Writer/Director Kenneth Lonergan missed the boat in Manchester-By-The-Sea by focusing on the relationship between an uncle and his nephew when the Real Story is between husband (Casey Affleck) and wife (Michelle Williams). How do I know this? Every time Michelle Williams is on the screen (about 5 minutes in a 2-hour 17 minute movie) the movie bursts with energy and drama. By focusing on the relationship between Casey Affleck’s nephew (Lucas Hedges), a difficult teenager who has just lost his father to a heart-attack, the movie has less impact and more dull patches. Essentially, Casey Affleck’s character, Lee Chandler, makes a Big Mistake. A really, really Big Mistake. And Manchester-By-The-Sea is basically the story of Affleck living with the consequences. If Lonergen had focused on Affleck and Michelle Williams, this could have been a great movie. GRADE: B

I love Annette Being so factor that into your analysis of my review of Twentieth Century Women. Annette Bening plays a 55-year-old single mother raising a son in 1979. Her son Jamie, played by Lucas Jade Zumann, is a typical 15-year-old trying to come to grips with school and love and sex. Bening’s character owns an old mansion which she decides is too big for her and her son so she rents out two of the rooms. One goes to Greta Gerwig who plays a talented photographer with a lot of “baggage.” She dyes her hair red after seeing David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth.

The other tenant is a jack-of-all-trades guy played by Billy Crudup. He helps Bening restore the stately mansion and does some “renovation” work on Greta Gerwig as well. As if this wasn’t enough, Director/Wrier Mike Mills adds another character, Julie (played by Elle Fanning), who values Jamie’s friendship (by sleeping in his bed–but no sex) and alters the group’s chemistry from time to time.

If you’re looking for a very quirky movie that pretty much meanders for 2 hours and 17 minutes, then Twentieth Century Women is the movie for you. GRADE: B+

Syndicate Books is publishing the collected works of Margaret Millar. I just bought Collected Millar: The Master at Her Zenith which includes some of Margaret Millar’s best novels: Vanish in an Instant (1952), Wives and Lovers (1954), Beast in View (1955), An Air that Kills, (1957) and The Listening Walls/ (1959). I’ve been a big fan of Margaret Millar’s mysteries for years so I welcome this project to bring her work to a new audience. I plan on buying all the volumes that will be published in 2017 so you might be seeing more of these Collected Millar volumes in future FFBs. If you haven’t read anything by Margaret Millar, this volume is the perfect place to start. When the project is complete, you’ll see this cool tableaux on the spine of the books. Very cool!

Kim Weston had a successful career with Motown Records, but never had the break-out hit that would have made her a star. To me, Kim Weston’s voice sounds as good as Diana Ross’s. I stumbled over this 2-CD set (less than $9 on AMAZON!) and have played it several times. It’s vintage Motown soul music. There are hours of great listening ahead of you if you pick up this set. Great music at a great price! Listen to “Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)” below to revisit the Sixties. GRADE: A-
TRACK LIST:
Disc: 1
  1. I Know His Name (Only His Name)
  2. Love Me All The Way
  3. Just Loving You
  4. Meet Me Half Way
  5. Looking For The Right Guy
  6. Perfect Love
  7. Little More Love
  8. Loving Touch
  9. I’m Still Loving You
  10. Love, Trouble, Heartache & Misery
  11. Thrill A Moment
  12. Look My Way
  13. Another Train Coming
  14. Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)
  15. Helpless
  16. I Need Him
  17. You Hit Me Where It Hurt Me
  18. Your Mother Called On Me Today
  19. Hurt A Little Everyday
  20. I’m The Exception To The Rule
  21. Build Him Up
  22. Love (Makes Me Do Foolish Things)
  23. Go On Without Me
  24. I Don’t Know If I’m Coming Or Going
Disc 2
  25. I’m Gonna Make It Up To You
  26. When We Get Together
  27. Come & Get These Memories
  28. One & One Makes Two
  29. Joey Joey
  30. Will I Find My Love
  31. Just Call Me
  32. You Can Do It
  33. He’s My Baby (Aka Sugar Baby)
  34. I Got A Weak Heart
  35. Any Girl In Love (Knows What I’m Going Through)
  36. Marionette
  37. Fancy Meeting You Here
  38. I Love You Yes I Do
  39. Drop In The Bucket
  40. Your Wonderful Sweet, Sweet Love
  41. Absent Minded Lover
  42. Where Am I Going
  43. I Got Good News
  44. When I Lost You
  45. Helpless
  46. What Have I Done To Myself
  47. Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)
  48. This Dream

Viola Davis plays the long-suffering wife of Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) in August Wilson’s Fences. Set in 1950s Pittsburgh, Troy Maxson and his friend, Bono (played by Buffalo actor Stephen McKinley Henderson) are garbage men trying to make it in a racist society. Troy is challenging the policy that only white men can drive garbage trucks while blacks have to life the garbage cans. Troy has issues with the son of his first marriage, Lyons. Lyons (played by Russell Hornsby) rejects Troy’s offers of getting him a job picking up garbage. Lyons opts for playing guitar. Troy’s other son, Cory (played by Jovan Adepo) finds himself blocked by his father when a College Recruiter wants to offer him an athletic scholarship. Troy is against it. As in most August Wilson plays, the character clash over decisions they make. The movie version is a tad longer than the play version because of the addition of a couple of scenes. Viola Davis should win an Oscar for her role in Fences. GRADE: B+

