Bulldog's Bimonthly (Bi-yearly?) Media Review

Wow... it's been a while since I've done this, much less blogged at all, so I'm gonna try and tackle a few things I've seen/read in the last little while.

Skipping Christmas
This was the last John Grisham book that I hadn't read yet. As I mentioned a few weeks back here, thanks again to apprentice extraordinaire Johnny ITR for sending this to me as a b-day gift!

Anyways, this one is a REAL departure from Grisham's other work, legal or otherwise. I expected as much going into it, but I really wasn't sure what kind of voice he was going to take in this lighthearted story about a couple who decides to, well, skip Christmas when their daughter is out of the country.

He has a very interesting voice in this one, much more poetic and almost Dr. Seussish in its repetitiveness. In the fact, the first few chapters seem to drag on for a loooong time repeating the same points over and over again. But as the story gets going, it really does a novel little tale of small town America. I can definitely see why they decided to make this into a movie (the upcoming Christmas With The Kranks), although... Tim Allen? Come on.

Anyways, it's hard to judge this one against his other books because they're so different, but I'm definitely glad I got a chance to read it. A very quick read as well, I should had.

And now that I've completed the whole damn collection, my personal favorite Grisham books:

1. The Runaway Jury (the movie truly doesn't do it justice)
2. The King of Torts
3. The Partner (I'm SHOCKED no one ever decided to turn this one into a film)
4. A Time To Kill (the film version was just about perfect in its loyalty to the novel)
5. The Chamber
6. The Summons
7. The Last Juror
8. The Firm
9. The Pelican Brief
10. A Painted House
11. The Client
12. The Brethren
13. Skipping Christmas (only because it hardly fits in with the rest of these guys)
14. Bleachers (as I mentioned a while ago, I really didn't enjoy this one)

I think that covers all of them. Am I missing any?

Lost In Translation

Everyone told me I needed to see this one. So last weekend, with nothing to do one night, I rented it. LORD was I ever disappointed!

This film is slowwwwwwwwww. Soooooo slowwwwwwwww. Drags on and on and on and on and on. How slow is it? I probably could have TRAVELLED to Japan in the time this thing took to play out. Ok, maybe not. But you get my point. Soooo sloowwwwww....

Bill Murray is okay in this as the aging movie star going through a midlife crisis, but he's not spectacular the way so many people have touted this. And I'm sorry, but Scarlet Whateverhername is, the woman all the papers are declaring as the next 'it' girl -- I just don't get the attraction. She's nothing special at all, acting skills or otherwise.

I certainly could have lived out a happy existence never having seen this one. Maybe something got lost in the transl.....nah, too easy.


And... there was one other movie that I was going to review here, but dammit, I've forgotten thename of it. Shows you how good it was (terrible). Just thinking of Lost In Translation must have dulled my senses. Oh, well. Until next time...