Arthur Christmas

Ever since I was a kid, I have always loved cartoons! Whether it be The Simpsons, Toy Story, or even old Bugs Bunny cartoons. Kristie would say that my tastes aren't discerning enough, but I would disagree. I think that while I would enjoy a bad cartoon, I can still appreciated that it should be scaled.  Which brings us to the newest cartoon we saw this weekend: Arthur Christmas.

Arthur Christmas is the new CG cartoon from Sony pictures. Nope, not Pixar, not DreamWorks, not even Disney, but Sony.

The movie is about the Clause family; the current Clause family.

• Malcolm: The current Santa
• Grand-Santa: The father of Malcolm who is often spouting off about the glory days
• Steve: Son of Malcolm and the Santa apparent
• and Arthur: The fish out of water, who loves Christmas with all hiis heart, but is a bit of a...well, a fish out of water, I guess.

The story is about the current Santa coming to the end of his days, as he has been Santa-ing for 70 years, and how Steve is getting ready to take over the family business.  Well, on what is suppose to be Santa's final ride, Steve, who basically is in charge behind the scene, managed to miss a single child's gift; which he thinks is an acceptable error rate.  Arthur disagrees, and it is up to Arthur, Grand-Santa, a plucky little wrapping elf, and a moth-eaten old reindeer to save Christmas for the little girl.

The story is suitable for both young and old, and there are some great jokes that will delight everyone peppered throughout the story. The only thing that I would criticize about the movie is that for a British film, it seemed pretty Americanized in its humour...a little less Wallace and Gromit, and a little too Shrek.

On the whole, even though it is a cartoon, and I'd rather watch a bad cartoon than a good movie, I'd give Arthur Christmas 4 out of 5 stars.

Don't you know what the night can do?

Oddly, I recently read two books back-to-back with the word night in the title...one was titled Night Wakings and the other was called The Night Book.  Each focused (somewhat) on the theme of disrupted sleep, though there was obviously more going on in each.

The first book was entitled Night Wakings and it is centered around Anna, a mother/academic who was spending the summer on an isolated island (near Scotland) with her husband and children.  The author, Sarah Moss, adeptly manages the tension between comedy and drama.  The comedic elements play out in Anna's relationship between her husband and children.  Anna is clearly sleep deprived, all the while trying to finish a book in order to honour her commitment as a research associate.  Her reaction to insomniac children and a somewhat ambivalent and/or ignorant husband are classic.  I love her dry wit.  The drama arrives with the discovery of an infant's skeleton and the subsequent attempts to discern how this skeleton came to be buried outside Anna's house on this remote island.  The story is layered with letters from the past that help to shed light on the mystery of the baby's remains.  All in all, a fantastic read that I appreciated for its keen intelligence.  Highly recommended!

A friend bought me this book to help kick start my immersion into New Zealand literature.  On the whole, a great introduction.  Charlotte Grimshaw is a very good author and the story arch is an interesting one.  In a nutshell, it looks at the wife of a man who is going to be the next Prime Minister of New Zealand.  However, as you'd expect, there is a fly in the ointment.  This woman has a secret that is eating her up inside and is causing her to make questionable decisions.  Added to this story is a Doctor with an unknown connection to this wife and his own ennui.  The one difficulty I had with this book is that all the characters were extremely wealthy and it was hard to relate to the life they led and to feel the full extent of their plights.  Still, a good back that kept me turning the pages.

Project NIM

As it turns out, I already saw this movie earlier this year. Of course they had a different title for it then: Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The similarities of the fictional account of a chimp that was taken into a human's home to learn sign, and the true to life version of Project NIM are uncanny. Granted, there weren't as many explosions in Project NIM (spoiler alert), but some of the fallout regarding the chimpanzee are quite heart wrenching in both movies.

Basically, Project NIM is the story of a bunch of frigging idiots that decide take an ape into a human household and see what happens. If you asked the researchers of the study, they may say that it was a scientific experiment to see if an ape could learn human language and grammar. But I think my idiot comment stands.