I’ve always been a fan of George Salter’s artwork on magazine covers and paperback covers. Just by chance, I discovered a copy of Classic Book Jackets: The Deign Legacy of George Salter and I had to have it. This volume was published by the Princeton Architectural Press in 2005 but it complete evaded my Book Radar. Milton Glaser’s informative FOREWORD provides a fascinating history of Salter’s career from his work in Germany and his later work in the United States. Thomas S. Hansen made some great choices in the artwork he includes in this book. Obviously not all of Salter’s work could be included in this book, but there are plenty of great color reproductions of his artwork here. If you’re a fan of magazine and paperback artwork, you’ll want to check out a copy of Classic Book Jackets. Marvelous collection of great George Salter artwork! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Foreword by Milton Glaser
Introduction
Salter’s Berlin Years
From Berlin to New York: The 1930s and 1940s
Designs of the 1950s and 1960s
Appendix A: George Salter’s German Designs for the German Book Market, 1922-1934
Appendix B: George Salter’s Designs for the American Book Market, 1934-1967
Notes
Bibliography
Index

After last Sunday’s exciting Playoff games (the Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys scored the highest ratings in NFL Playoff history!) we’re down to the Final Four. Aaron Rodgers and the Packers are 4-point underdogs at Atlanta. Everyone is predicting this will be a high-scoring game (the Vegas OVER/UNDER on this game is 60 points, a NFL postseason record!). The second game of the day will be a slugfest. Steeler’s coach, Mike Tomlin, called the Patriots “assholes.” One of Tomlin’s players streamed his coach’s comments live on FACEBOOK. Although the Patriots are favored by 6 1/2 points, I’m sure that Tomlin’s poor word choice and exposure will fire up Tom Brady and the Patriots to win by more. Who do you think will win today?

The Founder is the story of the early success of McDonalds, the fast-food company. Ray Kroc, a struggling salesman, discovers the original McDonalds in San Bernadino, California. Two brothers, Mac and Dick McDonald, developed a revolutionary method of making food fast. Really fast. Kroc saw the potential of the McDonalds’s brothers discovery and convinced them to let him run a franchising operation. So far, so good. But Kroc wants more. He dumps his first wife, marries his second wife (who was the wife of a McDonalds franchisee), and goes into the real estate business under the guise of selling fast-food franchises. Needless to say, Kroc makes hundreds of millions of dollars. Michael Keaton plays the complex Ray Kroc, Laura Dern plays Kroc’s first, supportive wife. I really liked Nick Offerman as Dick McDonald and John Carroll Lynch as Mac McDonald. If this is really how things went down, Ray Kroc was a snake. GRADE: B+

The way Alastair Reyonlds tells it, he wrote the final story of the Merlin series first. Back in 2000, Reynolds wrote “Merlin’s Gun.” Humanity was being exterminated by evil alien cyborgs called the Huskers (think the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica or Fred Saberhagen’s Berskerers). Merlin, a survivor of a planet the Huskers destroyed, embarks on a quest for a super-weapon that will defeat the Huskers and save Humanity. Later in 2000, Alastair Reynolds wrote the beginning story to the Merlin series: “Hideaway.” Five years later, Reynolds wrote Minla’s Flowers which brings Merlin into conflict with more primitive humans who are warring while the Huskers are about to exterminate them. Then, in 2016, Reynolds published The Iron Tactician (with a cool Chris Foss cover!) where Merlin has to solve a mystery in a Royal Family while once again humans war among themselves despite the Husker threat. If you enjoy Space Opera, you’ll enjoy the Merlin series. Big ideas, stories that span thousands of years, and Super Science concepts are all part of the fun! Three of the Merlin stories can be found in the Orion Books version of Zima Blue (2009) (Table of Contents below). The Iron Tactician was just published by NewCon Books.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Paul J. McAuley
“The Real Story” (Originally published in Mars Probes, edited by Peter Crowther, 2002)
“Beyond the Aquila Rift” (Originally published in Constellations, edited by Peter Crowther, 2005)
“Enola” (Originally published in Interzone 54, December 1991; unavailable since then in English)
“Signal to Noise” (Originally published in Zima and Other Stories Nightshade Books 2006)
“Cardiff Afterlife” (Originally published in The Big Issue Cymru, August 2008)
“Hideaway” (Originally published in Interzone 157, July 2000; unavailable since then)
“Minla’s Flowers” (Originally published in The New Space Opera 2005)
“Merlin’s Gun” (Originally published in Asimov’s SF, May 2000; unavailable since then)
“Angels of Ashes” (Originally published in Asimov’s SF, July 1999; unavailable since then)
“Spirey and the Queen” (Originally published in Interzone 108, June 1996)
“Understanding Space and Time” (Originally published in a limited edition of 400 copies for the Novacon 35 Sci Fi convention)
“Digital to Analog” (Originally published in In Dreams edited by Paul J. McAuley and Kim Newman, Victor Gollancz, 1992)
“Everlasting” (Originally published in Interzone, Spring 2004)
“Zima Blue” (Originally published in Postscripts magazine, issue 4, edited by Peter Crowther)