Rec. #232: The Daytrippers

What: Eliza, her parents, her sister, and her sister's fiance take an impromptu drive into the city to track down Eliza's probably-cheating husband. The cast of dreams includes Hope Davis, Parker Posey, Liev Schreiber, Anne Meara, Stanley Tucci, Marcia Gay Harden, and Campbell Scott.

Comparable to: Ah, the indie movies of the mid-'90s. Remember them? This is one.

Representative quote:
"Maybe she's desperately in love with him."

"Don't be ridiculous. Nobody's desperately in love."

You might not like it if: Carl-the-fiance's description of his novel* flashes you back so hard to your undergrad English lit classmates that you hit your head.

How to get it: Rent it, borrow it, buy it.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Parker Posey, Queen of '90s Indie, starred in Party Girl (Rec. #141) the year before The Daytrippers came out. Two years later, we got Hope Davis in Next Stop, Wonderland (Personal Wreck #2).

*About a man with a dog's head and no hands --- a Pointer that can't point. Ahem.

Rec. #231: Gentlemen and Players

What: Who doesn't love a good cat-and-mouse suspense novel set at a British boys grammar school? With an allegorical chess framework, no less.

Comparable to: Impossible not to imagine the cast of The History Boys running around St. Oswald's, with Richard Griffiths fitting into the role of Roy Straitley, the eccentric and hunted Classics teacher, quite nicely. Or is that just me?

Opening lines: "If there's one thing I've learned in the past fifteen years, it's this: that murder is really no big deal. It's just a boundary, meaningless and arbitrary as all others --- a line drawn in the dirt."

Representative quote: "Since the first day back I've had the feeling that someone was watching me, closely and without kindness. I imagine Caesar must have felt the same when the Ides of March came around."

You might not like it if: Author Joanne Harris clearly had so much fun coming up with the character names. (Using the Dickens method of nomenclature, we've got Bob Strange, Dianne Dare, John Snyde, Chris Keane, Mr. Meek, Dr. Tidy, etc.) But the overt chess references (I'm looking at you, Pat Bishop and Colin Knight) might make you feel a bit bludgeoned.

How to get it: In print, Kindle-able, and surely available from your library system.

Connection to previous Wreckage: I first mentioned Gentlemen and Players during Personal Wreck Week (List #1). The History Boys was Rec. #115.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #140: Cloud Atlas

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some earlier posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: You probably don't need me to add my voice to the general clamor of people telling you to read this book. But I can't help myself.

So, the gimmick here is the structure --- six stories embedded like matryoshka dolls, spanning various places and time periods. Different genres are represented, from mystery to dystopian sci-fi. It's all brilliantly done, and author David Mitchell more than proves he can write any sort of book he wants to, thank you very much. The kicker is that when you read Cloud Atlas again, after the oohs and aahs of the structural trickery have worn off, the brilliance of the writing is not diminished. It remains achingly tragic and funny and suspenseful and sad.

Representative quote: "The sacred is a fine hiding place for the profane."

You might not like it if: You are tired of people gushing over it.

How to get it: The novel is widely available, which is good, because you should read it before the film adaptation comes out. You don't want to be the only one without a scathing remark about what the movie got wrong.

Connection to previous Wreckage: Mitchell's follow-up to Cloud Atlas was Black Swan Green (Rec. #72).

Additional note: I have it on very good authority that David Mitchell is delightful at his readings.

[Originally posted 6/8/11.]

List #17: French Films to Watch Instantly on Netflix, Part 3

Because someone (not me!) is teaching herself French. See Part 1 here. See Part 2 here.


À Chacun Son Goût (Or: Fooooooood)

Les Rois de la Pâtisserie (Kings of Pastry): A documentary about a pastry competition --- the pastry competition --- in France.

Nos Enfants Nous Accuseront (Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution): This documentary starts with a visit to a French school with an organic lunch menu.

Delicatessen: At a dilapidated apartment building in post-apocalyptic France, the ground-floor butcher finds a new source of meat . . . Not a documentary.

List #17: French Films to Watch Instantly on Netflix, Part 2

Because someone (not me!) is teaching herself French. See Part 1 here.


