My Top 10 Favorite Things of 2012

Hi everyone!

As the clock winds down to the final moments of 2012, I wanted to take a moment to share with you my top 10 favorite things of the year. With the exception of #1, these aren't in any particular order and encompass everything from movies and TV to art exhibitions, musical artists, books, theatre, and food.
So without further ado, here are my top 10 highlights of 2012:

1. Les Miserables: Tom Hooper's massive and massively entertaining long-awaited film of the international musical phenomena is hands-down my pick for Best Film of the Year. Not all of the voices were as big or strong as they might have been, but even the most cynical person cannot deny that this is epic and emotional filmmaking. What struck me most was the passionate commitment the entire cast visibly demonstrates for the material and that in itself was enough to move me to frequent tears. Worthy of particular praise are the performances by the supporting cast: Eddie Redmayne as the love-struck revolutionary Marius, in my opinion, steals the show. His rendition of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables" is all the more wrenching for the quiet sincerity he brings to the song and his voice is absolutely beautiful; Samantha Barks is a perfect Eponine and while her big song "On My Own" doesn't feature the emotional histrionics of Anne Hathaway's much-lauded "I Dreamed a Dream," I found Ms. Barks lovely in her more understated but equally heartfelt turn; Amanda Seyfried is another major surprise as Cosette. While she doesn't have a powerhouse voice, she turns out to be perfectly cast, and more than succeeds in holding her own, particularly in the murderously high notes at the end of the great love trio between Cosette, Marius, and Eponine, "A Heart Full of Love". Ms. Seyfried is indeed a revelation in this role. While I don't think Hugh Jackman's voice is particularly strong (certainly not in comparison to Colm Wilkinson who originated the role of Jean Valjean and appears in the film as the Bishop) and rather reedy, he brings a quiet depth to the role that works. Russell Crowe is rather vocally stiff as Javert, but his acting can't be faulted. His steely determination is affecting. And Anne Hathaway? She'll win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her turn as the doomed Fantine and I admired the courage she brings to the role without necessarily loving her voice. The film is beautiful to watch and the final scene will soften the hardest of hearts. I'm already planning to see it again...and again...

2. George Bellows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City: a definitive exhibition of the works of the under-appreciated early 20th century American artist George Bellows. I was unfamiliar with his works aside from his vividly rendered boxing scenes that are presented here within the greater context of his artistic oeuvre. His landscapes are stunning. And while there is a certain derivative element to his painting--his influences are rather transparent--one cannot help but be swept up by the alternately sweeping and intimate power of his collective work. This exhibition, which will be traveling to the Royal Academy of Art in London in Spring 2013, is a gem and a major rediscovery of a great American artist.

3. Picasso in Black and White at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City: while I found this exhibition of Picasso's black and white paintings a little monotonous by its end, it was definitely a landmark event that beautifully showcased the evolution of an artist. And the Guggenheim, with its minimalist spiral-like gallery space, was the perfect setting.

4. Jake Gyllenhaal's New York theatre debut at the Laura Pels Theatre in the off-Broadway play "If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet". I've always been a fan of Mr. Gyllenhaal's film work, but he showed a greater nuance and depth to his acting in this overly ambitious and somewhat thematically jumbled play by young British playwright Nick Payne. As Terry, the ne'er-do-well but well-intentioned drifter brother of George, Brian F. O'Byrne's rigid and environmentally obsessed professor brother, Mr. Gyllenhaal succeeded in making his character likable, repulsive, and ultimately sympathetic. His scenes with Annie Funke in the role of Anna, his overweight and emotionally disturbed niece, were beautiful and what's more, he succeeded in commanding the stage in spite of an occasionally garbled Cockney accent and the rather abstract/symbolic destruction of the increasingly water-logged set, which was a wonder unto itself.

