I’ve not read Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild, on which the movie is based. And I’ve seen only a few Reese Witherspoon movies (I liked “Election” the best). So most everything here was new to me. “Wild” tells two stories simultaneously: Cheryl’s punishing hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, starting at the Mexican border and finishing hundreds of miles …
Category Archives: Reviews
Blogs I Like: Sitcom Geek
As Stephen Fry said once upon a time: when I was young, comedy albums were my rock albums. The first albums I remember buying were remaindered copies of “Another Monty Python Album” and, rather incredibly, Robert Klein’s “Mind Over Matter” (I think because the cover just looked so out-there).
Review: “In Our Time” podcast and newsletter
One of my long-term listening pleasures is BBC4’s In Our Time podcast. The show is hosted by Melvyn Bragg, a novelist, cultural reporter, broadcaster, and a member of the House of Lords, in no particular order. The show’s premise is to pick a significant topic from history, culture, science, art, philosophy, etc., bring in three …
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Review: Elf, a reminder service to avoid overdue library fees
The Durham Country Library — which is a great organization I support with patronage and donations of both books and money — does not notify me when books are either coming due or are overdue. This can be inconvenient when life gets hectic or I forget that the checkout period for DVDs is different from that for books. …
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Movie: “Enough Said”
Warning – Mild spoiler alert. I don’t reveal plot points, but if you read this post, you’ll be able to put it together. We’ve had an astonishingly good run of movies this summer, apart from the abysmal — dare I say Pepto-Bysmal — “Blue Jasmine.” Our latest was “Enough Said,” a small, sweet romantic comedy …
Movie: “Blue Jasmine”
To get this out of the way as quickly as possible: Cate Blanchett clocks an amazing performance as Woody Allen’s Blanche DuBois in this utterly unsurprising and tiresome movie. Oh, and there’s a great soundtrack — I’m definitely buying the soundtrack. As with Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” the soundtrack is more entertaining than the wretched …
Movie: “20 Feet From Stardom”
When Tom Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he said, “We all love music and we want music to love us, too.” It’s a thought that haunted me after watching the glorious documentary 20 Feet From Stardom.
Book: “Slowing Down to the Speed of Life”
I picked up this book in Kenosha on my vacation, and it jibes well with Michael Neill‘s The Inside Out Revolution. This is not surprising as both describe the 3 Principles, which was conceived of and taught by Sydney Banks. But Slowing, written by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey, was originally published in 1997, long …
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Movie: “The Way Way Back”
Jim Rash, Charlotte NC-native and UNC-CH alum — best known to the world as Dean Pelton on Community — has been exercising other talents the last few years. He and his co-writer Nat Faxon won an Oscar for their screenplay of The Descendants (with Alexander Payne) and the pair have created a great, light, summertime coming-of-age comedy, The Way, …
Review: “The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter”
Over the 2010 Christmas vac, I took six books with me but read only one: the 700-page The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter. The book is a compilation of emails exchanged between Doctor Who producer/head-writer/show-runner Russell T. Davies — the man we have to thank for the series’ 2005 reboot and reimagining — and Benjamin …
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