Rob Recommends "The King's Speech" (the movie)

It’s not often that I agree with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I, for one, would trust me a lot sooner than I would trust the Academy to pick anything but Best Make-up. I can’t be lobbied and my vote can’t be bought. I never have any friends or relatives up for nomination and I have never taken a film course. So you can believe me when I say that The King’s Speech is a really good film. As you no doubt know, the movie is about King George VI, his terrible stutter, his non-fawning speech coach and yes, his big speech on the eve of World War II. Not an obviously attractive subject. (What, no chase scenes?)  See it for the acting, a satisfying story and especially the interplay between King (Colin Firth) and “doctor” (Geoffrey Rush).  

A note: While the main storyline is apparently pretty close to “true,” some history has been mangled in the filmmaking process. 

Another note: Check out Debra's post on the recorded book version.

Rob Recommends The Columnist

A novel in the form of a memoir of an extremely obnoxious a##h##e. I’m guessing it’s harder than we think:  to have the narrator prove his arrogance in almost every paragraph yet be oblivious to how his audience is judging him. And this is what makes The Columnist a fun read—catching every self-serving rationalization, every twist of a knife told as stroke of fortune and every conceited deceit disguised as innocent miscommunication. And the story itself? We follow the career of Brandon Sladder from novice (but self-inflated, nevertheless) reporter to influential (yes, and still self-inflated) columnist and opinion-maker. Along the way Sladder uses all who would befriend him—girlfriends, editors, secretaries, prostitutes and sources—dumping them when they were no longer needed. The author works real people into the plot, but never makes it explicit just which (if any) big shot columnist Sladder is modeled on. (The play based on the book does name Joseph Alsop as the satirical target.)  Those old enough to remember the heyday of the Lippmans, Alsops, Restons, Pearsons of the last century will especially enjoy this book.

Rob Recommends Listening to Richistan

My family listened to Richistan, by Robert Frank, on a recent car trip to New Jersey. Frank is a Wall Street Journal reporter who got himself assigned to cover the super-wealthy beat in America. He spent a year traveling the country, observing, studying and interviewing the very wealthiest Americans. The author came to believe that the best way to understand this group of millionaires is to see them as inhabiting a separate country. To help the rest of us understand this nation’s culture and people, Frank wrote this book, Richistan: a Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich. Richistan is a fascinating and funny glimpse into a world most of us could never imagine. It’s a world of $700,000 watches, 300 foot yachts, millionaire support groups, $25,000 a plate charity dinners and residents who don’t know how many cars they own. In one particularly interesting chapter, Frank takes us through butler training at Butler Boot Camp. The rigors of the training course say more about those doing the employing (“principals”) than about the trainees themselves. (FYI, the top graduates of elite butler schools earn $75-120,000 per year.) Throughout, Frank accomplishes the nearly impossible feat of neither fawning over nor disparaging the citizens of Richistan. See what you think…

Rob Recommends the documentary There But for Fortune

I will admit it hadn’t occurred to me to mention There But for Fortune here in Staff Reads. But I happened across a list of top movies for 2011 and there it was (with a rottentomatoes.com rating by critics of 100% positive).  The film documents the life and work of Phil Ochs—the protest singer form the 1960s and 70s.  There But for Fortune breaks no new ground in movie-making, but does a very nice job of placing Ochs in the storm of counter-cultural/anti-war protest that seemed to envelop the decade. With video, songs, stills and interviews, Kenneth Bowser the director, documents the troubled life of Ochs the artist and activist and the movement he was part of.

 I had assumed that the film’s appeal for me had to do with my having grown up listening to his songs. Plus his family and mine criss-crossed in a couple of minor ways in New York.   So it was with some surprise that I read the reviews from sources as far apart as the Boston Herald and the New York Times crediting the movie as a fitting tribute to a man worth remembering.

In addition to the movie, the Library owns seven CDs byOchs.

