March | 2006 | Groundlings Review 2006 March | Movie, Television and book reviews for common folk, by common folk.

March, 2006

Book Review: The Rule of Four

March 24, 2006 by Bryan Osborn

The Ruling: What’s This Book Four?

I had been looking forward to reading The Rule of Four for a while, ever since my brother-in-law had sung its praises. I ravenously tore into the book only to grind to a halt. The book is written in first person point of view (here’s an example from the book, “I’m lying back on the old red sofa in our dorm room . . .”). My reading pace slowed, and then it slowed again as the reading got more tedious. There are very few people who can pull off first person narrative. The main problem with it is that it constantly plays tricks with your brain. The words are saying “I am, or “I go,” but your brain is saying “No I’m not. I’m lying in bed reading this book.”

This style, along with additional elements, turned me off very quickly. So, if my brother-in-law ever reads this, I apologize up front, but I didn’t much care for the book.

The story is of four undergraduate roommates who are drawn into the obsessions of several characters toward the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a book published in 1499. The book is a cryptic story, part illustrated encyclopedia, part odd novel. Scholars have been trying to unravel the secrets hidden in its pages for 500 years. As the Hypnerotomachia starts to yield its encrypted secrets, murders occur for no compelling reason.

Ok, so you’re sitting back thinking it sounds like Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Although the book jacket draws comparisons between the two novels, they have very little in common. The stories behind The Rule of Four and The DaVinci Code are based on secret codes hidden in old texts and works of art, but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. The main problem with Rule of Four is that it can never make up its mind if it is a suspenseful action thriller (a la DaVinci Code) or a coming-of-age story.

Quite often, the book interrupts the head of steam it has built up only to delve into extended flashbacks into the characters’ past relationships with each other. Sometimes these tangents would last for a chapter, derailing any action that had taken place. What’s more, the timeline of these events is so close to the present action that it leaves you wondering why the authors didn’t just tell the whole story from beginning to end. I must confess that all these flashbacks did was confuse me as to which time I was reading about, the present or the near present. Did that that scene just happen or did it happen a week ago?

Another problem: so the authors went to Ivy League schools . . . I got it. Now why do I care? The authors do a great job at painting a picture of banal college events like eating clubs and other places at Princeton. The problem is that these scenes do little to move the story along or to enhance character development. Even toward the end of the book, I had trouble remembering which of the four friends did what, “now was that the EMT guy or the orphan? Or are they the same person?” What’s more, I cared very little what happened to the characters because of this lack of development.

I didn’t care if the narrator got the girl or not. I didn’t care if a friend of theirs was killed or this professor or that. I just didn’t care. At one point the main character is forced to choose between his girlfriend and the Hypnerotomachia. I just didn’t buy that at all. Some people trumpet that level of dedication as being “intellectual” (the novel is touted as an intellectual DaVinci Code). If that’s what it is to be an “intellectual,” you can keep all that. I call that an unhealthy obsession akin to alcoholism.

So why did I finish it. Well, first because I wanted to give it a fair chance, after all, my brother-in-law loved it, so I kept reading hoping that it would get better. Second, after you have invested all that time in a project, you want to have something to show for it. I had to finish it.

Go read the Amazon reviews; people either love it or hate it, just like me and my brother-in-law. Can I recommend it? Definitely not, but you might like it (by the way, you can pick up a used hardback on Amazon for .01). I for one am left scratching my head as to how this made it to the New York Times bestseller list. Brilliant marketing, I guess.

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Music Review: Rosie Thomas – If Songs Could Be Held

March 23, 2006 by Dennis West

>Not since buying my first Crowded House Album when I was in high school have I enjoyed an album so thoroughly as I am enjoying Rosie Thomas’ “If Songs Could be Held”. I hadn’t heard of her until I was checking out of the iTunes music store when I was buying Brandi Carlile’s album, and Rosie was one of the referral links.

Rosie Thomas’ music is unpretentious, non-preachy, gentle and melodious. Every song is full of thoughtful lyrics and wonderful acoustic accompaniments. Some comparisons could be made to some of the softer tunes by Sheryl Crow, or Sarah McLachlan but without the gloominess.

I consider this to be one of my favorite recent discoveries and I’m looking forward to discovering more from her.

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When Good Foreshadowing Goes Bad

March 17, 2006 by Dennis West

>A long time ago I heard the following quote that I just found again in Wikipedia:

“An example of foreshadowing might be when a character uses a gun or knife early in the play/film/narrative. Merely the appearance of a deadly weapon, even though it is used for an innocuous purpose – such as being cleaned or whittling wood – suggests terrible consequences later on.”

When I first heard it, it was credited to Alfred Hitchcock, though I’m not sure if he’s really the source. Ever since then, I’ve noticed this done in movies—which is bad because it really shouldn’t be something you notice. There are many times when I see this at the time of the foreshadowing and at that moment I try to figure out how that’s going to come into play later, thus taking me out of the movie watching experience.

My first, most obnoxious example is from the movie Paycheck, starring Ben Affleck. There is a moment when he sits down with his boss who gives him a cigar. Ben Affleck’s character makes a point of looking up at a smoke detector and the camera zooms in close to it as he asks his boss if the cigar smoke is going to set off the alarm. The close up of the alarm and the dialogue about it made me feel like the filmmakers were whacking us over the head with the fact that it was important and we needed to remember that later. It was used later, though not as importantly as I thought it would be.

Another example of when foreshadowing goes bad is actually done in two movies that I otherwise really liked. I guess we can call it the “superior officer pep-talk.” It occurs in the movies U-571 and The Core.

