Volume 355

DVDs
Gran Torino (1.5 Spuds)
Babylon AD (1.5 Spuds)

TV SHOWS
The Philanthropist  (1 Spud)
Royal Pains (1.5 Spuds)
Hung (2 Spuds)

SPUDITORIAL

Sara Palin (My Favourite Politichick)

KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

The first heatwave of the summer is winding down. The night is cool and calm and for the first time in a few days, I’m sitting here without the fan blowing on me and the air conditioner humming down at the far end of  Spud Central. I’m not a big fan of heat and humidity, a dislike I’m sure I share with millions. I don’t like the way it makes you feel like you always need a shower. I don’t like the way it drains your energy. I don’t like the way it makes a good night’s sleep so difficult to achieve. People are generally more grumpy when it’s hot and humid. In the areas of the world where it’s hot and humid all the time, people life a different kind of life. They know how to keep still and not waste energy. Here in the Centre of the Universe however, life’s overachieving breakneck pace continues regardless of the temperature or the humidex. The accounts for a lot of things like spikes in road rage, domestic violence and general idiotic behaviour on the part of those who think that half a dozen beers will actually cool you down in a heatwave.

But that’s all in the past for now as I just went and opened the window and sure enough, it’s finally cooler outside Spud central than it is inside. Time to crank up the old silent fan and suck some of that cool air in here, ‘cause it’s getting close to beddy-bye time for this Spud. Tomorrow is domestic chore day, with windows to clean and grass to cut and garbage of all kinds of manage.

DVDS

GRAN TORINO (1.5 SPUDS)

This is probably the lamest Clint Eastwood movie ever, except for that one where he drove around in a Cadillac with a chimpanzee. In it he plays this bigoted old fart who has just lost his wife, who becomes reluctantly involved with a family of Vietnamese people who live next door. Clint’s character is a Korean war vet and doesn’t take any crap form anyone, especially the gang that’s trying to recruit the teenage boy in the Vietnamese family.

I’m not gonna tell you much more, cause this movie is kinda lame. Clint’s character growls a lot, which I found pretty dopey. The setting is depressing, the acting overall is crap, the script is mediocre, and the ending, while not that dumb, is extremely manipulative. There are a couple of decent scenes in the film, but mostly it’s all kinda hammy. I guess we can allow Clint a brain fart every twenty years or so. And Gran Torino really does fit the description to a T. If you want to see a good Clint Eastwood movie, try Unforgiven,  Changeling, Absolute Power, Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil, The Outlaw Josie Wales, Mystic River or Play Misty For Me.

BABYLON AD (1.5 SPUDS)

Vin Deisel has a type, and it’s very seldom that he plays against it. His type can best be defined as ‘Badass’. And in this semi good, but slightly confusing sci-fi  thriller. He’s as badass as he has ever been.

Babylon AD is set in a post apocalyptic world, where Vin, a retired smuggler, is exiled to somewhere in Russia. He gets a request from another badass higher up the food chain to deliver a girl to The Big Apple, for which he will be paid enough money to retire to his parents old farm in upstate New York. Since anything is better than what’s going on in his life at the moment, Vin takes the assignment, smuggling the girl in to the US across the Bering Straits etc. What we see here is a lot of big post apocalyptic CGI sets and thousands of extras dressed in post apocalyptic rags, as they make their way out of Russia and into the USA. Vin has to kill quite a few people, but he’s really good at it, since his self-proclaimed motto is “These days, you can never really have enough firepower.”

After the movie moves to the New York CGI sets, things start to get a little confusing. It was like, hey this is a great road picture, but now we’ve gotta actually have some story line here and what are we gonna do about that? I admittedly lost track of things here. But Vin was still being pretty badass, so I was still watching.

I won’t tell you any more about this other than to say if you like raw post apocalyptic sci fi, this is pretty good stuff to watch. If, however, you like a story that actually makes some sort of sense, well you may be disappointed. Hence the less than two spud but more than one rating.

TV SHOWS

THE PHILANTHROPIST  (1 SPUD) (Wednesdays @ 10:00)

IN A NUTSHELL: This really rich businessman, played by South African actor James Purefoy, decides he’s not doing enough, personally, to help the needy people of the world. So he decides to dedicate his life to doing just that. This is brought about as a result of getting caught in a cyclone in Nigeria and saving a young boy’s life. It’s all very touching and very dramatic. PEDIGREE: This series is created by Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana, whose company created among other things, Homicide-Life On The Street and Oz, which are both amazing shows, so that kinda made things more interesting, cause these guys are real heavy hitters. FEARLESS FORECAST: I found myself puzzled by the pilot episode. I wasn’t really sure if I should be taking this seriously or not. After all, the lead character is sitting in a bar telling this story to the bartender who keeps telling him he’s full of crap. He’s doing it all in a kind of tongue in cheek fashion, yet all the action that takes place is really quite serious looking and sounding. So what we have here is a show with two distinct personalities. That means that either the producers and writers really blew it, in which case everybody will think the show is a joke, or they just haven’t figured out how light or how serious to make the show and will hopefully decide in the next episode, which I will watch. But if it’s as wonky as this one was, that will be it for me. I hope not though, because I really like James Purefoy. He’s a real star quality leading man, and I also really like the idea because it’s positive and refreshing for network TV. FOLLOW UP: The same inconsistencies in tone haunt this episode as well. I feel as if these people are trying some sort of dramatic experiment and it’s just not working. Final verdict: 1 Spud.

ROYAL PAINS (1.5 SPUDS) (Sundays @ 9:00)

IN A NUTSHELL: This doctor (named Hank) from Manhattan gets blacklisted in the Big Apple and through the kind of dumb luck that only happens in TV shows, ends up with his brother in a big mansion in the Hamptons, where da rich folk lives. He and his brother decide to open what they call a concierge medical practice for da rich folks who, for one reason or another, don’t want other rich folks or any folks at all to know they are ailing. Somewhere in the first act the Doctor played ably by Mark Feurstein acquires an assistant in the form of a drop dead gorgeous east Indian doctor (Reshma Shetty), and away they go. PEDIGREE: Created by Andrew Lenchewski, who comes pretty much right out of nowhere. FEARLESS FORECAST: This is light entertainment like Northern Exposure, but by no means in the same league. It was kind of enjoyable, but I somehow got the feeling that everything about the rollout of this concept is going to be extremely clichéd. I’ll give it another look, cause hey it’s summertime and the pickin’ are slim. According to TV.com, it did pretty good in its premiere so who knows. I sure as hell don’t.

HUNG (2 SPUDS)

IN A NUTSHELL: This teacher in Detroit whose name is Ray has watched his life, along with the life of his city, go to hell in a handbasket. Everything in his life that could go wrong has and Ray is actually living in a tent in the back yard of his parent’s house, which has burned partially down. In an attempt to turn things around Ray decides to capitalize on his main asset, which is the fact that he is a well-hung individual and very good in bed. Hence the title. PEDIGREE: This series was created and is run by Dimitry Lipkin, whose main claim to fame is the creation of The Riches, a series which ran only two season but is incredibly worth seeing especially for the performances of Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard. FEARLESS FORECAST: The first episode of this series is a bit of a downer, mainly because Mr Lipkin is establishing the circumstances which bring about the real story. Thomas Jane is cast perfectly as Ray. He’s good looking but not devastatingly so. He’s smart but not too smart, and he’s very personable, which is kinda necessary if your gonna carry a really good show. I can see where this show is headed and I like it. I hope it’s a monster hit for Mr Lipkin and he gets to do a bunch of other series. Because so far he’s been nothing but real entertaining.

SPUDITORIAL – SARAH PALIN FOR PRESIDENT…OH BOY

Just when we all needed some much deserved relief from all the chatter about the economy, gun totin’, home state scandal ridden, ex-beauty queen, just plain folks Sarah Palin has decided to step up and do her patriotic duty and distract everybody for a while with her Machiavellian plan to usurp Barack Obama in 2012.

I for one couldn’t be happier. I found this woman strangely alluring in spite of the fact that she is completely full of shit, has little or no political acumen, and probably not a snowball’s chance in hell of even getting close to the Republican nomination (I mean that can’t be that stupid again), let alone the presidential race. Sarah is plucky as all get out, I’ll give her that. And pretty hot looking for a 45 year old. But-the-sad-but-true fact is that every comedy writer from New York to LA is following her like a hawk, because this is the stuff that great prime time, late night and HBO Comedy special jokes are made of, especially in this day and age where top notch political bullshit is so hard to come by. And while the straight press will do their level best to flush her down the crapper, it’s not those people she has to worry about, because nobody trusts or gives a shit about the press these days, except for the people who are manipulating them. No what Sara has to worry about is Jay Leno, Dave Letterman, Conan Obrien, John Stewart, Lewis Black, Stephen Colbert, Saturday Night Live and Mad TV, and everybody else with their own TV Bully Pulpit plus a about a zillion bloggers who are going to very quickly become Sara’s worst nightmare.
A long time ago Elizabeth Taylor said that any publicity was good publicity, but that was back in the dark ages when everyone believed just about everything they saw or read in the press. But we all know that the times have changed, in fact you could strongly argue the converse of Liz’s statement these days, especially when you consider the viciousness with which that publicity is going to be gained. I’m not an American or anything close, but if I were, I’d be rolling my eyes right about now and singing softly to myself the immortal words of The Who….We Won’t Get Fooled Again! No. No. No. No. No. No.

MY  TWITTER LINKS

My regular twitter location
http://twitter.com/jimbobmur
I’m starting to post mini reviews and new show heads-ups there, so if you’re twittering, it’s a useful follow.

