One Sentence Media Reviews
The fourth book in Erikson's Malazan series is interesting for its complex and untypical narrative structure, and although it suffers a bit more than the last three (especially towards the end) from a confusing multiplicity of characters, intrigues, gods, assassinations, and other strange and weird happenings, I still enjoyed it tremendously.
A rousing classic with a great supporting cast and a lovely story of political corruption, and some great montages of old school printing presses and late 30s Washington to boot.
This is a movie to watch if you love PSH and character dramas, because it's interesting, beautifully acted, and thoroughly complex, but it's not a movie to watch if you're looking for fun and easy, because the pacing is slow and undramatic.
This is my third time watching this Spielberg classic and unlike the last two times, I found it very unsettling (there are a lot of surprising anti-family choices the characters make, and anti-human gestures the aliens make), which I guess goes to show that a great piece of media rewards multiple viewings.
This documentary about the president and his wife was informative and entertaining, especially for someone like me who really enjoys 20th c american history, but I will say that I found the depth of focus simultaneously too light (they could've gone so much deeper with the source material) and too heavy (for what was essentially a glossy summary, it still took 4 hours).
A remarkebly cogent, clear picture of what nazi Germany was really like at the top of the command chain, really made it clear how much of a buffoon hitler was, definitely a long book sort of overburdened by endless descriptions of political in-fighting, worth reading for a unique perspective on this important history.
Kathy Bates is horrifyingly good in this psychological thriller - in some ways it's a tough movie to watch, but really quite rewarding and deftly done.
As I blast thru the third book of this incredibly long fantasy epic (up to 26 books across two authors already!), all I can say is that there are altogether too many characters, the world's magic/deity system feels a lot like calvinball, and this could have easily been two whole books - and yet despite all that, I couldn't put it down.
This second fantasy novel in the Malazan series continues to be as strangely engrossing as the first - it's not perfect, sometimes a bit predictable and of course other times completely opaque, which I mind less - but it's sharply written, heartfelt and sad, and fully its own thing.
Classic Tim Burton comic book thriller hits all the Tim Burton high points, great actors, characters, score - drags a little in the end but still an all time fave.
Seeing Ali strut his stuff in this documentary was incredible, learning about the foreman fight and seeing footage of it was exhilarating, but for some reason the filmmakers decided that what they really needed was tons of commentary from old white writers george plimpton and norman mailer, and it really subtracted from the themes and tenor of the rest of the story.
I have embarked on the first in a very long fantasy series, one which comes with an apology in front by the author for being so dense and inscrutable, and I’m filled with a curious mixture of regret and excitement for being 1/10th of the way through, and now committed, to this fairly entertaining, very time-consuming and mostly useless endeavor.
I maintain that this is a top tier B thriller, helped along by a youngish vin diesel and some great cinematography - taut, interesting, somewhat corny, cool reveals.
It's harsh, difficult, gorgeous, evoking Melville and Homer; it's discursive, melodious, unique, distressing, 15% too long, utterly unapologetic - I didn't really like Blood Meridian, but it's quite obviously a monumental masterpiece.
After reading such masterpiece biographies as Caro on Moses or Kinross on Ataturk, Whyte on Hoover comes across as a little light, a little bland, if well-written - but taken on its own merits, I will say that it has fascinating implications regarding the differences between FDR and Hoover, and what could have been.
Unfortunately uneven - starts out engrossing and intense, wraps up maudlin and oversentimental.