Book Report: Inferno

This is the worst Dan Brown book that I've read. He isn't even trying anymore - content to fall back on awful cliches and hackneyed narrative devices. He is obsessed with thought bubbles this time out, with characters thinking obvious observations to themselves. It got to the point where the thought bubbles would cause Pavlovian gags in me whenever I got to them.

Usually, at the very least, you can count on Brown for fascinating historical facts. He provides the minimum required to justify the novel, rather the flood of breathless hidden knowledge he usually cranks out. He wierldy turns Dan Brown and his sidekick into action heroes, dodging bullets, taking down enemies with martial arts moves and making acrobatic escapes. It almost rises to the level of self-parody, if the upshot wasn't so sad. This author has nothing more to say, and he should go away now. But he probably won't and I will be back like a sucker to read his next swirl of word vomit.

Book Report: The Lost Symbol

Dan Brown is really good at researching obscure and fascinating historical facts. I would love his books just as much if they were bullet points describing the Founding Fathers' Masonic and Bible code obsessions and symbology buried in D.C. architecture and road layouts.

The plethora of fun facts he spray-guns his novels with makes his pretentious and silly storytelling manageable.  I groaned all through this thing, but I also had a million lightbulbs flash above my head because the history he finds is so illuminating. The brilliance of his work overshadows the amateurish aspects. If he wrote 30 books, I would devour every one.

Book Report: Anna Karenina

It was utter misery to get through this thing, yet I appreciate its role as a driver of feminist thought and the way it challenged social structures of the time.

It's interesting from a historical perspective, and as a sort of time machine, but has no narrative thrust or momentum. Its characters are rich but have to little to do. This story could have been told in 200 pages, and that still might have been too long.

Review: Gone Girl

Of all David Fincher's accomplishments as a director, he may pull off his most impressive feat of all in Gone Girl -- getting Tyler Perry nominated for an Oscar.

Yes, the man who has played Madea more times than Robert De Niro has played mafiosos looks not only like a legit performer in Gone Girl, but one of the elite. Perry plays a cackling scumbag lawyer who takes it upon himself to get a smug sociopath Nick (Ben Affleck) off of charges of falsely impersonating Batman.

That's no easy task, because the internet has already tried and convicted him. That difficulty level is why the movie takes two and a half hours rather than your standard two. In addition to the Bat-crime, Nick has also been fingered for murdering Gone Girl herself -- his wife, Amy (Rosamund Pike).

Nick does himself no favors in the court of public opinion. There's blood all over his house, and he's
hiding dark secrets like he once starred in Gigli. He's also unable to keep dopey smiles off his face whenever the media pokes around.

Fincher plays off the did-he-or-didn't-he suspense for more than half the running time, Nick scrambles to prove his innocence to detectives, shouting cable news magazine hosts and the shouting mobs that surround his home. An underrated actor who had previously only gotten to show what he do when under the direction of Kevin Smith or Affleck himself, Affleck handles the one-man-show assignment with such vicious determination that it's feasible to imagine him being OK taking a super-serious and demanding role such as the Caped Crusader.

Pike is equally searing in flashbacks and cutaways, smoldering with Affleck in their shared scenes. Also winning the day, as always, is Neil Patrick Harris, playing against type in the first serious role I can remember seeing him in. All the acting in this movie is so incredibly good that even as bladder-bustingly long as the movie is, you're left wanting more.

That's Fincher's style. This is the man who delivered Fight Club, The Social Network, Zodiac and Seven. The man is so good at using his cinematic skills to manipulate emotions and minds that he could make a Mentos commercial that would make you cry and give you nightmares. In fact, maybe Gone Girl is really just that -- a Mentos commercial disguised as a crazy-long, crazy-awesome whodunnit. If so, I'm sold.

Gone Girl has me willing to give Perry an Oscar, Affleck Batmobile keys and my mouth some Mentos. As filmmakers go, Fincher is one hell of a freshmaker.

Starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coone and Kim Dickens. Written by Gillian Flynn. Directed by David Fincher. 148 minutes. Rated R. 

Me and Psychic Medium James Van Praagh

I went on The Morning Blend today for a reading from psychic medium James Van Praagh. Here is how it turned out.

Book Report: Of Mice and Men

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It's just a little pamphlet/napkin scribble compared to East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath, but Steinbeck always brings it. Without condescension, he warps you into the mind of people who are mentally limited, devastatingly alone, desperate and self-deceiving.

It's raw and painful, with economical storytelling that cuts away extraneous scene-building and gets right to the meat. It feels a lot like reading a screenplay.



View">https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/688376-phil-villarreal">View all my reviews

Book Report: The Good Earth

Spare, detached and efficient, this is a powerful and painful story of the meaninglessness of fleeting fancies that life hurls in front of you. You feel Wang Lung's greed, avarice, lust and sloth as he rationalizes them all into neat little boxes that justify one poor, self-destructive decision after another.

This book stings, and does an excellent job of setting you within its place, time and culture without judgment or awkwardness. It deeply attaches you to its characters and applies the hurt when it rips them away. The way the ending floasts off from first-person perspective to a knowing hint of third-person is executed incredibly well. The book is so good at what it does that I don't know if I want to continue on with the trilogy, for fear that the series won't hold up.