Rob recommends "The Visitor"

After I finished watching "The Visitor" and after a thoughtful discussion with my family, I began to imagine the same plot in the hands of another director. This didn't have to be a great movie...
Richard Jenkins plays a middle-aged college professor who's lost his wife and with her death, his spirit. He arrives at his seldom-used apartment in Manhattan to find an immigrant couple living there without his knowledge (victimized by a scam-artist). He ends up letting them stay. That touch of compassion sets in motion a reawakening of his own humanity and slowly, his zest for life. Tarek, the man of the couple, is a Syrian drummer who is as open and friendly as Walter (Jenkins) is shut down. The two bond and Tarek teaches Walter to play the African drums. Trouble strikes when Tarek is swallowed up by the immigration authorities.
I couldn't help but think about the many ways another director might have overplayed it: casting a flashier Walter, zeroing in on his transformation (rather than allowing the changes to seep in more believably), hard-selling the message about illegal immigrants, in general going for the cliche instead of nuance, easy sentiment instead subtlety.

Rob Recommends Faceless Killers

Ingredients: Flawed main character. Palpable and exotic setting. Emotional social issue. Brutal crime. Crackerjack detective work. Mix the ingredients together and you've got a modern Swedish crime novel. There's a reason why they've gained recent popularity in the U.S. and other parts of the globe. They're good. And the ingredients are variable enough that the novels (even the series) don't present as formulaic. So it's in this context that we're given Kurt Wallander, homicide inspector from Ysad, faced with a cruel double murder of an elderly rural couple. The story takes place in a Sweden that seems cold and barren, both physically and culturally. And the murders are set inside a cauldron of simmering anti-immigrant emotion. Faceless Killers is the first Kurt Wallander book translated into English. The detective has also been the hero of Swedish movies and TV shows and a British TV films.

Rob Recommends "We Are Wisconsin"

One year ago the state of Wisconsin was in an uproar. Governor Scott Walker and the Republican state legislature proposed a far-reaching law restricting the rights of government workers to bargain collectively. The reaction was immediate and unprecedented. The Democratic members of the Senate walked out, staying in Illinois for three weeks to block the vote, and tens of thousands of people converged on the capital, some camping out in the Capitol building for weeks. The protest in many ways paved the way for Occupy Wall Street later in the year. The crowds were non-violent, diverse, exuberant, cooperative, creative, angry and persistent. Though the walls of the Capitol were covered with posters, the occupants used non-marring tape to protect the walls. Cleanup brigades made the janitors' work easy. People around the country called in orders to Ian's Pizza to feed the multitudes. Police (who were exempted from the law) maintained easy dialog with the protestors and joined the crowd after their shifts. We Are Wisconsin is one of several books chronicling those heady moments. The book collects short columns, blog posts and even Twitter tweets to give readers the flavor of the movement and some brief analysis. Unfortunately there are no pictures.
For those not following the events, here's what happened: The legislation ultimately passed but in the recall elections which ensued two Republicans were defeated. Over one million signatures were gathered to recall the governor and a recall election is likely this spring. Reading the book will give you some idea of what is was like to participate in this historic moment.

Rob Recommends the Movie "Waste Land"

I have to admit that I was not overly anxious to see the film. My wife heard that it was good and insisted we try it. But somehow a movie about garbage pickers in a Brazilian dump didn't seem like the most uplifting film in the world. Wrong on both counts: It was a great film and it was definitely not depressing. Director Lucy Walker films artist Vik Muniz as he engages the catadores of the vast Jardim Gramacho dump on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, in an art project. The pickers are actually recyclers, a distinction they are quick to point out. They are paid by recycling wholesalers to reclaim specific materials from mountains of garbage. During the course of the film we get to know about five of the pickers. What makes the film so absorbing is the attitude of Muniz and Walker, both avoiding the twin traps of romanticizing their subjects or viewing them as specimens through some laboratory instrument. The artist's goal of transformation is accomplished mostly by the group's participation in the project, but also more materially in raising money for the pickers' own Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho. A wonderful movie.

