Day: June 10, 2007

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby finally bubbled up in Netflix. (OK, I pushed it to the top.)

I had seen the first 30 minutes already…and that was the best part of the movie, with laugh-out-loud funny scenes. So, I pop in the DVD on a Saturday night expecting to laugh, starting with the previously-viewed scenes. The repeat material was amusing, but not as funny the second time.

The bigger problem? The rest of the movie just sort of petered out…and it felt long. I never expected such a drop-off from a comedy.

After seeing Knocked Up earlier in the week, the bar was pretty high. More on that movie in the near future. Metacritic shows a 66 for Ricky Bobby. Hmmmm…

The French Lieutenant’s Woman, by John Fowles, doesn’t fit my usual genres. Yes, the novel falls in the category of historical fiction, which I do enjoy. But I rarely appreciate author-to-reader discourses. Fowles’ postmodern flourishes distract from a decent tale of love and class in Victorian England, with a dollop of Darwin.

I grabbed this one off the shelf at the library because it was on one of those “you should read these books before you die” lists being promoted that day. Whoops. I had to renew it twice to finish it, and I’m glad to put it behind me.

Another one from a few weeks ago, Frederick Forsyth’s The Afghan is practically forgotten already. If you’re going to read Forsyth, it’s The Day of the Jackal or nothing. Slight exaggeration, perhaps, as there are other thrillers he’s penned worth your airplane ride… just not this one.

Almost a month has passed, but I don’t want to forget to mention Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Jared Diamond is unafraid to tackle the big topics. His blend of personal experience and lots of secondary research tells a persuasive story of how the environment underpins cultural success…and failure. This is the flip side of Gun, Germs, and Steel, where he explained why certain cultures “won” over others.

Collapse is more pessimistic. Still, he points out the “Red Queen” hasn’t run her race yet. There are warning signs in environments all over the world. Yet, there is also a rapid change in thinking and action on the environmental front going on in many parts of the world.

Whether progress can arrest (or even reverse) the damaging effects of the past decades and centuries is yet to be seen.