Quickie Review – Page 5

Quickie Review: IN SEARCH OF AND OTHERS

In Search of and Others by Will Ludwigsen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I share the author’s obsession with the old In Search of… series starring Leonard Nimoy, and Ludwigsen does a wonderful job writing pieces that resonate with that vibe. It also seems he and I share some other interests and experiences in common: with Appalachia, the mental health profession, and–if the multiple appearances of dead people in rivers are any indication–Raymond Carver’s story “So Much Water, So Close to Home.”

My issue was that, with exceptions, my general reading experience was that of being told. Yes, I realize that may even have been the point. Heck, in the story “We Were Wonder Scouts,” we’re told a story which has a scene in which a secondary character tells a story. But the approach is double-edged. There’s no question Ludwigsen has mad storytelling skills. But I didn’t always feel the sort of tension I like to feel in short-short stories.

The exceptions really touch me, though. “Mom in the Misted Lands” had such a poignancy in its telling and in its theme. “The Ghost Factory” hit a different spot, giving me a (pleasantly!) sickening “There, but for the grace…” feeling.

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Quickie Review: BEFORE THE INCAL

Before the Incal by Alejandro Jodorowsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book almost defies your expectations of a prequel for The Incal. Still, you get the origins of pathetic Class “R” detective John DiFool, you see the byzantine and surreal chain of events that push him directly to his role in that story, and you see in the last chapter–which I personally could’ve done without–wherein Jodo feels the need to show every other character in The Incal and how they’re positioned to take up their roles in that book. But that doesn’t take away from how brilliantly the Jodoverse was fleshed out by Zoran Janjetov in true Moebius-like fashion. And while this story is a significantly lighter on spiritual concepts than The Incal, Jodo does a great job highlighting the existential and practical suffering of a world which lacks the spiritual.

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Quickie Review: IF I WOULD LEAVE MYSELF BEHIND: STORIES

Just thought I’d start 2015 by catching up on some reviews…

If I Would Leave Myself Behind: Stories by Lauren Becker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The writing in this collection of flash pieces captured me. I got so caught up in the moment by the oft-times brutal economy of language, of the images of despair, ferocity, hope, and survival that I was pretty breathless by the time I was done with it. So much so that when I try to sit down and wrote about the collection in aggregate, I feel like I somehow missed the forest for the trees and so I’d reopen the book, go back over a few pieces, only to find myself breathless again. I’ve done this three or four times now, so here, 5 out of 5 already!

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Quickie Review: SYLLABUS: NOTES FROM AN ACCIDENTAL PROFESSOR

Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I first sought out Barry’s comics years ago because Filipina! Okay, part-Filipina but enough to hook me with a panel of an elderly woman, sitting on a couch with one elbow resting on her raised knee, declaring “Ay, nako!” But Syllabus was my first encounter with one of Barry’s artistic how-to books. It’s a compilation of syllabi, courses, and exercises she’s used in the various classes she teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Other artistic how-to books emphasize the importance of play, but this is the first one I’ve read that has shown me exactly how to leverage that idea. Barry’s thesis is that when we were drawing or writing as children, the last thing on our minds was whether or not we were creating works of art; at least in my case, she’s right. And thus, I get something extremely valuable from this book: a method for RE-training myself to suspend any judgement at all about writing as I’m writing. (That stuff is for editing and polishing later.)

Syllabus gets 5 stars because after a mere two weeks, the exercises within–more or less in practice; definitely in principle–have already yielded dividends as far as filling some of the gaps in my writing practice that I’ve been struggling with since the day I started. I can feel the techniques reshaping my artistic process the way I used to feel muscles being shaped while working out (another experience I haven’t had in awhile), and it feels great!

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Quickie Review: ILO ILO (2013)

A screening of this Canne Caméra d’Or-winning film was hosted by the dayjob and I went, having prepared myself to go all Hooper from Chasing Amy during the Skype Q&A with Singaporean director Anthony Chen. But this film about a Hong Kong family who takes on a Filipina maid during the Asian financial meltdown of 1997 thankfully wasn’t rage inducing.

During the Q&A, the director mentioned having been taken to task for not providing any critique of the OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) system. I was just happy that we didn’t get either of the two “typical” OFW horror stories–Filipinas being physically or sexually victimized, or victimizing the families they work for, stealing money, abusing children and elders, etc. Hell, I half-expected Teresa (the maid) to have some anting-anting which makes her some Asian Mary Poppins who teaches young Jiale about, I dunno, love and family or somesuch.

(She probably would have if this was some Hollywood film.)

