Thursday, August 31, 2006

Media review

After re-reading my last post and taking my blood pressure, I realized I needed a glass of wine. No can do right now, though, so I decided to sit down with a book. If you've read my profile, you can see that I like Anne Rice. I have every book written by her, whether under her name or a nom-de-plume. She's a great author. I can pick up any of her books and completely FALL into the world she weaves. To me that's the greatest thing an author can do for me. I want to be able to pick up a book and forget what's going on around me. If an author can do that, I'm sold. I'll buy everything I can find by that person. Anyway, I'm reading Memnoch the Devil again. I realize that it's now been some 15 years since the first time I read it. That was probably the only time I read it. It scared the hell out of me. I hated it. But in a good way. It scared me because it drew me in so completely. You genuinely believe that what's going on in her books is really going on somewhere out there. And Memnoch the Devil is about the Devil, capital D there, coming to Earth to convert Lestat, the hero of Anne Rice's world, into helping him in a fight against God. But it's not the typical good vs evil fight we've all grown up believing. Instead, Memnoch fell because he was defending humans, and that all humans can pay for their sins and eventually be good enough for heaven. God, according to the book, doesn't believe we are worth redemption.

Now don't go getting all holy wrath, smite thee, get thee to a nunnery on me. I'm only telling you what's in the book. And why it took me so long to pick it up again. All the other Anne Rice books, I've probably re-read countless times. I can quote passages out of some.

It scared me in the same sense that I used to HATE Kevin Spacey for. The first movie I saw him in was Se7en. And he's only got a small actual acting part in it. But he scared the PISS out of me. I wouldn't see anything with him in it for a LONG time. I think at the time I was genuinely convinced he was a raving psychotic murderer. American Beauty was probably the next movie I saw with him in. He is a frighteningly good actor. Unreal. I also didn't like Edward Norton for a short time after American History X. But I'd seen him in other movies enough that I realized that wasn't really him. Edward Norton is also one of my favorite actors. I'd like to round out the list with Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman is such a good actor that a lot of people have no idea who he is. You've probably seen more movies with him in it than you realized. He was Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula. He was Beethoven in Immortal Beloved. He was the terrorist in Air Force One. He was Lieutenant Gordon in Batman. And he was Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movie(s). He's been in a lot. You should definitely see movies with him in them.

Finally another actor I hate to admit is good: Leonardo Dicaprio. He played a retarded kid in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I thought he really was retarded. I thought he was two different people in The Man in the Iron Mask. Catch Me If You Can was OK, not the greatest movie. In fact I don't think I could sit through the whole thing. I heard Gangs of New York was really good, although I haven't seen it yet. But my point is that they're still good actors. I am less fond of actors who can't leave themselves out of a role. Tom Cruise is a classic example of this. Can you think of any role he's played where he wasn't Tom Cruise?

Anyway, feel free to leave me your own examples of media-type diversions that you were lost in. A book you couldn't put down. A movie you own multiple copies of because you wore out the first tape/disc. Hell, a TV show you own all 10 seasons of. Music you can't stop listening to. Whatev! I'm in the mood to see/hear/read some new stuff.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Movies

Juaquin Phoenix in "Ladder 49"..
Tom Cruise in "The Green Mile"

Books

The hiding place...God I first read it back in the 70s. It is about the holocaust.
All Ann Rule books...recently read "The Green River Running Red'
Also, really good, I think her favorite is "The stranger Beside Me." Its about Ted Bundy.

BTW: Im going to link one of your posts tomorrow (Friday) in my Friday Fives Blog fest.

Paradise Driver said...

Actor:
Mary-Louise Parker. This lady is so good. "Riding In Cars With Boys", "The Client", "Fried Green Tomatos". Whatever she is in, she IS the character she portrays. She is an actor, not a starlet.

Author:
Robert A. Heinlein. A comtemporary of Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimove, Ray Bradbury, and L. Ron Hubbard.

FroneAmy said...

Cate will know this but nobody else...Fight Club is a true favorite in this house, too.

Cathy-
OMG how could I have forgotten Green Mile? I read the books before the movie came out, but they did a stellar job with the movie. So good!!! And no prob about linking. I am very flattered ;)

Wil-
I enjoy Mary-Louise Parker also. Although I haven't seen a lot that she is in.
Robert Heinlein...I am intrigued that you compare him to L Ron Hubbard. I can't figure on reading anything by a man who invented an entire religion that sounds like a science fiction novel. Perhaps that's why he's in with Asimov, Clarke and Bradbury. But I will have to pick up Heinlein at the library and give him a chance, at least.

Paradise Driver said...

Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, Hubbard and Heinlein were contempraries and friends. All of them wrote sci-fi for the pulp mags starting in the '30's. Once they had a lengthy dinner discussion about religion and whether it would be possible to start a new one which did not follow in the footsteps of any other religion. They actually made a "bet" on which of them could do it. From that, Asimov wrote "I, Robot". Clarke wrote "Childhood's End" which later was rewritten into "2001, A Space Odyssey". Heinlein wrote "Stranger, In A Strange Land", I forget Bradbury's entry and Hubbard created scientology.

I think Clarke is the only one of the group still living.

cop'swife said...

grey's anatomy. i heart that show. i just finished reading about Frued, but I wouldn't say it was gripping...

and you didn't offend me, it takes A L LOT more than that to offend me...I am a high school teacher for goodness sake!

FroneAmy said...

Grey's Anatomy ROCKS! I love that show! I wish we'd started watching it from the beginning, but it was on at the same time as two other shows we watch so we couldn't even DVR it.

And I'm glad I didn't offend you; my remark was more of a compliment than anything.

Wil-

How utterly fascinating...and today how many people are scientologists? Frightening.

Anonymous said...

Scrubs.

My buddy's wife got me hooked and in turn I got 2 of my co-workers hooked. It's got comedy and talks about things in a way that you can relate to your own life, even if you have nothing to do with medicine.

When I'm sad or lonely, Scrubs is my friend.

Anonymous said...

I was absolutely devoted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer until the 6th season, only because I believed firmly that the finale of Season five was the end-all, be-all best episode and the perfect way to end it. I cried. Fanfic writer's all over the world went nuts with their own ideas of how the other characters dealt with Buffy's death. And, I found the next two seasons to be ridiculous, and I couldn't sink myself into their world and feel what they felt anymore. It was just too goofy for me.

As far as an author goes: When I was a teenager, after exhausting the springs of King and Rice, I discovered a man named Joseph Citro who wrote horror, both fictional and non-fictional about my home in New England. One of his books, Shadow Child, I could not read alone at night because it frightened me so terribly. When I walked, in Vermont, I could not pass by thickly wooded areas without my heart picking up its pace a bit. Also, there is an author named Francesca Lia Block, a 'young adult' writer, but honestly, her writing is for all ages. I recommend anything she has ever written, especially the Dangerous Angel saga. Her writing is magical and you can taste and touch everything. Her writing is so atmospheric that you're enchanted and ache when the book ends.