kurtwombat's reviews
890 reviews

Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light by Patrick McGilligan

4.0

If you want the nuts and bolts of Hitchcock's personal life and what he had for breakfast...you have come to the wrong book. This is a fabulous book, however, for following his movie career from film to film and follwoing his growth as a filmaker. How he built his movie making family is the focus here more so than his home life...except to the extent that they intersected. Just how important his wife was in his work life is fascinating..she was involved in filmaking before he was. From stories about his loving to work with Peter Lorre except that Lorre's drug addiction got in the way to his notorious manipulation of his leading ladies to the evolution of each movie script before glittering to the screen. A delightful read for movie junkies.

Joker by Brian Azzarello

4.0

A devilish birthday present. Love the art work by Lee Bermejo...vibrant, sharp, detailed, dark spirited and always seemed to choose the best angle. Joker from the Dark Knight film filtered through noir and doom. How dark is dark...turn to the next page and find out.

Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame by Garth Ennis

3.0

A fun, dark and somewhat hallucinatory read. John Constantine, the main character of the Hellblazer series, skirts hell on earth and elsewhere. Conflict with soul supposed to be in the middle of the pack as far as this long lived series goes...this is one I just happened to find at my favorite used bookstore (Reader's Corner in Raleigh, NC) Have found the Graphic Novel movement of interest as it seems a vivid mixture of two things I love....books...movies. It is no accident that the movies seem to love comic books. The value of the human soul seems to be a recurrent theme in this series....also something I find of interest.

Blues for Mister Charlie: A Play by James Baldwin

4.0

James Baldwin's first play is as much a tender revalation of both sides of the racial divide as it is a scathing broadside against racism. Wonderful speeches never feel forced as each character is given a honest voice. A young black man murdered in a small southern town...everyone is complicit...even the victim. And everyone, in the end, is a victim. Baldwin as always expresses what it is to be human.

Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

4.0

Science Fiction that seems to drift just little past our current reality. Each page carries you just a bit further until suddenly you realize you can't get back. Anything that was intersting about the Matrix films was lifted liberally from Gibson's work. This story deals with celebrity, destiny and the pursuit of dreams realized in quite unreal fashion. Four story lines are gradually intertwined only to unravel in spectacular fashion. Wondrous is his virtual prediction of the internet and all that it allows and can reveal.

The Areas of My Expertise: An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order by John Hodgman

4.0

If you find the idea of a Hobo rebellion nearly overturning the American government oddly compelling, this is the book for you. And if there are dozens of facts that you need to have confirmed for you are not true...this is the book for you. A joyous and rye look at the missing facts of American History and how we are left sadder for their never having occurred. I look forward to reading his sequel which even now is sitting quietly, if suspiciously, on my shelf.

Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope by Emmanuel Guibert

4.0

Memoir as matter of fact revalation told through simple yet involving art in graphic novel form. Cope's memories of WWII involve very little actual combat but reveal a lot about the other aspects of army life at that time. Most of the memories are brief but add up on the whole to a life in progress. The novel in most linear though there are some dips here and there to earlier and later in the subject's life. Some of the moments shared are pivotal to that life, others merely gentle revalations of what it is to be human. The simple images are like a framework that the reader is encouraged to fill in with their own take on the memory--as a reader of any novel creates their own images. And of course the war of the title does not only refer to WWII but also struggles of identity involving religion and nationality. A good read, like a long, comfortable conversation drifting into the wee hours of the morning.

The Transgressors by Jim Thompson

3.0

Jim Thompson is always worth the time. However, some of his books hit the ribs and torso stronger than others. While I enjoyed this one while reading it, the afterglow was briefer than classics like THE GRIFTERS, THE KILLER INSIDE, and AFTER DARK, MY SWEET. The morally ambivalent main character, while enjoyable, isn't quite as sharply etched as others by Thompson but was still a good ride. The classic Thompson trait of people doomed to play out the cards dealt to them is in abundant and fun evidence here. The supporting characters aren't quite up to classic either though I would like to have spent more time with the shy toothy deputy than some of the others. Good but others are better.

Button, Button: Uncanny Stories by Richard Matheson

2.0

Disappointing collection of Matheson stories reissued to tie into an illfated movie based on the title story. Of the group of stories only a couple rise above mediocre. What has always appealed to me about Matheson is his ability to take the amazing and place it amidst the very ordinary. His straightforward style creates a kind of normalcy that grounds the unreal in reality. BUTTON, BUTTON and MUTE and NO SUCH THING AS A VAMPIRE all work quite well. Can't imagine the title story being tortured into a full length movie. Appreciated MUTE in particular for it's balancing of two paths that could be positive crossing in painful fashion. Some of the others are either mediocre or just plain awful. THE CREEPING TERROR has a cute premise completely run into the ground--the terror came from the fact that it never seemed to end. And TIS THE SEASON TO BE JELLY was apocalyptic mutation simply irritating. THE JAZZ MACHINE was good and truthful in it's way but the use of old bluesman dialect and even song phrasing...well, my jury is still out on that one.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

4.0

To celebrate the opening of baseball season, decided to delve into the most talked about baseball book of recent years. I was as surprised as I was dissappointed. The book became notorious for outlining the success of the small market Oakland A's at maintaining their competitiveness despite humble funds. The A's brain trust used computers, creative statistics and thinking outside the box to scoop other teams for the best players. At the time the A's had been consistently good....but the passing of seven years offers a different perspective. The dissapointing part of the book is that the revelatory statistical analysis that was supposed to have given the A's such an advantage, is really just another tool. Like any other tool in a gold mine, it will uncover it's share of nuggets. The 2002 draft which is followed in delightful detail, can be viewed differently now that the players have had a reasonable time in the minors. The A's had stocked up several extra first round picks because of losing several free agent players. Their choices, at the time still question marks, have not proven to be any better than an average draft. The players that have been the most successful were sought by many other teams...and thus not a product of their new way of thinking. With all their extra early picks, you can argue that they should have done much better. For example, one of the players they were praying someone else would "waste" a draft pick on was only Prince Fielder who is doing quite well these days. Their open minds bashed him because his father Cecil Fielder was overweight his whole career. While I found much of the statistical analysis interesting, when they broke down much of a ball player's success to "luck", the whole argument lost air. Now the surprising part, was how much I enjoyed not only the inside the baseball world mechanics, but the profiles of players like Scott Hatteberg and Chad Bradford and others involved in the game. The gradual unfolding of their stories and how their skills evolved to keep them in the big leagues was intriguing and even endearing. The A's General Manager, given the lion's share of the credit for the A's success, is quite captivating....almost appearing a work of fiction at times. His desperate need to succeed to the point of being not only unpleasant to be around, but also self destructive captivates in an often ludicrous way that someone from Joseph Heller's Catch 22 might. On the whole enjoyable, but not always in the ways they intended.