I’ve been a fan of Anthony Lane’s reviews for years. Whether Lane is writing about movies or books or people, his wit shows up in almost every paragraph. During his time at The New Yorker, Lane reviewed most of the major movies of that era: 1993-2002.

Here’s a sample of Lane at his deft best in a review of Con Air: “…Con Air was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. With his late partner, Don Simpson, Bruckheimer was responsible for Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Crimson Tide, and a host of other quiet Bergmanish movies delving into the agony of a godless world. To watch those movies was to have your brains tossed like salad…” (p. 187)

A book of Anthony Lane movie reviews could have been enough to satisfy Lane fans like me, but no–this fat volume (751 pages!) also includes Lane’s book reviews and articles. And, the cherry on top are the set of profiles. Here’s Lane on Alfred Hitchcock: “….the more compelling fact is that [Hitchcock] ended up making fetishists of us all. We come out of movies saying, ‘I liked the bit where…’ and Hitchcock’s bits were simply neater than anyone else’s. Moviegoers like the bit in Notorious where the camera glides down, as if in annunciation, to discover the stolen key in Ingrid Bergman’s fist…” (p. 639) And how about the camera work in the shower scene in Psycho where not a drop of blood is to be seen.

If you enjoy intelligent, humorous, and clever reviews, Nobody’s Perfect bursts with them! GRADE: A

Table of Contents

Introduction

MOVIES

Indecent Proposal
Un Coeur en Hiver
Sleepless in Seattle
Poetic Justice
The Fugitive
Tito and Me
The Age of Innocence
Divertimento
Dazed and Confused
It’s All True
The Remains of the Day
Three Colors: Blue
Naked
Heaven and Earth
Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould
The Blue Kite
Speed
Wolf
Forrest Gump
Pulp Fiction
The Last Seduction
Bullets Over Broadway
Three Colors: Red
Tom and Viv
Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle
The Madness of King George
Before Sunrise
Shallow Grave
Priest
Don Juan DeMarco
Burnt by the Sun
Braveheart
The Bridges of Madison County
First Knight
Nine Months
The Usual Suspects
Persuasion
Showgirls
The Scarlet Letter
French Twist
Sgt. Bilko
Stealing Beauty
Emma and Kingpin
Beyond the Clouds
The English Patient
Star Trek: First Contact
Crash
The Saint
Con Air
Men in Black, Batman & Robin, and Speed 2
Contact
Mrs. Brown
L.A. Confidential
Titanic
Nil by Mouth
Lolita
Twilight
The Spanish Prisoner
Deep Impact
Godzilla
The Truman Show
Out of Sight
The Thief
Saving Private Ryan
Halloween H2O
Ronin
Love Is the Devil
Gods and Monsters
Celebrity
Meet Joe Black
Rushmore
The Thin Red Line
The Prince of Egypt
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
The Dreamlife of Angels
The Mummy
The Phantom Menace
Notting Hill
Bowfinger
West Beirut
Anywhere but Here
The World Is not Enough
Liberty Heights
The Talented Mr. Ripley
American Psycho
Gladiator
Mission: Impossible 2
Time Regained
The Nutty Professor 2
Dancer in the Dark
The Yards
Charlie’s Angels
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Snatch
Hannibal
Pollock
Under the Sand
Pearl Harbor
Apocalypse Now Redux
Together

BOOKS

Best-sellers I
Sex Books
Edward Lear
Best-sellers II
Vladimir Nabokov
Cookbooks
Cyril Connolly
Ian Fleming
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Pynchon
Bloom on Shakespeare
Matthew Arnold
André Gide
Evelyn Waugh
W. G. Sebald
John Ruskin
A. E. Housman

PROFILES

The Sound of Music
Eugène Atget
ˇ Svankmajer
Karl Lagerfeld
Buster Keaton
The Oscars
Shakespeare on Film
Cannes
Lego
Obituaries
Preston Sturges
Robert Bresson
Ernest Shackleton
Alfred Hitchcock
Museum of Sex
The New Yorker at 75
Walker Evans
Astronauts
Jacques Tati
Luis Buñuel
Julia Roberts
William Klein
Billy Wilder

Acknowledgments
Index

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since Wolf Hall showed up on PBS and wowed fans of historical TV series about Tudor life. Now, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light shows up with six episodes of Thomas Cromwell’s rise and fall. Mark Rylance returns as the master manipulator and schemer–he arranged Anne Boleyn’s beheading–but can’t control Henry VIII (Damian Lewis).