5. French Pop Music: 2012 was the year I discovered a host of chart-topping French and Quebecois pop musicians whose music collectively has become the current soundtrack of my life. Christophe Willem's 2012 release "Prismophonic" is one of my top choices for best album of the year: the electronic jams swirl, the beats are infectious, and high above the disco/trance/electronica (or very much a part of it), Mr. Willem's voice soars almost ethereally. You don't need to be able to speak or understand French to enjoy his music, just blast it into your earbuds while you're working out or getting ready for a night out, and you'll be in just the right mindset for clubbing. My favorites: "L'amour me gagne," "Jamais du," "Cool," and "Le temps qu'il reste." While you're at it, also check out M. Pokora, the chart-topping French/Polish pop idol whose music more than holds its own against the better-known (in the U.S.) tracks of Chris Brown and Justin Bieber. And if you're in the mood for a real balls-to-the-wall power ballad, check out Pokora's "Si Tu Pars" (If  You Leave) from his 2012 album "A la poursuite du bonheur".

6. Madonna's MDNA World Tour: netting the Material Girl more than $200 million in revenue, the MDNA tour proved to be the top-grossing concert of the year, not to mention one of the most elaborately staged, hyperkinetic, and jaw-dropping spectacles of the concert year. (I still don't know how those drum majors managed to remain perfectly suspended from the rafters!) I've seen all of Madonna's tours and this proved over and over again that at 54, Madonna is still the undisputed Queen of Pop. And while no one but me seems to have liked her 2012 album "MDNA," I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it is the best pop album of the year. Much of the tour was based around her new material, most of which held its own against some of her better-known and better-loved earlier pop hits.  Okay, the bloody Tarentino-esque massacre that served as the context for her song "Gang Bang" was in poor taste especially in light of the spate of mass shootings here in the US this summer and fall, and I did find her slowed-down Marlene Dietrich rendering of "Like a Virgin" painfully overindulgent. But she more than made up for it with incredible reinventions of "Express Yourself," "Vogue," and "Like a Prayer" along with visually extraordinary performances of new material like "I'm Addicted," "I'm a Sinner," and "Girl Gone Wild." If you missed it live, the DVD/Blu-Ray is coming out soon.

7. The spectacle and grandeur of the Opening Ceremonies of 2012 London Summer Olympics: half of my heritage is British so I'm biased but the opening ceremonies and the Olympics as a whole were a testament to British pageantry and organization. Despite early naysayers, no one does it better. I was proud (and am proud) to be British.

8. "Jerusalem: A Cookbook" by celebrated Israeli and Arab chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, published by Ten Speed Press: a visually stunning and accessible celebration of Middle-Eastern cuisine.  I received this book for Christmas and cannot wait to try my hand at every recipe. A wonderful introductory guide to one of the world's most diverse and flavorful cuisines.

9. "Un Village Francais": a long-running French television drama centered around a small village in Vichy France during the Second World War, this series is in the middle of its run on TV5Monde, a premium channel on Comcast cable. I came into this series about halfway through, and was immediately hooked. Epic--yet intimate--in scale, it traces the lives of French villagers and members of the Resistance, police, Gestapo, and Jews all struggling to survive in Occupied France. This series is exquisitely acted and gorgeously produced and while it certainly has its moments of melodrama, it provides a powerfully distilled portrayal of what life must have been like during this infamous and difficult time in French (and world) history. It isn't available yet for streaming on Netflix and the first four seasons aren't available on U.S.-compatible DVDs, but given the acclaim the series continues to receive, it's a sure bet it'll be available for streaming within the next year or so. If it isn't, it should be.

