Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels are an absolute hoot. The zany bounty hunter series is populated by a cast of vivid, foulmouthed, off-the-wall characters who get into japes and crash cars and shoot things. Hapless Stephanie’s relationships with sexy bad boy cop Joe Morelli and sexy bad boy security expert Ranger are particularly riotous, and…
Read moreThe Perks of Being a Wallflower
Oh lord, Perks of Being a Wallflower is a great film but I found it so hard to watch. The slow, sweet, coming-of-age tale of a lonely, damaged boy, it’s like a cringe-worthy 102-minute-long reminder of the stultifying shyness and confusion and awkwardness of my own teen years. It’s even got the same sound-track (C’mon…
Read moreThe Next Three Days
After the runaway train drama Unstoppable, it’s back to Pittsburgh for me, for the latest Russell Crowe vehicle, The Next Three Days. Chopsy old Russ plays a dowdy, lumpy lit professor at a community college whose firecracker wife (Elizabeth Banks! Love!) is thrown in jail for a murder she may or may not have committed,…
Read moreThe Road
The political awakening of my teenage years coincided with growing pushback against Nuclear Weapons in Britain. Greenham Common, CND, Fred and Hilda Bloggs in When the Wind Blows, that horrific documentary about radiation sickness: these were all vivid, naked fears, and Nuclear Winter was an oft-imagined dread. Although it doesn’t ever express what’s actually happened,…
Read moreZack and Miri make a porno
As Justin Long suggests quite early on in the film, I am exactly not the demographic for Zack and Miri make a Porno. Imagine it as a kind of When Harry Met Sally with vulgar language and enhanced breasts and yet more fantastically faked orgasms. Zack and Miri have been friends since high school, but…
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