Four Christmases

This week's movie selection came down to a choice between the animated John Travolta/Miley Cyrus vehicle Bolt and the Reese Witherspoon/Vince Vaughn romantic comedy Four Christmases.

I don't know why I bothered. I sensed suckitron emissions coming from both movies. But I figured anything had to be good enough to rid my mouth of the taste of the $9.99 video I recently bought at Target - a film of incomprehensible horridness titled Immortal (ad vitam) - so I decided to go anyway. What finally swayed me in favor of the romantic comedy was the showtime, which gave me over an hour to visit a nearby pub and have a stiff drink and set my mind in order for the ordeal.

I haven't liked most of the recent movies headlined by the two stars of Four Christmases. I also haven't loved most recent movies portraying the American family during the holidays. I don't know whether it reflects what Hollywood wants us to think, or the way audiences' experiences and beliefs have changed - perhaps both - but the annual crop of family Christmas flicks seem determined to take a huge, smelly dump on both institutions - Christmas and the family.

Seeing a Christmas movie that doesn't make Mom, Dad, and the family seem like a mob of dysfunctional people, and that doesn't portray the holidays as depressing and godless, is now as likely as hearing someone say George W. Bush has been an OK president. Christmas comedies are of the "laughing through pain" variety, and the pain comes from a combination of unhappily married (or, more likely, divorced) parents, incompatible siblings, rocky romantic relationships, disappointment, embarrassment, and restlessness. They show us today's American family in its vast emptiness: a group of people with nothing in common, living spread out across the country and barely able to tolerate each other for a few hours each year. And Christmas is resented because it forces these people to endure those hours whether they would or no.

There have been some exceptions, of course. Most of the upbeat Christmas movies, however, have been about promoting commercialism and the cult of secular legends, such as Rudolph the Reindeer, Jack Frost, and Santa. The classic Peanuts Christmas film stands out because it presents the story of Jesus' birth without irony or melodrama. Surprisingly, Four Christmases includes a depiction of the nativity story - albeit a bizarre one, in which the main characters are forced to play Mary and Joseph in a happy-clappy church service, with humorous results.

But it also depicts the ups and downs of an unmarried couple as they grudgingly visit their parents and families for the holidays - four visits, since the parents on both sides are divorced. That's today's family for you! It's enough to make me want to stay single forever. Because this would be my life, more or less, if I married a girl with divorced parents. Forget it.

The four parents, by the way, are played by Jon Voight, Mary Steenburgen, Sissy Spacek, and Robert Duvall. Talk about cast overkill! Four Oscar-winning veteran stars to play the unrewarding bit-parts of the parents who formed these two self-absorbed, shallow people. Also appearing in the film are character-actor and sometime director Jon Favreau (whose roles have ranged from the fat, mild-mannered nerd in Rudy to his current butch body-builder type), country-western singers Dwight Yoakam and Tim McGraw, and Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth. It would have been interesting to see Yoakam in a larger role; I still shudder to think about the scariness of his role in Panic Room.

In spite of the interesting cast, the movie wasn't so interesting. It seemed to shed its commitment to embarrassing its stars as it moved along, gradually entering serious relationship territory, which frankly isn't funny. And the lead actors simply didn't convince me that they, or their relationship, was anything to take seriously. Vaughn, in particular, seems to have phoned it in. If I had known he wasn't going to try any harder than his last relationship-based comedy or two, I would have bolted for Bolt and had that stiff drink afterward. No worries. I'll know better the next time a Vince Vaughn vehicle plays in town.

Stupid Surveys

Every now and then I am offered an opportunity to participate in an "eRewards" survey, in exchange for some quantity of a theoretical currency I haven't yet figured out how to spend. The surveys have to do with consumer preferences and buying habits, ranging from food to electronics to cars and so on. You're supposed to think that by participating in the survey you are helping stores and advertisers better understand what products appeal to different age groups, economic brackets, and so on. But in reality, what you're probably telling them is what kind of marketers to sell your personal information to.