Still more Swedish crime recommended by Rob

Three Seconds by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom

Booklist’s starred review for Three Seconds ends with this: “Crime fiction rarely gets as good as this.” (Booklist has been reviewing books for over 100 years, and their reviewers know a thing or two about crime fiction!) Booklist review and Swedish Crime Novel of the Year (2009) Award aside, Three Seconds is a darned good read. The protagonist is an informer deep inside the Polish mafia seeking to extend its grip of the drug trade in Sweden. Piet’s handler’s handlers high up in the government are quite used to playing fast and loose with rules and procedures (not to mention laws) when it comes to paid informants. When another informant is killed with Piet as an accomplice, the authors bring in the venerable Ewert Grens to solve the murder. The result is a high tension, edge-of-your-seat thriller which will make you want to go out and grab other books by the Roslund/Hellstrom writing team. (But you better hurry because I’m about to go grab one myself…)

More Mayhem in Stockholm: Read Box 21

Who’da thunk it? Would you have guessed that normal everyday Americans would be throwing around names like Dag, Dragan, Jerker, Piet,and Lisbeth. “Yes, I remember when Sven saw Jochum in Kronoberg (or was it Klaipeda?)” Swedish crime fiction is hot. And not just Stieg Larsson and his “Girl Who…” series. There’s Hakan Nesser, Camilla Lackberg, Kjell Ericksson, the venerable Henning Mankell and more every second week. (Just check the Minuteman catalog for the subject “Sweden—Fiction” or keywords “Sweden and mystery.”) Box 21 was written by a Swedish writing duo, one of whom is a journalist, the other an ex-criminal. Roslund and Hellstrom set a gritty noir scene, peopled by sex traffickers, dope addicts, corrupt cops, mob enforcers and a few hardworking detectives, who themselves have demons to fight. Ewert Grens is the senior investigator, a brilliant detective but haunted by the assault decades earlier which left his partner Anni brain-damaged and virtually unresponsive in a nursing home. Grens (a crusty and cranky old fellow) and his team have to deal with multiple crimes involving an abused prostitute, her plans for revenge and the murder of a drug addict by the very same man responsible for Anni’s condition. Box 21 kept me up late reading, and I think it will do the same to you.

Let Freedom Sing!

Music of the Civil Rights Movement
This is a far-reaching collection of songs by, for or about participants in the civil rights movement. You'll find blues, folk, jazz, gospel, rock, funk, pop, r&b, soul, hip-hop and all the blends and fusions possible among the musical styles. The songs date from the forties all the way to 2008. Let Freedom Sing provides a great reminder about how integral music was to the movement: in the streets, churches, jails, segregated lunch counters as well as the concert halls. The artists read like a who's who of Black (and some White) musicians: Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, John Lee Hooker, James Brown, B.B. King, Bob Marley, Neville Brothers, Mahalia Jackson, Bob Dylan, Nat King Cole, Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White, Phil Ochs, Harry Belafonte, Otis Redding, the Weavers and a few dozen more. The who's who doesn't include everyone (notable exceptions include Paul Robeson, Sam Cooke, Leadbelly and Miriam Makeba), but then it is only 3 CDs. If you've never heard Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit or Nina Simone singing Mississippi Goddam, you have to check out this set.

Rob Recommends You Get What You Pay For

Meet Tony Cassella, the hard-boiled private eye with a none-too-typical resume. He dropped out of Yale Law School, testified against fellow corrections officers, has mob connections and knows who to talk to in the New York political machine. He has troubles with his girlfriend and his mom’s boyfriend, a priest, wants in on Tony’s biggest case. And that case involves proving that Ronald Reagan’s newly appointed attorney-general is corrupt. Corruption runs through this noir novel as if it were one of the main characters. As for Tony, you’ll have to read the book to see if can resist the temptations dangled in front of him and remain true to his principles.

Rob recommends Old Crow Medicine Show

So we were chicken-sitting for our Catskill Mountain friends in early August. They were returning a little early from vacation just so we could overlap a little and actually see each other. I was in my frantic got-to-get-dinner-on-the-table mode and decided to put some music on to ease the process along. I turned on Laura’s CD player without looking at what music she’d selected. It turned out to be Old Crow Medicine Show. What a treat! Who knew? I’d never heard of them. They’re in that nexus of country/bluegrass/rockabilly/folk blues where everyone hears something different. The band has played all the usual places from the Grand Ole Opry to Prairie Home Companion to Late Night with Conan O’Brien. The album we were listening to was O.C.M.S., with a mix of original and traditional songs. “Wagon Wheel” the group’s signature song was adapted with new verses from an unfinished Dylan song. Their other albums have a few clunkers, but you won’t find any on this one.