I also have a new twitter for ourgreendirectory.com
http://twitter.com/OurGreenDirctry
The site is actually on line now at http://www.ourgreendirectory.com. But we’re not making a big deal out of it until a) we have all the kinks ironed out, and there are a few. And b) we are through with our holidays. I’m actually taking one this year. We’ll probably start getting serious about it in late August, early Sept.

Volume 354

DVDs
Get Smart (1.5 Spuds)
Paul Blart Mall Cop (No Spud 4U)

TV SHOWS
True Blood (2 Xl Spuds)

BOOKS…YEAH BOOKS
John Sandford

KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

VOLUME 354

It’s the middle, and I mean right smack in the middle, of June, and it’s an absolutely perfect night. I went out and stood in the back yard for a few minutes. Just to feel the perfect night on my skin. Its not like the day with the sun beating down through an ever thinning layer of ozone, making the air feel like really fine sandpaper. The air on this perfect night felt like a thin layer of velvet. I could have stood there for a long time, basking in it. Feeling absolutely calm, my mind emptied out, just for a brief  instant, and I got to experience genuine tranquility.

Of course a brief instant is all you are allowed in this life. Some homey drove by in his little Honda playing nihilistic gangsta rock at 3000 dp. The yappy little shit for brains poodle next door did her routine. And some clown walked by telling somebody his whole freaking life story on a cell phone, talking way too loud, like anything he has to say is going to actually impress anyone. Poof.  But there’s a moral to be drawn here and that is to simply savour, for all they are worth, any precious moments of tranquility that fate deigns to push your way. They are worth their weight in gold. But only last as long as an echo.

TRUE BLOOD  SEASON 2  (2 XL SPUDS)

You may recall that I raved quite loudly and long about how incredible this series is. As we move into Season 2, it just gets better and better. I’m pretty sure that this series owes a whole lot to the brilliant David Lynch/Mark Frost series Twin Peaks, which in turn owes a lot to The Prisoner, which in turn owes a lot to, Kirosawa and Orson Welles  and so it goes. There’s a long broken trail of surrealists who were also popular in film and TV, and now True Blood creator Alan Ball is carrying the torch.

On the surface, True Blood is a series about vampires. But beneath the surface it’s really a series about how damn strange just about everybody is. Every character in this series is something other than human, and what the series itself is doing is just revealing exactly what they are one tantalizing bit at a time. There is no way for me to measure how much I love and admire this kind of TV, and I really don’t think it would have been possible, none of it, without the vision of HBO, the USA Network, Showtime and FX, among others, who have contributed in a major way to the overall quality of good TV these days. And by so doing, they have forced the more conservative conventional networks to clean up their acts and start competing with shows like House, Lie To Me, The Unusuals, Southland, and a bunch of others. Who says competition isn’t good for the marketplace? In TVland that’s never been truer. But I digress.

True Blood is just plain fascinating gothic TV entertainment at its finest. This season some of the minor story lines ie character lines are being expanded, just in case were getting bored…not. The actors are really comfortable in their roles and the writing is sharper than ever. This is amazing stuff. We have season one as a top priority for re-viewing at the cottage this summer. Nuff said.

GET SMART (1.5 SPUDS)

Since I have always prided myself on being fairly discerning about TV , the original Get Smart Series with deadpan Don Adams only made a glancing blow on my psyche. To wit I only really remember the shoe phone and a couple of the classic Don Adams quips. But I knew enough about it to understand that it wasn’t what you would call sophisticated humour, or maybe that was just some sort of oxymoron back in the day.

But I was kind of interested in seeing how they would treat a feature film of the same name in this day and age. So while the wife was partying with the girls all weekend I went out and got it.

I really wasn’t expecting to be able to watch this film all the way through, but I have always liked Steve Carrell, who plays Max Smart and was curious to see what he would do with the part, since he’s not really a slapstick comic actor, a la Kevin Nealon.

Well…I have to say that the movie really wasn’t half bad. They managed to get in all the typical Get Smart schtick, but nowhere in the film did you ever get the impression that Carrell’s character was some sort of idiot, which I have to say, was a real step up from Don Adams. Yeah, I didn’t take anything very seriously, but the screenplay, the production values and the supporting cast helped to make this movie more of a sophisticated (and big budget) spoof of spy movies in general, but not at the expense of anyone’s dignity.

The bottom line is that you can watch this movie and chuckle, be entertained but never really have your intelligence pummeled by its stupidity. It’s not really a two spud movie experience, but you know what…it’ll pass in a pinch, and it’s certainly nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it’s not really bad at all.

PAUL BLART MALL COP (NO SPUD 4U)

There was a great John Candy movie called Armed & Dangerous made back in the last century about a fired cop who becomes a security guard. This movie is in the same mould. However, that’s where the similarities end. John Candy was a great comic actor. Kevin James, who plays the Paul Blart role, is really not much more than TV guy from a popular sitcom who is trying to make it in the movies. So far, not so good. The best thing he’s done is a supporting role in the Will Smith vehicle, Hitch. And this flick is pretty much right up there (or down there) with the Adam Sandler miscue, I Now Pronounce you Chuck & Larry.

I have to confess, I only watched about half of this flick. That’s about all I could take.
But I have learned over the years that you don’t really have to watch a whole bad movie to know it’s bad.

Loveable loser movies only really work if the Loser is actually loveable. And there’s something about Kevin James that simply isn’t. He always looks a little pissed off. He doesn’t have the genuine funny-ness in this personality that guys like Eddie Murphy, John Candy and Martin Short have.

In this flick he plays an overly officious Mall Cop who nobody takes seriously because he takes himself way too seriously. He’s madly in love with a beautiful wig kiosk owner and he’s been rejected by the New Jersey State police force about 8 times, because he’s hypoglycemic.

This movie fails to provide James with a decent sidekick to cushion some of the blow of the awful script and give him some much needed humanity. It also, as it turns out is a movie that is more about failure than success and that, all by itself is enough to bum you out totally.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on too long about a movie that sucked. I wish Kevin James a lot of luck. And I think he might just stumble across some luck one of these days if he stops trying to be the next John Candy. They broke the big mould when they made that dude.

BOOKS, YEAH BOOKS

JOHN SANDFORD – THE ARCH DUKE OF MINNESOTA

A lot of writers in the thriller/mystery/crime area tend to stay pretty localized. James Lee Burke, Tami Hoag and Greg Iles write about the deep south, Stuart Woods sets his stuff in New York and New England etc. Well, John Sandford has written an amazing number of books about the Minneapolis/St Paul area of Minnesota. His Prey series has been on the top of my reading list since he started in 1990. This series centres around a cop named Lucas Davenport, who has risen to be a bureaucrat who just can’t leave the street cop behind. The powers that be know that and let him work on the cases that need solving the most, ie the politically motivated ones.

Over the years, Mr Sanford’s style has become less and less formal. It’s like he knows that he has a big following and he’s very relaxed about it. The odd thing is that the less formal his writing has becomes the more entertaining his stories become and the more human and relatable his characters become.

I enjoy reading the Prey books, because he always tries to lay out the criminals point of view. Doing this and playing it off Lucas Davenport’s point of view gives you a really neat x-ray picture of how the cop’s mind works. Because you know who the bad guy is and your satisfaction as a reader comes from watching Lucas Davenport put all the pieces together in his mind, bounce theories off his wife, his step daughter, his other cop pals, his boss, pretty much anyone he comes across including the perp. That’s pretty cool.

In the last book I read, Phantom Prey, the perp describes Davenport thusly, “Yeah, he’s a real nice guy. But an inch below the surface, he’s a dangerous thug.”

In addition to the Prey series, Mr Sandford has also written novels about a computer hacker and famous artist named Kidd and his sidekick LuEllen (a cat burgler), and one of his cops, Virgil Flowers. He’s written some other stuff, but this is the cream of his work.

John Sandford is the pen name of Pulitzer prize winning journalist John Camp. He lives in Minnesota and knows the place like the back of his hand, which gives his work a real authenticity that most thriller writers can only dream about.

JOHN SANDFORD BOOKOGRAPHY

Lucas Davenport
1. Rules of Prey (1989)
2. Shadow Prey (1990)
3. Eyes of Prey (1991)
4. Silent Prey (1992)
5. Winter Prey (1993)
6. Night Prey (1994)
7. Mind Prey (1995)
8. Sudden Prey (1996)
9. Secret Prey (1998)
10. Certain Prey (1999)
11. Easy Prey (2000)
12. Chosen Prey (2001)
13. Mortal Prey (2002)
14. Naked Prey (2003)
15. Hidden Prey (2004)
16. Broken Prey (2005)
17. Invisible Prey (2007)
18. Phantom Prey (2008)
19. Wicked Prey (2009)

Kidd And LuEllen
1. The Fool’s Run (1989) (writing as John Camp)
2. The Empress File (1991)
3. The Devil’s Code (2000)
4. The Hanged Man’s Song (2003)

Virgil Flowers
1. Dark of the Moon (2007)
2. Heat Lightning (2008)
3. Rough Country (2009)

MY  TWITTER LINKS

My regular twitter location:
http://twitter.com/jimbobmur

I also have a new twitter for ourgreendirectory.com
http://twitter.com/OurGreenDirctry

HOW TO STAY YOUNG BY GEORGE CARLIN

Volume 353

DVDs
Outlander (2 Spuds)
New In Town (1.5 Spuds)

TV SHOWS
New In Town (1.5 Spuds)
The Listener (1.5 Spuds)

KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

I have always had a hot and cold relationship with this column. Sometimes I just love writing it and other times, well it seems a lot like work. The times when it feels like work are at the end of the year when I’m tired and the holiday season is approaching and there’s not much in the way of movies or TV to write about. And the other time is right around now, when I’m suffering from spring fever and there’s not much in the way of movies or TV to write about. Are you starting to sense a pattern here? I am. So I have decided that if I have little to write about, then I will just write a little column and learn to live with it.

