Bought Read Watched 4

Suggested Soundtrack: "Don't you forget about me" by Simple Minds

JULY:

Books bought:

Jernigan by David Gates

Anthem by Ayn Rand

The Road by Cormac McCarthy


DVDs Bought:

None

Books Read:

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa

Jernigan by David Gates


Movies Watched:

The Whale Rider

Wall-E

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

The Dark Knight

The Savages

American Teen

Big movie month, not a lot of reading got done, sadly.

The first thing I read was The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa. All I know about Scrooge McDuck I learned from watching DuckTales. I had no idea that he was not meant to be a recurring character, that he was usually an incorrigible asshole, and that he had a huge following in Europe. The original Scrooge artist was a guy named Carl Barks. He invented Scrooge McDuck for one Donald Duck story, but Scrooge was so popular he ended up drawing his adventures in comic books for decades. In the states, Disney comics never really blew up, but in Europe, this guy Barks and his duck comics were a huge hit. So much so that when Barks died, it made national news in some European countries. Don Rosa, the man who took Barks’ place drawing Donald and Scrooge and Huey, Dewey and Louie, is such a fan of Barks that he decided to create a backstory for Scrooge using old Barks comics as research. He went through thousands of Barks comics and took every little tidbit of information he could and used it in this twelve chapter graphic novel that details Scrooge’s poor roots and rise to riches. It’s an awesome story full of historical detail and humor and ups and downs. After each chapter, Rosa writes about all the insane details he used from Barks stories to put the chapter together. It’s a glimpse into what makes the story even more special, although the story doesn’t need any help to kick ass on its own.

Jernigan, by David Gates features what is known in the literary world as an anti-hero. Peter Jernigan is a witty drunk asshole, a sublime fuckup of a man who narrates a novel about a time in his life that took him to the edge, and over. The writing is fantastic, and Jernigan is someone you’d love to know most of the time, and deny knowledge of the rest of the time. Early on, he ends up having sex with the mother of his son’s girlfriend, while his son and her daughter are in the next room, doing the same thing. Here, because it is fantastic and because I am bored, I present to you a couple of paragraphs from Jernigan that describe what happens the morning after:

“Martha Peretsky was asleep, or pretending to be asleep, face down. Shoulders swelling and subsiding. I got out of bed, found the jockey shorts where they’d ended up – I remembered now her taking them down and my not caring what became of them – and crept to the door. Then I remembered the girl, Clarissa, and went back and put on trousers. Glanced at stomach. Put on shirt.
In the hallway I met Danny, in just his jockey shorts, coming out of the bathroom. He gave me a thumbs-up, and a grin I would never have given my father, no matter how much of an old bohemian he was. But what was the point of trying to be on your dignity when you were getting up from doing the same thing he was getting up from doing? I decided fuck it, and gave him the thumbs-up back, the canny old veteran who could still come off the bench and move the runner along with the perfect bunt.”

This stuff makes me laugh out loud, and there’s enough funny in this book to balance out the shitty feeling I got when I read it for too long of a stretch. Too much of it seems too familiar with this man who can’t control his urges even though his life is turning to shit. If you like Catcher in the Rye, you’ll find a lot of similarities between the voices of Holden Caulfield and Peter Jernigan.

As for movies, first I got around to watching a DVD I bought months ago. The Whale Rider was a critical darling when it came out and I never saw it. I’m pissed now that I waited as long as I did. It’s the story of a girl whose twin brother died at birth. He was to be the leader of their Maori tribe. His death left the tribe without a leader. The movie shows what life is like for her (difficult), what kind of existence a leaderless people have (shitty, mostly), and how all that is overcome (in an awesome and heartbreaking way). The visuals of New Zealand made me ask myself, “Why have I not been there?” See this movie, then call me and let me know when you wanna go to New Zealand.

What can I say about Wall-E other than go see it? This movie is incredible. The love story of two robots broke my heart in certain places. I think it was just the way that EVE says Wall-E’s name when she’s frustrated with him…”Wwwwaaaaallllllleeeeeee!”

Hellboy II: The Golden Army was good fun, especially for me, the comic book nerd. It’s worth watching even if you know nothing about the comic just because of the richness of the world that is created in the movie. The monster market is fantastic, and watching Hellboy and Abe the merman get drunk and sing Barry Manilow is worth the price of admission alone. Plus, for fans of slapstick humor, it doesn’t get much better than an old lady getting punched so hard she flies offscreen.

The Dark Knight is another movie I’m assuming you’ve seen. If not, skip this paragraph. Holy shit!! I was lucky enough to catch an IMAX sneak preview of this the Tuesday before it came out. There was no point to that last sentence except to brag. This movie is bad ass. The Joker making the pencil disappear: genius. The Joker in general: mad genius. This movie was near-perfect. Really, the only thing that got to me was the Batman voice. I know it’s to protect his identity, but it grated after a while. I mean, I love the new “realistic” feel these movies have, but the bat-voice is odd enough that it makes me notice that people are talking to a man in a bat suit and not really noting the silliness of the whole deal. But the other 99.9% of the movie is, as I said before, perfect. I saw it first!!!

A friend of mine gave me the DVD for The Savages, a black comedy with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It is about a brother and sister who have to care for their elderly father who is losing his mind and control of his bodily functions. The sad is so sad, and the funny so funny, that it is hard to classify this movie. I’ll just classify it as great.

And sneaking in just under the wire we have American Teen, a documentary that is just showing up in theatres that you should go and see right away. The filmmaker followed a bunch of seniors at a Midwest high school around for a year and picked the four best stories to feature. The movie may seem to be trying to show that al kids fit into groups, but that is not the case. By focusing on the four she focuses on, the director shows us what it is like to be one of the extremes. The Queen Bee, The Sports Hero, The Nerd, and The Outsider. These four may fit the descriptions neatly, but that doesn’t mean they like where they are or are eager to stay there. All four have ups and downs and all four defy their descriptions in some way or another. If nothing else, it will give you that “Thank goodness that’s over with” feeling. In high school, only high school matters, and it’s neat to go back to that for just a couple of hours just so you can know that really, it didn’t matter all that much in the long run. These kids don’t know that yet, and it’s awesome and scary to watch. GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

Until next time…