A must-read book; a must-miss movie

Totally different books and movies, mind you; just thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and review two things I've recently read/watched.

The Last Juror by John Grisham is incredible. It's the story of a small-town newspaper editor in the 1970's who follows an important murder trial and the fallout from that trial over the next decade. I related very well to it because of my experience starting out in the community newspaper world, but even for someone without the experience, its an easy read with a great pace.

A lot of Grisham's characters from earlier books, such as Lucien Wilbanks (A Time To Kill) and Harry Rex Vonner (The Summons, A Time To Kill) reappear in the story about 15-20 years younger than in previous stories. It even has the perfect ending, something I felt has been lacking in some of Grisham's other books. Highly-recommended read, even if you end up waiting until it comes out on paperback.

The film Envy, on the other hand, has to be one of the worst films I've ever seen. And this is coming from someone who has seen Ready To Rumble. Twice.

The premise is simple enough. Two best friends and neighbors (Ben Stiller and Jack Black) are divided when one invents the world's most popular household item, a spray can that removes dog crap. Along the way, however, they forgot several key items, such as a plot, script, jokes and logic.

I swear that we thought Stiller and Black were making the script up as they went along. Absolutely NOTHING was remotely funny. The appearance of Christopher Walken can only indicate to me he owes money to the IRS, because someone of his talent couldn't even save this stinker, given the awful role he was given.

Oh, and every 10 minutes or so, this Randy Newman-esque song starts playing, which adds absolutely nothing to the picture.

If that wasn't enough, the movie dragged on for almost two hours, prompting me to yell "SHUT UP!" on more than one occasion. Then, Stiller decided to recount the entire movie, almost word for word, at the ending. You'd think someone would have edited that extra 10 minutes out, because anyone watching this would have already seen exactly what he was describing.

Bleah - what an awful waste of film. I expected more, given the lead actors who are usually able to give me a few belly laughs.