Sick of Shadows

Sick of Shadows is a mystery written by Sharyn McCrumb.  This is the first of a series about an amateur sleuth.  Elizabeth MacPherson is obliged to attend the wedding of her wealthy cousin, Eileen Chandler.  That side of Elizabeth’s family is known to be wealthy and eccentric.  Elizabeth is not close to her cousin or any of the rest of the family, though as a child she used to spend summers with them.

 Eileen was in a mental hospital for a while and then attended a semester of college. It was there that she met the man to whom she became engaged. But he does not seem to be marrying her for love’s sake.

Anther cousin is an amateur actor and quotes Shakespeare a lot.  A third cousin has recreated a smaller version of the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany (like Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle).

 But the bride to be has been painting a gift for her fiance.  But when she is founded murdered, the painting is missing.

 This is a more straightforward mystery than they became later in the series.  I liked it.

Father Christmas, cartoon

I watched animated Father Christmas (1991) for the first time yesterday.  It is based on Raymond Brigg’s picture book and is made in the same style as The Snowman (1982).  The book was better than the movie but the cartoon was fun.  Father Christmas grumbles his way to his vacation.  He tries out several spots: France, Scotland, and finally Las Vegas.  Vegas is his favorite spot with swimming pools, hearty food and creature comfort.  The cartoon had been modified a bit to appeal to American audience with different terms used. Cute show.

The Nativity Story (2006)

This is a traditional version of the story of the birth of baby Jesus.  Keisha Castle-Hughes   plays Mary and she struck me as looking a lot like Olivia Hussey  in Jesus of Nazareth 1977.  All the characters are endearing, especially the Wise men. 

My favorite moment is the scene that opens with Mary’s mother saying (after Mary explains her pregnancy), “And an angel told you this.”  Joseph (Oscar Isaac) was charming and I thought the scenes with Elizabeth and Zechariah were unusually sensitive.

The Angel Gabriel was I think going after otherworldly but he seemed a bit sleazy  to me.  I also noticed that the CGI budget didn’t extend to a heavenly host.

On the whole, I liked it a lot and would watch it again.

Happy Holidays!

I meant to write up several long posts because I’m going out of town for the holidays to visit a pack of Luddites. But I don’t have the energy for it.

I looked up a collection of memes and one asked whether you used Shelfari or LibraryThing. Actually, I have a collection on both sites which I like for different reasons. The books I own are on LibraryThing and the books I’ve borrowed from the library or from friends are on Shelfari.

My Shelfari is kind of empty at the moment. I just returned a ton of books, so I don’t have that much that is interesting now. The Hinton to Hamlet and the Soap Operas WorldWide are my best bets right now.

Happy Holidays! to those who celebrate and good wishes to those who don’t.

trying out internet polls

What is your favorite fairy tale?

What kind of fiction do you like?

Which of these manga do you like best?

Jim Carey’s How the Grinch Sold Christmas?

Choose your favorite fictional detective.

Which feast foods do you like best? Take my poll!

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight is the first of three books: the sequels are New Moon and Eclipse.

In her Junior Year, Bella moves from dry, sunny Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington, a small town with a constant cloud-cover. She misses the sun and her friends and it doesn’t help that Edward her lab partner in biology in seems to hate her on sight.

He glares at her and sits as far away from her as possible for the whole period. When she goes to the main office to turn in some forms, she even overhears him trying to change biology class to anything else. She has no idea why he would hate her so much – he just met her.

Her friends tell her that Edward and his siblings were adopted by the town doctor but nobody likes them much. She notices that they are very pale and they have perfect, looks.

Edward disappears for a few days, and Bella is relieved. When he comes back, he looks flushed and his personality completely changes. He’s interested in her and flirts with her and he laughs a lot. Still, once in a while, he says weird things about being the bad guy and it’s dangerous for her to be around him. She can’t figure out his moods but she starts to fall in love with him.

One day, another student loses control of his truck and she has no time to escape being hit. But Edward, moving lightning-fast, grabs her and she sees him stop the car with one hand.

