Book Review: "Love is a Canoe" by Ben Schrank

If the course of love ran smoothly, we'd have far fewer books, movies, songs, magazines, and plays, don't you think? Ben Schrank's new novel, Love is a Canoe, looks at the chaos of love and how sometimes trying to help it isn't the best thing.

Peter Herman watched his parents' marriage disintegrate and saw how that affected his mother. As a 12-year-old, he spent a summer with his grandparents, a couple truly in love, and he shared the lessons he learned in a self-help book of sorts, Marriage is a Canoe. The book became legendary, with many people commenting how it helped them through the years, although it also became the target of many cynics.

To celebrate the book's 50th anniversary, Stella Petrovic, an ambitious young editor at Peter's publisher, decides to reignite excitement by holding a contest asking married couples in trouble to share their stories. One lucky couple will spend the weekend with Peter in the picturesque town he's lived in for years, with the hopes that he can help mend their marriage. But what Stella doesn't realize is that Peter's intentions aren't quite as clear as he pretends they are, and she also doesn't recognize the reasons for all of the pressure her boss, Helena, is putting on her to ensure the contest succeeds.

Emily Babson and Eli Correlli, the winners of the contest, are struggling with feelings of resentment, betrayal, inferiority, hurt, and, above all, the desire to keep their marriage going. Emily grew up with Marriage is a Canoe as a touchstone in her life, one of the things that helped get her through her own parents' divorce. So she sees this opportunity to meet with Peter as the magic elixir that will put her life back on the right path.

The trouble is, Peter didn't always follow the lessons of his own book. His 40-plus-year marriage to Lisa, who recently died, wasn't the storybook relationship it should have been. Now dating Maddie, a woman very much in love with Peter and who wants a life with him, Peter isn't quite sure what he wants and what to do. And he can't quite seem to shake the feeling he should have done better.

I really enjoyed this book, which looks at both self-help/motivational books and the world of publishing with a slightly skewed eye. It's a testament to the strength of Schrank's storytelling ability that I was so interested in the story and invested in its resolution despite the fact I found nearly every character in this book unlikeable. (But isn't that like life?) I loved the way he contrasted the idyllic relationship of Peter's grandparents that he outlined in his book with the cold realities of love and marriage.

This was a tremendously engaging, well-written book about relationships, about knowing, understanding, and appreciating yourself, and about the need to understand the different between reality and idealism. And you'll probably want to go canoeing afterward.

You think you've got problems?

Courtesy of George Takei on Facebook. I guess things get tough for everyone, even Austrian nuns.

Movie Review: "Zero Dark Thirty"

I remember getting a phone call late the night of May 1, 2011, just as we were getting ready to go to bed. It was from a friend who said that apparently President Obama was going to make a major announcement to America on television within the next hour.

Obviously, only an announcement of great magnitude would be announced on television around midnight on the East Coast. And although the news networks wound up breaking the news before the president, the news was still pretty momentous—Osama bin Laden had been killed by a team of Navy SEALS in Pakistan.

We all reveled in that announcement, but what many didn't realize is the arduous battle it took to get to that resolution. Kathryn Bigelow's superb film Zero Dark Thirty is the story of the decade-long hunt for bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks, the tireless efforts of the intelligence community to track down leads to his whereabouts, and the operation which brought SEAL Team 6 into Pakistan that night in May 2011.

Dogged CIA analyst Maya (a fantastic Jessica Chastain) is determined to find the trail that leads the agency to bin Laden, but is unsure of all of the methods used to accomplish this, until she witnesses agency veteran Dan (Jason Clarke) interrogate a suspect. He plays both bad cop (torture and waterboarding are involved) and good cop (giving the prisoner food and water), and while it horrifies her, she knows that this is the way to get things done. And in this case, it ultimately pays off, giving them a name: Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, supposedly a valued courier to bin Laden.

The leads grow hot and cold through the years, and Maya is pressured by her boss (Kyle Chandler, continuing the supercilious government persona he wore in Argo) to stop following the trail that may never to lead to bin Laden and instead help to "protect the homeland" by finding those terrorists the administration can point to as victory steps in the war against terror. But Maya is not one to be deterred from her mission, even in the face of threats against her and those in her life, and she uses every bit of information at her disposal in any way she can.

When she discovers her instincts might be correct and they might have bin Laden in their sights, Maya is not cowed by those who doubt the validity of her sources or the information she has. In a humorous sequence, she keeps track—in red marker on her boss' wall—of the number of days that elapse after the information is brought to higher-ups in the administration. And when the ultimate go-ahead is given to involve the SEAL team, she still doesn't let doubts affect her.

Like Argo and Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty is a movie for which you already know the ending, but that doesn't lessen the film's intensity or its power. Buoyed by a ferocious yet quietly emotional performance from Chastain, along with excellent supporting work from Clarke, Jennifer Ehle, Chandler, and Mark Strong, I found myself truly invested in the film and its outcomes, and even found myself getting a bit emotional when the SEALs ultimately had success in their hunt for bin Laden.

Much has been made about the movie's supposed endorsement of torture. I didn't feel that it celebrated torture; it was simply a portrayal of the techniques used in the intelligence world during that time. It is sad that people have lambasted the movie for this reason.

I don't know if this was an enjoyable movie given the subject and the intensity of the story, but it really knocked me out. Kathryn Bigelow absolutely should have been nominated for an Oscar for this equally taut follow-up to The Hurt Locker, and I hope Chastain wins a Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Kudos to Bigelow and screenwriter and producer Mark Boal for creating a gripping story with such a strong female character at its core.

