Igby Goes Down: Entertaining but not uplifting

Movie Review: Igby Goes Down (2002) on Netflix

Igby tries to grow up under the horrors of a mentally ill father, a success-obsessed mother, and a resentful brother, none of whom can seem to cope with any of the others. As a result, he cascades from one intentional failure to another seeking escape from the pressures of his life. He loves his father who he can't seem to reach, hates his mother who won't let go of him, and barely tolerates his brother who is the only one responsible enough to take care of but dominates him. As Igby nears the zenith of his growth years and entry to young adulthood, he encounters an infusion of unusual characters while visiting the one city where he can easily blend in, New York City, and there is blindsided by one questionable relationship after another. 

This is a solid character-driven story with a solid cast to go with it. Kieran Culkin is Igby, Bill Pullman is his father, Susan Sarandon is his mother, and Ryan Phillipe is his brother. Then there is the cast of important side characters: Claire Daines and Amanda Peet as love interests and Jeff Goldblum and Jared Harris as role models. For all that, it's an interesting, complex narrative you really want to see resolved by the end. It is and it isn't. Therein is the rub. Everyone is accounted for but there is no real accountability and no consequences for any of the characters. None of them! You're left feeling let down. And maybe that's the point? Maybe you're meant to feel lost as Igby does? That's not how I'd want my audience to feel if I were a writer, a director, or a producer.  

I rate Igby Goes Down B˅ for Below Average. Entertaining but don't expect to feel uplifted.

(Side note: How many Culkin movie references can you spot in the film?)

Soul: Above average family film and Oscar winner

Movie Review: Soul (2020) on Disney+

Feeling a little lost? Feel glad you're not Joe.

Music teacher Joe finally lands his dream gig as a jazz pianist in a New York City bar. His head lost "in the clouds" with excitement, Joe steps into a manhole and finds his way onto a conveyor trip to the great beyond. But before the heavenly bean counter can ensure Joe doesn't get lost, he finds his way back to his old neighborhood, looking for a way to redeem his dream. And you'll find yourself rooting he succeeds.

Soul is Disney Pixar's 2020 superb animated musical hit. Sit back and let it all seep in: the soulful jazz, the elegant graphical presentation, the whimsical art, and the thoughtful story line. Inspiring voice cast with Jamie Foxx as Joe, supported by Tina Fey and a ton of other great talent, too. This film, in my mind (and soul), skews to an older audience despite being Disney Pixar fare, but kids can enjoy it, too.

Maybe by the end of Soul you'll actually wish you were Joe.

Won Oscars for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score). I rate Soul A^ for Above Average. 

The Judge: A Highly Watchable Character Study

Movie Review: The Judge (2014)
Version: Hulu

Through the vault of time we discovered a little gem called The Judge with Robert Downey Jr and Robert Duvall in the leading roles. These fine actors played typical roles for their careers, so no ground breaking here. But it was a good film none the less made better by the steadfastness of their performances and backed up by Billy Bob Thornton as the main antagonist along with a few unsavory other characters.

The Judge is a story of suspense. Downey plays Chicago attorney Hank Palmer, who returns home to small-town Indiana to bury his mother. There he is confronted by his father, Joseph, played by Duvall, a down-the-fine-line judge who shows no favors and believes the rule of law strictly observed best serves the community. Old Dad doesn't see the world through the same lens as his expensive-criminal-defense-attorney son, and they battle it out through a good portion of the movie, sparring over what we don't know until the end. But things begin to smooth out over time as Hank devotes his expertise to defending his reluctant father after Joseph apparently hits a past defendant where there are no witnesses and few clues, and Joseph has a memory lapse due to the effects of chemotherapy. The suspense rides over whether the cranky old guy really did it and can Hank save his surly father -- his cancer-victim father -- from prison.