I write this column in Word and never seem to feel it’s done until I have filled up 4 or 5 pages. Very seldom have I written any less than that. I have somehow felt that anything less than that would be inadequate. But I‘m here to report that I have since revised my thinking and come to the conclusion that it really is quality and not quantity that governs The Couch Potato Chronicles. So this issue will probably be a little shorter than the others. This will have the benefit of giving you a little more free time…so use it wisely.

DVDs

OUTLANDER (2 SPUDS)

Outlander is a strange sort of sci-fi movie in that it takes place in the seventh century. It’s kind of a left field take on the old Norse Beowulf legend. The highly versatile Jim Caviezel plays an alien human who has crash landed his space ship on earth and accidently brought something nasty with him.

Outlander is very clever in the way that good sci-fi films have of being very clever and very rough hewn which is a characteristic of big budget European period pieces. This film is beautifully orchestrated, photographed and edited. It never flags or gets too wrapped up in itself. It’s full of clever stuff and neat characters. It’s scary, because the monster in the movie is a real bad-ass. So it’s got just about everything you look for in a sci-fi period piece including a bit of a love story. But with Jim Caviezel, the love story parts are always a bit odd.

This movie is also notable because the writer/director team are relatively inexperienced in the making of big time movies, having really only worked on one other cinematic release (Underworld-Rise of the Lycans). Just goes to show you how much talent there is out there in movieland.

Now you should know there are a lot of pretty brutal effects in this film, so if you’re not a big fan of blood and gore, well maybe this isn’t for you. But if you like your sci-fi with a good healthy doze of  7th century Viking testosterone, well this could be right in your wheelhouse. I loved it.

NEW IN TOWN (1.5 SPUDS)

This is one of those real American films that are just right for the times. In it, Rene Zellweger (who looks very hot in parts of this movie) plays a food company exec who is sent to Minnesota to oversee the downsizing of a food processing plant. From there on in it’s all kinda predictable, but pleasant to watch, mainly because of the characters. They all, except for Renee and her co-stars Harry Connick Jr , are no bullshit people and talk with these charming Northern US accents like the characters did in Fargo.

It’s a cute little story with the underpinning of a morality play about American ingenuity, and of course, romance. This is not a very funny romantic comedy, but as the wife says “at least nobody got murdered”. The Wife’s Threshold for murder and mayhem, is quite a bit lower than mine.

New In Town is a charming little film with some big time stars in it. It’s worth checking out, especially as good stuff to watch on video becomes harder and harder to come by.

TV

MENTAL (1 SPUD)

IN A NUTSHELL: This is about the mental health wing of some great Metropolitan Hospital in La La Land. There’s this Aussie shrink who just got hired to run the wing and he’s one of those new age guys who believe that crazy people are people too, unlike most of his staff, who believe that crazy people are just nutbars. Anyway each week is just another object lesson in how right the Aussie shrink is. There’s also a back story that has something to do with his ex-wife who keeps calling him on the phone and not saying anything. Guess she’s some sort of nutbar too. FEARLESS FORECAST: All this really amounts to is some little explored area of medicine that’s never had a TV show created for it. Everything about it is clichéd. The characters aren’t particularly endearing, and the stories are kinda lame. But it’s got real slick production values which will fool some of the brain dead idiots all of the time but not all of them all of the time, and probably fewer of them as time goes by. It’s also seems to have shorter segments and shorter but more frequent commercial breaks, which pisses me off to no end. I don’t think this show has much of a chance of surviving the six eps they probably bought. But who knows. The prime time TV cupboard is pretty bare these days.

THE LISTENER (1.5 Spuds)

IN A NUTSHELL: This thoughtful looking young paramedic somehow has the ability to read peoples’ thoughts. this, in turn forces him to become a spontaneous liar, involuntary good samaritian and reluctant hero all at the same time. FEARLESS FORECAST: This is not the greatest series I’ve ever seen. But is unabashedly set in Toronto and it tries really hard to be as interesting as it can. The paramedic guy played by Craig Olejnik is very interesting and will probably grow into a big Canadian TV star a la Paul Gross. But that and $3.50 will get you a double decaf latte at Starbuck’s. The simple fact is that this series lacks a lot of the punch of even mediocre American series’ such as Mental. The real breakthrough here is that this is the first ever (or so I’m informed) CBS/CTV  co-production. So I’m hoping that it gets better just to keep that relationship alive and kicking. But at the end of the day, if I had to choose between the Listener or The Mentalist…it would be a no brainer.

VIDEOS THAT DON’T SUCK BLOG

You all got this message about a week or so ago, but evidently the more links I post on this blog the better it is for yours spudly. So here’s the news again.

OK…it’s been a long time coming but I have finally put up my Videos That Don’t Suck Listings on a blog so everybody can get at it easily, and I can update it along with the posting of each new column.  I’ve put the URL in the email that accompanies this posting announcement.

Please bookmark it and use it for reference.

http://onwordsandupwords.wordpress.com

SPORTSPUDITORIAL

RIP Denver Nuggets. Nobody would have believed you would have gone this far, cause nobody really took you seriously. Guess you showed them. And hey, there’s always next year.

Congratulations to the Lakers. I know this final series isn’t over yet, but hey, I can see the writing on the wall. They may even throw the next game so they can get back home to win and have all the big time celebs at their celebration. I still hate the Lakers. But I can still feast on the pure joys of having watched them get devoured by the Celtics in last year’s final.

Congratulations to Sid The Kid and the rest of his Penguins for giving us all one of the best Stanley Cup series I’ve seen in quite some time. Outside of the Junior Tournament that starts on Boxing Day, this is the only hockey I watch or really give a shit about. I know that sounds UnCanadian. But not so much when you live in Toronto and have the world’s most underperforming/underachieveing hockey club for your home team. Hockey is a great game when it’s played well. So I just choose to watch the best and leave the blood sport regular season out of my life. I get enough gratuitous violence from TV and movies.

MY  TWITTER LINKS

My regular twitter location
http://twitter.com/jimbobmur

I also have a new link for ourgreendirectory.com
http://twitter.com/greenieguy

VOLUME 352

BIG SCREEN
Star Trek (2 Spuds)
Wolverine-Origins (2 Spuds0

DVDs
Caprica (2 spuds)

TV SHOWS
A SHOUT OUT FOR SOUTHLAND

BOOKS…YEAH BOOKS
STUART WOODS

KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

Well it looks like we’re quickly moving into the balmier days of spring. It’s supposed to go up to the low twenties today. Good days to get on the old Spudcycle and head downtown for whatever trumped up reason I can think of. Steaks at the St Lawrence Market. Paperbacks at ABC or the big Goodwill Store in Greenwin Place on Bloor. Hooking up with my friend Alex Stirling to talk about the web site he needs to do and some reference I have to give him so he can raise his ranking in the world of academia. Or you don’t really have to have any reason at all. Just get on and go.

What I like about where I live, on the east side, is that it’s real easy to get almost anywhere I’d want to go on a bike. I can get up to the good cheap fruit stores on the Danforth, by going up Greenwood (the shortest hill). I can get anywhere downtown along Gerrard, Dundas or Queen. I can get way downtown on the Lakeshore bike trail. And once I’m on the bike path I can go just about anywhere I like, as long as I am prepared for a hefty climb at the end.

This city is good for bike traveling. What really surprises me the most is that there are so few people on bikes. Maybe it’s because there are so many fashion victims here who just don’t want to ruin their designer togs by riding in to work. No they’d rather putter around wasting gas and spending a fortune on parking. I think North America, and maybe just the eastern part, is the last holdout of the dress for successors. Power ties. Designer suits…it’s all pretty sad for the most part. Especially when these people could be out enjoying the great weather (which we get so little of ). Oh well, it’s their loss.

I’m heading out this morning to take the Wife’s computer into the show for a diagnostic. It’s been acting very badly since she installed a program called Parallels, which allows her to run Windows on her Mac. Since then the computer has been crashing all the time and doing all kinds of other strange stuff. Usually I can figure out what’s wrong and fix it. But this time I’m stumped.

AT THE MOVIES (UH HUH)

With a top notch home theatre system and a basic adversity to being in dark rooms with large crowds of humans, it takes a lot of get me down to the cinema. But by the same tokenthe summer blockbuster season has started and no self-respecting spud would go through it without at least checking out a couple of the must-see-on-the-big-screens.

STAR TREK (2 XL SPUDS)

Over the years, I have been a highly devoted fan of Star Stek. From Sunday mornings with my pal Keith Butler at the first apartment the Wife and I lived in at Avenue Road  &  401, till last Sunday at the Beaches Cinema, Star Trek, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and all the movies were something I never missed.

So when I heard, early last year, that JJ Abrams (the new Steve Spielberg) was taking a crack at it, I thought, OK…this should be something to see up big and bold. And I’ll tell you right now, I was not disappointed.

This Star Trek concerns itself mainly with the first voyage of the Enterprise, with James Kirk and the crew all fresh out of Star Fleet Academy and loaded for bear. It also reveals a few things that weren’t previously known, which I found fascinating literary license on the part of JJ.

Now besides having a great story to tell, and the introduction of the characters for the first time, this movie is a lot less stylized and iconoclastic that any of the other Star Trek movies which preceded it. This movie is much more a a fly by the seat of your pants adventure. It’s much more visceral and lively. The characters are in much more danger most of the time and there is a real ruthlessness to the way the characters approach their roles. This of course is mainly the result of brilliant direction by a guy who knows how to tell a story, how to choreograph action and best of all, how to keep everything from becoming too serious. I mean, hey…it’s a movie after all.