Increasingly often, I ignore these invitations. Now and then, on a whim, I decide to participate in a survey to see what happens. God knows, maybe I'll earn enough eRewards bucks to buy something... if I could only figure out how. But time after time, after I have answered a few introductory questions about my height, weight, favorite color, and the like, I get a message saying I do not fulfill the criteria to continue with the survey or to earn full credit for my participation.

Naturally, I'm miffed. It only takes 3 or 4 questions for these marketing people to decide that they don't care about my opinion. Clearly, they already know what they want the survey to tell them, or they wouldn't be able to spot me so quickly as someone who won't tell it to them. But I wonder: if the survey's results are so carefully predetermined, why do they even bother asking the questions?

Alexander-Black-Kerr-Lupica-Meyer

The Iron Ring
by Lloyd Alexander
Recommended Ages: 12+

The award-winning author of the Prydain Chronicles shows his versatility in interpreting world folklore in this novel inspired by the mythology of India. If you're a fan of folk tales, legends, and whopping great yarns, you'll enjoy this story. It reminded me of the Arthurian legend about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The hero is Tamar, the young king of a small country in a fantasy world based on ancient India. Tamar is proud, brave, and devoted to the dharma, or code of conduct, of the warrior caste - somewhat like the chivalric code Sir Gawain followed. One day a mysterious stranger appears in his court and ruthlessly turns the rules of dharma and hospitality to his advantage. In one night of gaming, Tamar wagers his life and loses. His guest puts an iron ring on Tamar's finger as a symbol of the young king's pledge to travel to the palace of Mahapura and surrender his life. Even when Tamar awakens from what seems to be only a dream, the ring remains ominously real.

So Tamar goes out on a journey to find out if his apparent dream was true, and to give up his life if dharma requires it. In his travels he is joined by a pretty gopi (cow-girl), some talking animals, a neighboring king fighting to regain his rightful throne, and other fascinating characters. He experiences romantic love, friendship, hilarious adventures, dangerous intrigues, the terror of battle, and a series of crushing losses that brings our hero so low that his heart breaks - as will yours. But even when he reaches rock bottom, even when the death awaiting him in Mahapura begins to look like an unreachable boon, big things remain in store for Tamar.

If you know who Taran Assistant Pig-Keeper is, you are already acquainted with Lloyd Alexander's gift for sharing great heroes with us. Heroes who grow and transform before our eyes in ways that surprise us and move us. Even though I don't believe in karma, I will say this: If you join Tamar on his errand of growth and transformation, you will be richly rewarded.

Tithe
by Holly Black
Recommended Ages: 14+

Younger readers may know Holly Black for her work on the Spiderwick Chronicles with illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi. Mature teens may also enjoy her solo ventures, such as this "Modern Faerie Tale." Brace yourself, though: it's a dark, gritty brand of faerie tale, with the type of mature themes and off-color language that call for a parental guidance advisory. Its world is like that of Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely, only without all the body art and piercings.

Kaye is a tough cookie. It comes of growing up in the entourage of a rock band, taking care of her not-so-motherly mother, and working full-time at a Chinese restaurant instead of going to school. It's a life many of us fantasize about (or did when we were younger), until another member of the band attempts to murder Kaye's mom. They end up moving back to her grandmother's house in a decaying city on the New Jersey shore, and trying to start over.

Kaye's grandmother wants the girl to go to school and prepare for a better life than her mother has. Her mother wants Kaye to do whatever she wants to do. Kaye, meanwhile, just wants to fit in with her old friend Janet's crowd. It isn't easy, when everyone remembers her as the little girl who told stories about her imaginary friends - faeries she really remembers playing with, though no one else could see them. It isn't easy to fit in, especially when the faeries start appearing to Kaye again. And this time, they have something other than fun and games planned.

Her old faerie playmates want Kaye to help them break free of the rule of the dark, cruel Unseelie Court: faeries of the night who control all the solitary (non-court) faeries in their territory, provided that a blood sacrifice is offered every seventh year. The time has come to seal the deal anew. Guess who the intended sacrifice is going to be this time? Only, the surprise will be on the Unseelie Court when they find out what Kaye has just learned herself: namely, that she isn't a mortal, but a faerie changeling magically disguised as a normal human.

