entertainment
image: claire danes

Claire Danes

Claire Danes is one of my favourite actors. My admiration of her ability began when I started to watch My So-Called Life during my high school years. She portrayed Angela Chase with an unusual depth of character that made the storyline appear very, very real. It seems strange to say it, but I really empathized with what Angela was going through in the series, even though Angela was obviously just a manufactured personality. But the way Angela dealt with situations (very believable ones, no less) really helped me through some of the more difficult times of my adolescence. It sounds really cheesy, I know :-) but I believe it's true.

Claire has gone on to portray many other characters with what I would describe as "deep emotional authenticity of character". Claire acts out characters as though she were asked to fulfill the age-old saying of "stepping into someone else's shoes" -- I've never seen anyone else turn made-up characters into living, breathing people, with feelings, sorrows, joys, and other emotions.

www.clairedanes.com
image: drew barrymore

Drew Barrymore

Drew Barrymore is another actress whom I have great respect for. I'm sure everyone's heard the story of how she overcame drug addiction, a trouble childhood, a suicide attempt, and so forth, but it's not her recovery from that, that I admire (although I admire that as well). I admire the fact that, having overcome such difficulties in her early life, she can be an actress that makes me feel happy. Whenever I watch a movie with Drew in it, I feel empowered -- empowered to be happy. She's so perky. Dave Letterman likes her too, judging by her frequent appearances on his show.

The latest Drew Barrymore movie I saw was The Wedding Singer, which is just a Real Great Film (tm). One thing I like about this movie is that they had no good reason to set it in the 1980's, save for the fact that the music was so great. (Okay, some of the music is better than others :-)) Adam Sandler is hilarious too.

www.weddingsinger.com
the dilbert zone

Dilbert

After Calvin and Hobbes (which is no longer running), Dilbert is the funniest cartoon I've seen. A lot of the ridiculous office policies and politics relate more to my dad's company than mine, but it's still good for a laugh. e.g. Frame 1 (in meeting): Boss: "We need to downsize our return-on-assets ratio.". Frame 2: Wally: "Let's eliminate the security department. That would cut expenses while allowing for a brisk reduction in assets.". Frame 3 (later, walking down hall): Dilbert: "When are you going to tell him you were joking?" Wally: "As soon as I furnish my den."

www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert
image: jim carrey in 'the truman show'

Movies I've Seen (That Have Impressed Me)

Magnolia. It's a damn long film, and slow at certain points, but I find that its most redeeming quality is that the characters don't talk as though they were on camera; they talk normally, with all of the verbal tics and oddly constructed sentences that represent real conversation. It's an amazing fact, that -- in real life, people don't form their sentences perfectly and express their thoughts concisely every time! Anyways... a very interesting film, with an imagininative plot and a kick-ass soundtrack to boot (songs by Aimee Mann).

American Beauty. I would say that this is probably the best film I have seen all year. I've always criticized the "comfortable" middle-class American existence as a sham; for one thing, it is socially irresponsible (lusting after material goods while millions of people in less-fortunate countries are starving) while at the same time, making those trapped in the "dream" miserable because they worry all the time about their stuff. At first, I thought Kevin Spacey's character was totally whacked, but after a while I realized where he was coming from; especially when he was about to make love to his wife and he spilled his beer on the couch, and she freaked out at him because it was a $1000 Italian sofa. Certainly a very thought-provoking movie and I spent several nights laying awake in bed, thinking about it, after I saw it.

The Sweet Hereafter. A rather depressing film but it's very well made. The soundtrack is really nice too. Sarah Polley could have a singing career if she ever decides to stop acting.

Life is Beautiful. A sadly humourous picture. Roberto Benigni plays a charismatic young man who moves from a big city in Italy to a smaller town, and falls in love with a young schoolteacher named Dora. Unfortunately she is already engaged to be married to a high-ranking government official, but Benigni's character (Guido) pursues her anyway, and eventually they are married and have a child, Joshua. However, it's 1939 and the Germans come to round up the Jews and ship them off to Auschwitz, and Guido is Jewish. The rest of the film is about how he tries to protect his son from seeing, or realizing, the atrocities of the concentration camp, by pretending it's all just a big game.