Cherchez Les Femmes (et Les Hommes) (Or: Comedies of Manners. And Sex.)

L'Arnacoeur (Heartbreaker): A man and his sister run a business designed to break up relationships. Bonus Andrew Lincoln sighting!

Quote of ineffable Frenchness:
"We need the job."
"Why?"
"We're broke and you keep buying 3,000-euro suits."

Un Baiser S'il Vous Plait (Shall We Kiss?): A lovely date ends with a story told in flashbacks.

Quote of ineffable Frenchness:
"I chose her because of her name, Eglantine. I don't know if it's her real name, but I liked the sound of it."

Le Code a Changé (Change of Plans): A Parisian dinner party. It goes about as well as you might expect.

Quote of ineffable Frenchness:
"Tonight, I'll tell her."
"You're going to be a father."
"That's marvelous!"
"No. Your wife is pregnant."

Le Nom des Gens (The Names of Love): A young left-wing activist sleeps with right-wing men to rescue them from their wrongheadedness.

Quote of ineffable Frenchness:
"I was born on March 22, 1961, which surprises me, because I doubt my parents ever made love."

Prête-Moi Ta Main (I Do): A forty-year-old perfume executive, and confirmed bachelor, devises a way to keep his mother and sisters from hounding him about marriage.

Quote of ineffable Frenchness:
"We introduced him to thirty-one girls. He had drinks with thirteen, had dinner with seven, and puked on one."


[Continue with Part 3 here.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #126: The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: The subtitle of Susan Orlean's The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup is "My Encounters with Extraordinary People." Among the extraordinary people Orlean profiles are: a "typical" ten-year-old boy, a female matador, Hawaiian surfer girls, designer Bill Blass, and a taxi driver who's also an Ashanti king. For each essay, Orlean's opening hooks are irresistibly hook-y (see Representative Quotes below), but it's the sense that she is genuinely interested in her subjects that keeps you reading.

Comparable to: Orlean writes with a distinctive New Yorker style, so it's easy to see similarities between her writing and that of other New Yorker writers like Adam Gopnik.

Representative quote: "Of all the guys who are standing around bus shelters in Manhattan dressed in nothing but their underpants, Marky Mark is undeniably the most polite."

Bonus representative quote: "If I were a bitch, I'd be in love with Biff Truesdale."

You might not like it if: You just don't care for Orlean's style.

How to get it: Look for that bright yellow cover online, in bookstores, or at your library. Also Kindle-able.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Susan Orlean's first major essay collection was Saturday Night (Rec. #15).

[Originally posted 5/15/11.]

List #17: French Films to Watch Instantly on Netflix, Part 1

Because someone (not me!) is teaching herself French.


Les Enfants Terrible (Or: Artistic Portraits of Melancholy Children)

L'Argent de Poche (Pocket Money/Small Change): Childhood in Thiers, France, during the summer of 1976. As interpreted by François Truffaut.

Quote of ineffable Frenchness: "Life is hard, but it's wonderful."

La Faute a Fidel! (Blame It on Fidel!): In 1970s Paris, a girl's life changes when her parents become political activists.

Quote of ineffable Frenchness:
"Miss De la Mesa, repeat what I said."
"The goat was eaten by the wolf for disobeying."

Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games): After a Nazi air attack kills her parents, a young girl befriends the son of a farmer, and the two children learn to cope with death. Cheery!

Quote of ineffable Frenchness:
"I know a place with crosses."
"Where?"
"The cemetery."



Worth a mention, even though it won't help anyone learn the language because it has almost no dialogue:

Le Ballon Rouge (The Red Balloon): A young Parisian boy wanders Montmartre accompanied by a red balloon. It's very French.


[Continue with Part 2 here and Part 3 here.]

Rec. #230: Life, the Universe and Everything

What: Continuing the potentially-universe-destroying romps of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in this third installment Douglas Adams gives us the killer robots of Krikkit, a persistent Thunder God, Arthur Dent teaching himself how to fly, and an anachronistic sofa.

Comparable to: Most other things in the Hitchhiker's universe.