Unfortunately for Kaye, her fey friends' plan is more dangerous to her than she realizes. Things grow more complicated when one of her mortal friends becomes the love-slave of a cruel faerie knight. And then there's the deeply conflicted fey warrior named Rath Roiben Rye, whose fate becomes intertwined with that of our green-skinned pixie heroine. Whatever is going to happen, it's going to be scary, violent, and complicated, with a pinch of romance and a dash of tragedy for added flavor. It may not be to everyone's taste; but if you like your urban nightmare garnished with a spritz of faerie dust, you'll be glad to know there are more books like this. So far this book has at least two companion novels: Valiant and Ironside.

The Day of the Djinn Warriors
by P. B. Kerr
Recommended Ages: 12+

Book Four of the Children of the Lamp series finds twin djinn John and Philippa Gaunt in a bit of a pickle. Their mother has gone off to become the cold, logical, morally neutral Blue Djinn of Babylon. Their father has turned ancient overnight, due to an aging curse meant to keep the children close to him. Disturbances in the spirit world, a worldwide rash of museum robberies, and a chance to restore a pretty young djinn to her wax-figurelike body (and save their mother in the process) mean that John and Philippa have to travel. And that means John must leave his body at home, and both must leave their djinn powers.

It's an adventure in the world of ghosts, unusual for a bunch of people who are still living. This is no trouble for John, who spends much of the time sharing a body with the twins' friend Finlay. But other problems naturally arise. Kindly Mrs. Trump gets a knock on the head. Wise old Mr. Rakshasas sacrifices himself to save John and a disembodied djinn girl named Faustina. While sharing possession of Finlay's body, Faustina and John are unable to hide their mutual puppy love from each other.

An angel challenges Uncle Nimrod's faithful butler Groanin to a wrestling match. Venetian explorer Marco Polo returns from the dead to help solve a mystery stretching from medieval China to present-day Scotland. By granting three wishes to a kind passerby, Philippa unknowingly touches off a series of lifechanging events. And an evil djinn uses Faustina's foolish brother Dybbuk to advance a heinous plan that involves an army of terra cotta warriors, the souls of millions of children, and the balance of good and bad luck throughout the world.

All this, and much more besides, happens in this one action- and adventure-packed book. It has all the humor, youthful romance, puzzles, thrills, chills, and magical weirdness you could wish for. Plus, it comes with the assurance that the series will continue, since Book 5 - titled Eye of the Forest - has already been released.

Summer Ball
by Mike Lupica
Recommended Ages: 12+

In this sequel to Travel Team, Danny Walker and two of his friends follow up their victory in the national 7th grade basketball championship by going to - you guessed it! - a summer basketball camp. If being cut from his town's travel team because he was too short tested a basketball wizard's faith in himself, imagine what happens when he is thrown together with top-talent players up to a year older, and a foot taller, than he is!

Again, Danny suffers a crisis of confidence. It can't help to have an irredeemably nasty coach - the type who would advise his most gifted player to consider playing soccer instead. Coach Powers browbeats Danny's morale to a new low. A jealous (and obnoxious) rival adds to the challenge. But with the support of his friends and teammates - to say nothing of his main girl Tess - he rises to these new challenges and leads yet another team to an awe-inspiring victory.

I'm not much of an athlete. But I'm no snob either. Sports stories always get me choked up. The world of athletics often forms the background for great stories of adversity and triumph, quests for self-knowledge, and a display of skills that can be as exciting as the duels of wands and weaponry that fantasy fans thrive on. Sports journalist and youth basketball coach Mike Lupica makes use of these strengths to score a slam-dunk for young readers' entertainment, especially of interest to kids who like sports.

Heat
by Mike Lupica
Recommended Ages: 12+

The author of the youth basketball novels Travel Team and Summer Ball turns to the world of baseball for this tale in which family love, friendship, and a talent for throwing fastballs come to the rescue of a Cuban orphan in the shadow of Yankee Stadium.