Pleasantville. Modern teenaged brother and sister -- the former a nerd, the latter a slut -- transported into a black-and-white world respecting the "family values" system advocated by today's bible-thumping politicians. The movie is about how the sister (played by Reese Witherspoon) and later, the brother, start to change the perfect little world.

Books I've Read That Have Impressed Me

Agassiz Stories by Sandra Birdsell. A book of short stories -- actually, originally two books of short stories combined into one volume and reprinted. I'd recognized Birdsell's name from somewhere and about 2/3 of the way through I realized where -- I'd read the story Falling in Love in an anthology about six or seven years ago. Not that I remembered that when I bought this volume, but still -- I had a great sense of deja vu. Birdsell's a great writer, and although it requires some effort to read the stories, she definitely has the form down.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. Even if you hate science fiction and fantasy, I urge you to pick up this book and read it. I don't enjoy SF or fantasy books (especially the latter -- all those multi-book Terri Pratchett series in cheap paperback format just scream "cash cow" at me) but this one is amazing. Gaiman's British and he writes with the typical British knack for understatement, which makes the prose really hilarious. Plus, the plot is so intricate, you wonder where on earth he dreamed it up. Absolutely fascinating; I stayed up all night to finish it and I couldn't help turning back to my favourite sections and re-reading them.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. Okay, it's been made into a movie, so now everyone and their mother is reading this book. But it's still a very well-written book. Although Frank's childhood was brutal, he doesn't capitalize on that but instead writes in an anecdotal fashion, with great clarity of thought and a sense of humour to boot.

I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb. Lamb was recommended to me by a fumbler correspondent of mine, but I picked up the wrong book (the one she was intending that I read is called "She's Come Undone"). Nevertheless I really enjoyed this book and Lamb is an extremely talented storyteller, who "does his homework" and has written a very detailed story about Dominick Birdsey, the normal half of two twins, the other of which is schizophrenic. At times, the plot turned into an episode of Party of Five (i.e. everything bad that could possibly happen to Dominick happened to him) but Lamb didn't push it too far over the line, and he quickly regained some modicum of sanity.

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro. One of those non-cliched, tastefully done coming of age books, about a young woman coming to terms with herself and her sexuality.

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje. His first full length work published in the 70's is based on the life of pioneering jazz musician Charles "Buddy" Bolden, who lived an erratic and bizarre life in turn-of-the-century New Orleans. Ondaatje wrote only poems and short stories prior to this book, and parts of the book are actually written in verse. It's quite an interesting work (although difficult to read).

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx. This was recommended to me by my old high school English teacher, whom I visit once in a while when I'm at my parents place. The story is about Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman living essentially a white-trash life, who escapes when his two-timing wife gets her just desserts. He goes to Newfoundland to discover his heritage and learns a lot about the simpler life and the rewards of taking things slowly.

Tales From Firozsha Bagg by Rohinton Mistry. Recommended by a friend, it's a book of short stories that reads more like a novel, because the stories are all about people who live in an apartment complex in Bombay, called Firozsha Bagg. The book is somewhat autobiographical but Mistry writes it in a very entertaining and at times sad manner. Highly recommended.

The Englishman's Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe. Winner of the Governor General's Award last year, this book is a pretty damn good story. I mean, it's not the greatest story I've read, but Vanderhaeghe sure knows how to tell a yarn.

Fall On Your Knees by Anne Marie Michaels. Yup, I'm a great fan of Canadian literature. This book is a good story too, but it's quite the epic. Very realistic, and it certainly makes you think, and reassess what you think is "good" or "bad" about people and why, and whether or not your judgement of peoples' so-called goodness or badness is faulty because you haven't failed to take circumstances/context into account. If that makes any sense at all (if not, read the book)

Letters To A Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated from the German). I've noticed that poets are very, very wise people. I think they're wise because as part of their craft, they spend a great deal of time observing the idiosyncracies of the world around them, and you tend to pick up a lot of wisdom from doing that. The other thing being a poet forces you to do, is to be concise (unless you're Homer or something (smile)) Rilke here dispenses some of that wisdom gleaned from lessons learned, but in a very concise way, so it's certainly dense reading, but well worth it, if you spend the time to really comprehend what he's saying. Took me about seven months to read this tiny book, but it's highly recommended.

Entertaining Websites

I'm not sure if this is the right place to put these, but I'll stick 'em here and move them later if I find a better place.

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