Posts for category ‘movies’

1. You may remember me posting before about Fictionist, a local band that defies all assumptions about local bands. (At least the ones I have, but maybe I’m an unhip snob? And also old? Very possible. After all, my last post was partly about Elton John and Simon and Garfunkel.) Well, they now have the chance to get on the cover of Rolling Stone, and onto Jimmy Kimmel Live. Whoah. And I think you should help. I’m not just saying this out of Utah pride – I’m not one to pimp things I don’t genuinely think are Good and Worthy. Having seen Fictionist live a couple of times, I can tell you that these guys are the real deal, in terms of musicianship, passion, devotion to craft. If you’re for this, just go to their home page and give ‘em a rating in that Rolling Stone box thing. (Five stars. Come on. You can trust your old pal Sara that they’re worthy of it. If you don’t have time to listen, do it for the band name alone!)

2. Do you like literary fiction about adults? Or do you want to like it, but tire of the 800-page tomes about male midlife crises? Do you wish the people in adult litfic at least vaguely resembled actual human beings that you’ve encountered so that you can, you know, care about them? I’ve got a book for you – Lan Samantha Chang’s All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. It’s around 200 precise, wise pages that totally escape self-indulgence and grandiosity (which is hard to do, I think, when writing about writing/writers, as Chang does here). Yes, there is a little bit of midlife crisis, but sort of being in the midst of one myself, I’m down. Chang’s prose is so incredibly exacting, the rhythms perfectly varied. The story is partly about art, and the making of art, and includes a lot of philosophical goodies for creative people. It never occurred to me to put this book down until I was done. Sadly, that is all too rare an experience for me. (And can I confess I picked this up on the title alone?)

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3. Speaking of reading, I am finally going to read The Hunger Games! Slightly behind the times, I know, but my book club is doing it and I’m in. DO NOT LET ME DOWN, COLLINS.

4. In another round of cultural catchup, I watched 3:10 to Yuma at long last. I thought it was a truly impressive work of filmmaking and storytelling, and it compelled me to read the Elmore Leonard short story on which it’s based. The short story is so…short! The movie is a great example of what a mighty oak can grow from a tiny seed. James Mangold is a fine director I’ve always admired, but this is an epic feat. (And I now have the 1957 version in my queue.)

5. I hate tax season.

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the holiday if you’ve got it!

Congratulations to Alysa, aka author of comment #44329 and winner of Monday’s giveaway. Contact me, Alysa! (Okay, I know that when you comment here, you are asked to enter your email address. But I don’t see on my dashboard how to actually access your email address. So I hope people are coming back to see if they won. Mariska! I’m talkin’ to you!)

My brain is working very slowly here at the end of a busy week, so what I have for you is randomness. And also another giveaway. You all have been so great at participating. Don’t lose hope! Leave a comment to enter for your choice of one of my books or audiobooks, plus a surprise book.

- True Grit. Though I saw a lot of good movies in 2010, this is probably my favorite. Yes, other movies have led me to deeper thought, or more visceral reaction, or stronger emotion, but no other movie left me so completely with the feeling: Now that was a movie!

- Junip. It’s a newish project of singer/songwriter Jose Gonzalez (sorry, terrible with the accent thingies), and I am obsessed. I have listened to Fields at least twenty times in the last forty-eight hours. Great writing music. For me it will most likely be the Broken Bells of 2011 – BB’s self-titled album was my default writing music last year.

- How to Save a Life. It is the title of my next book! Which is coming out in about a year. I don’t like to talk things to death this far in advance of release, but now that the title is finalized (think of the quote “the life you save may be your own”), I can officially announce it. People, I had such fun writing this one. For now all I’ll say is: two narrators, worlds collide. Right now we are working on cover concepts. Exciting!

- Good Letters. I am a regular contributor of spiritual writing and creative nonfiction over there now, a couple of times a month. (Here’s a link directly to all my archived posts.) I also always post a link from Twitter, so if you’re there and not following me, well, now is your chance.