The series pays meticulous attention to detail, including costumes, sets, and the portrayal of Tudor life. The series is based on Hilary Mantel’s award-winning novels, with this second season adapting her final book in the trilogy, The Mirror and The Light. Mantel died in 2022. This series picks up after Anne Boleyn’s death and follows the last four years of Thomas Cromwell’s life. 

Diane and I have been waiting for this series but the Pandemic and other issues delayed it until now. Can’t wait to watch this!

Diane and I traveled into Buffalo to attend the Cheryl Strayed Babel event at a sold out Kleinhans Music Hall. Strayed spoke about her life and her books and her plans for the future.

Diane’s Book Club read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail back in 2012 and loved it. It’s the story of Cheryl Strayed–who never attempted a long hike before–walking the 1100-mile  Pacific Crest Trail in 1995 as a journey of self-discovery.  Strayed told the audience at Kleinhans that she was at the end of her rope when she decided to make this solo hike. Strayed’s journey begins in the Mojave Desert and she hikes through California and Oregon to the Bridge of the Gods into Washington. As you might suspect, Strayed learns a lot about long distance hiking the Hard Way.

Wild reached No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, and was the first selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. By the time the book was published, actress Reese Witherspoon’s film company Pacific Standard had optioned Wild for film rights. Witherspoon portrayed Strayed in the 2014 film Wild, which was written by the novelist Nick Hornby and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée.

Director Jean-Marc Vallee wanted Cheryl Strayed in a cameo for the movie. The scene he picked was when Witherspoon is dropped off at a seedy hotel at the beginning of her journey. Strayed is the driver of a pickup truck that gave Witherspoon a ride to the hotel. Vallee wanted Strayed to say, “Good Luck” as Witherspoon exited the pickup. Strayed got very nervous before the scene was filmed and was worried about saying her line. She asked Witherspoon for advice. Witherspoon turned to Strayed and said, “Don’t fuck it up!” GRADE: A

Have you ever wondered what a chimera is…and why it’s three times worst than most monsters? Or do you know what a murder hole is? Or how a castle works? And the best way to attack a castle?

The Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference: An Indispensable Compendium or Myth and Magic (1998) answers all those questions and many more. In his insightful Introduction, Terry Brooks discusses the methods of writing a fantasy novel. Here’s one of Brooks’s tips:

“I happen to favor rather strongly the practice of outlining a book before trying to write it, and I would recommend it to beginning writers, in particular for two reasons. First, it requires thinking the story through, which eliminates a lot of wasted time chasing bad ideas. Second, it profit a blueprint to which a writer can refer while working a a story over the course of months or even years.” (p. 3)

Another bit of advice Brooks provides comes from his editor (and friend), Lester del Rey: “…new ideas did not come along that often and that when they did, they came in disguise. It was better to take old, established ideas and turn the over and over in your mind until you found a new way to look at them. (p. 3)

My favorite chapter in The Writer’s Complete Fantasy Reference is Michael J. Varhola’s detailed “Anatomy of a Castle.” Varhola’s chapter includes all the facts necessary to write about castles: its fortifications, what castle life is like, and what happens during a siege.

I learned a lot about how to write fantasy fiction from this book. It’s packed with useful information both for the writer and the reader. Are you a fan of fantasy? GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

INTRODUCTION by Terry Brooks — 1

Traditional fantasy cultures / Michael J. Varhola — 4

World cultures / Michael J. Varhola — 31

Magic / Allan Maurer and Renee Wright — 64

Witchcraft and pagan paths / Allan Maurer and Renee Wright — 101

Commerce, trade and law in contemporary fantasy / Sherrilyn Kenyon — 132

Fantasy races / Andrew P. Miller and Daniel Clark — 154

Creatures of myth and legend / Andrew P. Miller and Daniel Clark — 171

Dress and costume / Sherrilyn Kenyon — 191

Arms, armor and armies / Michael J. Varhola — 205

Anatomy of a castle / Michael J. Varhola — 235

INDEX — 263

I’ve been an Elton John and Bernie Taupin fan since I first heard “Your Song” on the radio in 1970. This tribute CD from 1991 has a broad range of groups and singers. I’m really amused by Kate Bush’s reggae version of “Rocket Man.” Joe Cocker had a minor hit with “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.” I heard Tina Turner perform “The Bitch is Back” in concert. She had everyone on their feet!