Michael Arroyo lives alone with his brother Carlos, who struggles to keep their little family together by working two jobs and pretending their father is in Florida, taking care of a sick uncle. Actually, their father has been dead since the spring. If the Official Persons learn of this before Carlos turns 18, the boys may be forced into foster care and perhaps separated.

Meanwhile, Michael is pitching for a baseball team that may make it all the way to the Little League World Series, particularly with the heat Michael has been hurling. But these plans, together with the Arroyo boys' secret, are suddenly in danger of crumbling when a rascally rival challenges Michael's claim to be twelve years old. How can they prove his age when his birth certificate is back in Havana, and when the very people they need helping them could also tear their family apart?

This book has its share of suspense, not only of the usual sports-story variety where the hero's team snatches victory from the jaws of defeat, but also as Michael's whole world threatens to collapse around him. But it isn't all unpleasant. Besides the crisis of a fatherless baseball prodigy who almost misses his one chance to make it to the big time, the story also has a bit of youthful romance, a strong dose of humor, charming surprises, and some novel uses of a good pitching arm outside of regulation baseball - such as catching purse snatchers!

Twilight
by Stephenie Meyer
Recommended Ages: 14+

This is the first book of "The Twilight Saga," which continues in New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn. In my short time as a bookseller I have sold more copies of these books than just about anything else. Owing in part to the hit movie based on this book, everything vampire-related is absolutely flying off the shelves, including Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Series, which I haven't read yet. Vampires are the hottest thing in the YA fantasy world right now; and with a Harry Potter movie around the corner, that's saying a lot.

To be honest, Twilight has been on my "haven't read yet" list for quite some time. In spite of the urgent advice of many readers, I simply never got around to it until the movie was about to come out. But at last I finally read it and saw the film, in that order; and now you can rest assured that I will soon devour the rest of the series.

At the beginning, it seems to be little more than a clever teen romance novel, featuring a couple of unusually interesting high-school-age characters. Soon after moving from sunny Arizona to her father's perpetually rainy town of Forks, Washington, Bella Swan becomes fascinated with a drop-dead gorgeous classmate named Edward. Meanwhile his fascination with her is tinged with hostility.

Soon, however, the fiercely independent, physically clumsy girl and the pale, clammy boy whose eyes change color begin to grow more comfortable with each other. This is to say, they learn to feel increasingly uncomfortable when they're not together. But they are slow to recognize true love growing up between them. Perhaps this is because, as a vampire, Edward thirsts for human blood... especially Bella's. Or maybe it's because, as a mind-reader, Edward is confused and frustrated by his inability to read Bella's thoughts.

Somehow, figuring out Edward's chilling secrets doesn't scare Bella. In fact, the only thing that scares her is losing him. And even though his whole family is a coven of vampires (the nice kind, who only prey on animals if they can help it), they recognize that Bella is Edward's only chance for true happiness. But how long can they be happy together when she is mortal and he isn't; when he constantly needs to guard against harming her fragile frame; when a vampire-hating tribe of werewolves is committed to guarding Bella from Edward; and when a truly unstoppable predator - one with no qualms against taking human life - marks Bella as his prey?

As you read this book, be prepared to fall in love with a surprising heroine who little knows how beautiful she is to others. Be prepared for the inevitable shift from a pleasantly chilling love story to a taut chase thriller. Be prepared for swiftly climbing tension levels as Bella's hunter closes in by instinct and deception, and as the stakes for her survival - as a human or as a vampire - take in the future happiness of families in more than one world.

Twilight

This week, I studied for today's big movie premiere by reading Stephenie Meyer's novel of teen romance-cum-vampire suspense, Twilight. Bazillions of MuggleNet readers had demanded that I read it, but I only recently bought the book and then left it lying unread until the movie was on top of me. Then, out of fear that I would inadvertently see the movie before reading the book (always a terrible idea - it could destroy my ability to imagine the story and characters for myself) I finally crammed it.