I saw half hour doc on the making of this movie on the Space Channel. I guess they were playing to the ST Nerds out there, by trying to explain that they worked very hard  to maintain the historical accuracy, which is completely absurd when you think about it. I mean…it’s a fictional world already, you can get over all that…or maybe not because the Nerds write the blogs and the blogs influence the wanna be nerds and that could add up to a lot of box office revenue. Kinda sucks but that’s the way it is.

For the rest of us, Star Trek is just a cracking good adventure story with characters we remember fondly, well represented by a new generation of actors who are not trying to parody those character, but actually be younger versions of them. It’s also, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of another great movie franchise, as well as another gaudy peacock feather in the cap of the prodigious Mr JJ Abrams, as he moves steadily to the top of the movie maker food chain. I will go see anything this dude has anything to do with.

DVDs

X MEN ORIGINS – WOLVERINE

It’s 4:30 on a Friday. The Wife and I are sharing the theatre with 4 other people but they are way behind us, so it feels like an absolutely private screening, complete with an annoying series of crappy commercials (whatever happened to creative cinema advertising?) and about half a dozen previews, mostly for animated flicks, the movie mercifully appeared.

This movie, like Star Trek starts at the very beginning of the Wolverine’s life, which was way back in the mid 1800. I can’t tell you too much more than that about the story without being a pain in the ass spoiler, so I won’t.
What I will tell you is that this movie is a lot more rough and tumble and grittier than the three X-Men movies which preceded it. And that makes sense, because Wolverine’s (long)  life has mainly been about violence and killing in  one way or another.

Hugh Jackman, currently the world sexiest man (duh, I thought that was me), is his usual snarling self, Up for any kind of battle, also way more than happy to rip your guts out if you’re a bad guy Yadda Yadda.

This movie, like Star Trek, just rattles along at a pretty breakneck pace. There’s a hell of a lot of good pyrotechnics and mutant characters who are really interesting. If you have watched any of the X-Men movies, you probably already know who the enemy is, and of course, it’s delightfully set up for a sequel at the end, and I mean, the very end after all the credits have rolled. So stick around already.

I like the X-Men. I like anything that takes me out of the reality of life, and this movie certainly does its bit to achieve that end. Good stuff. Not as good as Star Trek, which is great stuff. But two spuds all the same.

TV

CAPRICA (2 SPUDS)

The Boy is a big fan of Battlestar Gallactica. Myself, I’m more an admirer. I was into the first series back in the 90s, but the latest run (03 to 08) not so much. There’s no denying it’s power, however, and the loyalty of its audience. If you don’t know the core story, it’s really about a race of robots that were created by men. They were called Cylons, and as robots often do in sci-fi, they kept getting smarter and more uppity until they finally ended up declaring war on mankind. So basically Battlestar Gallactica, at least in its most recent iteration, is really all about fighting the Cylons.

Caprica is a two hour TV movie created by the Battlestar Gallactica people to shed a little light on just where the dreaded Cylons came from. It’s actually an early release pilot episode  for a series that will be starting in the fall, that will chronicle the rise of the Cylons from their inception, which took place on a planet called, you guessed it, Caprica.

In Caprica, trusty Bruce Greenwood, TVs fair haired mad scientist, plays a robotics mogul who inadvertently invents the Cylons as part of a government funded project to develop smart  robotic soldiers. I won’t tell you how he does it, because it’s insanely clever sci-fi. But the BG people are all about the sci-fi and this movie nabbed me right from the get go.

One of the interesting things about word in which this show takes place is that it is divided along theistic lines, much like out world is now. But it’s not so much about specific religions, but specific belief systems.

Caprica is well funded, very slick sci-fi entertainment that will undoubtedly capture a solid audience, which includes me. The Wife, not so much. But hey, differences of opinion are what make horse races.

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE (2 XL SPUDS)

This is, bar none, the most entertaining show on TV at this time of year. It’s going into its fifth season and it has probably done more for the world of dance than A Chrous Line’s hundred year run on Broadway.

This show epitomizes everything that great TV should be. Great to look at, fun, interesting, emotional and powerful. This is absolutely must see TV around Spud Central right up to September when the winner is decided. But unlike most of these elimination contest shows, this show isn’t really about the winners at all. It’s about the tryers. Getting there really is all the fun on this show. The kinds who make it through the auditions, which have just wrapped up, go to Las Vegas where they compete for 20 places on the show. But at that point, everybody, no matter what, is a winner. They are going to get to work with the best choreographers in the business, get a crash course in just about every style of dance, and get to push themselves way beyond any limits they may have thought they had.

The net effect for them is amazing, just as it is for all of us watching.

I don’t care about the mechanics of the show, I don’t care who wins or loses, or who gets eliminated, although the wife and I have loads of fun speculating, or even who is left standing at the end. Nope…all we care about it the journey. In a weird way, it kind of  bolsters your faith in human nature and makes you feel good about the generation of people coming up in the art. The people who make it through to the contest are not just amazingly talented, they are also fanatically dedicated and extremely strong. Because this show pushes its contestants to the limits. And unlike the nasty crap that goes on with evil shit like Survivor and Big Brother et al, this show is all about supporting your fellow competitors.

Like I said, perfect TV. If you’re not watching this all summer, you are really missing something special.

A SHOUT OUT FOR SOUTHLAND

I wasn’t really sure about this series when it first hit the air. Thought it was a little to broadly based. I guess maybe I had forgotten just how much I liked Hill Street Blues. This series is getting better and better.

BOOKS…YEAH BOOKS

STUART WOODS

I’ve probably been reading Stuart Woods for as long as I have been reading any author outside of Elmore Leonard. I like his work because it is deceptively simple. And he always tends to write from the point of view of the character, which is something I have personally always preferred. Stuart wrote a bunch of books early on that were about a bunch of different characters. Then he started writing a bunch of books about a few character and then started tying them all together. It’s pretty cool the way that works.

I personally prefer the Stone Barrington series, which also involves Holly Barker and tend to be more about espionage than everyday crime.

The best thing about Stuart Woods is how amazingly readable his books are and how ingenious he can actually be without really jumping through a lot of literary hoops to do it.

Stuart Woods Bookography

Chiefs (1981)
Run Before the Wind (1983)
Deep Lie (1986)
Under the Lake (1987)
White Cargo (1988)
Grass Roots (1989)
Palindrome (1990)
New York Dead (1991)
Santa Fe Rules (1992)
L.A. Times (1993)
Dead Eyes (1994)
Heat (1994)
Imperfect Strangers (1995)
Choke (1995)
Dirt (1996)
Dead in the Water (1997)
Orchid Beach (1998)
Swimming to Catalina (1998)
Worst Fears Realized (1999)
The Run (2000)
L.A. Dead (2000)
Cold Paradise (2001)
Orchid Blues (2001)
Short Forever, the (2001)
Blood Orchid (2002)
Dirty Work (2003)
Capital Crimes (2003)
Reckless Abandon (2004)
Prince of Beverly Hills, the (2004)
Two-Dollar Bill (2005)
Dark Harbor (2006)
Short Straw (2006)
Fresh Disasters (2007)
Shoot Him If He Runs (2007)
Santa Fe Dead (2008)
Hot Mahogany (2008)

SPORTSPUDITORIAL

RIP Denver Nuggets. Nobody would have believed you would have gone this far, cause nobody really took you seriously. Guess you showed them. And hey, there’s always next year.

MY  TWITTER LINK

http://twitter.com/jimbobmur

Special Top 10 List Posting

By popular demand and because I can’t seem to find it in the coloums I have posted in the past few months, here’s one of my favourite top 10 lists.

The 10 Best TV Series You Have Probably Never Seen

1. True Blood – Modern day vampire tale created by Alan Ball.

2. The Starter Wife — Great Hollywood dramady starring Deborah Messing

3. Burn Notice — Terrific comedy action adventure series about modern day spies

4. Damages — Taut and complex legal drama series starring Glenn Close

5. Californication — Very intelligent Black Comedy starring David Duchovney

6. John From Cincinatti – Hard to find surrealist 10 part mini series created by David Milch (Deadwood))

7. Dead Like Me — Short lived but amazing dramady about Grim Reapers starring Mandy Patankin

8. Leverage — Mission Impossible Lite dramady series starring Timothy Hutton and created by Dean Devlin.

9. Dirt – Short lived (19 episodes), series about the Hollywood Tabloid business starring Courtney Cox

10. Saving the best for last — Dexter – Action/Comedy/Drama starring Michael C Hall as blood splatter analyist/serial killer. Into its third season and probably the best TV series of all time.

VOLUME 351

DVDs
Nothing But The Truth (1.5 Spuds)

TV SHOWS
Current Top 10 Network Shows
At Spud Central

KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

I like a lot of things about this time of year.. I like the fact that I can go outside wearing just what I was wearing inside. No more. No less. I like that I don’t feel like I need a shower all the time because it’s too hot, or I need to warm up cause its too cold. I like that I can drive around in the Spudmobile with the windows open instead of being hermetically sealed with the heater or air conditioner blasting. I like that everybody seems a little happier cause the winter is over. I like that I can start accumulating books for my cottage vacation this summer. I like that I can sit around at night and watch baseball with the windows open. I like that the trees are budding and everything out there smells clean and fresh. I like that the NBA playoffs are on and heating up nicely. I like that I sleep better when the nights are not too cold or hot. I like hearing the sound of the trains, half a mile up the road as they come rumbling by late at night. I like a lot of things about this time of year. I even like the billowing black thunderheads that are moving in from the Upper Great Lakes to pour rain down upon my already too long grass.

