CharlieDean

Over vacation, I had a chance to catch up on some books/movies/television shows.  Here are a couple of brief reviews.  Feel free to chime in with your thoughts!

• Arrested Development, Season Three.  In a word?  Hilarious.  I watched seasons one and two a couple years ago, but for some reason, never got around to season three.  Although only three seasons long, this may have been one of the funniest shows on network television ever!  Yeah for streaming Netflix on vacation!
• Brothers.  In a word?  Intense.  Jennifer and I both found this movie to be exhausting – there was just no relaxing, you always had the feeling that at any moment, the other shoe would drop.  Eventually, it did.   I thought it was going to be a story about a love triangle.  Instead it was a story about a soldier experiencing PTSD.  Toby Maguire freaked us out.  Ugh.
• America’s Got Talent.  In a word?  Tiresome.  Howie replacing Hasselhof, has much-improved the show.  Nevertheless, there hasn’t been anyone this year that I’ve wanted to really root for.  Thank God for the DVR, where 2-hour episodes can be reduced to about 20-30 min, and 1-hour “results shows” can be reduced to about 10 min.  I couldn’t sit through 2 hours of AGT.
• King Raven Trilogy – Stephen Lawhead.  In a word? Intriguing.  Lawhead is a novelist who writes Celtic historical fiction.  In his most recent offering, he rewrites the myth of Robin Hood, but in a Celtic context, under the rule of William II, son of William the Conqueror.  Of course reading this kind of literature puts me dangerously close to the “medieval faire crowd,” which scares me a little, but I enjoy Lawhead, once-in-a-while.  I’ll finish the final book of this trilogy as soon as it comes in at my local library.
• Hard Laughter - Anne Lamott.  In a word?  Eclectic.  Over the last several years, I’ve become a fan of Lamott through her religious writings (Traveling Mercies, Plan B, Grace (eventually), and her book Bird by Bird: some instructions on writing and life.  And then, her most recent novel, Imperfect Birds, came out and got me intrigued about her other novels.  I liked Hard Laughter, her first novel, although I found the main character hard to like.  But, I love the way Lamott writes.
• Friday Night Lights.  In a word?  Depressing.  This show, about a Texas football town is my guilty pleasure in the summer.  It’s generally depressing, which is why I think I like it.
• Toy Story 3.  In a word?  Sad.  I’m not sure why people love this movie so much.  Upon leaving the theater with our kids while on vacation, my oldest son blurted out, “that was kind of a sad movie wasn’t it?”  We agreed.  It was depressing to watch it with my boys thinking that someday they too will grow up, and move out and leave all their toys behind.
• Top Chef D.C. In a word?  Love.  As in, I LOVE Top Chef.  I really dislike Angelo.  Early on I liked Kenny…but now, not-so-much.
• Invictus.  In a word?  Slow.  Great story, great performances, I just wished they would have hurried it along a little more, and, perhaps, explained something about Rugby.

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