Well, I enjoyed the book well enough, but I was a little reluctant to see the movie. As the story unfolded I became increasingly convinced that it was the kind of movie where a single guy, without a girl on his arm, would get funny looks when he went to see it. I toyed with the idea of catching the midnight premiere, but I decided that would just compound the awkwardness. So I went to the earliest matinee that wasn't sold out, and enjoyed the flick.

Twilight, the movie, is very well done. Having only read the book a few days ago, I thought the film captured it very effectively, didn't leave anything important out, and took no unforgivable liberties. The cast was very effective too. Not to mention, very attractive. But I saw that one coming, since there was hardly a page of the book that didn't mention how gorgeous Edward Cullen and his vampire clan were. And even though Bella, as narratrix, doesn't toot her own horn, she gets told often enough that she's a looker too.

Plus, I would have to have been in a coma all year not to have spotted magazine covers depicting at least the lead actor, Robert Pattinson, who first came to teen-crush attention when he played the martyred Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. He certainly hit the jackpot in the bone-structure lottery. The surprise, in seeing the film, was that he has also come along as an actor, capable of the tortured smolder that his role demands. On the other hand, I thought he looked kind of goofy with his Las Vegas Elvis hairdo - some of the other vampires were actually prettier.

The soul of the movie, though, is the mortal girl Bella Swan, who falls for Edward. Bella is here played by Kristen Stewart, whom I last saw playing the snotty older sister in Zathura. For all his air of reluctant-monster mystery, Edward isn't half as complex and surprising a character as Bella is. For the more she realizes the boy she likes is tempted to drink her, the more determined she is to be with him forever. In spite of all the scary stuff that happens to her - such as going over for dinner to a houseful of vampires - such as getting a "we're watching you" message from a tribe of werewolves - such as being hunted by some really evil vampires - the only thing that really frightens her is the possibility of losing Edward. How does Stewart make this preposterous person seem real and believable? I can't explain it. I simply enjoyed it. I found her portrayal even more believable than the first-person narrative in Meyer's original book.

It's a smart story, and possibly the beginning of a series. In bookland, there are certainly a number of companion novels following Twilight. If the appreciation of this curmudgeonly, confirmed bachelor is any indication of how wildly a whole generation (or more) of American females should enjoy this film, it ought to be successful enough to generate a sequel at least. It has a cast full of unknown actors (except for a few, familiar, character-actor faces in the adult roles). But they look like movie stars, and if they keep this up they will be.

IMAGES from top: Pattinson and Stewart; the actors playing Bella, Edward, and his siblings; the bad guy holding Edward by the throat.

Two Movies

About a week ago, I saw the police-corruption drama Pride and Glory, starring Edward Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, and Noah Emmerich. They play a family of New York police officers whose professional and family ties are shaken up when a bunch of cops get killed in an apparent drug-bust-gone-bad. Voight is the family patriarch; Emmerich the older son, a captain who had the dead cops under his command; Farrell the son-in-law whose team crossed to the wrong side of the law; and Norton the younger son who starts out investigating the incident and ends up being framed for a cold-blooded murder.

The story is supposed to be heartbreaking and brutal, but I only felt the brutal end of it. I sympathized with the brothers, somewhat, but I found it hard to be drawn to them as main characters. I'm sure they're all good actors, but their characters were so fraught with weaknesses that you couldn't call any of them a hero. I suppose that's the way we're all supposed to look at the world these days.

Emmerich plays an ambivalent character - an honest cop who tolerates the dishonesty of the cops under him, up to a point; only it's hard to tell where that point is. Voight plays a warm, endearingly tipsy father whose pep talks to Norton gradually veer from telling him to do the right thing to ditto the wrong thing. Farrell overacts as a sociopathic creep for whom it is impossible to feel any sympathy - wasn't he supposed to be a good actor? And Norton, though excellent at looking totally crushed so that your heart goes out to him, has such a flat voice and such a lack of charisma that his presence in a lead role could make any movie seem anemic.