- Did you notice? I’ve added some features to my web site to make it easier to stay in touch whatever way works best for you. On the right sidebar, “never again miss a post” gives you a chance to sign up via email. And each post has a little bar of options for sharing and following.

Thanks again for all your comments – I’m sorry I’m not responding to all of them. This year I’m kind of on a heavy-internet-use-only-twice-a-week schedule, which doesn’t leave as much time for everything as I might like. But I read and appreciate them all!

See you back here next week…

Okay, we weren’t really speaking of parents. But I’ve been speaking of parents in my head a lot, in part because the current Hot Complaint about YA is dead parents. (Last year it was clueless parents, and an article in the NYT implied dead parents were better than clueless ones. You can’t win.) Any debate I might invite or defense I might build about that is a bit suspect, as Zarr Book #4 has a dead parent backstory, so I’ll leave it alone for now. I did, however, want to mention some movies I’ve seen recently in which the absence and failure of mothers and fathers lurk behind and within the stories and are part and parcel of the young characters facing enormous obstacles to breaking out of a pattern or system. Which of course makes for awesome drama.

The four movies are: Winter’s Bone, Animal Kingdom (these first two I like to think of as the “high blood pressure double-feature” as it took physical effort to stay in my seat and not tear into the movie screen in an attempt stop some of what was happening), The Town, and, to a lesser degree, The Social Network.

In the first three movies, there is Total Epic Failure of matriarchal and patriarchal figures. The matriarch in Animal Kingdom is one of the scariest freakin’ characters I’ve ever seen on screen. She is sweet, gentle, and affectionate. She is also deeply, deeply evil, and can pretty much be held totally responsible for every terrible thing her sons do. At the beginning of the movie she seems fairly innocuous, but watching her true character reveal itself is a total horror show. There’s a similar dynamic going on in The Town, only in this case the father figure is in jail and his role in his son’s troubles are more ambiguous, though it hangs over the story like a shadow.

In Winter’s Bone, the main character, Ree, is 17, I think, and there is no adult in her life that can be trusted or relied on. There’s one possible exception, but even trusting that character feels like a huge risk. Ree is a lot smarter and stronger than the characters in Animal Kingdom and The Town and sees her problem clearly, understands just how trapped she is, and is braver than all in her determination to become untrapped.

In those three movies, there’s some system that the main characters need to break free of in order to survive, but at the same time the system that’s killing them is has been taking care of them their whole lives—”bad guys” who have provided food, clothing, shelter, and community. They can’t or won’t trust the “good guys” to get them out, and everything is complicated by intense, intense loyalty to the systems they were brought up in.

In The Social Network, the parents are just completely absent from the story, and as you watch the final scenes of the movie you can’t help but wonder if Zuckerberg’s folks ever just sat him down and gave him a talking to. If so, what did they say? If not, why not? What were the parents’ roles in all of the main characters’ lack of moral compass and sense of entitlement, not to mention poor treatment of women?

One thing is for sure: absent and messed-up parents make for great conflict. I recommend all these movies (especially the first three) for contemplation about the power of systems, nature & nurture, the lasting effects of bad (that seems too light a word here) parenting, and what it really looks like to put your character in no-way-out situations to crank up the drama… Animal Kingdom and Winter’s Bone, particularly for YA writers, as the protagonists in those movies are still teens and saddled with the relative powerlessness that comes with being under 18.

(I hope Ree Dolly from Winter’s Bone and J Cody from Animal Kingdom never meet…)

Or: In which I post a random series of links and thoughts, many recycled from my Twitter activity of the past week. Or: In which I provide you with some good reading and viewing to keep you busy until I get back from San Francisco next week and can write a real post again.

- I finally watched Happy-Go-Lucky and loved it. Mike Leigh has such a distinct point of view as a filmmaker, and truly understands the power of comedy. Laughter is a razor-sharp tool in his hands. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, this one is available as a watch instantly.

- Speaking of a distinct point of view, if you feel like every realistic YA novel you pick up sounds the same and you’re tired of it, read Bennett Madison’s The Blonde of the Joke.  It reminded me somehow of The Virgin Suicides, though it’s been so many years since I read that book I can’t say exactly why.