Opening lines: "The regular early morning yell of horror was the sound of Arthur Dent waking up and suddenly remembering where he was."

Representative quote: "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say on the subject of flying. There is an art, it says, or, rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, it suggests, and try it. The first part is easy."

You might not like it if: Some contend that this is the weakest of the series, but some people say that about each installment, except the first. You won't be able to decide for yourself until you've read them all, will you?

How to get it: Buy it, borrow it, Kindle it.

Connections to previous Wreckage: If you want to read the full series in order, start with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Rec. #42), then move on to The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Rec. #198) before reading this one.

Friday Flashback: Rec. #134: Just an Ordinary Day

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Just an Ordinary Day, a collection of previously unpublished and/or uncollected stories by Shirley Jackson, is a master class in writing psychological horror. Jackson takes great pleasure in slamming together the mundanely domestic and the unsettlingly surreal (or the mundanely surreal and the unsettlingly domestic) to see which explodes first.

Comparable to: The comedic stories (both domestic and surreal) have an Angela Thirkell tone. The dark stories (both domestic and surreal) are dry and disturbing, perhaps even more so than her most famous works --- the novels The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle and the much-anthologized story "The Lottery."

Representative quote: "He was still smoking a little, but otherwise he seemed quite a charming young man. The horns were barely noticeable, and he was wearing pointed patent leather shoes that covered his cloven hoofs." --- "The Smoking Room"

You might not like it if: You don't like starting a story without knowing whether it's going to make you laugh or freak you out. (The titles are no help in this regard, by the way.)

How to get it: It's easy enough to find some sort of collection of Shirley Jackson stories, but this one really is a nice mix of genres, if you like that sort of thing as much as I do. It's also Kindle-able.

[Originally posted 5/25/11.]

Rec. #229: Libeled Lady

What: Jean Harlow. William Powell. Myrna Loy. Spencer Tracy. What else can you possibly need to know?

Comparable to: You've got the Myrna Loy/William Powell pairing made famous in The Thin Man, the crisp dialogue of sparring couples as in The Awful Truth, the frantic edge of the newsroom as in His Girl Friday, and some wackadoo matrimonial plotting worthy of The Palm Beach Story.

Representative quote:
"I thought that was rather clever of me."
"Yes, I thought you thought so."

You might not like it if: Wait, so she's suing the paper . . . and she's engaged to the paper's editor . . . and then he gets him to trap her . . . while pretending to be married to her . . . and then she changes her mind . . . and . . . what?

How to get it: Buy it or borrow it.

Connections to previous Wreckage: Gosh, I love old screwball comedies. See also: The Palm Beach Story (Rec. #17), The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Rec. #65), Midnight (Rec. #194), The Awful Truth (Rec. #219)

Rec. #228: The Daughter of Time

What: First of all, the title. You know the saying "Truth is the daughter of time" (credit to Sir Francis Bacon)? Well, that's why the title.

So. Josephone Tey's Inspector Alan Grant is recuperating with a broken leg and is feeling restless. (As you do.) He decides to pass the time by solving a historical mystery: Who killed the Princes in the Tower? Grant suspects it was not the notoriously wicked Richard III.

Comparable to: Prolific mystery author Elizabeth Peters took her own stab at defending Richard Plantagenet with The Murders of Richard III.

Opening lines: "Grant lay on his high white cot and stared at the ceiling. Stared at it with loathing."

Representative quote: "It was Grant's belief that if you could not find out about a man, the next best way to arrive at an estimate of him was to find out about his mother."

You might not like it if: Too. Much. British. History.

How to get it: Library or bookstore. It's not currently Kindle-able, but it's a modern classic, so that's only a matter of time.

Connections to previous Wreckage: I've already recommended two of Tey's other books --- Miss Pym Disposes (Rec. #75) and Brat Farrar (Rec. #200). All of them are clever mysteries, but they're very different kinds of mysteries, and very different kinds of clever.

Rec. #227: Calamity and Other Stories (abbrev.)

