Here comes 2014...

As 2014 approaches (and it already has, for some of you out there), I thought I'd re-share this duet from 2011, featuring one of my faves, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Zooey Deschanel, singing What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Whatever you're doing (or did), I hope it was exactly what you wanted, and may the New Year bring you fulfillment of your sincerest wishes!!

Book Review: "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" by Karen Joy Fowler

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a tremendously well-written, fascinating, heartwarming, bizarre, and somewhat frustrating book, but I couldn't stop reading it.

It's the story of the Cooke family—Mother, Dad, Lowell, Fern, and Rosemary. Fern and Rosemary, only a few months apart, are inseparable, constantly imitating each other, getting themselves into trouble (and telling on each other), and participating in studies conducted by Dad's graduate students in psychology. Life seems idyllic—although young Rosemary never seems to stop talking—until Fern disappears when Rosemary is five, and this disappearance strains the family, eventually leading to Lowell's departure.

"Though I was only five when she disappeared from my life, I do remember her. I remember her sharply—her smell and touch, scattered images of her face, her ears, her chin, her eyes. Her arms, her feet, her fingers. But I don't remember her fully, not the way Lowell does."

The thing is, Fern wasn't just any sibling, and she didn't just disappear. Fern was a chimpanzee, raised by the Cookes as part of a study that "twinned" a baby chimp and a human baby, to determine the effects on the development of both. There were times when Rosemary felt outshone by Fern and what Fern could do, but she still felt like she mattered. And when funding for the study ended, and the Cookes began to have concerns about Rosemary's safety and the safety of others with Fern, she was taken to a university laboratory.

"One day, every word I said was data, and carefully recorded for further study and discussion. The next, I was just a little girl, strange in her way, but of no scientific interest to anyone."

But while Fern left when Rosemary was five, Fern's presence and her disappearance affected Rosemary's life tremendously, from the way she interacted with others more like a chimp than a human, to the destruction of her relationship with her older brother, as well as the end of her father's career, and her family's happiness. As she grew, Rosemary became a person more comfortable with silence, one more interested in blending in unnoticed than standing out. And as a college student at the University of California, Davis, some people didn't even know that Rosemary had siblings.

This is the story of secrets and things left unsaid. It's the story of an experiment with noble purpose that left a family worse for wear, and affected the trajectory of each of the members' lives. It's also the story of the unreliability of human memory, how what we believe isn't always what happened (nor is what we're told). And it's also the story of someone determined to set the record straight, to unravel fact and remembrance into a coherent thread.

I thought Karen Joy Fowler did a great job creating the Cooke family and fleshing out both the experiment that brought Fern to their family and the aftereffects of her departure. The dialogue, the characters, and the emotions they felt and conveyed were moving and compelling, and it hooked me on the book pretty quickly.

I felt at times, however, that the book didn't know if it wanted to be simply a novel or a novel with a message about animal testing and cruelty to research animals. This is a topic that needs serious attention but the details provided about the Animal Liberation Front didn't really mesh with the rest of the plot. I also felt as if an entire thread of the plot that involved one of Rosemary's fellow students (and a ventriloquist's dummy) was distracting and didn't quite fit, nor was it fleshed out the way it could have been.

On the whole, though, I really enjoyed this book. It was completely not what I expected (I feared it was going to be bizarre) and it really warmed my heart. It's not perfect, much like the characters whose stories it tells, but that is part of what makes it affecting.

"My brother and my sister have led extraordinary lives, but I wasn't there, and I can't tell you that part. I've stuck here to the part I can tell, the part that's mine, and still everything I've said is all about them, a chalk outline around the space where they should have been. Three children, one story."

Movie Review: "Her"

Novelist E.M. Forster once said, "Only connect!" In our world, where people often sitting at the same table can be seen using their smartphones instead of having conversations, it is difficult to build lasting connections.

And in the distant future of Spike Jonze's fantastic Her, connection is even more difficult. People depend upon their computer systems for most of their social interaction. Sad sack Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix) makes a living writing personal letters for people, to fit their every need and occasion. He has been writing for many of his clients for a number of years, so he has learned how to incorporate personal details (and in some cases, even created those personal details) into his letters. His success is a bit ironic, because he hasn't been particularly lucky in the romance department, and recently separated from his wife, Catherine (Rooney Mara), who has filed for divorce.

One day Theodore purchases a revolutionary new computer operating system (OS), which is purported to adapt to the user's every need. Theodore gets more than he bargained for with his OS, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). At first Samantha helps streamline his emails and his contacts, reminds him of work meetings, and nags him to get out of bed on time. But Samantha isn't just any OS—she's tremendously curious about the world outside, and wants to understand what it's like to feel, to think, and to love.