- And speaking of the deadly knife-edge of humor, Jon Stewart needs a special Emmy for these eight-plus minutes that amount to a TKO of Glenn Beck.

- A.O. Scott has an article in the Sunday Times about children’s movies, mostly, but really all of his (very insightful) observations apply to YA and kid books as well (and the contrast between them and entertainment for adults). Among other things, he writes:

Sometimes we make too much of the division between generations, which is after all not a gap but a continuum. Every adult is a former child, just as every child is an incipient adult, and at their best, children’s film and literature (which of course are almost never made by children themselves) is an attempt to communicate across this distance. Young viewers may see a premonition of what lies ahead as well as a sympathetic rendering of what they already know, whereas adults may find pleasure in recalling old hurts and relief that they are not at the mercy of them.

- Of all the public radio podcasts I download week after week, the one that most often moves me intellectually, and emotionally, is To the Best Of Our Knowledge. The current episode on war and the theme “Esprit de Corps” is particularly moving and relevant to the news of the week.

- As a writer and reader of the “small” and “domestic,” I give Lizzie Skurnick a big, fat thank you for her response to the now-infamous woman-free Publishers Weekly Top Ten of 2009.

- In case you missed the news, my brilliant agent is moving to L.A. to open up a West Coast office for Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. I am very excited about this for business reasons, and selfishly happy that Michael will be 1500 miles closer.

There you go. One link for each day until I’ll be back to write a legit post. Yes, I know some of you are eagerly awaiting my What I Love About Boredom and Loneliness post, and yes, perhaps I’m stalling. Until then!

It’s a day off from uni-blogging and a day on for randomness. So: writer Joelle Anthony had me over to her blog for a fun Q&A. And, The Well-Read Child gives Once Was Lost a nice review here. Thank you Joelle and TWRC.

Moving on…

Via The Curator, I came across this Guardian article about the “stuff-a-lanche” most of us are now living under. The article is spot-on for me (though I’m not sure I want a government employee to pick my book of the month…maybe an awesome librarian). This in particular made me laugh:

…Scenes From a Marriage and The Seventh Seal – two well-regarded Ingmar Bergman films I bought during a short-lived fit of self-improvement. I should have thrown them in a bin on my way home from the shop. It’s hard enough to choose between the two: am I in the mood for a lyrical 92-minute meditation on death, or an unflinching three-hour portrayal of a dysfunctional relationship? Neither, as it turns out. They’d only be interrupted by emails and texts anyway.

Meanwhile, my Netflix envelope full of Babette’s Feast has been sitting on my DVD player for a month. It’s one of those movies that, when I mention I haven’t seen it, makes all my friends go bug-eyed and clutch their throats in horror. I’m sorry! I mean to watch it! But I also have half a season of 30 Rock to catch up on!

(While I’m apologizing to my friends and while a fourteen-minute Jeff Buckley song is playing on KRCL I would like to add: I do not like Jeff Buckley.)

Next…

I was in line at the Dollar Tree yesterday, as I often seem to be lately, when I struck up a conversation with two high school girls in front of me whose cart was full of baby dolls. “That’s a lot of babies,” I said. It turns out that they and some of their friends were independently launching a month of awareness of the importance of comprehensive sex education in high school. Utah, which has adhered to the abstinence only model, recently decided that parents can choose between abstinence only and comprehensive (actually, the teens can “choose” but can only do comprehensive with parental consent).

Now, don’t get me wrong. Abstinence has some great stuff going for it. It works for preventing pregnancy and disease, if you do it, and greatly uncomplicates your emotional and possibly spiritual life during a time that is already complicated enough, and there is a lot to be said for putting off decisions about your sex life until after you become an adult. I mean, really and truly, I recommend it. But if as a society we want to reduce unwanted pregnancies, abortion, STDs, and poverty, every single post-puberty human should know how to use a condom, and understand the difference between myth and fact when it comes to pregnancy and disease. So to the girls from West High with their cart full of babies who are doing their part, I say kudos.