There is probably more to like in the characters than in the plotting or the pacing or the cinematography. Duval is likable as he always is as the venerable old gentleman with principles. Downey is lovable as the quick-witted scoundrel who owns all the knuckleheads. Billy Bob Thornton comes across as the scuzzy prosecuting attorney eager to convict Hank's Dad just to get even with Hank for past slights. So I would say this is more a character-driven story than anything. Even Hank's brothers, minor to the plot, add juice to this story. Vincent D'Onofrio plays older brother Glen, whose chance at sports stardom was nicked in a car accident in their youth and dad and brother have never gotten beyond it. Jeremy Strong plays youngest brother Dale, developmentally disabled and under Hank's parent's care and the family's history-caretaker through his obsession with film. There are an assortment of other lively characters to fill Hank's and Joseph's backstories, including Hank's high school girlfriend and her illegitimate daughter with deep questions of whether she might be Hank's daughter, too. A lot of resentments and misinterpretations fill in between a load of backstory mysteries.

What you have to look forward to, then, isn't just a mystery but an intense but highly watchable character study. And it's well worth watching unfold, right through the redemption scene at the end.

Chef: Another of the Great Food Movies

Movie Review: Chef (2014)
Version: Netflix

One of my favorite film writer-producers is Jon Favreau. As my wife says, "He has a real feel for people." He does. Favreau has a feel for what audiences like and for what make characters interesting. As a writer, Favreau also has a flare for the humorous and the emotional. All this came together in the making of Chef, a heavily character driven story about a successful gourmet chef in California who finds himself in a flame war on Twitter with a leading restaurant critic, which causes him to lose his job and his professional dignity in front of the whole world. 

Jon Favreau is also a terrific actor and he plays the male lead as Chef Casper in this movie that he also directs, playing opposite Sofia Vergara as his ex-wife, Inez, and Emjay Anthony as his son, Percy. There is also a particularly intense scene in the restaurant in which he plays opposite Oliver Platt as the critic Ramsey Michel and an unpleasant confrontation with the owner of the restaurant, Riva, played by a usually affable Dustin Hoffman. Favreau is his most amazing with his kitchen staff, including souse chef Martin played by John Laguizama, and in scenes with Laguizama and Anthony teaming together in a taco truck while traveling from Miami to California with many scenic stops in between, trying to save his career and his relationship with his son. You should see Favreau chop vegetables, butcher a pig, sauté in a pan, like the real thing! He's also great at plating food. As a creative director, he made Chef another of the great food movies!

There are high points and low points in this film. But the highs well overcome the lows, and the lows are the subject matter not the techniques. You will breeze through this film with the amazing cinematography and wonderful acting and what is a great script. I dare you to not like this film! It's a plain joy to watch with Favreau leading affable characters who make you like watching.

Simone LaFray and the Chocolatier's Ball

Book Review: Simone LaFray and the Chocolatier's Ball by S.P. O'Farrell
Version: Amazon Prime Kindle-free ebook

Don’t be late to the ball -- to reading Simone LaFray and the Chocolatier’s Ball by fine storyteller S.P. O’Farrell. It’s an enthralling YA suspense tale for young and older readers alike.

Simone is a twelve-year-old sleuth in training, following in her mother’s footsteps to becoming a master spy. While mother is away “on business” outside of Paris, Simone helps her father run the family’s famous chocolate patisserie and watch over her sister Mia, a dancer who loves being the center of attention, really the opposite of Simone. Mentoring Simone is Elaine, head of the French spy ministry, and ready to spring a trap on everyone is "The Red Fox", a notorious art thief, who has an eye on a major piece of art in a Paris museum, Simone, and her father’s busy shoppe. Simone spends 150 clever pages trying to catch "La Volope Rossa" who is here, there, and everywhere, while trying to help her father escape the scowls of his penniwise accountant-cousin always going on about the miserable financial shape of the otherwise most desirable patisserie of Paris, while also helping him avoid the clutches of a ruthless chocolate magnate intent on securing his book of secret family recipes. Then they are stolen in the dark of night, plunging the patisserie into disarray -- and the only answer is crafting a winning entry in the infamous Chocolatier's Ball of Paris.

How all this plays out is the well imagined story in Simone LaFray and the Chocolatier’s Ball. For as with all tales of suspense, nothing is as it seems which plays out until the final suspenseful page.

As much as this is a great story, it is also a well crafted tale. You will find it easy to read but hard to put down, with it's breezy chase scenes and lost umbrellas and suspenseful reveals. O'Farrell engages your senses in each stroll or run or stationary view of the streets and districts of Paris, and there is the busyness of the patisserie with its many delectable smells and chaotic sounds. You've got to be there, surrounded by chocolate.