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH (1.5 SPUDS)

This is a movie written and directed by Rod Lurie, one of those chatty writers from TV whose big movie claim to fame was The Contender, back in 2000. He likes to write about political stuff and he’s pretty much in the same league as Aaron Sorkin in that regard.

This film is all about a reporter for a Washington newspaper who breaks a big story that causes a government scandal and so the government comes after her, with both guns blazing, to reveal her source. Of course she doesn’t do that, because she has her honour, Yadda Yadda. And she ends up going to jail for contempt and then for interfering with a federal investigation. There’s supposed to be a really good reason why she isn’t coughing up her informant and it constituted the surprise ending. But it’s kinda dopey.

Kate Beckinsale plays the reporter and a whole bunch of other well known people play the  others involved. And while it might have been an interesting episode of some series about newspaper reporters, it sure made for one dull-ass movie, in which Kate spend most of her time in jail, alienating her kid  and forcing her husband into an affair, just to get some nookie and costing her newspaper S10,000 a day in fines.  But all this happens at an excruciatingly slow pace, which is kind of unlike most of Mr Luries other movies. This only gets one spud because it will bore the hell out of you. If you want to see Rod Lurie done well, go rent The Contender or The Last Castle. These flicks actually have a discernable pulse.

TV

CURRENT TOP TEN 2 SPUDS TV SERIES (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)

HOUSE:  House just had its season finale and it was a doozy. I don’t know who writes this stuff, but they definitely live on another planet, where the life forms are a lot smarter than we are here.

CASTLE: Sort of a light cop drama, with Nathan Fillion in the title role as a mystery writer helping out a cute NYPD detective. Very slick. Very entertaining.

TWO AND A HALF MEN: Still the funniest show on TV. They get away with murder on this show from a language point of view. But basically it’s just damn funny.

THE BIG BANG THEORY: This show, about 4 really smart nerds, is our favourite. Jim Parsons is absolutely amazing. Belly laughs from physics. Whoda thunk it?

NCIS:  The five year old spinoff from JAG is still going strong. Likeable characters. Great stories, fascinating bad guys and Mark Harmon, whom the Wife things is still a major hunk.

FRINGE: From the seemingly bottomless idea pit of JJ Abrams, this is one of the edgiest shows on TV. The characters are extremely powerful and the story is one continuous amazing tale of just how weird America really is.

LIE TO ME:  This series about a ‘Deception’ Expert, played by Tim Roth. Just keeps getting better and better. The show postulates that it’s pretty much impossible to conceal deception and the uses for Tim’s (and his crew’s) talent, are extremely wide ranging. This is super slick, big budget TV at it’s best.

RESCUE ME:  This is one of the best shows on TV. Denis Leary has found the perfect outlet for his acting chops and his comic anger, playing Tommy Gavin, a fireman riddled with 9/11 Survivor Guilt. It’s the finest testament to the bravery of all those who lost their lives that day that has ever been done. Leary doesn’t want anyone to forget.

THE UNUSUALS: Another series from Denis Leary and Peter Tolan about a quirky NYPD precinct. The characters are fabulous. The story lines are very New York and the entertainment value is sky high.

NUMBERS:  This show is still going strong. It centres around two brothers: one an FBI bureau team leader and the other a big brain mathematican, who helps the FBI solve complex crimes with math. This is produced by the Scotts (Ridley & Tony) and is one of our faves.

Now obviously I didn’t get everything here. This is really just about my preferences as opposed to popularity. Otherwise shows like 24, Lost, Medium, The Ghost Whisperer And How I Met Your Mother would be on here too. But that’s the way it goes with my column. I get to pick. You get to agree or disagree as you choose. It’s all terribly democratic isn’t it?

THE SPORT SPUD SPEAKETH

THE NBA PLAYOFFS—SO FAR SO OKAY

The NBA Playoffs, which are in the middle of the second round are turning out to be not so must see TV. The two teams that I am following the Cavaliers and my precious Nuggets are dominating their opponents and the only reason these games are worth watching is for the demonstrations of awesome offence and defense that these two teams are putting on. Needless to say, these are the teams I would like to see fighting for the Championship. But there is one more round in between that and b0th teams will have their work cut out for them. Cavs against what looks like The Orlando Magic, who spanked them badly toward the end of the regular season, and who are built pretty much the same way. The Nuggets will have the tougher challenge of probably having to get past the Lakers. But as Charles Barkley said last week, ‘If there’s one team that can beat the Lakers, it’s Denver.” I have been just casually observing these semi final series, but that’s the way I see them shaping up at this point.

WHAT’S UP WITH TIGER? NOTHIN EXCEPT UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

When Tiger Woods came back to the PGA tour after having his left knee completely re-built, he told everyone he felt great. But he is living proof that feeling great and playing great right out the gate are sometimes not necessarily a sure thing. He was bounced out in the first round of the Accenture Match Play Championship, Finished 9th at the WCG CA Championship, won the Arnold Palmer, tied for 6th at the Masters and finished 4th at the Quail Hollow Championship.

For most golfers on the PGA tour, this would be living the dream. But not for Tiger, or at least the Little Old Ladies of Sports Journalism’s perception of him. They accuse him of underperforming, because I guess that gives them something to talk about in place of the reality of the situation.

But let’s look at this realistically.

On one side of the coin, Tiger has won almost 2 million clams so far this season (9th on the money list), which is not bad. He’s had one victory. He’s been sort of in the hunt in every stroke play tournament he’s entered and, in my opinion at least, he can’t be counted out of any tournament he enters and is still able to generate that legendary fear that is part of his edge.

On the other side of the coin however, what I am seeing is an amazing golfer who is learning how to be amazing again. All the Little Old Ladies of sports broadcasting keep asking what’s wrong with him, because he’s not coming out and bulldozing the tour, piling up a ridiculous amount of wins and splitting the field into Tiger and everybody else. What they fail to take into account, (mainly because they can’t afford the luxury), is that rehab takes time. In some cases, lots of time.

What the realist learns from this is that even uberhumans like Tiger Woods need time to adjust to new circumstances. In Tiger’s case, a new leg. By his own admission he had been playing on a bad knee for more than two years. Now the knee is fixed and everything about the way he can now play the game is different. He has to get used to it. In fact, I’m surprised that he has done as well as he has so far this season, all things considered.

So don’t you worry about Tiger. Because at a certain point, he will turn that corner and once again be the force of nature he has been for the past decade. But if you think an athlete, no matter how superbly conditioned and naturally gifted they are, can just leap back to the top of the heap right out of the gate, well the living proof of the contrary is right there. And his name is Tiger.

************
Sorry there’s not really more to write about this time out. I’m watching the Jays a lot, cause they’re winning for a change. I’m following the Nuggets and Cavaliers, my picks for the NBA finals and even a bit of playoff hockey, courtesy of the Penguins and The Washington Capitals.

If you want daily updates on what’s worth watching in prime time. Check out my twitters.

MY TWITTER LINK
http://twitter.com/jimbobmur

Volume 350

DVDs
You Don’t Mess With The Zohan (1.5 Spuds)
Inkheart  (2 Spuds)
In Bruges (1.5 Spuds)

TV SHOWS
Sea Of Souls (2 Spuds)

KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

With this issue of the Couch Potato Chronicles I have reached another milestone, although it may not seem like it to you. You see, I’m pretty anal about my computer files, because the single biggest waste of time that people who work on computers go through is looking for stuff they misplaced or misfiled. So when I finish each column I put it in a folder and I keep 50 columns in each folder. So with the completion of this column, I haven’t just completed Volume 350, I have also completed 7 folders. The reward for me, is getting to open a new folder. Big deal, right? Well, big deals are in the eye of the beholder. Every time I complete a folder I reflect on the fact that this is pretty much the only area of my life, out side of my relationship with The Wife and one or two close friends, where I have managed to sustain my attention for such a prolonged period of time. In my work life, I have only to sustain my attention over the course of a couple of weeks at the most (for a web site or big brochure). But mainly it’s a matter of hours or a few days.  So there you go. 350 Volumes. Seven Folders. 10 + years.  And best of all, showing no signs of letting up.

YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (1.5 SPUDS)

Adam Sandler, since his humble beginnings on Saturday Night Live, has become one of the world’s top grossing movie stars, mainly on the strength of movies that appeal to young movie goers (Little Nicky, Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, The Waterboy, 50 First Dates, Click Bedtime Stories). Maybe its that he’s got that personality that represents, to a lot of young people, a guy who is just cool enough to be cooler than they are, but not too cool to be unattainable or unrelatable. On the other side of the coin, Adam has also made a few extremely good adult oriented pictures, (Anger Management, Punch Drunk Love, Mr Deeds, Spanglish, and the brilliant Reign Over Me).

You Don’t Mess With The Zohan is probably in the younger movie goer category, although it is laced with some very biting satire that adults would get too. Essentially, it’s the story of a crack Israeli commando (The Zohan), who gets tired of all the killing, fakes his own death and descends upon New York with a libido as big as all America and a fierce commando like desire to be a stylist at the Paul Mitchell Salon. Unfortunately his hair styling skills are sadly out of date and he is reduced to apprenticing in a Palestinian (eeek) salon on the lower east side.  Here his past catches up with him in a number of ways. Yadda Yadda.

The first thing to remember about most Adam Sandler movies is that they are essentially cartoons. This is kinda what makes them funny. Everybody in this movie, except a few New Yorkers, has some sort of over the top middle-eastern accent. Most of the dialogue is expressed in the form of bickering, bartering or hustling. Adam’s character is a bit of a misogynist, in that he treats sex with women as something that is his god given right and he has sex with just about every woman in the movie.