10. "The Shahs of Sunset" on Bravo TV: my top guilty pleasure pick for 2012. This is a train wreck in every sense of the word and I'm almost embarrassed to include it among the loftier elements of this list, but no reality show (not even "The Real Housewives of Wherever) makes me laugh or cover my eyes/ears in horror as the Shahs do. The first season was good but now we're well into Season Two: Reza, GG, Asa, Mike, MJ, and new cast member Lily shamelessly demonstrate that more is indeed more but it's so indulgent and so ridiculously hilarious you can't help but watch. Where else will you see a self-proclaimed Persian Pop Princess (Asa) duke it out at a pool party with the always volatile--strike that, insane--GG over the fact that GG's boyfriend--now fiance--has a big nose? "I love Omid's nose," Asa defends herself at one point, "I'm totally into the Persian nose business." To which GG screams: "I'm going to toss you like a salad!" And then of course there's the "Persian Barbie" (no, strike that, 'entrepreneur') Lily who tells her make-up artist: "I love that you make me look like I've had a nose job." These people are obsessed with their noses--among other things--and I'm obsessed with this show. Diamond Water anyone? Don't ask...

So there you have it: for good or bad, these are the top 10 things that inspired me, intrigued me, entertained me, or just flat-out made me laugh in 2012. I'll follow up shortly with my list of my least favorite things of 2012. Stay tuned!

Ciao.

Blog Overhaul: Today's Top 5

Hi everyone!

I apologize for not keeping up-to-date with this over the past month. I've had a lot going on, what with my new job as Executive Editor at the Flagship imprint of ABA Publishing, the publishing arm of the American Bar Association, and rehearsals for the workshop of my new play "Children of Privilege" which my cast and I presented last week to some acclaim. I'm still hard at work on both fronts. The new job is going very well and I'm in the midst of some revisions and rewrites on the play. I'll keep you posted as things progress.

So this blog...it's been almost a year since I launched it last Thanksgiving. It's certainly evolved over the past eleven months: from current affairs to cultural musings and reviews. I guess you could say I'm still trying to find the right balance. Today I'm going to try something new--a top 5 list of my favorite things on any given day and 1 thing I'm not so crazy about. Here goes:

TOP 5 THINGS I'M CRAZY ABOUT ON 10/29/12 (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER):

1) Voting early -- I cast my ballot this afternoon: no wait, no hassle, and in and out of the polling booth in under fifteen minutes.

2) "Argo" -- if you haven't seen this film yet, go see it. Ben Affleck does a fantastic job both directing and starring in this historical political thriller that hearkens back in look and feel to the great political dramas of the 1970s. Great story, great acting, great documentary-like camerawork. I was eight years-old during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. This film sheds light on a little-known aspect of that crisis and brilliantly captures the tension, fear, and uncertainty of that time. The final half-hour had me on the edge of my seat.

3) My iPhone 5 -- I was a fan of the Droid but it's no comparison to the iPhone 5. Enough said.

4) "Monsieur Lazhar" -- another film. This French-language Canadian film was Oscar-nominated this year for Best Foreign Film. I streamed it on Netflix over the weekend. I'm a sucker for teacher/student dramas and this certainly fit that bill: the story of an Algerian asylum-seeker who takes over a teaching position at a middle school in Montreal after a teacher has committed suicide. It's subtle, quiet, heart-warming, and devastating at the same time. Check it out!

5) Manchester United's 3-2 victory over Chelsea at Stafford Bridge yesterday in the Barclay's Premiere League. I'm a fan of both teams but with Robin von Persie and Wayne Rooney on the pitch together, Man U is hard to beat. They could go all the way this year!

WHAT I'M NOT SO CRAZY ABOUT TODAY:

The Steve McQueen retrospective that just opened at the Art Institute of Chicago. No, not that Steve McQueen. This Steve McQueen is the slightly avant-garde British film director, best known for two feature films, the IRA biopic "Hunger" and last year's award-winning "Shame," which was one of my pics for best film of 2011. Suffice it to say this retrospective left me a little baffled. I wandered through the very dark gallery in a state of confusion, pausing every so often to watch glimpses of 12 short Super 8 videos about, well, nothing. The gallery is practically pitch-black. I almost walked into someone...twice. And the docents mostly stood around and laughed at the grainy film of two naked male wrestlers (one of whom was Mr. McQueen) projected on a very large screen. I dunno. I didn't get it. I respect Mr. McQueen very much as a feature film director but was this retrospective really necessary? It's taking up prime real estate at the Art Institute through January.