Why? Because not one of the multitude of people who were involved in this study (save one: the drug smoking hippie...no, not that drug smoking hippie, the other one) had any knowledge about chimpanzee behaviour, and what might (would most definitely) happen when you bring a wild animal into a house or academic setting. No one involved in the study thought it might be a good idea to do a bit of reading into chimpanzee behaviour before hand; virtually every one of them admitted in interviews that they knew almost nothing about "monkeys".

Without spoiling the entire movie, lets just say that people were bitten, poop was flung, and a chimpanzee was mistreated.

I thought this movie was outstanding and I encourage anyone reading this (except for that one guy...you know who you are) to go and see this movie.

5/5

Flying Troutmans - Miriam Toews

I've read quite a few Miriam Toews books over the years and she is a good writer.  Her books have a quirky tone and even quirkier characters.

My latest read was the Flying Troutmans and while I liked it, I also found it had a frantic energy that didn't exactly make it a relaxing read.  I read somewhere that it bears similarities to Little Miss Sunshine and that is true to a point.  However, I think the end goal of getting Abigail Breslin to the beauty pageant gave Little Miss Sunshine more focus than that found in the Flying Troutsman, which seemed to go on tangent after tangent.  In this particular road trip, they were looking for someone, but I found that this goal was quite often lost amongst the text.   Worth picking up in a pinch, but if you're looking at Toews for the first time, try A Boy of Good Breeding instead.  

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter - Tom Franklin

After a raft of fairly literary novels, I was in the mood for something more action-oriented.  With that in mind, I picked up Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin.  I was heartened by the fact that David Wroblewski (of the awesome Edgar Sawtelle-fame)  had endorsed it highly.

The book is essentially something of a mystery novel, with the main character (Larry Ott) having been accused of a heinous crime 25 years earlier. However, he was never convicted as the police could never pull together the requisite evidence.  Flash forward and another similar crime has occurred in this small Mississippi town.  Larry is once again a suspect.  The book goes back and forth in time to help readers understand what really happened 25 years ago, as well as in the present day.  Interspersed with Larry's story is that of the local constable (Silas "32" Jones), a former friend of Larry's.  The book describes Silas' criminal investigation during the present day, but also explores the relationship between these two men all those years ago.

I won't go into much more depth as I don't want to spoil the mystery, but I will say this is a well written book that provides some insight into the tensions between blacks and whites in Mississippi, while also providing readers with a compelling story.

Interesting side note: apparently, students in Mississippi learn to spell Mississippi like this: M-I-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-I-Humpack-Humpback-I.  An interesting approach to literacy indeed.

The Trip

Picture you and a friend on a one week road trip. Think of the places you'd stop, the food you would eat, the songs you sing, the endless bad impressions you would do in each other's company. Also think about the conversations you may have. The off the wall "What If" conversations, the explanations of topics that you consider yourself an expert in.  Think of how much fun you would have, but also think about how might get on each other's nerves a bit.

Well that, in a nutshell, is what The Trip is all about. You may think that this would  be the most boring movie ever, but luckily, this trip had a well paid editor who took only the best bits and left the rest on the cutting room floor.

The Trip should have you laughing from almost the first moment when Steeve Coogan clumsily invites his friend Rob Brydon along for a road trip tour of high class restaurants through out England. From pretty much then on in, the trip is nothing but their conversations, sing alongs, observances, etc. and it is hilarious!

This movie isn't for everyone as there are no car crashes, explosions, or even plot for that matter, but if you want to watch a good "Day in the life" comedy, I would totally recommend this.

4/5 Stars.

Contagion

Holy Crap, I'm never using another public bathroom, or even opening a door again

We just watched the movie Contagion, and as movies go, this is a true to life horror movie that could actually happen! I don't want to put too many spoilers in this review, but here's the plot: one person gets sick and as a result, the whole world pretty much goes to crap! I don't think I'm giving too much away; it is a story about a contagious disease after all.

Virtually every scenario they presented in this movie could very easily happen in real life: the spread of the disease, the panic among citizens, the crackpots pushing bogus cures, and of course the horrific death toll. What I found really interesting in this movie was how in the theatre, you suddenly became acutely aware of people sneezing or coughing.

The movie stars...people, they act, but that isn't the point of this review. This is a movie that everyone should see simply from a public health perspective. Go see it, and then go drink a bottle of Purell!

5/5