It isn't long before Theodore, still reeling from the failure of his marriage and seeing the detritus of other relationships, finds in Samantha a soul mate, someone with whom he is moved to share so much, because she seems to understand him and the fragility of his emotions. They joke together, Theodore shares his thoughts and feelings, and, as time progresses, the two even get, umm, cozy. Amazingly, this growing relationship doesn't seem weird to anyone, as many people find themselves in romantic relationships with their operating systems, and even other people's.

Is this really love, or is this simply the adaptation of a computer program to fit its user's needs? Are Samantha's emotions real, or are they simply an amalgamation of her programmers? Is this type of connection better than none, or does it signify Theodore's fear of real intimacy? Can this love story have a happy ending? While this is certainly a quirky story which requires you to suspend your disbelief (perhaps less if you've built relationships with people you've met online or through gaming), you find yourself believing in Theodore and Samantha's relationship, even rooting for them.

This is only the fourth feature film Jonze has directed (after Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Where The Wild Things Are), and he has created a fascinating setting in which relationships like Theodore and Samantha seem completely possible. As self-assured as his direction is (it's certainly not as quirky as his previous films), his screenplay utterly dazzles. There were pieces of dialogue that literally made me say, "wow," and if I had read these lines in a book, I definitely would have highlighted them as phrases to savor.

Joaquin Phoenix gives an absolutely terrific, moving performance as Theodore. It's honestly the second-best performance I've seen of his after his mastery in Walk the Line—he combines vulnerability, tenderness, fear, and bursts of confidence tremendously well. I found myself wanting to shout at him not to withdraw from Samantha when his emotions were getting confused, as he apparently did with his wife.

Scarlett Johansson gives great voice. You forget at times that Samantha isn't a real person, as Johansson imbues her with such life, such passion and curiosity. It almost makes you long for an operating system of your very own. She and Phoenix have terrific chemistry, and it's a shame that the Academy doesn't recognize voice performances, because she really is such an integral part of the movie.

Amy Adams, as an old friend and former girlfriend of Theodore's, does some quietly moving work (and has some insightful dialogue), while Rooney Mara doesn't have much to do, but brings some emotional fragility to her one scene. I wasn't sure what to make of Chris Pratt's role as a colleague of Theodore's, but he was his usual goofily likeable self.

I've stated numerous times before that I'm a sap—emotionally charged movies and books really tend to resonate for me. But regardless of that, I thought Her was absolutely fantastic, and very well might be my favorite movie of the year. Time will tell...

Book Review: "The Apartment" by Greg Baxter

Greg Baxter's debut novel, The Apartment, is a terrifically written, somewhat meandering book that both is and is not about what you think it is.

In an unnamed European city (although some reviewers have guessed this is Prague, Baxter said the novel's setting is an amalgamation of several different cities), an unnamed American narrator is planning to meet his friend, Saskia, to find him an apartment, as he had been living austerely in a formerly elegant hotel since he arrived. The narrator is in his early 40s, a former Navy sailor who had served on a submarine in Iraq and then returned to that country as a defense contractor. But he doesn't like to talk about the past, because of the things he did while he was in Iraq.

"I could fill the silence by talking about the past, but I try not to think about the past. For much of my life, I existed in a condition of regret that was contemporaneous with experience, and which sometimes preceded experience. Whenever I think of my past now I see a great black wave that has risen a thousand stories high and is suspended above above me, as though I am a city by the sea, and I hold the wave in suspension through a perspective that is as constrained as a streak of clear glass in a fogged-up window."

The novel takes place over a one-day period, although the narrator finds himself reminiscing on a number of encounters he has had with people throughout his life, both after arriving in this city and in his life before coming to the city. It is around Christmastime, and winter has the city in its thrall. Snow falls throughout the day.

The narrator and Saskia travel throughout the city, on foot as well as by train, bus, streetcar, and taxi. They stop at cafés and bars, shops and outdoor holiday markets, tourist attractions and remarkable architecture. They encounter several of Saskia's friends, including the misanthropic Janos and the pretty yet flighty Manuela, and his being an American makes him more interesting and more loathsome to some. Throughout the day they spend much of their time both talking and not talking, about art, culture, history, their families, and at times the narrator is willing to answer basic questions about his military service and where he made his money.

"Saskia can move quickly from being very cool to being very funny. It makes me think she's not trying to be one or the other. I wish we could preserve our relationship as it is now for a long time. I wish we could remain strangers."

The narrator has spent much of his life trying to disengage from connections and commitments despite his work history. And although he is reluctant to let anyone know too much about him, and loves the lack of permanence that hotel living allows, he looks forward to losing himself in the city and having an apartment of his own.

