Rebecca Stead’s tricky When You Reach Me is a homage to Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. Twelve-year-old Miranda lives with her single mom in New York City. Through a series of events, Miranda learns she’s part of a time-travel scenario. When I heard librarian Nancy Pearl praise this book on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition last week, I knew I had to read it. I love time travel stories and this Young Adult novel captures the paradoxes and tangled logic perfectly for its audience. Don’t miss this one! GRADE: B+

Everybody is NOT fine in Everybody’s Fine. Robert De Niro plays a retired plastics worker whose wife has just died. He tries to get his four adult children to come home for a weekend together, but all four find reasons not to return home. De Niro decides to surprise them with a visit. So for seemingly endless hours we watch De Niro take trains and buses to visit his children in New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Vegas. There’s a crisis and suddenly a mawkish ending appears. How Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell ended up wasting their time in this fluff film is perplexing. With a cast like this, a much much better movie should have been the result. Instead, the cast was completely wasted by Kirk Jones’ lame script and lamer direction. What a stinker! Beware! GRADE: F

Morris Dickstein loves impossible quests. Years ago Dickstein tried to capture the Zeitgeist of the 1960’s in Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties. Dancing in the Dark follows that same model: Dickstein riffs on the music, movies, and books of the decade. Clearly, even 600 pages isn’t enough to capture the cultural history of such an important time in America. But Dickstein does his best analyzing what he considers the key book of the decade, Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep. Raymond Chandler gets a brief mention. Then it’s off to the music of the Depression centering around the Gershwins. I found Dickstein’s treatment of the movies of the Thirties the weakest part of the book. But there are other books like John Howard Reid’s Award-Winning Films of the 1930s to supplement that gap. All in all, Dickstein’s book gives an intelligent overview of the decade and its art. GRADE: B

Mickey Mouse and His Space Ship was published in 1951 by Golden Books. I was two years old and my Mom would read this early science fiction adventure to me every night. Clearly, this began my love of Disney characters, especially Uncle Scrooge, and imaginative space adventures. I don’t remember many of my other kids books, but I sure remember this one after having it read to me about a thousand times. Jane Werner, Milton Banta, and John Ushler are listed as authors.

Sixties music is really the star of this frothy entertainment. Back in 1966, the BBC only played two hours of rock music per week. Pirate radio stations broadcasting from ships in the North Sea brought the music of the Who, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and hundreds of rock artists 24 hours a day. The thin plot of this movie centers around the Government’s attempts to shut down the pirate radio stations. There’s plenty of drinking and sex aboard the pirate ship. The crew, featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nighy, with Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson spicing up the action, becomes endearing as the Government’s actions get more dire. Through it all, the vintage music scintillates. Plenty of fun here. GRADE: B+

Patti Abbott was right about the TOP CHEF judges banishing Jennifer last week. So tonight we’re down to Kevin (my favorite), Bryan, and Michael. Expect the usual TOP CHEF trickery as the judges throw some curves at these finalists in an attempt to get them off their game. I would be fine with Bryan winning if Kevin somehow messes up, but the thought of arrogant Michael winning gives me the shivers. This Sixth Season of TOP CHEF was one of the best. Plenty of great cooking and competitive challenges. I can’t wait for Season Seven! My prediction is that we’ll hear Padma say, “Kevin, you are TOP CHEF!”

“A writing course in a box.” That’s the way I would market this fabulous box set of interviews on the craft of writing. Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, Kurt Vonnegut, Elizabeth Bishop, Richard Price, Joan Didion, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Philip Larkin, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, Robert Lowell, Ralph Ellison, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Maya Angelou, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Marilynne Robinson, and many more writers discuss how and why they write. It doesn’t get much better than this. Who wouldn’t want this wonderful set as a holiday gift? GRADE: A

Four CDs, 48 songs in all for merely $19.95. That’s the steal of the week with The Live Anthology by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. I’ve seen this box set priced at $16.99 in some New York City newspapers. “The collection brings together material from 1978-2007 culled from hundreds of hours of live concert recordings covering every era of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ tours and represents the best tracks as chosen by producers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Ryan Ulyate.
The producers made no fixes or overdubs, letting the newly mixed original recordings showcase the invention, spontaneity, craft, and the musicianship that has made Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers among the most celebrated live performers of their time. Along with powerful interpretations of their own classic hits and originals, The Live Anthology features the band tackling some of their best-loved cover material, from classics to obscure beauties to unexpected adaptations. The theme from Goldfinger, the Zombies’ ‘I Want You Back Again,’ the Grateful Dead’s ‘Friend of the Devil,’ early Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Oh Well,’ Booker T. and the MGs’ ‘Green Onions,’ James Brown’s ‘Good, Good Lovin’ and many more.” You’re getting a lot for your money with this package. Just in time for holiday giving, too! GRADE: A

I’ve always liked Robert Altman’s movies so this oral biography was a must-read. Zuckoff’s approach is to let the people who worked with Altman tell their stories. Lauren Bacall, Warren Beatty, Kenneth Branagh, James Caan, Neve Campbell, Keith Caradine, Cher, Leonard Cohen, Robert Duvall, Henry Gibson, Jeff Goldblum, Elliot Gould, Buck Henry, Lauren Hutton, Sally Kellerman, Kevin Kline, Malcolm McDowell, Paul Newman, Tim Robbins, George Segal, Sissy Spacek, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, and dozens more celebrate one of the great film makers. The minute I finished this book, I wanted to watch Altman’s movies all over again! GRADE: A

The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra rolled into Buffalo for a tune-up before their big Carnegie Hall concert. They played Mozart’s “Ballet Music from Idomeneo” which was a lively piece. Then came the surprise of the evening. Oboist Albrecht Mayer strolled onto the stage and transported the audience to Nirvana with Strauss’ “Oboe Concerto.” He followed that up with an encore from Bach’s “Cantata #156.” Plenty of standing ovations followed that performance! I bolted from my seat at intermission and ran to the lobby to buy Albrecht Mayer CDs and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra CDs. But they weren’t selling any CDs! Don’t these musicians know how to market themselves? Plenty of other audience members were ready to buy, too. What a missed opportunity! The second half of the concert started with Stravinsky’s “Eight Instrumental Miniatures.” It sounded okay, but it was a filler piece. Then the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra finished the concert with a spirited rendition of Mozart’s “Symphony No. 36 in C Major, K. 425 (“Linz”).” This is the program the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra will be playing tonight at Carnegie Hall. Very entertaining!