Books Read
Full Moon - P.G. Wodehouse
City of Saints and Madmen - Jeff VanderMeer
The Air Loom Gang - Mike Jay
The Christmas Books - Charles Dickens
The Hothouse on the East River - Muriel Spark
Weetzie Bat - Francesca Lia Block
The Barbie Murders - John Varley
Treason by the Book - Jonathan D Spence
Here is my December reviews post to
50bookchallenge.Cinema Trips
Roboclaus
Napoleon Dynamite
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events
Closely Observed Trains
House of Flying Daggers
"Roboclaus"
A 10 minute comedy short made by local filmmakers and shown before "Napoleon Dynamite", concerning the decision of Geoff Nimrod, manager of the County Shopping Centre Leicester, to replace the mall's Santa with a robot. One of the most amusing parts was when Mrs Claus was being interviewed about how they were going to afford to feed the reindeer and the elves now that Santa had lost his job. When the builders of the Roboclaus (runners up in Robot Wars, chosen for the project because NASA wanted too much money) were adjusting it and we saw through the robot's 'eyes' the words 'Yul Brynner' and 'HAL 2000' appearing across its screen, it was obvious that Roboclaus was going to be trouble!
"Napoleon Dynamite"
High-school school student Napoleon lives with his 32-year-old brother Kip, their grandmother and a llama called Tina in rural Idaho. When their grandmother has an accident, their Uncle Rico comes to stay and enlists Kip in his money-making schemes, which leads to embarrassment for his other nephew.
Napoleon, a badly-coordinated loner with a shambling run and glasses that reflect the light so much that it looks as if his eyes were permanently closed, makes friends with Mexican new boy Pedro and Deb who takes glamour photographs (not the page 3 type!) and handicrafts to save money, and Pedro runs for class president. Annoyingly, the post-credits sequence was only added part-way through the American run, and instead of including it for the UK run the money-grabbing distributors have decided to do the same here - Grrr!
"Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events"
Best things: The production design, the timeless setting, Jude Law's Lemony Snicket voice-overs and the paper cut-out animation during the end-credits.
Annoying things: It seemed both a bit rushed and rather lightweight - three books may just be too many to squeeze into one film. Jim Carrey's over-the-top Count Olaf.
"Closely Observed Trains"
A Czechoslovakian film from the mid-1960s, about a newly-qualified train dispatcher starting work at a small rural station and his attempts to make love with his conductor girlfriend. I have seen it before, although I had somehow forgotten the fact that it was set during WWII even though that is intrinsic to the plot. The closely observed trains of the title are the ammunition and troop trains of the German occupiers.
"House of Flying Daggers"
I wasn't terribly impressed really. It started off well with the echo game in the brothel, but went downhill from there. It perked up a little with the fight in the bamboo forest, but the only really interesting thing was the unexpected plot twist at the Flying Daggers hideout. I guess I find romance films tiresome and I find Ziyi Zhang quite an uninteresting actress when she isn't either fighting or dancing. I also have trouble suspending disbelief when daggers dodge round shields and make 90 degree turns in mid-air and someone shoots off four arrows in succession and yet they all arrive at the target at the same time (somehow I don't have that trouble with people jumping 20 feet in the air and doing somersaults during fights, but that's probably due to being exposed to "Monkey" and "The Water Margin" at a young age).
And as to the admittedly wonderful visuals, it seems to me as if the film-makers thought "Well we've had a fight in a deciduous forest, a meadow full of wild flowers and a bamboo forest, so how can we top that? Ah yes, let's have an unseasonal blizzard to finish off with". Yes, it all looks beautiful, but it is beginning to seem rather cynical and contrived.
