Micro Reviews Again

Meant to write a more thematic entry, but am feeling pretty under the weather after spending yesterday rolling down hills in a giant hamster ball filled with water whilst wearing a bathing suit in 10-degree-Celsius weather.

Uh… I mean, shana tova, and stay tuned for something more appropriate to the season next week!

IN THIS EDITION:

Movies

Contagion (*** – enjoyed)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (**** – liked)

Books

YA/MG fiction:
Across the Great Barrier (*** – enjoyed)

Adult fiction:
Death Mask (**** – liked)
The Amazing Adventures of Father Brown (**** – liked)
Face to Face (** – found interesting)
Tarzan of the Apes (**** – liked)
Black Flowers (**** – liked)
A Matter of Blood (*** – enjoyed)

Contagion by Steven Soderbergh (film, 2011) – My main problem with this film about a fictional epidemic breaking out across the world was that I still can’t figure out why I might prefer to watch this instead of, say, an actual history book about real epidemics that did break out. There were so many protagonists that I didn’t care about them for their own sakes. The one thing a film like this can do better than a history is show the little bits of everyday life that are affected by a quarantine, a shortage, etc., and there were a couple effective scenes of this nature.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene (silent horror film, 1920) – In this seminal film of German Expressionism, a young man relates the horrific story of murders, somnabulists, and the nefarious titular doctor. It’s difficult to evaluate movies that are this old, both because they work outside the set of tropes we’ve come to expect from cinema and because it’s difficult to gauge how much an audience member’s knowledge of film history affects his or her reaction. Still, nintey years later, it remains a visually arresting and intriguing story.

Across the Great Barrier by Patricia C. Wrede (YA fantasy novel, 2011) – I like a lot of the set-up in this follow-up to the story of Eff, a young lady who wrangles magic in a fictional version of the Wild West. And there were plenty of evocative magical ideas that stayed with me, like the description of a guy who’s slowly being turned to stone. But I found the pacing of this book to be slower than comfortable, and I think it’s because I was impatient with the protagonist, who seemed to be mostly reacting instead of acting.

Death Mask by Kathryn Fox (mystery novel, 2011) – It’s a compliment to the author that this book made me very angry. The subject matter warrants it: a female forensic detective investigates the case of a woman who’s being dragged through the coals for speaking up against the star NFL players who gang-raped her. While I found the ultimate message of the ending to be unsatisfying, Fox does a good job creating sympathetic characters of both genders — and abhorrent ones too. (EXTRA SENTENCE WARNING: This book contains graphic descriptions of rape.)

The Amazing Adventures of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (mystery short story collection, 1910-1935) – G. K. Chesterton writes along the same lines as C. S. Lewis: warm, wise, and thoughtful on one hand; racist, sexist, and classist on the other. It’s up to you to decide whether the former outweighs the latter enough to allow you to enjoy this collection. If you can, the perceptive, underspoken detective-priest Father Brown is an interesting character, and his take on Christianity is a lot more open than many mainstream religious voices today.

Face to Face by Ellery Queen (mystery novel, 1967) – The cover copy informed me that this vintage Queen would knock my socks off with its twist, so I was expecting better than the limp ending I got. And it’s really, really tough to get into a mystery for other reasons when it’s the kind where, during a courtship scene, one of our heroes is described as “seizing her like a rapist.” I kid you not: page 81.

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs (novel, 1912) – If you are someone who’s not a white, upper-class, English-speaking male who nevertheless feels that you have normal human intelligence, moral virtues, and emotions, you will not find that opinion reflected in this book. That said, if such attitudes aren’t an insurmountable barrier for you, this is a pretty fun adventure story along much the same lines (and fun for much the same reasons) as Cowboys and Aliens. The best part is when Tarzan’s friend decides to teach him to speak French instead of English without telling him.

Black Flowers by Steve Mosby (mystery novel, 2011) – The tag line of this mystery was enough to hook me: “This is not a story about a girl who disappears. This is a story about a girl who comes back.” The creepy sense of  otherworldliness is true to the rest of the book, although, framed differently, the plot, kicked off when a little girl without a name appears on the beach,  would seem outlandish. However, the strength of the writing and the characterization makes you forget how much of the efficacy of the story depends on the careful way it’s been arranged.

A Matter of Blood by Sarah Pinborough (urban fantasy novel, 2010) – In which our knight in tarnished armor, detective Cass Jones, discovers a supernatural conspiracy as he tracks down a killer while at the same time trying to figure out why his brother just killed his nephew and sister-in-law in a murder-suicide. I’m not sure why this book didn’t move me, because it has a lot of great elements: so-anti-he’s-almost-the-villain hero with nothing to lose, scarily plausible near future dystopia, eerie supernatural murders. Part of the problem is that this is the kind of plot that always feels to me like it would dissolve if characters would be reasonable about communicating with one another.