I’m usually disappointed in child fantasy movies as an adult because at some point they stop observing the reasons for child fantasies and just churn through a simple plot with lots of pretty colors (the stop-motion animation in this film is really cool). This movie got our hopes up in the first half, but fell…

At some point we watched this, and I guess I didn’t review it, so we got it again. We start watching it, immediately recognize it, and can’t stop. It’s ingenious in such a wierd way that you can’t help but look. And keep looking. Back and forth. And now I’m cracking up.

An aging professor of mathematics has suffered an accident that left him with only 80 minutes of short-term memory, and most housekeepers are not up to the challenge of caring for him. It’s a good setup that uses the professor’s memory limitation to explore the importance of history in relationships. It also gently plies the…

This book has some weaknesses. It’s a little overblown at regular intervals, a bit repetitive, and has a dash more macho than I usually like. These are small complaints about a close examination how humans behave under the supreme stress of survival situations, and why they behave that way, that is ultimately thoughtful and broad.…

I was skeptical of this, not being a horse person, but it hooked me in other ways. Desert and mountain landscapes, the impulsive walkabouts of youth, curiosity about Mexico, a smattering of Spanish, and the novelty of a western that doesn’t take place in the old west all kept me reading. It was grittier than…

Somehow the super-hip cinematography and soundtrack detracted from the essential gruesomeness of this story for me. I don’t know exactly why it missed where City of God succeeded in a similar vein. I wouldn’t say it failed, the glimmer just somehow took some of the impact out the gut punch, whereas it was enhanced in…

This takes the title for my favorite super hero movie. From? Uh, hmm, I’m sure there is one that I’m not thinking of. Anyway, this is fantastic, somehow capturing the psychotic aspect of both comic book heroism and regular human heroism perfectly.

An autobiography by a Palestinian Christian who has been a tireless advocate for peace with Israel. It’s written in a simple but vivid style, and Chacour has some remarkable success stories that are a welcome relief from the usual Middle East news. He makes his own unshakable faith quite clear as the inspiration and grounding…

This swirling work of historical fiction centers around a slave plantation in Virginia that is owned by a former slave. The tale jumps around in both time and perspective, taking some effort to follow, but the effort is rewarded by an intimacy with Manchester county that feels eerily like having lived there a long long…

I had dim memories of this book from grade school, and the outdoor theme brought me back to it. The premise is simple: a boy runs away from his home in New York city to survive in the wilderness, and succeeds. I wasn’t disappointed. This is one of those books written for kids that has…