Ciao.

Film Review: The Master

Hi everyone!

Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film "The Master" is, quite simply, a thrilling piece of film-making with a performance by Joaquin Phoenix that I dare anyone to challenge isn't the best performance by an actor in a film this year. Yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd, the would-be founder of a religious cult not unlike Scientology, is terrific. Mr. Hoffman just possesses such a natural and magnetic screen and stage presence that I don't think it's possible for him to give a bad performance. And Amy Adams, as Lancaster's cold and eerily indoctrinated wife, gives a thoroughly chilling performance in a role that while not commanding a lot of screen time, is quietly and frighteningly effective. Yet, for me, this is Joaquin's movie. After a bizarre 'performance art' turn in the mockumentary "I'm Still Here"(which may or may not have been a mental/emotional breakdown) and a solemn pledge to give up acting in favor of becoming a rapper, Mr. Phoenix proves in his performance as the disenfranchised alcoholic World War Two seaman Freddy Quell that he is the greatest actor of his generation.

This is a big and beautifully photographed 'event' film. From its Pacific seascapes to a motorcycle ride through the Arizona desert evocative of David Lean's "Laurence of Arabia," "The Master" leaves its viewer in a visual thrall. Anchoring all of this beauty, however, is the tortured and tormented Freddy Quell (Joaquin Phoenix). Freddy's narrative is a little vague. What little we know about him is through a handful of insights the character provides during an early indoctrination session with Mr. Hoffman's Lancaster: during the war, he loved a girl "back home" who left him for another guy; his mother is in a mental institution, he had a sexual relationship with an aunt, and he killed a lot of "Japs" during the war. Interwoven throughout the film are flashbacks of Freddy's story. The girl he loved back home was a sixteen year-old girl who had written letters to him while he was on the Pacific Front. He had actually never met her until after the war had ended. Early in the film, we see Freddy being interviewed by the Navy upon his discharge. He's being told of the difficulties he will inevitably face adjusting to life in the real world after having suffered through the traumas of war.

We then see Freddy drinking his way through a host of meaningless, soul-deadening jobs (photographing wealthy patrons of a department store, picking cabbages, etc) until he winds up in the dubious care of Lancaster Dodd, the creator of a religious organization called The Cause, who takes Freddy under his wing and tries to mould Freddy into something of his own image with rather shaky results. Although Freddy is an alcoholic and probably half-crazy, he's still a fairly sharp guy, at least when he allows himself to be. He observes, he listens, he sees things. He's tortured by his past (however undefined) and despite Lancaster's "best" intentions, Freddy never quite conforms to the Cause's doctrines. As such, he proves a threat, most especially it seems to Lancaster's wife (Amy Adams) who has her own way of dealing with the darker forces that always seem to threaten her's and Lancaster's tightly controlled family unit. I won't go into this here but I will say I found it probably the most frightening (and unexpected) scene in the film.

"The Master" is one of those films that begs to be viewed a second time. The ending, for example, kind of mystified me because, at least upon initial viewing, it didn't feel like an ending at all. I won't give it away except to say that it somehow defused the tension and power and the mesmerizing quality of the preceding two hours-and-twenty-minutes of the film's running time. I sat through the end credits feeling confused and wondering whether the film itself was nothing but an elaborate hoax, much ado about ultimately nothing. I don't think this is the case but I can understand how a casual film-goer is going to be left feeling totally unsatisfied. I need to see it again...

Still, I highly recommend "The Master" if for no other reason than its performances and its visual style. I'm not sure about the narrative or its overall meaning, but then...not all great works of art are easily defined or understood. I believe "The Master" to be a true work of cinematic art. I'm just not sure the mainstream is going to be quite as embracing.

Theater Review: "Sweet Bird of Youth" at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago

Hi everyone!