She thinks maybe he’s a superhero like Spider-Man. She begins to do research and asks people questions about Edward. It doesn’t take long before she’s pretty sure that he’s a vampire and she goes to confront him.

He says hasn’t drunk human blood for so long that he thought he was safe around humans. But she’s different from any human he’s ever met. He cares about her but he’s fighting every minute not to give in to his vampire instinct and drink all her blood.

So does she save herself and leave town forever or does she risk her life to be with him? The problem is she’s not sure if even losing her life could be worse than losing Edward.

Planet Karen becoming fabulous

I don’t know if it’s just me but the artwork on Planet Karen has changed from being cute to straight out fabulous lately.

For example:

and

Guilty Pleasure #1

People talk about bad movies, chocolate, boy bands, gossip as if these were the chiefest of guilty pleasures. Nonsense. There is no guilty pleasure as acute as procrastination.

Instead of doing all the things that I should be doing – I went browsing in the library and came home with six books containing information completely useless to me. It was so satisfying.

Animated TV Specials: The Complete Directory to the First Twenty-Five Years, 1962-1982 by George W. Woolery (I’m such a sucker for annotated lists of cartoons.)

Soap Operas Worldwide: Cultural and Serial Realities by Marilyn J. Matelski (It covers countries on most continents and briefly discusses internet soap operas, awesome. I would love to have this conversation:
“so, whatcha doing?” “watching a Russian soap opera.”)

Gender, Genre & Narrative Pleasure, ed. Derek Longhurst (It has essays on East Lynne, L’Amour’s Hondo and King’s Carrie. Yummy.)

Functions of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Thirteenth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, ed. Joe Sanders. (There are essays on Jane Austen and The Dark is Rising.)

Encyclopedia of Allegorical Literature by David Adams Leeming and Kathleen Morgan Drowne (Well, this I got for a personal project that I’m working on.)

Last, and best:

Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City by Ranjani Mazumdar (It covers 2 movies I’ve actually seen: Dil Chahta Hai and Rangeela which impresses me since I think I’ve only seen six or so.)

1980s movies – top 25

This list is taken from Digital Dream Door’s list of 100 best movies from the 1980s. These are only the first 25. The most interesting ones were after the cut for consistency’s sake.

Here are my other top 25 lists:

Silent :: 1930s :: 1940s :: 1950s :: 1960s :: 1970s :: 1980s :: 1990s :: 2000s

Underlined means I’ve seen it. Blue text means I haven’t. A ♣ means I want to see it.

1. Raging Bull - (1980, Martin Scorsese)
2. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial- (1982, Steven Spielberg)
3. Raiders of the Lost Ark- (1981, Steven Spielberg)
4. Amadeus- (1984, Milos Forman)
5. Platoon- (1986, Oliver Stone)
6. Cinema Paradiso- (1988, Giuseppe Tornatore)♣
7. Once Upon a Time in America- (1984, Sergio Leone)
8. Blade Runner- (1982, Ridley Scott)
9. Ran- (1985, Akira Kurosawa)♣
10. Do the Right Thing- (1989, Spike Lee)♣
11. Blue Velvet- (1986, David Lynch)♣
12. The Empire Strikes Back- (1980, Irvin Kershner)
13. The Elephant Man- (1980, David Lynch)
14. The Shining- (1980, Stanley Kubrick)
15. Full Metal Jacket- (1987, Stanley Kubrick)
16. Brazil- (1985, Terry Gilliam)
17. Airplane!- (1980, Jim Abrahams)
18. Das Boot- (1981, Wolfgang Peterson)
19. Tootsie- (1982, Sydney Pollack)
20. The Untouchables- (1987, Brian De Palma)
21. The Terminator- (1984, James Cameron)♣
22. Die Hard- (1988, John McTiernan)
23. The Last Emperor- (1987, Bernardo Bertolucci)
24. Gandhi- (1982, Richard Attenborough)
25. Raising Arizona- (1987, Joel Coen)