George Clooney plays a real estate lawyer in Hawaii who is dealing with two crises. Clooney’s wife is in a coma from a boating accident. Clooney, an absentee father, has to deal with his two precocious daughters: one 17, the other 10. The second problem involves a family trust that’s worth $500 million in virgin land. Clooney is the Executor and his family is pressuring him to sell. The Descendants turns into a bit of a road movie as Clooney takes his daughters on a journey to discover some family secrets. The couple we viewed the movie with were disappointed that The Descendants wasn’t funnier. Yes, there are moments of humor, but Clooney’s character finds himself grappling with the past and the future. Those kinds of serious struggles rarely produce giggles. GRADE: B+

The Consummata continues the adventures of Morgan the Raider. Morgan is on the run from the Feds after the events chronicled in The Delta Factor. The Consummata is set in the late 1960s so the slang and culture are consistent with the previous book. Morgan takes on a mission by the Cuban community in Miami to track down a vicious traitor who has stolen $75,000 from them. The traitor has a weakness for S&M so Morgan uses that fetish to lead him to a rendezvous with a super-secret dominatrix, The Consummata, at her secluded mansion. The action is unrelenting and there’s a twist at the end. My hat goes off to Max Allen Collins for channeling Spillane’s style so completely. GRADE: B

Back in 1967, Mickey Spillane’s The Delta Factor appeared with a new hero: Morgan the Raider. Morgan, being held on Federal charges of heisting $40 million in cash, is offered a deal by the U.S. Government. If Morgan agrees to break into a Latin American prison and free a political V.I.P. the Government will reduce Morgan’s jail-time. Of course, Spillane has to complicate things. Morgan finds himself assigned a minder: a beautiful C.I.A. agent. And the never-named Latin American country has a hurricane about to come ashore. Plenty of action and gunplay add up to an exciting conclusion. I’ll be reviewing the sequel to The Delta Factor, The Consummata, tomorrow.

Art and Marion Fowler travel to Niagara Falls for one last weekend before they divorce. Art has lost his job, their house is about to be fore-closed, and bankruptcy looms. But Art and Marion decide to take the last of their money and spend it on a second honeymoon in Canada. Can this desperate vacation save their marriage? Stewart O’Nan cannily gives the odds of events at the beginning of each chapter. If you’ve read O’Nan’s previous work, you know he’s a clever writer. And The Odds is one of his cleverest books. GRADE: B+

Bill Vlasic’s starts his story of the decline and fall of the American auto industry in 2005. GM, Ford, and Chrysler were making profits, but the margins were razor thin. Health care costs were rendering the Big Three uncompetitive with their foreign competitors. And little did the auto makers know that an economic calamity awaited them just a few years in their future. I admire the way Bill Vlasic tells this complicated story by keeping his story-lines clean and uncluttered. Even with a large cast of characters, Vlasic keeps their personalities distinctive and memorable. If you want to learn how GM and Chrysler went bankrupt and how Ford managed to stay solvent, read Once Upon a Car. It’s not only one of the best business books of the year, it’s one of the very best books of the year. GRADE: A

I’ve been a fan of Adele’s since her first CD, 19. Adele’s second CD, 21, was even better. This new Blu-ray and CD set of Adele’s concert at The Royal Albert Hall is a feast for your ears. Adele isn’t flashy. There’s no pyrotechnics. Just great music. That’s enough for me. GRADE: A
Track Listing:
1.Hometown Glory
2.I ll Be Waiting
3.Don t You Remember
4.Turning Tables
5.Set Fire To The Rain
6.If It Hadn t Been For Love
7.My Same
8.Take It All
9.Rumour Has It
10.Right As Rain
11.One & Only
12.Lovesong
13.Chasing Pavements
14.I Can t Make You Love Me
15.Make You Feel My Love
16.Someone Like You
17.Rolling In The Deep

Sigur Ros is a band from Iceland. Their music is most often termed “alternative.” Sometimes they sing in Icelandic, sometimes in a made-up language. Either way, Sigur Ros music is unique. I love the otherworldly sound of their songs. This 2-CD set presents their concert in London at Alexandra Palace. The Blu-ray provides the video to the concert. Both the CDs and the Blu-ray sound great! Another great stocking stuffer! Check out the video below. GRADE: A

When I first heard “Light My Fire,” the world spun a little faster. I’d never heard anything like it. Jim Morrison’s distinctive voice and keyboardist Ray Manzarek managed to create a unique sound for The Doors. I bought all their albums, liking some more than others. Then, a few years later, Jim Morrison was dead from a drug overdose and The Doors were no more. Yet, like a ghost, The Doors’ music haunted their fans all their lives. Elektra brought out a boxed set of The Doors’ CDs back in 1997, but that’s out-of-print. There are several remastered albums still available. And, of course, the Val Kilmer movie from 1991. Greil Marcus delivers a breezy overview of The Doors and their impact on American culture. I learned plenty of details about The Doors’ music and recording sessions. GRADE: B+

Canadian novelist Robertson Davies is one of my favorite writers. He’s compared to Charles Dickens, but I think he also has elements of Anthony Trollope. Davies writes novels of character. Tempest Tost, published in 1951, is the first book in the Salterton Trilogy. Salterton is a quaint Canadian town. The local theater group decide to put on a production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and that powers the plot for the rest of the book. If you want to discover what goes on in little theater groups, Tempest Tost will open your eyes. All the politics and sniping and snarkiness is captured perfectly by Davies. And, once you laugh your way through Tempest Tost, you’ll want to read the other novels in this trilogy: Leaven of Malice and A Mixture of Frailties. I can also highly recommend Robertson Davies’ Cornish Trilogy and Deptford Trilogy. Great story-telling!