I’m not really recommending this film unless you are willing to a) suspend your disbelief a mile, b) keep in mind that this is a cartoon and c) Accept that you may or may not be watching comic genius at work, because d) it’s a very fine line that separates comic genius from ‘this ain’t funny at all.’  Personally, I liked this film, because I think Adam Sandler is brilliant most of the time and I was kind of in the mood for something goofy.

INKHEART  (2 SPUDS)

This movie, made over in Europe somewhere, is a kind of fairy tale about a guy (Brendan Fraser), who has the ability to bring characters in books to life. Unfortunately for Brendan, every time he brings someone to life, someone else has to go back into the book. In one case it’s his wife. And so Brendan is a man on a mission, traveling all over the place looking for a volume of the book he was reading when his wife disappeared and somehow figure out a way to get her back.

Of course it’s a lot more complex than that. This is a fairly big time production and a pretty decent action adventure film as well. It’s intelligent and extremely well produced. And it’s exactly the kind of movie you’d expect to find someone like Brendan Fraser in.

This is not something that you’d probably glom onto instantly. It is after all, primarily intended for kids.  But the fact that the Wife and I both enjoyed it is testimony to the happy reality that we have not completely grown up yet.

IN BRUGES (1.5 SPUDS)

This is one of those Brit/Irish gangster movies about a couple of hit men who are laying low in Bruges Belgium. The hitmen, played by Brendan Gleason and Colin Farrell are supposed to hang out and wait for instructions from their boss, Ralph (pronounced Raif) Fiennes, who is playing way against type as near completely psychotic.

There’s not a whole lot going in Bruges and while Brendan’s character is happy to take in the sights and eat nice meals, Colin’s character, on the other hand, sees Bruges as some sort of European black hole and finds it hard to keep a low profile.

The first half of this movie is kinda slow and pokey and then it gets interesting as we start learning more about the demons that are haunting everyone. I won’t tell you about all that, because if you are a fan of British gangster pics, you will want to see this film and I don’t want to spoil anything. If you’re not a fan of  British gangster pics, then it’s pretty safe to say that you will find this film a little on the slow side. If you want something a little more hyperactive in this genre, there’s always the The Krays, Mona Lisa Smile, Layer Cake and the class in this genre, Sexy Beast, with an absolute killer performance by Ben Kingsley

TV

SEA OF SOULS   (BBC CANADA) (SUNDAYS)

This is a popular Brit series that like Wire In The Blood, consists of 4 to 6  two hour episodes each season. It’s kind of a forensic mystery that centres around a Glasgow Scotland university where a team of investigators deal with various psychic mysteries. I’ve only seen one episode so far. It was about twin sisters who find each other after being separated at a young age and discover they can read and transmit each other’s thoughts.

This is the kind of programming the Brits do very well. These shows are always interesting and quite well-structured as mysteries. This is the kind of stuff you can rent and take to the cottage.

BOOKS…YEAH BOOKS

STEPHEN HUNTER

As we continue the long trudge through my bookcase, we arrive next at Stephen Hunter. Stephen Hunter is a big time film critic who has won all kinds of awards for his journalism.  He is also the author of  a bunch of books that I have really enjoyed reading over the years. Most of his work centres around the lives of two fictional characters whop happen to be father and son, Earl Swagger and Bob Lee Swagger respectively. These guys are both violent, heroic men, who are both, in their own ways, tortured souls.  These novels span the period from about 1945 to the late part of the century, and are prime examples of just how ‘literary’ action adventure novels can be.

Stephen Hunter does his homework and in his work paints a very vivid picture of the periods in which his novels are set. He is also very good with American dialects and the customs of people who live outside the confines of polite society.

I’m currently reading the first one of his Earl Swagger novels, called Hot Springs. This book is pretty amazing. Like Frederick Forsythe, Stephen Hunter manages to weave a lot of real history into his stories and blends it seamlessly with his fictional characters. Hot Springs is a small town in Arkansas that served as the pilot project for Las Vegas, which was being build at the same time, right after WW II, by Bugsy Siegal. It was a corrupt lawless town which Earl Swagger, a Marine war hero and man in need of a mission, helped clean up.

This book is riveting in that it creates amazing suspense and yet is filled with so much detail that it easily transports you back to that time period.

In this book, Earl also has a young son, whom he raised to be a protégé, and who is an amazing marksman. A few years back, a movie called Shooter was made with Mark Whalberg playing Bob Lee Swagger. This was based on the first Bob Lee Swagger novel, called Point of Impact, and it’s really worth seeing. Mark Whalberg is a little too young for the part, but that doesn’t matter a whole lot, because he has the character’s heart and soul down pat.

Stephen Hunter writes about heroics detached from or in spite of politics and he is one of the best in the business at doing that.

Bob Lee Swagger Novels
1. Point of Impact (1993)
2. Black Light (1996)
3. Time to Hunt (1998)
4. The 47th Samurai (2007)
5. Night of Thunder (2008)
6. I, Sniper (2009)

Earl Swagger Novels
1. Hot Springs (2000)
2. Pale Horse Coming (2001)
3. Havana (2003)

Non Swagger Novels
The Master Sniper (1980)
The Second Saladin (1982)
The Spanish Gambit (1985)
The Day Before Midnight (1989)
Dirty White Boys (1994)

SPORTSPUDITORIAL

THE NBA PLAYOFFS – YOU HAVE TO LOOK HARD FOR THE GOOD STUFF
BUT WHEN YOU FIND IT…WOW.

The NBA Playoffs are coming to the end of the first round as of tonight. So far, a lot of the stuff that has happened has been more or less expected. But there were a couple of things I simply didn’t count on and they have made for some compelling sports viewing.

THING ONE – THE RISE OF THE DENVER NUGGETS

The Denver Nuggets got the long end of the stick on a trade with the Detroit Pistons when they sent Alan Iverson and somebody else to the Pistons in return for point guard Chauncey
Billups, who oddly enough grew up in Denver. This trade was great because Chauncy brought some much needed discipline to what was arguably the most wild and wooly team in the NBA–something which Alan Iverson couldn’t do. Since this trade (at the All Star Break), the Nugs have rounded and polished themselves into one of the three or four best teams in the league. It’s amazing the difference one smart point guard can make to a team. Since then the Nuggets have become completely balanced and their franchise player Carmelo Anthony has bossomed into the true superstar that everybody thought he could be. This is probably the only team in the west right now who has a really good shot at beating the Lakers for the Western division championship.

The Nuggets played the New Orleans Hornets in the first series and clearly dominated them winning the first two by a healthy margin and barely losing game three. Then in game 4 something happened to the Nugs. It’s one of those things you see very rarely in pro sports. They somehow dialed up their game on both ends of the court and literally slaughtered the poor Hornets, by the largest margin of victory ever in an NBA playoff game. This was not a great game so much as it was a great performance by a team firing on all cylinders.  If you’re a fan of the Nuggets, which I am, it was a magnificent thing to behold. And I am sure they surprised themselves as much as the sporting world.

THING TWO – THE BOSTON CELTICS VERSUS THE CHICAGO BULLS

The hardest thing to do in most pro sports is to defend your crown. This is something the Boston Celtics are finding out the hard way in their series against the very young Chicago Bulls and their brilliant (rookie of the year) point guard Derrick Rose. This series is remarkable for one key thing…its intensity. These games (six so far) have been so balanced, so hard fought and so physical that it’s actually exhausting to watch them. Four of the six games have been settled in overtime and home court advantage means nothing.

The older Celtics are painfully aware of what’s at stake here. The younger Bulls are just playing their hearts out and can’t believe they are going head to head with the champs and not getting beat down. Every single on of these games has been a classic that fans will be watching for years to come. It’s easily one of the most hard fought series I have ever seen in any sport at any time. These guys are leaving it all on the floor every night and both teams have raised their games to new heights. The only downside is that whoever wins this series is going to be one dead tired collection of puppies when they face the Orlando Magic in the next round.

I’m not sure the young Bulls can prevail in tonight’s game 7. But the way this series has set up so far, it’s a safe bet that they will die trying.

THE TWITTER LINK

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VOLUME 349

MOVIES
Burn After Reading (1.5 Spuds)
Wall-E (2 Spuds)
In The Electric Mist (2 Spuds)

BOOKS/AUTHORS
Michael Connelly

TV
Surviving Suburbia (No Spud 4U)
Parks & Recreation (1 Spud)
Southland (2 Spuds)
The Unusuals (2 Spuds)

KNOW  YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

Today which is Good Friday, so all the stores are closed, as part of my further commitment to spring, I’m going to wash the Spudmobile. This will not only give me a little quality time out in the sun, it will also give me a chance to see how my Shamwow performs outside the house. You may chuckle at the Shamwow reference, but the fact is they are very good. They absorb moisture like crazy and rinse cleaner than sponges. Over the past few weeks I have become quite the Shamwow fan in spite of the fact that the Shamwow spokesman has recently been arrested in Miami for aggravated assault. It’s a funny story.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Technology/ShamWow+arrested+after+hotel+fight+with+woman+Smoking/1436935/story.html

Anyway, as I sit here in Spud Central looking out the window, I  can see that the grass is getting greener and greener. Hope yours is too.

TV

SURVIVING SUBURBIA (NO SPUD 4U)

IN A NUTSHELL: This is a mediocre comedy about life in suburbia. It’s populated with survivors from other mediocre sitcoms and some good shows too (who may be slumming). In the first episode Bob Saget, who I never thought was funny and his hapless neighbour (Jeri Burns), burn down their neighbour’s house. That’s funny? Well I guess it depends on your definition of funny. FEARLESS FORECAST: This show kinda wore out in the first fifteen minutes. It’s pretty awful. If it weren’t for the fact that there’s a shortage of fresh TV these days, I never would have bothered with it. I’m not even gonna tell you when it’s on. Cause if you want to torture yourself in that way, I don’t want to be any part of that. It’s likely they produced 6 episodes of this crud. I predict it will die after that. This will irritate even the most brain dead among us.

