To Rome With Love
Woody Allen has always been very touch
and go with me. Sometimes, he absolutely wows me with movies that are
both artistic and thoughtful, while having a distinctly European air
that adds weight and a desire to travel to the story that he creates.
Other times, he creates an annoying piece of crap that slaps the
audience in the face repeatedly with his uniquely annoying brand of
comedy. Match Point and Midnight in Paris represent the
former category. Scoop and To Rome With Love represent
the latter.
In a film that could be renamed Casual
Infidelity: The Movie, we are treated to a handful of
two-dimensional shallow short stories that almost utterly fail to
engage. This would be tolerable if it did a good job of capturing the
city of Rome and what it must be like to travel there, but instead we
are treated to a sequence of simplistic plots that seem out of some
college teacher's Intro to Fiction 101 syllabus that just happen to
take place in Rome. In short, my theory holds true: if a movie
created by Woody Allen also stars Woody Allen, it is destined
to suck.
.
Ted
I had zero expectations for this movie.
A movie about a CGI teddy bear? Does nobody remember the failure of
Garfield and every children's movie that's been made on a CGI
animal before? And Seth McFarlane? I must admit, I'm a member of that
tiny minority that sees Family Guy, American Dad, etc
etc ad infinitum, and cringes. I've never been a huge fan of that
type of humor for quite some time.
But then the movie turned out to be
rather charming. Oh, I know. You were expecting the worst. But it
actually managed to convincingly make me care for that damned teddy
bear, even when it was being a vulgar, furry little fuck. Despite my
fears, it was a rather touching movie that told the story of one
guy's childhood friend, how they grew up together, and how they
affect each others' lives, for better or worse, now that they're
adults. For anyone who has ever had a friend who was considered a
“bad influence”, you'll empathize with Ted. It isn't the
greatest comedy I've seen, but it was pretty damn good considering
how terrible it could have been.
.
Winston's War: Churchill –
1940-1945
This book is spectacular. Essentially,
what it is is a narrative of World War II from the perspective of
Winston Churchill, and boy is it a great one. Winston Churchill is
one of the most epic figures I've ever read about in history, and Max
Hastings' writing succeeds brilliantly in capturing Churchill's
indomitable spirit, romantic bent, and utter determination.
This is a man who, despite a country
that flip-flopped between wanting to negotiate surrender with the
Naxis and wanting to just let the rest of the world worry about
Hitler, wrested control of the spirits of Great Britain to hold out
against the most fierce military machine the world had ever seen.
It's hard to convey the sheer amount of obstacles that confronted the
Prime Minister at every stage of the war; he had to deal with a
population that found “Uncle Joe” (Stalin) and Communism more
likable than the Americans, people harassing him to open up a second
front in Europe by himself, despite the impossibility of doing so,
and a United States President (Roosevelt) who constantly undermined
him in order to insure that the U.S. Achieved dominance, materially
and influentially.
Sadly, due to the failure of my Kindle,
I got only 70% into the book before having to 'put it down', but I
would still recommend this as one of the most addicting and
inspirational biographies/histories I've ever read. It is even better than Hastings' Retribution, in my book, as, unlike Retribution's smorgasbord of different stories from different civilians and soldiers, Winston's War has a more singular and effective narrative that keeps you hooked.
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