And here is a list of all the books that I read during 2004:
1 - The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
2 - How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Julia Alvarez
3 - The Life & Death of Lord Errol - Errol Trzebinski
4 - Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith
5 - Suckers - Anne Billson
6 - Last Tango in Aberystwyth - Malcolm Pryce
7 - The Desperate Remedy by Martin Stephen
8 - Antic Hay - Aldous Huxley
9 - Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley
10 - The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
11 - Join Me - Danny Wallace
12 - A Time of Gifts - Patrick Leigh Fermor
13 - Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett
14 - The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett
15 - The Map of Love - Ahdaf Soueif
16 - Oranges are not the Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson
17 - Grendel - John Gardner
18 - Beowulf - Anonymous (tr. Seamus Heaney)
19 - Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban
20 - Lavondyss - Robert Holdstock
21 - The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
22 - Between the Woods and the Water - Patrick Leigh Fermor
23 - Paint Your Dragon - Tom Holt
24 - Expecting Someone Taller - Tom Holt
25 - Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd
26 - Fairy Paths and Spirit Roads - Paul Devereux
27 - e - Matt Beaumont
28 - Here Comes the Sun - Tom Holt
29 - Silk - Alexander Baricco
30 - The Book of Ultimate Truths - Robert Rankin
31 - Wayne's Dead - Christy Tillery French
32 - Bright and Shining Tiger - Claudia J Edwards
33 - Bite - Richard Laymon
34 - Year of Wonders - Geraldine Brooks
35 - Marabou Stork Nightmares - Irvine Welsh
36 - Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
37 - Wise Children - Angela Carter
38 - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
39 - Treasury of Tree Lore - Josephine Addison & Cherry Hillhouse
40 - The House of Doctor Dee - Peter Ackroyd
41 - Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler
42 - Unless - Carol Shields
43 - A Dog Called Demolition - Robert Rankin
44 - Flatland - Edwin Abbott
45 - Red Dog - Louis de Bernieres
46 - Are YOU Dave Gorman? - Dave Gorman & Danny Wallace
47 - The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
48 - The Unlimited Dream Company - J.G. Ballard
49 - Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett
50 - Walking on Glass - Iain Banks
51 - Jingo - Terry Pratchett
52 - The Last English King - Julian Rathbone
53 - Pompeii - Robert Harris
54 - The e Before Christmas - Matt Beaumont
55 - The Icelandic Sagas - W.A. Craigie
56 - The Jesus Mysteries - Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy
57 - Surfacing - Margaret Atwood
58 - Crow Lake - Mary Lawson
59 - With Nails - Richard E. Grant
60 - Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie
61 - Jeeves in the Offing - P.G. Wodehouse
62 - Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
63 - Lizard - Banana Yoshimoto
64 - The Player of Games - Iain M Banks
65 - Fireworks - Angela Carter
66 - Momo - Michael Ende
67 - Something Fresh - PG Wodehouse
68 - Summer Lightning - PG Wodehouse
69 - Heavy Weather - PG Wodehouse
70 - The Portable Door - Tom Holt
71 - The Conscience of the King - Martin Stephen
72 - The Screwtape Letters - CS Lewis
73 - Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
74 - Nathaniel's Nutmeg - Giles Milton
75 - The Songlines - Bruce Chatwin
76 - A Canticle for Leibowitz - Walter M Miller
77 - Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self - Claire Tomalin
78 - The Years of Rice and Salt - Kim Stanley Robinson
79 - The Book, the Film and the T-Shirt - Matt Beaumont
80 - Demons and Dreams - ed. Terri Windling & Ellen Datlow
81 - The Little Earth Book - James Bruges
82 - Dreams Underfoot - Charles de Lint
83 - 253 - Geoff Ryman
84 - The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
85 - Sleeping in Flame - Jonathan Carroll
86 - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K DIck
87 - Emperor of China - Jonathan D Spence
88 - Adventures in Persia - Reginald Teague-Jones alias Ronald Sinclair
89 - Full Moon - P.G. Wodehouse
90 - City of Saints and Madmen - Jeff VanderMeer
91 - The Air Loom Gang - Mike Jay
92 - The Christmas Books - Charles Dickens
93 - The Hothouse on the East River - Muriel Spark
94 - Weetzie Bat - Francesca Lia Block
95 - The Barbie Murders - John Varley
96 - Treason by the Book - Jonathan D Spence