PARKS AND RECREATION (1 SPUD)

IN A NUTSHELL: This is a series about an overzealous blonde who works for the parks and rec department of a small city somewhere in America. She has a boss who wants to privatize the park system. An assistant who gets her drunk all the time and watches her do stupid stuff. And associate who slept with her once and appears to be secretly in love with her and an intern who seems to do nothing much. Also, this is being filmed by some documentarian for reasons unknown. FEARLESS FORECAST: This show is a lot like The Office, which I’m sure the derivative thinkers behind the show are hoping people will see and latch onto it with the same ferocity. Unfortunately, in this day and age, shows like this take so long to build an audience that this one could very well be worm food by the time their share reaches and acceptable level. These are not shows that are watched here at Spud Central, simply because they are not entertaining enough.  Parks & Rec has the added bonus of an extremely irritating lead character, which will only serve to bury the show even quicker.

SOUTHLAND (2 SPUDS) (THURSDAYS @ 10:00)

John Wells is a Hollywood writer producer got his start on TV way back in the day on a show called China Beach. He then moved quickly up the food chain to megahit shows like Third Watch, The West Wing, ER, and the outstanding, but shortlived series Smith from a couple of years ago. This guy is a heavy hitter in the industry and this show could be destined to be another John Wells Classic. It’s very good. IN A NUTSHELL: It’s a police drama that follows several different characters both detectives and uniforms through the streets of  hardcore gangbanger territory in LA. One of the uniformed cops is Ben MacKenzie (no relation to Bob and Doug, eh) from the OC, a Beverly Hills brat who nobody believes will make it on the mean streets. The writing on this show is edgy and there were even a few bleeps, which led me to believe that Wells created this show for cable, where freedom of speech is guaranteed, as opposed to network where the pickle is far up the ass. Whatever. It did not detract from the power of this show.  On the flip side, this show is dark and full of nasty stuff. Lots of blood and guts. But the characters are all extremely interesting, even Ben, who I never thought was much of an actor in The OC, has dialed it up a notch. FEARLESS FORECAST: This is high quality TV entertainment all the way. It was put into the ER timeslot and those are big shoes to fill, especially up against The Eleventh Hour, which is run by another master of the media Jerry Bruckheimer. This show is way to good to die, but it might be too good for the networks.

THE UNUSUALS (2 SPUDS)  (WEDNESDAY AT 10:00)

This show is the second out of the gate from Executive Producers Denis Leary and his amigo Peter Tolan. (Rescue Me—One of the very best series on TV). I didn’t find that out until just now having watched and really enjoyed it last night. Even the Wife thought it was OK , so that makes it pretty much a must see. IN A NUTSHELL: This is an ensemble cast of officers and detectives in an NYPD precinct, probably lower Manhattan. It’s made up of real bunch of eccentrics and a newly added lady cop who had just moved over from Vice and is partnered with a detective who had just lost his partner to murder, which they are investigating. This show is a real comedy drama. The characters and their eccentricities create the comedy, the gritty New York crime scene creates the drama. There is also another plot overlay which involves corruption in the precinct. So there’s all kinds of good stuff happening here. FEARLESS FORECAST: Cop shows on network TV have gotten edgier and edgier as the years have gone by. This one is no exception. It’s real high quality TV for grown ups. I just hope the grownups keep tuning in to keep it alive. Apparantly, its debut numbers were not that good. But knowing that Leary and Tolan are well connected in the cable world, I think this series will live on in one place or another.

DVD

BURN AFTER READING (1.5 SPUDS)

The Coen Brothers have managed to go through the last 20 years of movie making and never make the same movie twice. In Hollywood this is quite a feat. Over the years they have made some great movies and a lot of good ones. This one falls in the Good category. It’s essentially a black comedy about a CIA agent (John Malkovich) who gets bounced and decides to get back the agency by writing his memoirs. A disk containing this and some of his other personal accounting information, which his wife (Tilda Swinton) is using as part of her divorce action (she’s having an affair with George Clooney) against him, falls into the hands of Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand who try to extort money from Crazy John and the story goes on from there.

The movie creates an extremely complex sequence of relationships that tie themselves into a neat little bow at the end. It’s clever as all get out. It’s mildly entertaining and even a little slapstick in parts. And that’s what’s wrong with it. If I didn’t know better I’d think the Coen Brothers were making a conscious effort in this film to please everybody and by doings so, don’t really wow anyone, least of all me.

Unlike No Country For Old Men, which was pure Coen Brothers and extremely focused, Burn After Reading is a bit of a hodgepodge and kind of a waste of all that star power.

IN THE ELECTRIC MIST  (2 SPUDS)

This is an adaptation of southern author James Lee Burke’s great Dave Robichaud novels and I hope it will be one of many more. I always look for movies based on the works of authors I like to read because it’s interesting to see how their work translates to the screen. In this case, it’s very good. Dave, played perfectly by Tommy Lee Jones, is the chief of police in a parish North of New Orleans, where some young women have been turning up dead, killed in ritual fashion. Methodically and intuitively, Dave goes about the business of putting all the pieces together via knowledge of the local hoodlum population, cop intuition and interactions with a lot of very nasty southern types. This is one of those movies where everybody gets to put a little Cajun lilt in their character’s lines.

Dave, as you may have already guessed, is a bit of a tortured soul. He’s an ex-alcoholic who has lost more than his share of people close to him because of his job. He’s pretty world weary and this is the kind of character that Tommy Lee Jones does so well. Part of Dave’s tortured soul, in this case, has allowed him to conjure up the ghost of an old Confederate General who gives him abstract advice. This character is played by Levon Helm and he pretty much steals the movie.

In The Electric Mist has a slow pace to it, mimicking, in a way the slow pace of life down in southern Louisiana. But it’s one of those movies that is all about texture and character and on that level is really quite a rewarding experience.

WALL-E (2 SPUDS)

This is a pixar animated feature about a little robot whose job is compacting the trash that’s pretty much all that’s left when everybody moves off the earth after they have pretty much run it into the ground. This movie is fascinating because the Pixar people are incredibly creative. The story is not much to write home about, but the animation is superb and the visual texture of this film is amazing to look at. It’s kind of hard to critique a film like this because, well, it’s basically a 94 minute cartoon. I guess it’s trying to make a point about the environment. But mostly it’s just interesting to watch and amazingly well constructed.

BOOKS…YEAH BOOKS!

MICHAEL CONNELLY

Michael Connelly is an LA writer who writes about cops and forensics and even the odd novel about general crime in LA.

He is probably most famous for his Harry Bosch novels. Harry is a detective whose old school technique and fierce dedication often get up the nose of the higher ups and, of course, land him in a whole lot of trouble. But the successive police chiefs for whom he works all understand that at the end of the day, he’s an invaluable asset and kind of strike their own deals with him. I’m not sure how Michael Connelly has come to know so much about the inner workings of the LAPD, but he knows an awful lot. LA has always been the poster city FORpolice corruption and it’s no less corrupt today than it ever was. The police department just knows more about public relations.

Harry doesn’t really get directly involved with the politics. He kind of minds his own business and dances around it. His style is slow and methodical, and like most detectives, his memory for criminals is as deep as his understanding of their behaviour.

Connelly is a great writer and storyteller. A lot of the stuff that happens to Harry Bosch in the present has a lot to do with stuff that happened to him in the past, so you can get a kind of history lesson as well as a great story when you read any of Michael Connelly books, which include;

Harry Bosch Books (PS it’s good to read them in order if you can)

1. The Black Echo (1992)
2. The Black Ice (1993)
3. The Concrete Blonde (1994)
4. The Last Coyote (1995)
5. Trunk Music (1996)
6. Angels Flight (1998)
7. A Darkness More Than Night (2000)
8. City Of Bones (2002)
9. Lost Light (2003)
10. The Narrows (2004)
11. The Closers (2005)
12. Echo Park (2006)
13. The Overlook (2007)
14. The Brass Verdict (2008)
15. 9 Dragons (2009)

NOT HARRY BOSCH

The Poet (1995)
Blood Work (1998)
Void Moon (1999)
Chasing The Dime (2002)
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005)
The Scarecrow (2009)

Well that’s all I got for now. I did watch “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan’, last night. But I’m saving that for next time. I’ve gotta go shopping for appliances with the wife. We’re doing our bit to stimulate the econ0my.

THE TWITTER LINK

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Volume 348

MOVIES
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1.5 Spuds)
Seven Pounds (1.5 Spuds)

BOOKS/AUTHORS
Stephen J. Cannell
Stephen Frey

KNOW  YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks

Well here we are at springtime. It was a long hard winter and I can finally feel the cabin fever lifting. Tomorrow, I’m getting out into the back yard and giving the Spudcycle its spring tuneup. Then, while the Wife catches up on several hours of Tivoed figure skating, I will have a gander at the Tiger Woods Show. Yes Tiger’s back after 10 long months of surgery and rehab and he is slowly but surely rounding back into form as the world scariest golfer. This weekend he’s playing in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando, where he lives, so he has the advantage of being able to sleep in his own bed with his luscious Scandanavian wife. I’ve watched him for a couple of weeks now and his confidence is coming back big time. He’s managing the courses better than ever. His short game is terrifying and he’s sinking every ten foot putt that comes his way. I won’t say he’s a shoo in for a Masters win, which starts in two weeks, but he will be right up there, kickin’ ass and takin’ names.