What to say about the new revival of Tennessee Williams's 1959 play "Sweet Bird of Youth" that recently opened at Chicago's Goodman Theatre starring film actress Diane Lane and Broadway veteran (the recent award-winning revival of "Death of a Salesman") Finn Wittrock?

James Schuette's sets and costumes are beautifully evocative of the Gulf Coast circa late-1950s. Keith Parham's lighting design is equally atmospheric. The show looks great. But for a three-hour-plus production, you can't rely on visuals alone to provide an entertaining and thought-provoking evening of theatre.

I wish I could say the performances lived up to the scenery. Alas, however, I can't.

"Sweet Bird of Youth" is one of Williams's later plays and the last to really experience popular success, coming as it does on the heels of the mighty theatrical triumvirate that is "The Glass of Menagerie", "Streetcar Named Desire", and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." It's a long and windy play that tells the story of Alexandra Del Lago (traveling under the assumed name of Princess Kosmonopolis), a fading Hollywood actress who is convinced she's just starred in the biggest flop of her career; and 29-year-old gigolo and wannabe actor Chance Wayne. As the play begins, they are holed up together in a luxurious hotel room in Chance's hometown of St. Cloud. They drink vodka and smoke pot. They have sex. They talk and talk and talk about how Alexandra is going to help jump start Chance's acting career. Chance has brought Alexandra to St. Cloud ostensibly to 'rescue' his former girlfriend, Heavenly, and take her away from the rather bigoted clutches of her father, local politician Boss Finley, and her brother, Tom. What Chance doesn't know is that there's a price on his head for giving the once virtuous Heavenly a venereal disease because of which she was forced to undergo a hysterectomy. Heavenly's father, Boss, has vowed to castrate Chance if he catches him in town.

This is a play that should be great fun to watch, if not riveting. What's currently onstage at the Goodman is oddly inert and utterly lacking in any sexual heat between its stars, Ms. Lane and Mr. Wittrock. The hour-long first act takes place entirely in Alexandra's hotel room. It is meant to introduce us to Alexandra and Chance, to understand where they're coming from and what they both want out of life and each other. Alexandra is hung-over if not still drunk. And when she and Chance share from her stash of marijuana, they should be high. They spend most of the first act in bed, half-undressed, and yet there is simply zero chemistry between these two very attractive stars. Hence, the audience never really connects to them or cares about what happens. As a couple, Ms. Lane and Mr. Wittrock simply aren't convincing. Both come across as entirely one-dimensional. Ms. Lane has a tendency to declaim all of her lines to such a degree that she becomes monotonous as opposed to sultry and seductive, while Mr. Wittrock relies too much on volume to get his character's passion across. He comes across as merely petulant and spoiled.

The very brief second act introduces us to Boss Finley and his daughter Heavenly. This is when we learn of her shame and the scandal it's created within the family and Boss Finley's constituents. John Judd as Boss provides a welcome jolt of energy to the production that sticks out like a lightning rod whenever he occupies the stage. As Heavenly, Kristina Johnson is suitably winsome in, as played here at least, a relatively underwritten role.

Act Three parallels the first act in length and while visually the most striking part of the whole production, it is also the most uneven. The highlight of Act Three is definitely Jennifer Engstrom as Miss Lucy, Boss Finley's mistress, and town gossip. The problem however is that Ms. Engstrom almost seems as though she is the star of an entirely different play because her energy and overall stage presence is never matched by those of her colleagues, Mr. Judd excepted. With her bright red poodle skirt and (at times) incomprehensible drunken drawl, you can't take your eyes off of her. She is riveting to watch while being a distraction from the ho-hum quality of all that surrounds her. This of course is problematic because it pulls focus from the events transpiring in the play.

While I praised the lighting design at the top of this review, I have to say though that the lighting was somewhat problematic for me in Act Three. Its relative dimness at times cast strange shadows on the actors--particularly Ms. Lane--that obscured their faces and served to further block the audience from feeling fully engaged with the characters on stage. This may have merely been a technical glitch that will be corrected in subsequent performances. I can't say.