While in much of the novel the pair is on the hunt for an apartment, the plot frequently veers off topic, as the narrator remembers people he has encountered, including his closest childhood friend back in America, as well as several instances during his time in Iraq. While many of these reminiscences happen without warning or connection to what is currently happening, my guess is that they occur because the narrator suddenly encounters something that triggers a memory or sensation.

This is a very short novel, only about 210 pages, but it is very weighty. It is so much more than I expected, more complex than a simple search for an apartment. It is a book about relationships, about avoiding your past but knowing that it shapes you, about trying to remain disengaged while simultaneously engaging. And more than that, it is a paean to immersing yourself in a place, in its culture, its history, its people, and its beauty.

I really enjoyed Baxter's storytelling ability in this book, even if I wished it had stayed on course a little more than it did. While the vagueness of the setting and the narrator's life was intriguing, I would have enjoyed a little more specificity to flesh out my experience. But in the end, this is a powerful and tremendously compelling story that I am really glad I read, and I can't stop thinking about it.

Book Review: "Dirty Love" by Andre Dubus III

Andre Dubus III's House of Sand and Fog was truly one of the most moving and affecting books I've read in the last 15 years, and the film adaptation was powerful and well-acted. Dubus so perfectly told the story of flawed people trying to get what they wanted and felt they were entitled to, with disastrous consequences.

He brings that same literary power (without utter tragedy) to Dirty Love, his collection of tangentially linked novellas about people who want to be happy in love, but the pitfalls of love—infidelity, low self-esteem, foolish mistakes, alcoholism—get in their way. Again, Dubus' characters are far from perfect and their actions don't always make you feel sympathy for them, but their stories are far too common in real life, and they make you feel as you shake your head.

In "Listen Carefully as Our Options Have Changed," Mark, a middle-aged technology project manager, discovers his wife of more than 25 years, has been cheating on him. For a man who spends his days controlling situations, losing control is quite unsettling, and he tries to figure out what his next steps are—kicking her out of the house, begging for a reconciliation, beating the crap out of her lover—or all of the above.

In "Marla," an overweight woman with low self-esteem has always wondered what it would be like to have a boyfriend and envies the ease by which her female colleagues enter relationships. But when she finally finds a man who shows romantic interest in her, she questions whether what she imagined love would be is a fantasy or should be the reality to aspire to.

The main character in "The Bartender" has always dreamed of being a poet but can never pull his poems together to be more than a tool to seduce women. When he finally meets a woman he cares enough about to marry, he dreams of becoming a different person, but even the impending arrival of a baby can't stop his philandering ways.

And in the title novella, a teenage girl named Devon has fled to her elderly great-uncle's home to escape her father's infidelity and the aftereffects of her sexual escapades being posted online. As her great-uncle struggles with his own memories, Devon dreams of starting over, and wonders if an Iraqi vet she's met online might be the answer.

All four of these novellas are tremendously compelling, although knowing Dubus' writing, I kept expecting the protagonists to do something irreparable, so I felt as if I were reading with my hands metaphorically over my eyes. And while these characters are flawed, happily, they don't veer into House of Sand and Fog territory. Dubus is such a terrific storyteller, and he really could expand all four of these into full-length novels. They're not exactly happy stories, but they're definitely realistic, and I can't stop thinking about them.

Movie Review: "The Wolf of Wall Street"

Pairing with Martin Scorsese has proven to be a pretty potent decision for Leonardo DiCaprio—in Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, Shutter Island, and now, The Wolf of Wall Street, he's turned in some exceptional performances. And Scorsese, now in his early 70s, continues to demonstrate his trademark skill in increasingly diverse movies.

The Wolf of Wall Street is based on the real-life story of Jordan Belfort, a New York boy who became a stockbroker in the late 1980s and rose to great heights, fueled by his own voracious greed as well as the siren call of drugs and sex, only to become a cautionary example of fraud years later. When the movie opens, Belfort (DiCaprio) is ready for his first day on Wall Street when he catches the eye of the firm's senior broker (Matthew McConaughey, still thin from Dallas Buyers Club). In one scene-stealing, totally off-the-wall lecture, you can't take your eyes off McConaughey as he shares with Jordan the veritable keys to the kingdom—and they're not the traditional ones you learn in business school.

After the stock market crash of 1987 tanks Belfort's career (along with thousands of other stockbrokers), he winds up at a smaller and less reputable firm which sells penny stocks to working class citizens who probably can't afford to buy them, yet are drawn to the idea of owning stocks. It is there Belfort harnesses the sales skills he took from Wall Street, and in a matter of minutes he wows his colleagues with his prowess and quickly becomes the one to emulate. He meets WASP wannabe Donnie Azoff (a buck-toothed Jonah Hill), who sees in Belfort all he wants to be, and this admiration and adulation leads Belfort to start his own firm.