I was a bit disappointed by Hall & Oates’s lethargic “Philadelphia Freedom.” But I did enjoy Oleta Adams’s soulful version of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me.”

Are you an Elton John and Bernie Taupin fan? Do you have a favorite song? GRADE: A–

TRACK LIST:

David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer’s The Space Opera Renaissance, a 941 page mammoth volume from 2006, is divided into six sections. I’m going to review Section 1, “Redefined Writers,” for this week’s WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES and about once a month, I’ll review one of the other five sections.

Hartwell’s INTRODUCTION presents the history of the term “Space Opera”–credited to Wilson Tucker–and how that term morphed from a dismissive and snarky term to an actual respected sub-genre of Science Fiction.

Some SF critics have asserted that Edmond Hamilton was the writer that created the “Space Opera” genre. “The Star Stealers” (1929) makes a good case for Hamilton. A gigantic dark sun is threatening the Earth and the Solar System. “…their dark-star world, plunging on through empty space…would grasp this sun and carry it out with it into space. The sun’s planets, too, would be carried out, but these they planned to crash into the fires of the sun itself, to increase its size and splendor.” (p. 37). Hamilton obviously borrowed this scenario from his 1928 SF novel, Crashing Suns. A desperate group of Earthlings accept the challenge of stopping this approaching doom. GRADE: B+

“The Prince of Space” (1931) by Jack Williamson borrows from H. G. Wells’s classic, War of the Worlds. Aliens from Mars attack the Earth and only a stealth attack on Mars can prevent the Earth from devastating defeat. GRADE: B+

In David G. Hartwell’s Introduction to Leigh Brackett’s “Enchantress of Venus” (1949), Hartwell calls Brackett “The Queen of Space Opera.” Who can argue with that label on the woman who wrote the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back in 1978? Brackett wrote, “For fifteen years, from 1940 to 1955, when the magazine ceased publication, I had the happiest relationship possible for a writer with the editors of Planet Stories.” Planet Stories specialized in Space Opera. “Enchantress of Venus,” published 20 years after “The Star Stealers” and “The Prince of Space,” has added richness of character and setting with a large dollop of noir. GRADE: A

I first read “The Swordsman of Varnis” by Clive Jackson (aka, “Geoffrey Cobb) (1950) when it was reprinted in 1953 in Science Fiction Carnival, an anthology of comic SF stories edited by Fredric Brown and Mack Reynolds. It’s a silly trifle that captures the essence of Space Opera stories from that era. GRADE: B-

TO BE CONTINUED…

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

I. Redefined Writers

• “The Star Stealers” by Edmond Hamilton — 21
• “The Prince of Space” by Jack Williamson — 45
• “Enchantress of Venus” by Leigh Brackett — 92
• “The Swordsman of Varnis” by Clive Jackson — 134

Diane and I were planning which Broadway shows to see in May and one of the contenders was the musical version of Death Becomes Her (1992). Although Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, Isabella Rossellini, and Bruce Willis star in this Robert Zemeckis film, somehow we missed this 30 years ago. So we watched Death Becomes Her on Peacock.

Meryl Streep plays Madeline Ashton, an actress whose age signals the approaching end of her career. Ashton marries brilliant plastic surgeon Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis) after stealing him from her “friend” Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn).

After a decade, Helen writes a best selling self-help beauty book. Madeline, whose marriage to Ernest is as dead as her acting career, desperately makes a deal with the mysterious Lisle (Isabella Rossellini) to restore her youth. But Helen plots with Ernest to get revenge on Madeline and the plot veers off into silliness.

As you might have suspected, Diane and I decided to pass on the musical version of Death Becomes Her. GRADE: C+

Season 3 of The Wheel of Time–a fantasy series based on Robert Jordan’s books–returns with an opening battle royal between the Black Ajah and the Aes Sedai. In the aftermath, Rand–who could be the Dragon Reborn (decides to flee the Darkfriends–and the first three episodes (of 8) expand the storylines of magical forces fighting for control.

As executive producer and Moiraine actress Rosamund Pike cleverly says of the season, “I suppose you could say we’ve reinvented the wheel and taken ownership of the story in a new way.” As I mentioned in an earlier review of The Wheel of Time (you can read my review here), I’ll watch anything with Rosamund Pike in it. The production values of this new season have been increased. The magic is more magical, the fighting more powerful, and the treachery more cunning. If you’re in the mood for a TV series with action and excitement, you might want to give The Wheel of Time a try. GRADE: INCOMPLETE but trending towards an A-