http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:41:01 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/19/074101.php LadygoatA famed mountaineer and naturalist walks into a winter storm with nothing but a light jacket. Is it a noble death, or a cowardly suicide?Chip Brown delicately unpacks the layers around the death of Guy Waterman, who deliberately kills himself by exposure. Rather than being a sordid investigation, Brown's book is an almost philosophical one, trying to find out how one should judge not just a man's death, but also his life. It's an intriguing approach to biography. Was this suicide really a noble act by an American man determined to shape his own destiny? Borown demonstrates that may only be part of the picture, the image Waterman wanted to portray. Underneath Waterman, reconstructed through interviews with family, friends, his writing, and access to his widow, Linda, emerges as far more tortured soul who carried and dealt out, the burdens of mental illness, family pressures, broken relationships, self-destructive behavior, and perhaps most of all, the loss of two of his sons to the Alaska wilderness. Any biography, of course, is really a biography of a family and Waterman's was a particularly troubled one. Guy's father was a highly successful scientist, whom he could never match, his first marriage was unhappy almost from the beginning. Saddest of all, his relationship with his three sons was fraught with distance and difficulty, and the two oldest ones also inherited demons of mental illness.This is not a story of victimhood and martyrdom, however: Brown takes care not to deify Waterman in his troubles. In many ways, Waterman only exacerbated the tragedies by being a neglectful in his fatherly duties, selfish, cruel to his first wife, and to the very end, resistent to the idea of getting help. Ultimately, Waterman emerges as a tragic and flawed human, a man who is difficult to understand and complicated even after his death. Books18793@blogcritics.org Thu, 19 Aug 2004 07:41:01 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/11/112342.php LadygoatWhy does Hollywood persist in re-making movies that were perfectly good the first time around? Especially when there were so many bad movies that could be vastly improved upon. In any case, The Manchurian Candidate is the latest attempt to update an old classic. On its own, it's a good movie. Compared to the original, however, I can't help but feel that it's a lesser light. The holes in the storyline have been fixed, but the mood of the first, the creepy, paranoid atmosphere of political conspiracy gone mad, isn't captured quite as well. The original, in black and white, had a stark, harsh style that was creepy in a way the more conventionally styled update isn't able to replicate in the same way. Worse, however, is the difference between the key character as played by Meryl Streep. Granted, she had tough shoes to fill: Angela Lansbury's best performance in my opinion was playing the ruthless political kingmaker of the original. While Streep does well, she veers perilously close to being campy, rather than creepy. The steely resolve, underneath the manicured surface of a political wife, that made Lansbury so memorable isn't as sharply drawn in Streep's performace. Still, the remake is a fine and entertaining film - suspenseful, dramatic, thought-provoking. Do yourself a favor, however, and rent the original: you'll find it is more compelling. Video18534@blogcritics.org Wed, 11 Aug 2004 11:23:42 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/10/165631.php LadygoatWhat do you do when your husband disappears? Just pretend he's still aroud, of course. That's the premise behind the excellent and witty first novel of Nina Solomon. You would think that another novel about a pampered, wealthy wife in New York City would be ordinary and rife with been-there situations and comments. You might think it's another blistering attack on the shallowness of such women and the superficiality of such lifestyles. But from the very beginning, Solomon's characters, particularly the main character, are touchingly human and relatable. The story begins when XXX realizes that her husband, given to disappearing unexpectedly for days at a time for no reason at all, has been gone longer than usual. Is he gone for good? She isn't sure, so she simply pretends to everyone around, her friends, parents, the maid, that he's still there. Only they've just missed him. Or he's out of town for a conference. Or he isn't feeling well. All the while, XXX deals with her own doubts and questions and hopes, going about her life maintaining a marriage with a man who isn't actually there.What makes the book so beguiling is not only is the characters so real and human, treated by the author as one treat a dear but slightly loopy friend, but that the story blends effortlessly the feelings of being a mystery, a romance, a chick-lit experiment, and a social satire. It's a unique story line and Solomon doesn't waste it: the book doesn't feel predictable or bound by genre at all. Instead it's a witty, amusing, yet emotionally engaged walk through one woman's marriage and life. Books18504@blogcritics.org Tue, 10 Aug 2004 16:56:31 EDT