All in all, this is a wildly schizophrenic though handsomely mounted production that lurches from a maudlin kind of ennui to a hyperkinetic energy that is as distracting as it is occasionally welcome. It is still very early in the run (it opened last Friday and closes October 25th) and I'm confident the production will continue to evolve and find some kind of consistent pacing. Still, the chemistry between Ms. Lane and Mr. Wittrock is so non-existent that it weighs and I fear dooms the entire production to failure from start to finish.

This is a shame because, on paper anyway, this could have been something special.

Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Hi everyone!

Now that summer is for all intents and purposes over, I always look forward to the new Fall season in books, film, theatre, television, and the arts. One of the most anticipated film releases of the year, is acclaimed director Mira Nair's film adaptation of Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid's bestselling and Man Booker Prize nominated novel "The Reluctant Fundamentalist." I'd been meaning to read this work for several years and when I heard the film was releasing this fall I jumped on it over the long Labor Day weekend.

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is written as a first-person narrative in the voice of a young Pakistani man named Changez who is relating his story of how he's returned to his hometown of Lahore after a brilliant academic career at Princeton and a potentially promising career working as a financial analyst at a top Manhattan business evaluation firm in the months just before and after 9/11. He loves New York and everything that American capitalism stands for. Changez feels like he's king of the world. Not only is he earning a huge salary and is considered one of the best employees at his firm only months out of college, he is dating a beautiful Upper East Side girl named Erica and finds himself falling in love with her.

But, of course, Changez's all-American success story hits a snag. Changez confesses to feeling a sense of understated but smug satisfaction when he watches the planes fly into the World Trade Center. He is disturbed by this response to the tragedy and seeks to cover it up, but as prejudices against him among his co-workers come to light in the wake of 9/11 and with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and an escalation of tension between his home country Pakistan and India, Changez's perceptions of his adopted country begin to change in slow but dramatic ways. This runs parallel with a steady deterioration in Erica's mental health. She has never gotten over the death from cancer of her best friend and former boyfriend. And as her relationship with Changez heats up and the world as they'd known it prior to 9/11 becomes utterly foreign to them, Erica retreats deeper and deeper into herself to a point of no return.

"The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is one of those novels that grips you from the first paragraph. Changez proves to be a compelling character and the fact that the novel is written entirely from his perspective gives an immediacy to the seeming halcyon days prior to the attacks of September 11 2001. What makes it all the more fascinating is that Changez clearly represents the "other" and effectively portrays the fear and paranoia that gripped the Muslim and South Asian population here in the United States after that fateful day. Changez's voice alternates between gung-ho youthful idealism and a gnawing slightly off-kilter bitterness that haunts the reader with its sinister undertones. This is a fast read and one that can easily be devoured in one or two sittings.

But it's not without its problems, and these problems don't really come to light until you've finished the book and begin to reflect upon it. I realize that the character of Erica is meant to symbolize the decline and fall of American civilization post-9/11, and while she sort of works as a literary device, it's kind of a stretch. Because we only see Erica through the lens of Changez's experiences, she remains a bit of a cipher. The reader never really gets to know her or find out why exactly she has this, well, fatal attraction for her dead boyfriend. We just see her shut down as Changez grapples with the reasons for her increasing isolation from him. This is not to say that the reader isn't moved by her or by what ultimately happens to her, it's just that she is never closer than arms'-length.

Changez's transformation into the "reluctant fundamentalist" is also problematic, though for a different reason. We're dazzled by his language and the pace at which he tells his story, but the transition itself--while understandable--is undercut by a sense that he is leading the person to whom he's telling his story (an American we assume sitting with Changez in an outdoor restaurant in Lahore) to a certain doom. This sense of foreboding comes to the forefront in the novel's final pages, and the ending itself is deliberately kept ambiguous. In fact, I had to reread the final paragraph at least three times to figure out what exactly takes place, and I'm still not entirely certain.