Book Review: "Tenth of December" by George Saunders

What kind of short stories do you like?

Do you like experimental stories, in which the author doesn't necessarily adhere to traditional narrative structure, explores ideas and concepts you may never have imagined, sometimes imagining a not-too-distant time where things will be vastly different than you're used to? Or do you prefer your short stories to be more traditional in terms of narrative, characterization, dialogue, and concept?

If you're a fan of the former, George Saunders' new collection, Tenth of December, is definitely one you should explore. And if you're more a fan of the latter, while all of Saunders' stories might not quite resonate for you, there are still some brilliantly written stories worth reading.

Saunders is probably one of the most creative literary minds currently writing. He explores ideas of class, race, sex, relationships, love, in a way I've never seen, and many of his previous novels and story collections have tended toward the satirical. The stories in Tenth of December aren't quite as satirical, but their approach is far from what you see in most collections today.

The stories that I enjoyed the most included Victory Lap, which chronicled a young girl's attempted kidnapping through the eyes of her next door neighbor, a teenage boy so controlled by his smothering parents he isn't sure whether to help her; Puppy, in which a harried mother takes her children to get a dog, but discovers more than she wants to about the woman selling it; My Chivalric Fiasco, detailing personal drama within a renaissance fair-like setting; and the powerful title story, in which a man with terminal cancer goes into the woods to die, but finds more than he bargained for in a troubled young boy.

Admittedly, I'm not much of a fan of so-called experimental stories, so I didn't quite "get" all of the stories in this collection. Some of the stories are a little vaguer than I would have liked them to be (one whole story kept referring to a term and never actually defined what the term was, although you could extrapolate its meaning somewhat, it really bothered me), and in some, characters were either so unsympathetic or spoke with weird affectations that I found it difficult to get into the stories. (Several stories referred to futuristic drugs or products with trade names, without ever quite explaining what they were or how they were used.)

This collection has received tremendous critical and popular acclaim, and you can see why, as Saunders is at the top of his game with his storytelling ability. These are not mostly happy stories, but they are powerful ones, so if you're prepared for that coming in, you may be able to take more of them into your heart and your mind.

Doctor, my eyes...

So I rarely use my blog as a forum for ogling, but sometimes I've just got to break my own rules.

This is a picture of Matthew Bomer (White Collar, Magic Mike) and Ian Somerhalder (The Vampire Diaries) unable to keep their hands off each other at the People's Choice Awards.

Far too much stylish hotness for one picture, I think.

That's the way I always do it...

When I saw this cartoon, I thought, "Is there anything that says 'Larry' more than this?" (If not, it's close.)

The Oscars: Who Got Nominated?

Last night, I predicted who would be announced as Oscar nominees this morning. And as it is every year for me post-announcement, I'm always slightly off in my predictions, excited, and irritated, all at the same time.

So, here's what happened:

Best Picture
Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

Analysis: The Academy did go with nine nominees again this year. I went 8 for 9 in my predictions, with Moonrise Kingdom being thrown overboard for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Sigh. Just wasn't too wild about this movie.


Best Actor
Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Hugh Jackman, Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
Denzel Washington, Flight

Analysis: I went 4 for 5 here. I thought Denzel Washington was the most vulnerable nominee, but it turns out it was John Hawkes, whose superlative turn in The Sessions, in which he spent the entire movie flat on his back with his head contorted, was passed over. There's no denying Joaquin Phoenix was great in the odd The Master, though. (I'm also disappointed Richard Gere was overlooked for Arbitrage, but that was a pipe dream.)


Best Actress
Jessica Chastain, Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Emanuelle Riva, Amour
Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts, The Impossible

Analysis: Again, I went 4 for 5. It's exciting to have Wallis and Riva as bookend nominees in this category.


Best Supporting Actor
Alan Arkin, Argo
Robert DeNiro, Silver Linings Playbook
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained

Analysis: It's becoming a broken record, but I went 4 for 5 here, too. This is one of the categories that disappointed me, because although I think everyone in this category is immensely deserving, I was hoping to see Javier Bardem recognized for Skyfall, Leonardo DiCaprio for Django (although Waltz had the showier role), and of course, Matthew McConaughey for Magic Mike. But they went old school here—not counting today's nods, the nominees in this category have a collective 17 nominations and 6 wins.


Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, The Master
Sally Field, Lincoln
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Helen Hunt, The Sessions
Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook

Analysis: Again, 4 for 5 in this category, although I did say Jacki Weaver could surprise. Silver Linings Playbook is the only movie to have nominees in every major category—picture, actor, actress, supporting actor/actress, director, and adapted screenplay. Not bad. This is a good category and it should be a tough battle between Field and Hathaway, and I'm not sure how I feel about Maggie Smith being passed over for Best Exotic Marigold Hotel—disappointed or pleased they didn't go the Betty White route?


Best Director
Michael Haneke, Amour
Ang Lee, Life of Pi
David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook
Steven Spielberg, Lincoln
Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Analysis: Perhaps you heard me yell, "Are you f--king kidding me?" when they read the nominees in this category. Seriously, folks? No Ben Affleck? No Kathryn Bigelow? (Tom Hooper missing out for Les Miserables is disappointing but not nearly as incensing or surprising.) I went 3 of 5 here, although I thought Russell (a 2010 nominee for The Fighter) had a shot. But I'm not nearly as passionate about Beasts of the Southern Wild as others—I found it way too dreamy, allegorical, and disjointed to merit the recognition it's getting.


And that's a wrap. Once we see Zero Dark Thirty and Amour within the next few weeks, I'll post my list of the best movies I saw in 2012, as well as what I rank as the best performances of the year.