In both movies, the highly qualified and willing junior officer has a moment where the superior officer tells them why they are being passed up for a command position. They are both told that what they lack is the experience making the “hard decisions.” Both of these end up being resolved by the commanding officer getting killed, and then the juniors are put in a position where everyone is going to be killed if they don’t order or allow one crewmember to die.

If you ever see a movie where someone gives someone else that kind of “you’re not good enough because you haven’t been tried” speech, you’d better believe there’s going to be some trials experienced (and overcome) before the credits roll.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate foreshadowing, but I really wish it wasn’t used as a cheap gimmick that sends up a flag as if to say, “Woohoo! Look at me, I’m going to be important later!”

I like the kind of foreshadowing that has it’s own purpose at the time, but you forget about and then it surprises you when it becomes important. An example of this is in The Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage as Jack. In the beginning, the character that starts him on his “glimpse of what could have been” gives him a bicycle bell. Jack thinks that it’s a tool to call this guy back when he needs help, but when it doesn’t work his daughter takes it and thanks him for the gift. It isn’t until the end of the movie when we’re feeling as comfortable as Jack is with his alternate life, that his daughter rings the bell on her bike and our hearts sink because we know that even though it was good, it’s not going to last.

So, have you experienced any intrusive foreshadowing? Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by how something resurfaced in a way that you weren’t expecting? Feel free to leave a comment and we’ll talk about it!

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Book Review: Where the Red Fern Grows

March 15, 2006 by Bryan Osborn

His Only Pet Experience

My son and I just finished Where the Red Fern Grows” by Wilson Rawls (1961). We started out reading it as a family, but my 5-year-old daughter didn’t seem to have much interest. That was when my son (age 9) and I switched to the audio book. We listened to it about 2 times a week in the car as we drove to and from karate practice (a 20 minute drive in each direction).

I remember reading Red Fern when I was a kid. It was one of the first big books that I read entirely on my own. We also read it as a class in grade school, I believe. Even though the main character, Billy Colman’s backwoods world of the Ozarks was completely foreign to me, I could totally see this barefoot boy running through the woods with his beloved hounds. Rawls has a way of making young readers feel empowered by making Billy so determined and relentless in his goals.

For those who haven’t read it, the book is about a boy (Billy) growing up in rural northeastern Oklahoma during the Great Depression. Billy works two long, hard years to earn enough money to buy a pair of coon hunting dogs. The trio becomes the best of friends and the best coon hunters anyone has ever seen.

Largely autobiographical, Rawls’ story is infused with a strong sense of integrity and a 1960′s black and white sense of right and wrong. To me, this kind of “morality tale” is very refreshing in this day and age of grey areas and ambiguity.

Although the milieu of this story was utterly foreign to my son too, he embraced it from the beginning. He had never heard of coon hunting nor did it ever enter his mind that there were people who couldn’t afford shoes. He can’t even really relate to being so enamored with a pet, as almost everyone in our family has allergies including him. Since he breaks out after just petting a dog, this book will likely be his only pet experience (unless you count our Chinese fighting fish named Sagwa, but he wasnít much fun).

(SPOILER ALERT- if you don’t know the plot of the book—yeah, right, like who doesn’t—do not read this paragraph) The most touching moment of the book came when we were driving across town to my son’s wrestling tournament. We were in the final chapters of the book where both of the dogs died. I noticed that my son had his faced turned to the window and he wouldn’t look at me. I figured he was sad and decided not to bother him. Sure enough, it wasnít long until he was wiping his eyes. I felt for him, but at the same time I thought it was cool. “How many books make you care so much about a character that you get choked up when they die?” I thought, as I swallowed to make the lump in my own throat go away.

Go pick up a copy of this classic today and read it with your kids or give it to them as a gift. They will likely love it as much as you did. If you haven’t yet read it, you will be glad that you did. I also plan on watching the 2003 version of Where the Red Fern Grows (there is also a 1974 version), so look for that review to come soon.

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Book Review: Jim Henson, The Works

March 14, 2006 by Dennis West

>Everyone who knows me as an adult thinks that I must have been a huge Disney fan as a child. While I’ve always enjoyed Disney films and shorts, my childhood was focused mainly on three things: Peanuts, Star Wars, and The Muppets.

This week’s book spotlight is Jim Henson, The Works — yet another of my most prized books in my library. In it, we not only read biographies and histories of the characters that we’ve grown to love, but we also learn about some of the projects that he would have liked to have produced and how much of an artist and visonary Jim Henson really was.

The book contains some of the most creative and unique page layout designs that I have ever seen. I especially enjoy the small “Jim Henson: The Early Years” book which is about a quarter of the page dimensions of the rest of the book which is tipped-in to the binding. The entire volume appears to have been assembled as thoughtfully and lovingly as you can imagine Jim doing all of the projects during his life.

In a nutshell, I would highly recommend this book—not just to people who are fans of the Muppets, like myself, but to anyone who likes to have a peek into what makes creative people tick, and maybe glean some inspiration in the process.

What made me decide to comment on this book—besides seeing it on my bookshelf every day at work—is my recent purchase of The Muppet Show: First Season on DVD. I was a little nervous when I first got it that I wouldn’t enjoy the humor as much as an adult as I did when I was a kid, but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. It is so nice to see the sophisticated wit in the writing of this show that still makes me laugh out loud. I was also happy to see that my 5 & 7 year old daughters also laughed quite a bit at the show and often ask to watch them over again. The shows still have value today as great entertainment and I would highly recommend them.

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