Despite these flaws, however, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" is definitely worth reading. The film premiered last week at the Venice Film Festival to decidedly mixed reviews. I am excited by the casting of British-Pakistani actor/rapper Riz Ahmed as Changez. Mr. Ahmed was terrific in Michael Winterbottom's recent film "Trishna" and I'm sure he'll be equally as good as Changez. I am somewhat surprised that Ms. Nair cast Kate Hudson--not exactly known for her dramatic acting--in the role of Erica though this could be a breakthrough performance for Ms. Hudson. Mira Nair is a brilliant film director ("Monsoon Wedding," "The Namesake," etc) with a wonderful visual style that leaps off the screen with energy and color. I look forward to seeing what she can do with Mr. Hamid's problematic but ultimately engaging and topical novel.

Book Review: "1Q84" by Haruki Murakami

Hi everyone!

What can one say about best-selling Japanese author Haruki Murakami's latest opus, the futuristic 1Q84?

1. It sucks you in from the first page and keeps you in its thrall, greedily turning over 900 pages to find out what's going to happen next.
2. It is populated by a cast of characters unlike any you've read in fiction at any recent time: each beautifully drawn without being overly descriptive.
3. It gives the reader a keen appreciation of and an introduction to the urban sprawl that is modern day (or should I say post-modern day) Tokyo.
4. It contains one of the most bizarre (not to mention perverse) sex scenes (or is it a sex scene?) between an older man and a child (children) one is likely to encounter in world literature.
5. It inspires the reader to listen to Janacek's "Sinfonietta" (it pays to be familiar with this classical piece because it plays a rather important role in the novel) and at least attempt to read Proust's "In Search of Lost Time."
6. It poses more questions than it answers: like what exactly is an Air Crystalis and who (or what) are the Little People?
7. It has Little People (literally...these are one of the novel's most baffling creations, see above)
8. It gives the reader an increasingly sinking sense (somewhere around page 700) that the ending is going to be less than the sum of its parts.
9. It ultimately disappoints and yet...somehow one can't help but admire the audacity of Murakami's storytelling.
10. Huh?

Don't get me wrong. I really enjoyed this novel. I couldn't put it down even as my wrists started to ache from holding this doorstop of a book and, as I mentioned above, I started to realize that after 900-plus pages, there's still so much that doesn't really add up. I wonder if Murakami is planning to write a sequel?

Briefly, 1Q84 tells the parallel stories of two thirty year-old Tokyo residents living in the year 1984: Aomame is a fitness instructor who escaped from her parent's religious cult when she was a young girl and has grown up to live a rather reclusive life, teaching a particularly brutal exercise/stretching class when she's not acting as an assassin; and Tengo, a somewhat hermetic part-time cram school math teacher who moonlights as a fiction ghostwriter with literary aspirations of his own. One day, en route to an assassination, Aomame is sitting in a cab on a Tokyo expressway stuck in rush hour traffic. Janacek's Sinfonietta is playing on the radio. Aomame is in a hurry. The cab driver suggests she get out and walk down an emergency staircase coming off of the expressway ramp if she hopes to make her appointment on time. Aomame does and, after a series of bizarre events including the discovery that the Earth now has two moons, she finds herself in an alternative reality called 1Q84. Meanwhile, Tengo has been hired by his editor to rewrite a novella called Air Crystalis by Fuka-Eri, a mysterious seventeen year-old autistic-seeming girl, in order to submit it for a literary prize. The novella becomes an instant best-seller which causes a whole host of problems for everyone involved, not the least of which is that the teenage author Fuka-Eri is another escapee (like Aomame) from a religious cult hell-bent on preserving its rather unsavory secrets. Added to this mix is Ushiwara, de-barred former lawyer with frightful looks and a moss-covered tongue who sets out on his own obsessive investigation of Tengo, Aomame, and Fuka-Eri. 

SPOILER ALERT!!!