I’m really hoping that this is the beginning of the warmer weather. I took my heaviest jacket downstairs to the storage room today as a sign of optimism. I also brought the Spudmobile into Canadian Tire and had the regular tires put back on. I’m showing a strong commitment here. I just hope the weather gods appreciate it.

DVDs

SEVEN POUNDS (DVD) (1.5 SPUDS)

I’m a big fan of Will Smith. I admire his versatility and, generally, his taste in projects. He’s actually one of the true classical movie stars in Hollywood, because he doesn’t necessarily have a type that he plays against. But in 7 Pounds, Will, I’m sad to say, has finally blinked. This is a sad and depressing story without a happy ending and that’s all I will say about it plot-wise. As a movie, it hangs together and tells its story well. It’s just a real downer of a story.

From a character point of view, this is one of Will’s most nondescript. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that his character is carrying around a ton of baggage and because Will is so capable of wearing it on his sleeve, it makes the movie all that much more of a downer.

There’s not a hell of a lot more I can say about this film without sounding all maudlin. If you want to see Will playing a character who is struggling you’re probably best to go with The Pursuit of Happyness. At least that goes somewhere other than down the dark ladder, as Joni Mitchell says.

I wish Will lots of luck in the future. And I hope he goes back to something a little more up- beat for his next outing.

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL  (1.5 SPUDS)

This movie isn’t anywhere near as good as the original with Michael Rennie. But it’s not all that bad. Keanu Reeves, who is surprisingly good whenever he plays an alien, is Klaatu. And the highly versatile Jennifer Connelly, plays the scientist who helps him out.

The message in the original film was that the earth was not going to be allowed to destroy itself through war (i.e. full scale atomic). In this one, it’s, of course, the environment. I’m not sure how much of this message comes through, especially when the attack begins, but overall, I kinda liked this film. The government is obviously being led by an asshole of the magnitude of a Bush as opposed to an Obama, and that doesn’t help anything. In fact, Keanu/Klaatu is pretty much on an unstoppable mission here. That’s sorta, kinda where the movie falls on its arse, so to speak. But up to that point it was a pretty good big budget thriller with lots of cool stuff going on and a great little bit by John Cleese. It’s pretty good sci-fi but a little too Hollywoodized to make it as pure as it needed to be to be great.

BOOKS…YEAH BOOKS

I’m half Scottish, and that makes me kind of cheap. Not as cheap as my friend John Wild, who will admit that he is downright miserly. But cheap enough. A good example of how cheap I am is that I cannot remember the last time I paid full price of any of the dozens of paperback novels I consume each year.

I tend to frequent second hand book stores where you can get pretty much anything you can get in a regular books store at half the price. And if you really want to get super cheap, you can head to the back corner of your neighbourhood Goodwill store and find books for about a quarter of their list price. The second hand stores I like the best are The Great Escape on Kingston Road and ABC Books on Yonge near St Joseph, where I am probably going to go tomorrow as I have an appointment with Earl the Pearl, my doctor. Sadly for me, however, is the fact that my local Goodwill store on Coxwell just up from the No Frills has now closed for good. The landlord wants the building for some other nefarious purpose.

Anyway, the long and short of all this is that a lot of people have been writing and asking why I don’t review the books I am reading on a regular basis. And since I didn’t have an answer that made sense, I guess I’m going to have to start.

I don’t read a lot of literature. While I admire literature and marvel at the literary writer’s  ability to make words dance and sing on the page, I’m afraid I’m pretty much hopelessly addicted to thrillers, procedurals and mysteries, so that’s primarily what these book reviews will entail. I like books that read like movies. And quite frankly there are a ton of them out there. I also tend to gravitate to certain authors like Stuart Woods, Harlan Coban, Michael Connelly, John Sandford, Greg Iles, Stephen Coonts, Stephen J. Cannell, Stephen Hunter, Tami Haug and Stephen Frye. Quite frankly, the level of literature in the works of most of these people is relatively high considering they are writing heavily plotted action adventure type stuff.

So I won’t be reviewing books so much as I will be reviewing authors, which in a way is a lot better, because you can read a book and that’s a nice event…but if you read an author that’s a relationship that can last a long time.

STEPHEN J CANNELL

Stephen J Cannell is one of the most prolific writer/producers in Hollywood. He has worked on just about every major show on network TV and been responsible for the creation of several legendary series’ including The Rockford Files, The A-Team, Hunter and one of my all time favourites, Wiseguy, which at the time was a true innovation in the way TV shows got shown and followed.

So when I stumbled across his novel The Plan in a second hand bookstore in Port Credit, I didn’t think twice. I’ve always had a good experience with people from TV who turned their talents to novel writing and regardless of what the book was about, I was sure it would be smart and snappy and easy to read which are some of my main criteria.

The plan in The Plan is about a mafia guy who has the big idea of putting his own stooge in the White House…an offer which he makes to the ambitious governor of a small state. Of course this offer comes with a few strings attached, most specifically the repeal of the RICO Act which makes it very difficult for mobsters to launder the money they make from their extremely lucrative illegal businesses.

I was kind of surprised by this novel because it’s scope, both from a breadth of society and a historical perspective is really quite magnificent and fascinating. Mr Cannell could probably have chosen, like a lot of his peers, to write about Hollywood, which is something he obviously knows a lot about. But he chose to do a very heavily plotted political thriller instead.

If you forget for a moment that the guy who wrote this book is a big time Hollywood TV mogul, you’d swear you were reading something by a smartass John LeCarre. It was completely fascinating, delightfully complex and unapologetically commercial.

Since The Plan, which he wrote in 1995, he has created a whole body of work which I fully intend to track down and read. The titles include:

Final Victim (1995)
The Plan (1995)
King Con (1997)
Riding the Snake (1998)
The Devil’s Workshop (1999)
Runaway Heart (2003)
At First Sight (2008)

If you like complex thrillers with a lot of intrigue, great characters and dialogue and neat stories, Mr Cannell is your man.

STEPHEN FREY

Stephen Frey, according to the little bio in the back of many of his novels, is a former VP of Corporate Finance in the world of money (J.P. Morgan). So this dude knows a lot about corporate finance and has created a very interesting series of novels about the murder and mayhem that secretly surrounds the world of high finance.

Several of his novels, including The Day Trader, which was the first one I ever read, are freestanding stories about the business of money.  They kind of follow the same formula: Greed leading to murder leading to retribution. The heroes are usually ambitious young financial studs who get involved with unscrupulous baddies, of who there seems to be no shortage in the financial world.

A few of his novels follow the exploits of one particular character, an investment banker named Christian Gillette. He owns one of the largest investment firms in America and is always getting into some kind of trouble. He’s a very interesting character, but in a Stephen Frey novel the real star is the financial marketplace. His novels take you right inside them and it’s another world for sure. With most of the authors I read, I try to go at their books in chronological order. That way you can appreciate the bigger picture of what these guys are trying to do with their careers, and you can also enjoy the fact that most of them seems to get better as they go along.

Mr Frey has taken what would normally be seen as a very ‘dry’ area of literature and made it as exciting as any spy novel you’ll ever read.

His titles include:

The Takeover (1995)
The Vulture Fund (1996)
The Inner Sanctum (1997)
Absolute Proof (1998)
aka The Legacy
The Insider (1999)
Trust Fund (2001)
The Day Trader (2002)
Silent Partner (2002)
Shadow Account (2004)
The Fourth Order (2007)
Forced Out (2008)
Hell’s Gate (2009)

SPUDITORIAL –WAR…WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? OBVIOUSLY NOT THE ECONOMY.

Every couple of days, we hear about somebody or a small group of somebodies getting killed over in Afghanistan. These somebodies are Canadian and US soldiers who are over there fighting the good fight to keep Afghanistan from becoming the world wide centre for terrorism that it once used to be. But just a couple of days ago, the Afghani government passed a law that effectively set their culture back a couple of centuries and virtually turned women in that country back into the slaves they once were.

I heard this from the Wife, who is extremely pissed about this. I tried to explain to her that there are actually very few places in the world where women are treated with the equality that they are in North America, and that countries like Afghanistan and a bunch of others in the middle east and Asia are really locked into a time warp that  they seem to or don’t want to escape.

But it really does raise the question about what the hell we are doing over there. I’ve still not been able to figure it out. Countries large and small have been trying to reform and control Afghanistan for more than a thousand years and have not been successful. Heroin and opium are still their biggest exports. The government is still made up of people whose beliefs are stuck in the dark ages. Their women are all enslaved again. And except for the poppy fields the country is mostly a bunch of rockpiles separated by desert. Hey, here’s a big idea. Get the hell out and leave them alone. Accept the fact that there are certain places in the world that are completely resistant to change and get the hell out. Bring our soldiers home. Or send them down to Africa where they might at least have a chance to make a difference.

I sit here in a comfortable, cozy house typing away on a powerful computer, a hybrid car in the driveway, 300 channels of so called entertainment at my disposal, a great job that I love, a supermarket down the street where I can buy anything I want and virtually no fear of anything except getting older and becoming mentally feeble and think, wow this is great. Then I think about our soldiers, eating more dust than food, drinking crappy water, trekking around in 100 degree heat in a land where every second person wants to kill them and I really, truly see something terribly wrong with that picture.  How they get through each new day is a marvel. And why they are there in the first place is one of life’s great mysteries. Every war, including the so-called war on terror needs to end sometime. I for one think it’s time that war ended for our troops, because, judging from the way those people behave  over in Afghanistan, there really is nothing worth fighting for anymore.

TWITTERING – THE LATEST THING I DON’T QUITE GET YET.

My friend Terry Lewis suggested that I post a link to the Twitter web site at the bottom of  each blog posting I make. I don’t understand how, but he assures me that it will change my life in a significant way.  OK  Mr. T, let’s see if it does. http://twitter.com/home