Anyway, I’m fine that the film wasn’t about the plight of OFWs for two reasons. One, I think Chen gives a pretty even-handed representation of the part most people play in that whole system, in a way which jives with the memories I’ve had as a child observing Filipinas who were brought over to the United States to help with the families of other Filipinos. And two, that kind of message would’ve taken away from the film’s focus on the compelling study of how four very different people cope against forces outside their control.

5 out of 5.

Quickie Review: THE ONE I LOVE (2014)

If I had it to do over, I’d Netflix this one but I definitely wouldn’t pass it up. If you liked 2012’s Safety Not Guaranteed, you’ll probably like The One I Love. There’s something to be said for a movie that resists being described in other reviews because to do so even in the slightest would spoil it.

Other reviews have noted similarities to (and the film actually name-checks) The Twilight Zone, and it does so as more than simply a code for “something freaky’s going on here.” The film’s plot absolutely feels like something out of a Richard Matheson episode. And of course, I can’t even reference which Matheson episodes came to mind as I watched this, because spoilers.

The one thing this film has over a Twilight Zone episode is the feeling the film’s resolution leaves me with, which I can only describe as the same feeling described by Bruce Sterling in his oft discussed and debated definition of “slipstream,” namely “…a kind of writing which simply makes you feel very strange; the way that living in the twentieth century makes you feel, if you are a person of a certain sensibility.” If slipstream is that form which is, as it’s said, “some degree of the surreal, the not-entirely-real, or the markedly anti-real” then I’d definitely call this a slipstream film.

Quickie Review: FRANK (2014)

I admit it, I watched this film because I caught the trailer a week or so ago at the local art house theater, and was captivated by the head…

Inspired by Chris Sievey’s persona of Frank Sidebottom and the time the co-screenwriter Jon Ronson spend in Sievey’s band, the film is about far more than the eponymous character wearing a big head, in the same way that any (good) band is more than the sum of its parts. Frank shows the complexity of the chicken-and-egg question about the origin of creativity. And then it complicates the question further by throwing in the the added dimension of collective artistic expression; this is about a band, after all. Think of it as a po-mo version of The Commitments where you spend less time cheering for band, and more time going back and forth between “WTF?” and “Huh, that’s kinda deep.”

I don’t think it’s spoilery to say the band breaks up. C’mon, it’s a band movie–when was the last time a movie band didn’t implode? But Frank might surprise you a bit with the whys and hows of the breakup, and might also surprise you with how the breakup leaves you feeling.

Quickie Review: BITE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FLASH FICTION

BITE: An Anthology of Flash Fiction by Katey Schultz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A good number of pieces here actually didn’t hit me the way I like flash stories to hit me. Possibly I’m a little inured to that these days. And yet when I considered each piece and what I took away, I discovered a few stories with layers of subtlety. Yes, I realize not every piece of flash fiction has to slap me in the face to be effective. And yet, it was a little difficult for me to distinguish some of the slower-burning pieces with pieces that only fit the flash rubric in terms of minimal word count. Those latter pieces might be complete stories, but they could’ve been told–might as well have been told–in two or three or five thousand words. There were gems from some of “the usual suspects” in flash fiction that I like to read: Bruce Holland Rogers, Tara Masih, Sherrie Flick, Tom Hazuka, et al. But my joy at reading those stories was tempered by the ones that didn’t impress so much. I’m rating this 4 stars, but it’s really closer to 3.6 for me.

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Quickie Review: THIS WON’T TAKE BUT A MINUTE, HONEY

This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey by Steve Almond
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An opinion about a book of 30 microessays and 30 flash fiction stories shouldn’t be very long. The essay half is on writing; it’s now in my top 5 of writing resources. Not every flash tale resonated with me but “Unfriendly Cashiers” is any indication, each story holds a grain of real truth.

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Quickie Review: THE EYES OF THE CAT

The Eyes of the Cat by Alexandro Jodorowsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pure impulse buy at my local comics shop. I’ve been on a Jodorowsky kick lately (I’m working my way through his films and have already read The Incal and some of The Metabarons) so this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

The first graphic novel collaboration between Jodo and Mœbius gives us twenty-four full page illustrations with minimal dialogue, as part of Jodo’s attempt to do something unconventional while trying to subvert commercial constraints. (He says as much in his introduction to this 2013 edition.) While the story is short enough to warrant grumblings about the collection being overpriced, it has everything you’d expect from any Jodorowsky/Mœbius tale in Métal Hurlant magazine: surrealistic sci-fi illustrated by a master. On top of that… again, we’re talking about full page Mœbius here, so while the collection could’ve (should’ve?) been cheaper, I was happy to pay what I paid.

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