Happy Thursday, everyone!
Book Review
Dennis Lehane's Mystic River is a scorching, gut-wrenching experience. If you haven't seen the movie, I'll briefly summarize the plot: Three kids in 1975 Boston are approached one day by a couple of guys calling themselves cops; one of the boys, Dave, is taken away by these pedophiles for four days. Cut to 2000: Two of the boys - legendary criminal-gone straight Jimmy, and Dave, meek, timid, haunted - still live in the neighborhood. The other kid, Sean, works for State Homicide. The murder of Jimmy's eldest daughter Katie brings all three of them together, and before long Dave is the chief suspect.
There is so much so sorrow and power in Lehane's books, and this is probably the best novel he's written to date. He knows Boston like the back of his hand, and the environs are depicted with clarity and ugly truth. They mystery itself is a whopper, but what you're most likely to remember about this book is how honestly and nakedly Lehane carves his main characters, showing them warts and all; he's unafraid to make them unlikable, devious, hypocritical, ruthless, bewildering. You know you're in the hands of a master when even the most throwaway of characters, the ones most authors wouldn't even bother giving a personality, stays with you, due to succinctly illuminating detail by an imaginative author. At heart, the book is a love letter to Boston and its clannishness, and by the end, Lehane's story has run through all the great themes of literature - forgiveness, betrayal, guilt, love, loyalty.
(*****)
New Movies Opening This Weekend:
The Raven Poor reviews for this film about Edgar Allan Poe's involvement in the hunt for a serial killer in 1849 Baltimore, the murders involving various means of torture and execution as featured in several of Poe's books. John Cusack plays the famous author. A dreary-looking picture, it co-stars Alice Eve, Michael Shannon, and Brendan Gleeson.
The Five-Year Engagement Positive reviews for this one, though. A romantic comedy starring the appealing team of Emily Blunt and Jason Segel as a couple forced to move from San Francisco to Ann Arbor when Blunt's character is forced to move to Michigan for doctoral studies work; Segel happily goes along, but becomes depressed when he can't get his career kick-started up in Wolverine country. Co-written by Segel and Nicholas Stoller, and directed by Stoller - the lineup that brought us the winning Forgetting Sarah Marshall - the movie charts the couple's long, drawn-out pre-nuptial period. Anything with Emily Blunt, at this point, is probably worth a look.
Safe You wanted Jason Statham, you got him! Here he is in what looks like a critically-approved, brainless knock-off of 1994's The Professional with Statham as an ex-cage fighter (?) who rescues an orphaned 12-year old Chinese girl being pursued by gangsters. With reputedly witty, fast-paced direction from the guy who gave us Remember the Titans (uh, thanks?), the film... Forget it, I'm sold.
Bernie Richard Linklater is one of my favorite working directors: Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, Fast Food Nation. So I'm always curious what he's up to, but this true-events inspired tale just looks odd. Jack Black stars as an assistant funeral director and all-around swell community guy who begins a friendship with a needy, wealthy widow (Shirley MacLaine), who soon enough ends up dead, with Bernie as the main suspect. Co-starring Matthew McConaughey, the film has a 74% rating (which is good), but even the critics who like it are baffled by the tone, the structure, the way the story's told. Hmmm.
Born on this day in 1798, Eugene Delacroix was the most renowned of the Romantic painters. His most iconic work, Liberty Leading the People, memorialized the 1830 July Revolution. Less famous, but perhaps no less visually interesting, is the above work, shown in the Salon of 1827, The Death of Sardanapalus.
Delacroix took inspiration from an 1821 play by Lord Byron (Sardanapalus), which itself was based on other ancient sources, particularly the work of the Greek historian Diodorus (around 60-30 BC). The story: Sardanaplus is the last king of Assyria. He has failed in battle. His city, his home, is being looted. His concubines, his horses, and slaves are all being burned by rebellious enemy forces. He takes it upon himself to destroy his own possessions before the marauders do.
Delacroix's women resemble those of Rubens or Correggio. He distributes his colors well, the reds and yellows leaping off the painting, making the center of the piece more vibrant, dynamic. His brushstrokes are swift, tight. Delacroix uses light to illuminate some of the horror, while other sections of the work seem to be draped in a hazy, sooty fog.
It's a big, bright, vigorous, messy work, with action all over the place. There really is no structure to it, no central stage of activity. - the bodies, really, are the stage. The bed seems to be on a wave, floating almost. Filled with lusty, turbulent energy, the picture reveals a world in flux, spatial, perhaps moral (for the king appears almost apathetic) dissociation. Like many Romantic or Neoclassicist artists, Delacroix looked to the past for inspiration, trying to find ways to apply ancient struggles and inevitabilities to the present. Critics found the work to be unfavorable, without order, too barbaric.
If you want to see this painting, then please do so. You'll just have to be happen to be at the Louvre.
For my information, thanks to:
http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/death-sardanapalus
http://www.artble.com/artists/eugene_delacroix/paintings/the_death_of_sardanapalus
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-the-death-of-sardanapalus-1827-eugegravene-delacroix-2015856.html
And finally, the NBA season ends tonight. Here are my awards - that is, if I were a voter.
MVP: Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder
Coach of the Year: Gregg Popovich, San Antonio Spurs
Sixth Man : James Harden, Oklahoma City Thunder
Defensive Player of the Year : Tyson Chandler, New York Knicks
Most Improved Player : Andrea Bargnani, Toronto Raptors
Rookie of the Year : Kyrie Irving, Cleveland Cavaliers
Playoff (though they're not quite set in stone) predictions?
Eastern Conference, Round 1
(1) Chicago over (8) Philadelphia
(2) Miami over (7) New York
(3) Indiana over (6) Orlando
(5) Atlanta over (4) Boston
Western Conference, Round 1
(1) San Antonio over (8) Utah
(2) Oklahoma City over (7) Dallas
(3) L.A. Lakers over (6) Denver
(4) Memphis over (5) L.A. Clippers
Conference Semifinals
(1) Chicago over (5) Atlanta
(2) Miami over (3) Indiana
(2) Oklahoma City over (3) L.A. Lakers
(1) San Antonio over (4) Memphis
Conference Finals
(2) Miami over (1) Chicago
(2) Oklahoma City over (1) San Antonio
Finals
MIAMI HEAT over Oklahoma City Thunder, 4 games to 3.
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