Over the novel's 900 pages, the reader is treated to all manner of interweaving narratives, violence, sexual perversion, literary and musical references, the ritualized abuse of young girls for the sake of religious fulfillment, a comic though scary off-camera NHK fee collector who may or may not be the spirit of a comatose character, action-packed set pieces, a kidnapping, rambling semi-philosophical dialogue that occasionally reads like deliberate excursions into dead-ends, semi-celestial entities named "Maza" and "Dohta" (mother and daughter), and (my personal favorite) an Immaculate Conception that more-or-less ties at least two of the main narrative threads together. The result is a thrilling yet ultimately unsatisfying novel that goes around in circles and ends in a manner that is wholly appropriate yet frustratingly disappointing. Nothing is explained. As I turned the final page, I felt as though I had just endured (albeit willingly) a very elaborate and beautifully constructed April Fool's joke. In other words, I felt a bit like I'd been had.

And yet...and yet...1Q84 is a novel that I will return to and reread, probably not any time soon, but it's definitely on the list., right up there with War and Peace.  Does 1Q84 really exist? What's the significance of the two moons? What exactly is an air crystalis? And who (or what) are the Little People?

Film Review: "Trishna"

Hi everyone!

Just watched British director Michael Winterbottom's new film "Trishna." It is his third film adaptation of a Thomas Hardy novel, one of my favorite authors of all time. His previous two are "Jude"which starred Kate Winslet and was based on Hardy's classic "Jude the Obscure" and "The Claim," an adaptation of "The Mayor of Casterbridge" set during the American gold rush.  "Trishna" is loosely based on Hardy's "Tess of the d'Ubervilles" and transposes the story to modern-day India.  As can be expected of any filmed version of Thomas Hardy, the story is bleak and offers little in the way of uplift or redemption for its characters.

"Trishna" tells the story of a poor young Indian woman (played by a fetching Freida Pinto, best known as the co-star of the Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire") whose life is dramatically altered when her father, the family's sole breadwinner, is gravely injured in an automobile accident. As fate would have it, Trishna has recently met Jay (an understated performance by Riz Ahmed, an acclaimed British-Pakistani actor and rapper) whose father owns a string of luxury hotels across India. Jay takes pity on Trishna and hires her to work at one of his father's hotels in Jaipur.

It would seem however that Jay has an ulterior motive. He is struck by Trishna's beauty and innocence and, one evening, he seduces her. Overcome by shame, Trishna returns to her family's village but her fallen status proves too much for her father so he sends her away again. Jay soon finds Trishna and persuades her to join him as his live-in girlfriend in his rented flat in Mumbai. All seems to go swimmingly for Trishna in Mumbai. She is accepted by Jay's Bollywood-aspiring friends (one of whom is played by Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap) who nurture her talent for dancing. But...Trishna has a rather big secret and the moment she confesses this secret to Jay things start to go tragically, though inevitably--this is Thomas Hardy after all--downhill.

"Trishna" is a beautifully made film: gorgeously shot and indelibly acted by two extremely talented emerging actors. Winterbottom does an effective job of portraying two contrasting Indian societies (rural and urban) represented here by Ms. Pinto and Mr. Ahmed. You can't help but be affected by the terrible/naive decisions Trishna makes because you know early on that things can only end badly, and when Trishna finally takes matters into her own hands, the violence is sudden and shocking.

If I have one criticism, it would be that the characters are fairly one-dimensional. You know, this being a Michael Winterbottom film of a Thomas Hardy novel, that Trishna and Jay are meant to be symbols of opposing classes of society. Trishna is meant to represent everything that is wholesome and pure about the underclass while Jay symbolizes lazy Westernized old money, a society that lives well and loosely off of inherited wealth. It's all a bit predictable but compelling nonetheless.

As I said at the top of this review, Thomas Hardy is one of my very favorite late-Victorian novelists. Despite its exotic setting and modern update, in "Trishna," I am pleased to say that the spirit of Hardy survives and thrives.

"Trishna" is currently playing in limited theatrical release as well as on Comcast Xfinity On Demand. Check it out.