Now I'm looking forward to O'Farrell's next novel.

Windsong: A Great Tale of Adventure Across the Atlantic by Sail

Book Review: Windsong by Shane Granger

Version: ebook by author

I've written about the harrowing tales in the life of Shane Granger before in The Vega Adventures. In it, he survived a category 5 cyclone (hurricane) and the 2004 tsunami that hit Sumatra and surrounding lands and islands and discovered a mission in life: delivering life-saving medical and educational supplies to the spice islands off Indonesia. Now Granger is using his amazing storytelling skills to tell about some of his other life-changing adventures. His newest book is Windsong.

You will join Granger as a down-on-his-fortunes young man walking a quiet beach in West Africa who stumbles on a half buried hull. Curiosity gets the better of him and before he knows it, he is consumed with a desire to figure out why a sailboat is half buried on a tropical beach, and he becomes almost obsessed with uncovering the truth. The locals think he is crazy, but many come to admire his determination and soon they begin to aid his quest until one day he has unburied the hull to find a decent old ship that's actually worth salvaging. 

And so begins the tale of a man and what will become dreams of restoring an old sailboat to its former glory and a sailing jaunt across the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way he will meet an old boat builder, a young boat repairman, several willing accomplices with supplies their owners won't miss, a couple of lovely ladies, amiable sailors willing to share their food, and one large great white shark down on its luck. 

Granger will restore the sailboat and have several run ins with nature before he actually launches Windsong westward, where nature will do its best to delay landfall in Brazil. But this is ultimately a story of the journey to get there. And Granger will learn a lot about himself as a sailor and a man along that journey. His story is full surprises and interesting twists about a trip that should have taken a couple of weeks but lasted more than a month. And then when he got there, there were even more surprises you will never guess, including a hilarious encounter with a pope.

It seems Granger never makes a port without finding an amazing woman he falls madly in love with, and one that causes him troubles he can do well enough without, thank you. He barely escapes one in West Africa only to meet two in Brazil, one who risks his life and freedom. 

Windsong is available as an ebook only through Granger's website, Vega 1892, where sales are for fundraising to support his mission to bring medical and educational supplies to the remote spice islands off Indonesia and the Banda Sea. Also on the ebook page is The Vega Adventures and soon, The Sahara Adventure. All great adventure reads.

The Dyslexia Code: There Is No More Compassion -- Do It!

Book Review: The Dyslexia Code: There Is No More Compassion -- Do It! by Karl de Leeuw
Version: Free ebook from the author

Dyslexia is often portrayed as a problem to be fixed. Karl de Leeuw looks at it differently, as a gift, as he explains in The Dyslexia Code: There Is No More Compassion -- Do It! In 80 well-researched, well-written pages, de Leeuw shows, tells, and explores why those with dyslexia just think differently and that difference makes them better thinkers, better problem explorers, and better problem solvers.

Most of the hundreds if not thousands of books on dyslexia are written by academics and health professionals, who look at the condition from the outside. De Leeuw sees it from the inside, having dyslexia himself and having a daughter with dyslexia. So he understands what it's like to see the world as a dyslexic. They don't see it 2-dimensionally as most of easy-readers do. They see it more 3-dimensionally as most difficulty-with-reading do, which means they are visualizers and listeners who process information differently. And, de Leeuw explains, that accounts for some of the greatest geniuses and prolific patent-holders being dyslexics. Instead of "fixing" dyslexics, we should be helping dyslexics flourish with their talents, he suggests.

Thus, in The Dyslexia Code de Leeuw spends time and space talking about the condition, how to test for it, how to educate those with it, and how to plan for a future where people with dyslexia can use those talents instead of stifling them. He discusses resources. So, if you know someone with dyslexia, or suspect they have dyslexia, or if you have it yourself, you should read The Dyslexia Code and make sure others do, too. It's readable, understandable, and relatable. You won't even need a medical dictionary to get through it.

I must confess to being confused by the subtitle, "There Is No More Compassion -- Do It!" This book shows lots of compassion, and de Leeuw gives you plenty of room and route to "do it!" My advice as a reader is to focus on the "Code" part of the title, because this book decodes the code that dyslexia can be to help you understand and address it if it's in your life. Then make the most of life with your "gift".