S.G. Browne

This week on Wild Card Wednesday, I’ve decided to list the favorite books I read in 2010.  None of these books actually came out last year but that doesn’t matter.  All that matters is that I read ’em and I liked ’em.

In no particular order, here are my Five Favorite Reads of 2010 with a brief blurb about each:

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
A heartbreaking story about what it means to be human, both melancholy and affecting. Read the book, then watch the movie.

The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
Sets the bar for mystery noir and detective novels. Rich and satisfying, both in the story and the prose.

Duma Key, Stephen King
King back to his tricks as a master of storytelling and supernatural chills. His best stand-alone novel since The Green Mile.

City of Thieves, David Benioff
Two unlikely comrades attempting to avoid execution during the siege of Leningrad. Wondrously funny and engaging from start to finish.

Skin Tight, Carl Hiaasen
A fun ride through the criminal world of Florida politics and plastic surgery, filled with great characters, social satire, and lots of laughs.

There you have it. That’s my list.  What were some of your favorite reads from 2010?

Set in 1969 Paris, CQ (written and directed by Roman Coppola) is an offbeat and campy film-within-a-film starring a pre-LOST Jeremy Davies as a young film editor making a documentary about his own life while working on a science fiction adventure movie directed by the renowned French director Gerard Depardieu.

The sci-fi film stars Angela Lindvall as Dragonfly, a sexy super-agent who lives in a spaceship on top of the Eiffel Tower and charges ridiculous amounts of money to the World Council to help solve their problems. Her most recent assignment? To stop a revolutionary (Billy Zane) who lives on the far-out side of the moon.

When Depardieu is fired from the film and his replacement, Jason Schwartzman, backs out, Davies is thrust into the director’s role he has always coveted. But his obsession with the sexy Lindvall/Dragonfly causes unexpected results, not the least of which is the blending together of the sci-fi film and his documentary, with both eventually merging with his real life.

The humor is subtle, the cinematography top notch, and the dialogue smart and funny. This is another example of what I thought was an excellent film that made no money at the box office. Granted, it’s not for everyone, but if you enjoy campy films about film-making and you appreciate homages to 1960’s European sci-fi spoofs, then you’ll love CQ.

Kick-Ass starts out with a young, costumed figure standing atop a skyscraper as the hero narrates about why no one ever thought to be a superhero before him.  With all of the comic books, movies, and TV shows out there, he figures someone, one eccentric loner, would have made himself a costume.  He continues to wonder if everyday life is so exciting, if schools and offices are so thrilling, then how is it he’s the only one who fantasized about this?

He finishes the opening monologue by saying that, at some point in our lives, we all wanted to be a superhero.

And Kick-Ass does just that.  It makes you want to be a superhero. To go out and buy a costume and take some martial arts classes and learn how to use some nunchucks.  It makes you want to go out and kick some ass.

Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Stardust, Layer Cake) and starring Nicolas Cage, Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin from Superbad), Kick-Ass is one of the best superhero films I’ve ever seen. Why?  Because it’s not overacted or overproduced or overdone with special effects.  It’s not about mutants with unusual abilities or millionaires who feel the need to save the world.  Instead, it’s about real people trying to do extraordinary things, with some of them realizing they’ve gotten in over their heads.  And that’s what gives the film its heart.

The script is fun and filled with action, the acting solid, the characters engaging, and the story inspiring.  What more do you want in a superhero movie?

Oh, and Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall is scheduled for release in 2012.  I’m going to make sure to catch that one at the theaters.

I don’t know many people who saw this film when it came out in 1999, which is reflected by it’s meager box office take. But just because a movie doesn’t make any money at the theaters doesn’t mean it’s not worth seeing. Most of the movies on my Top 10 List of All Time Favorite Films weren’t considered box office successes. And while Mystery Men isn’t on that list, if you enjoy fun characters and riffs on the superhero films, then you’ll enjoy this one.

Champion City has been virtually cleansed of criminals by the corporate-logo-clad Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear), who is frustrated because his publicist can’t get him anything better than a battle with The Red Eyes at an old age home. It doesn’t help that Pepsi has just dropped him as a sponsor and that he’s in danger of losing his other endorsement deals. So Captain Amazing’s alter ego, billionaire Lance Hunt, decides to help argue for the parole of his nemesis, Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush), so he can position himself for maintaining his sponsors and status. Unfortunately, Captain Amazing’s plan backfires and he’s captured by Casanova Frankenstein.

In the meantime, a trio of less-than-glamorous crime fighters – Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller), The Shoveler (William H. Macy), and the fork-flinging Blue Raja (Hank Azaria) – find themselves struggling for notoriety and respect. To improve their standing and help them to rescue Captain Amazing, they enlist the help of The Spleen (Paul Reubens), The Bowler (Janeane Garofalo), and Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell).

With the help of the terribly mysterious and wisdom espousing The Sphinx (“He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions”), the group of ragtag superheroes takes on Captain Casanova and attempts to rescue Champion City’s superhero.

The dialogue is excellent, the casting pitch-perfect, and the art direction outstanding. Yes, the premise is somewhat silly and there are several minor plot issues but you’re not watching this film for it’s credibility or social commentary.

Put it on your Netflix queue.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss is a poignant, touching, heart-breaking, and funny work of art. There. That’s all you need to know. Now go out and read it. What? You need a little more to convince you? Okay, fine.

“When they write my obituary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, LEO GURSKY IS SURVIVED BY AN APARTMENT FULL OF SHIT.”

So begins The History of Love, a literary novel told in alternating chapters from the POV of octogenarian Leo Gursky, teenager Alma Singer, and, to a lesser extent, Alma’s would-be Messiah younger brother Bird and a tormented writer named Zvi Litvinoff.

The beauty of the novel lies not only in the prose but in the deft manner in which Krauss seamlessly weaves together the story lines of her characters. You feel for them. You root for them. You imagine running into them on the street. And in the end, you’re sad to see them go.

If you’re looking for plot and action and are one of those readers who needs to have something happening by page 50, you’re not going to get that here.  What happens is what transpires as you get to know the characters and you discover what they’ve loved and what they’ve lost and how they go about trying to get it back.

Without giving too much away, The History of Love is about a book within a book. It’s about what that book meant to the people who read it and the person who wrote it.  It’s about love and relationships and what people mean to one another.  And it’s about finding what you need, even if it’s not what you set out to find.