What: Collection of stories, Daphne Kalotay, pivotal moments in ordinary lives, piano lessons, garden party, shower singing, Bleecker Street, poetry, recovering, worms, French class, prom, dry cleaners, Brookline, electric outlet, smoking, ugly house, translation, Florence, ride from the airport, emergency landing

Opening lines: "My mother believed that her entire life would have somehow been different had she been given piano lessons as a girl. She said this often, with a little sigh that made me feel I had better run through my scales one more time."

Representative quote: "I had never met a poet before. After knowing Valerie's father, I was under the impression, for years to come, that poets were unconditionally cheerful people."

Connection to previous Wreckage: Mentioned previously during Personal Wreck Week (List #4).

Friday Flashback: Rec. #119: Parks and Recreation, season 3

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

[Come baaaaack, Parks & Rec! We miss you! You've been gone for a month, and life has been very difficult without you.]

What: Parks and Recreation, a smart and character-driven comedy, has been my favorite television show this year.* This (sadly abbreviated) season opened with the now-internet-infamous Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, but for me things really gelled with episode 2, "Flu Season." There's nothing like illness to reveal character, and all the characters in this episode are perfect concentrated versions of themselves. Leslie overachieves, Ron eats a meat tornado, Tom schmoozes and smarms, April is bitter and sullen, Chris is unhealthily health-obsessed, Ann is rational in a slightly frazzled way, and Andy is genially incompetent.

*Sorry, all the shows that don't center on the amazing Leslie Knope. You are working from a distinct disadvantage. I cannot overemphasize how great it is to see a female character who's good at her job, is respected for being good at her job, and isn't regarded as soulless/conniving/trying to fill a baby-shaped hole in her life. It's also pretty great that she identifies as a feminist without it being portrayed as an aggressive fringe position.

Representative quote: "Skywriting isn't always positive."

You might not like it if: To steal a line from a recent episode, "I guess some people object to powerful depictions of awesome ladies."

How to get it: It airs on Thursday nights, and you can watch the five most recent episodes on Hulu. The season finale is May 19, so you have two full weeks to catch up. 

[Edited to add: According to nbc.com, which ought to know, the show isn't back until April 19. That gives you almost two weeks to catch up on the eighteen episodes of Season 4 that have aired so far. You can do this.]

[Originally posted 5/4/11.]

Rec. #226: Symptoms of Culture

What: Marjorie Garber --- Shakespearean scholar extraordinaire --- explains how bits of our culture reflect back on our modern anxieties. In her freewheeling chapters, she touches on all types of cultural artifacts, from Charlotte's Web to the Scopes trial to historical sneezes to The Wizard of Oz to video games to Jell-O boxes to famous second-best beds.

Comparable to: Garber and Margaret Visser share an insatiable curiosity about the whys and wherefores of the way we live now.

Opening lines: "The 'Great Wall of China' is, some modern scholars suggest, neither great nor a wall."

You might not like it if: You don't miss unexpectedly riveting university lectures in the humanities, not even a little tiny bit.

How to get it: Kindle-able, borrowable, buyable.

Connection to previous Wreckage: Margaret Visser examines the culinary aspects of culture in The Rituals of Dinner (Rec. #63).

List #16: Some Dishy British Male Actors and Where to Find Them. Phwoar. (3)

[Part Three of Three. Catch up with Part One here and Part Two here.]


7. Rufus Sewell: His roles ping-pong all over the place, from kings to drug addicts to Italian detectives. He usually manages to insert a gust of squirrelly recklessness to stir things up.

Where to see him: One result of his willingness to ping-pong is that Rufus Sewell has been in lots and lots of things. Personal favorites, however, are his louche Seth Starkadder in the satire Cold Comfort Farm (Rec. #158) and his cross-dressing Petruchio in a Taming of the Shrew adaptation.

8. Toby Stephens: Blessed with an intimidating acting pedigree (his mother is Dame Maggie Smith), he and his aristocratic profile have risen to the challenge.

Where to see him: He's been doing mainly British television recently, but, most importantly, he played Mr. Rochester in the only Jane Eyre adaptation that hasn't made me want to hurl something through a window.

9. Dan Stevens: So much better-looking in the newest Sense and Sensibility than on Downton Abbey. Julian Fellowes, next time please check with Andrew Davies for costuming tips and creative ways to make Stevens get his kit off.