The story follows a fairly compelling arc, right up to the one-on-one fight between Norton and Farrell. What happens after that is a colossal let-down. I'm tempted even to use the word cop-out.

Yesterday's matinee was the new Double-Oh-Seven flick, Quantum of Solace, starring Daniel Craig in his second outing as Bond, James Bond. I've always liked the Bond fantasies. Each film follows a familiar formula, but it serves up a delicious cocktail of chases, fights, hairsbreadth escapes, high-tech sneaking, high-fashion slumming, and all our very favorite sins. You know: gambling, smoking, drinking, fornicating. Bond still does them all - though perhaps less smoking now. He remains, or rather becomes more than ever, such an ambivalent hero that you're not sure whether he's serving his country or his own agenda, whether he's a good guy or a stone cold killer, whether he's going to save the girl or put her down like a lame horse.

He still has M (played by Judi Dench) looking after him, though as part of the general ambivalence she sometimes seems to be chasing after him. He still has Felix (played by Jeffrey Wright) passing him CIA tips under the table. No Q in this movie, though; though I thought the bluetooth earpiece he put in before eavesdropping on the bad guys during a performance of Tosca in Vienna might have looked a bit like the letter Q. It's a leaner, meaner, seriouser Bond series now: less lightened by comic relief and sexually suggestive patter, more darkened by new Bond's tendency to kill first and interrogate second. But it has what really matters to us 007 fans: footage of a beautiful hotel blowing up, fast cars and airplanes shooting at each other, some terrific crashes, lovely women (one of whom ends up wearing nothing but oil), a funny-looking villain (here played by Matthieu Amalric), a hotel room most of us will never see in real life, and a Martini recipe to try at home and see if you can survive drinking six of them in a row, as Bond does.

Cleverer Spam

Spam seems to be getting cleverer these days. No, silly, I'm not talking about mystery-meat-in-a-can. I'm talking about the unsolicited junk emails that appear daily in one's mailbox. Luckily I have a Spam mailbox, so I can easily dispose of it without having to sift real emails out. But lately, the purveyors of Spam, whoever they may be - and may a flatulent yak raise the temperature of their jacuzzi - have gotten sharper at the game.

One isn't likely to be fooled, nowadays, by messages offering atrociously misspelled remedies for erectile disfunction. Or asking one to take deposit of a large sum of Nigerian money. But one may well look twice at an email that appears to be a "bounce message" from someone's internet service provider, indicating that a message you don't recall sending to someone you've never heard of could not be delivered.

Even that's gotten old, though. The newest twist: invitations from someone you don't know, to join a Yahoo! Group whose name is mostly random characters. Even if you're not fooled into opening the message (because, by golly, you've gotten six of them this week), you wish you could just decline the invitation rather than have to put up with persistent reminders that the group is waiting for your answer.

Yesterday I got a fake email from something calling itself the United Postal Service, with a subject line containing two tracking numbers. I didn't open it because I spotted the fact that the Postal Service is USPS, not UPS; UPS is the United Parcel Service. There is, in short, no such thing as the United Postal Service; and there isn't a reason in the world USPS or UPS should be emailing me about a tracking number. How many people stopped to apply cool reason when they got this probably spyware-infected piece of spam?

Today's new gimmick is an email from Continental Airlines, whose subject line had to do with my ticket reservation. Which is funny, because I don't recall having a reservation with Continental Airlines. I could not possibly be fooled by this, yet it's also spooky because it's exactly the type of email I would expect if I had reserved an airline ticket. And there's also the "Hold up! What's this about an airline ticket?" factor that could trigger a thoughtless click of the mouse.

Bottom line, Spam is getting trickier. I wish Continental and Yahoo! Groups would do more to police their brand name and prevent, for example, invitations to join chat groups from being used as a cover for spam. It wouldn't be awfully hard. My blog's comments frequently got spammed until I slapped Word Verification on it. Wouldn't hurt if Yahoo! did the same.

Work on Developing...

Patience

Attention to Detail

Accuracy