Somusing

I wanted this to have a more Douglas Coupland-like ending, i.e., uplifting and hopeful, with a little of the supernatural thrown in for good measure. As it is, the ending was just barely hopeful. I guess if I want a Douglas Coupland ending, I should read Douglas Coupland.

I liked this movie a lot, but in retrospect, it reminds me of Under the Tuscan Sun , and I hated that. I guess I could try to figure out how they’re different, but I feel lazy, and also I suspect it might just be that I like Russell Crowe and I don’t really like Diane Lane. Also, I read Under the Tuscan Sun and loved it, and the movie hardly resembled it. Anyway, this is supposed to be about A Good Year . I enjoyed it. By the way, the DVD has videos by Russell Crowe's band The Ordinary Fear of God (which apparently used to be called Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts; same initials). They were somewhat amusing.

When we lived in Virginia, we loved this little Indian restaurant not far from us, where we often waited for our food while staring up at a wall-mounted TV showing what seemed to be very long Indian music videos. They always seemed to be about a couple trying to get together, but the couple were always accompanied by many other people, all dancing and sometimes singing in that wailing Indian way that I’m never sure if I like or not. The women and their vividly colored clothes were beautiful, and I usually couldn’t stop watching the videos. Bride and Prejudice is kind of a Hollywood version of this stuff, and it's delightful. The Pride and Prejudice themes translate well, the songs are fun and sometimes silly, the costumes amazing. And Sayid from Lost is in it--he's the Bingley character. Definitely enjoyable, and it helped me understand those videos we used to see at Café India.

I found this a little hokey, but Jon enjoyed it. The idea of the secret society in the movie is loosely based on one that Bush, Sr., and Bush, Jr., belong to.

This is a pretty amazing first novel; the author was 25 years old when she wrote it. It's kind of a crazy ride, but I loved it--Bangladeshi and Jamaican immigrants to England; Jehovah's Witnesses; a genetically altered mouse called FutureMouse, among other things. Beautifully written. I thought it was great. Here's the disclaimer: there's a lot of swearing in this book, as well as some drug use and other things that some of y'all might find offensive. So you've been warned.