Where to see him: He made his screen debut in a hilariously awful Dracula adaptation (oh, Masterpiece, what were you thinking?), but quickly made up for it with stellar work in The Line of Beauty. And the 2008 Sense and Sensibility really is quite good.

10. David Tennant: Yes, yes, yes, Doctor Who, I know. But to me he will always be the singing police detective from Blackpool.

Where to see him: He not only sings in Blackpool --- he dances, too. And he makes lovelorn googly eyes at Sarah Parish. David Morrissey, as a megalomaniac casino owner, also sings, and it is wonderful.

Lesson of the day: Let Andrew Davies tell your costume designers what to do.

List #16: Some Dishy British Male Actors and Where to Find Them. Phwoar. (2)

[Part Two of Three. See Part One here.]


4. Robson Green: OK, yesss, half the time he is playing someone who is, at the very least, a bit on the edge of perfect sanity. But, wow, can he act. His Tony Hill (Wire in the Blood) is lifted whole cloth from Val McDermid's books (Rec. #210).

Where to see him: He justly won accolades for his "I will help solve these murders even though I am battling demons of my own" roles in Touching Evil and Wire in the Blood. And you can't go wrong with Reckless (created by the divine Paul Abbott, as was Touching Evil).

5. Andrew Lincoln: You may recognize him as the lead actor of the zombie tv show that Richard Lawson delightfully dubbed The Boring Living. Or maybe you remember his emphatic jacket-zipping in Love Actually. Through most of his career, though, Andrew Lincoln has done best when playing puppy-dog-eyed hot messes.

Where to see him: His first big break was playing a guy named Egg --- Egg! --- on This Life (which, incidentally, costarred Jack Davenport). For further puppy-dog-eyed-hot-messness, turn to his stint on Teachers.

6. James McAvoy: But he is basically off-limits, even from a distance, even hypothetically, because he is married to Anne-Marie Duff and we love Anne-Marie Duff and we want them to be together forever.

Where to see him: He met Anne-Marie Duff on the set of Shameless (Rec. #14) after appearing in State of Play (Rec. #104), both of which were created by Paul Abbott. Starter for 10 is also quite fun.

Lesson of the day: If you want me to develop an instant fondness for an actor, cast him in something that Paul Abbott wrote.

Tomorrow, the rousing conclusion of this non-comprehensive list.

[Continue with Part Three here.]

List #16: Some Dishy British Male Actors and Where to Find Them. Phwoar.

[Part One of Three]


1. Richard Armitage: He is inevitably brooding and smoldering like a Bronte character. Probably something to do with his eyebrows? Hmm, maybe. Sorry, I have to just sit down for a second now. It's a little swoony in here.

Where to see him: The best is North and South, but he's had major roles on Robin Hood and MI-5 as well. Also, he shows up at the end of the series The Vicar of Dibley. Well done, Dawn French. If I had my own television series, that is how I would end it, too: with Richard Armitage as my hunky accountant love interest.

2. Jack Davenport: He is all testy and rude on Smash, which has its own appeal, but generally I like him when he is all likable and put-upon. In real life, he is (delightfully) married to Michelle Gomez, the scene-stealer from Green Wing.

Where to see him: As Steve Taylor in Coupling, Jack Davenport got to be the likable, put-upon, fictional version of the show's creator.* As D.S. Michael Colefield in Ultraviolet (Rec. #212), he got to be a likable, put-upon, miserable man . . . who has to contend with vampires.

*Coupling was created by Steven Moffat, who is currently best known as the man behind Sherlock and the newest incarnation of Doctor Who.

3. Colin Firth: The modern classic. It's a comfort to know that every year, I get that much closer to how old Firth was when he filmed the revered Pride and Prejudice miniseries and took a memorable dip in a pond.

Where to see him: Pride and Prejudice, obviously. Everything else (Valmont, Fever Pitch, The Importance of Being Earnest, Love Actually, St. Trinian's, A Single Man, The King's Speech) is just icing.

More tomorrow!

[Continue with Part Two here and Part Three here.]