Molding his sad-sack band of wannabe brokers in his own image, Belfort's firm achieves astronomical success, making all of them more money than they could ever dream of. And this money attracts both positive and negative attention—Belfort begins an affair with, and ultimately marries, Naomi (Margot Robbie), and the meteoric rise of his firm catches the eye of dogged FBI investigator Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), who just knows that all is not on the up-and-up, and he is determined to bring Belfort and his comrades down to earth.

In depicting the excesses that Belfort and his band of brothers partake in—drugs of every kind; sexual debauchery in every shape, color, and size; strippers; fistfights; even catapulting midgets toward a target—the film frequently reaches a riotous, almost music video-like pace. These segments occur with more and more frequency the richer that Belfort and his firm become, but there are only so many times you can see this frenzy played out before you get numb to it. (Although I could do without ever seeing Jonah Hill's rear end again.) It's almost as if Scorsese, in trying to demonstrate the excesses of Belfort's life, decided that being visually excessive would be more effective.

As you might imagine, all good things must come to an end, and as the FBI draws closer and closer, Belfort gets more and more frantic to try and find a solution. He considers cutting a deal and walking away from his firm, but the thrill of being the king keeps pulling him back in. DiCaprio is at his best in his most manic moments, when he's leading so-called "sales meetings," cheering his employees on, and declaring that nothing short of a jackhammer will remove him from his company—it's like Gordon Gekko's "Greed is good" speech on steroids.

Running one minute short of three hours, The Wolf of Wall Street is about 45 minutes too long. Watching DiCaprio flail about as his life is circling the drain isn't nearly as compelling as watching his rise to success, and I just wished that the story would bring itself to the ending I expected a little quicker than it did.

The movie had some terrific performances—in addition to DiCaprio, Hill and Robbie are quite good in their roles. But much like the time period it depicted, in the end, the movie was a little more bloated than it needed to be. With a little bit of trimming, it could have packed even more of a wallop.

Movie Review: "Inside Llewyn Davis"

Having a dream is one of the things that motivates us. Even if we don't actively pursue our dreams, just the thought of knowing we might someday achieve them is enough to keep us moving forward, even when things seem bleak.

No one knows that as well as Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), a folk singer trying to make it in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s. Llewyn used to have a partner, but he committed suicide, leaving him to try and find fame as a solo act. But as the popularity of folk music is beginning to wane from the earnestness of the late 1950s and early 1960s, making it big seems less and less possible for Llewyn, but he is determined to keep trying.

Playing a few gigs here and there, crashing on the couches of friends all over New York (until he alienates them—which proves far too easy for Llewyn to do), Llewyn is struggling to get a foothold. His relationship with fellow singers Jean (Carey Mulligan) and her husband, Jim (Justin Timberlake, looking a little like he's ready for an SNL skit), is somewhat complicated by the fact that Jean is pregnant—and there's a possibility the baby may be Llewyn's. He just can't seem to catch a break no matter what he does, and perhaps that's because, as Jean puts it, "everything you touch turns to shit."

Inside Llewyn Davis is a quieter, more introspective movie than we've seen from the Coen Brothers in some time, but it's equally as powerful as many of their others. It follows Llewyn through a particularly difficult week in 1961, as he tries to scrape together some money, a shot at fame, even a little self-respect, but all seem elusive, and he really must consider whether it's all worth it. But as desperate as he is for a shot, he wants to do it on his own terms—he doesn't want to try and find another partner or join another group, he wants to be appreciated as a solo act.

Oscar Isaac, who was one of the stars of last year's high school reunion movie 10 Years (and sang one of my favorite songs of 2012, Never Had), gives a star-making performance in this movie. He has a phenomenal voice (which is why it's so amazing to me that Llewyn is unable to find fame as a singer) and he imbues his performance with a stubborn yet weary bravado that really works for his character. This really is his movie, as all of the other actors have a few small moments here and there, but you can't take your eyes off of Isaac when he's onscreen.

While this movie doesn't have any of the Coen Brothers' traditional violence, it doesn't lack for quirk. A segment of the movie featuring John Goodman as a jazz musician and a monosyllabic Garrett Hedlund as his driver and valet seems odd and slightly out of place, but it is entertaining. And once you've seen the movie, I'd love to discuss your interpretation of how the movie flowed—was it a flashback, or did Llewyn's whole adventure start all over again?

I thought this was a pretty fantastic movie, despite the difficulties that Llewyn experienced making his dreams come true. But I hope that Oscar Isaac walks away from this movie a star, because his performance proves his talent is truly worthy of that classification.