2010 Discoveries: Movies & TV

Yes, I'm still looking back at the best of what I discovered in 2010. Here is the last list, movies! 

I couldn't really do these justice and still ever get the post done so I realize the comments below may a bit short or incomplete. I'm planning on picking up the Movies You Might Have Missed series and some of these will be discussed a bit more in that venue.

• District 9: A huge alien ship suddenly shows up over Johannesburg, South Africa but nothing happens. When the people finally muster the nerve to investigate they find that the aliens aboard are sick and dying because they are simply workers who have been left to die when their leaders ran away. The aliens, called "prawn" are housed in a government camp (District Nine) which soon deteriorates to a ghetto. Shot to look like a documentary, the movie takes place many years later, following a middle manager who has been promoted to lead the effort to move the aliens to a new camp, District Ten, further away from the city. Everyone being interviewed keeps mentioning "before the event" and "before things went wrong" so we are prepared for things to go downhill in some way for the poor fellow. However, I never would have predicted how this manager is caught up in the storyline and the discoveries of the movie.
  
  
• Moon: No aliens, big special effects or spaceships are featured in this movie about a lone worker at a moon station that monitors solar energy collection. Sam Bell is at the end of his three-year contract, the solitude is driving him crazy (almost), and then he has a serious accident when driving a lunar vehicle. Mysteriously he winds up back at the space station, healed, and without any idea how he got there. The mystery is one that he can't let go and that leads to the complications that drive the movie. It is essentially a one person play, if you don't count GERTY 3000, the robot voiced by Kevin Spacey. Yet, there is something about it that grabbed me. Sam Rockwell (who plays Sam Bell) is brilliant in this. I have long admired him and this is a showcase of his talent.
  
  
• Inception: Something is locked away in an impregnable fortress, something the owner knows by heart. Can this band of thieves replace it with something so similar that he'll never notice the difference? See my review here.
  
  
• Zombieland: A true delight AND a movie that celebrates family (still chock-full of flesh-eating zombies). Four people seem to be all that are left normal after the zombie apocalypse. Their goal: to go to an amusement park in California that they have heard has no zombies. The part that Woody Harrelson was born to play ... it's in this movie. (Rule #4: watch this movie.)
  
  
• Once Upon a Time in the West: a 3-hour epic Western about of a mysterious, harmonica-playing stranger who is on the track of a ruthless assassin. This winds up with Harmonica occasionally working with a wanted outlaw to help a beautiful widow save her land. Classic, right? Classic Sergio Leone, that is, right down to the Ennio Morricone soundtrack and the classic cast including Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, and Jason Robards. It is quite a long film and has many lingering shots of stares (hence the illustrative photo above), which Tom thought could have been cut back on. It was long but I actually enjoyed the entire thing.
  
  
• Let the Right One In: Oskar is a lonely and bullied 12-year-old. Eli is the 12-year-old girl who moves into the apartment next door. They form a friendship over puzzles and Morse code. Except that, as Eli tells Oskar, she is not a girl. He must discover for himself that those puzzling words mean she is a vampire. Naturally, one cannot have a vampire in the neighborhood without missing people and murders, which leads to an interesting and telling sideplot about someone who is attacked but lives through it. A study in evil. Read my review here.
  
  
• Mary and Max: an animated movie about an eight year old Australian girl and a 40 year old New Yorker who strike up a pen pal friendship that carries them over 20 years. See my review here.
  
  
• Sita Sings the Blues: This is a creative delight. The Indian story of The Ramayana is told three ways, all from Rama's wife's point of view ... the titular Sita.  An illustrated conversation between Indian shadow puppets is interspersed with musical interludes voiced with tracks by 1920's jazz singer Annette Hanshaw and scenes from creator Nina Paley's life. You can stream this movie free as the creator, unusually, makes it available under a Creative Commons License.
  
  
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Scott Pilgrim hasn't gotten over his bad breakup with a previous girlfriend, dates a high school aged girl, and the falls for the exotic looking and exotically named Ramona Flowers who he sees walking by. Yes, he's a mess and as an insecure young man trying to find his place in the world it was probably inevitable that he is played by Michael Cera. However, this part offers Cera one of the only parts I've seen where he actually gets to occasionally be assertive. Scott Pilgrim begins dating Ramona only to find that he must defeat her seven deadly exes before they can be free to pursue the relationship properly. The movie winds up playing out like a video game (every time Scott battles a deadly ex) interspersed with a tale of young love.  I'm a fan of Edgar Wright, the director, so was among his prime audience but was still surprised to find myself smiling at bits of this movie days after seeing it.
  
  
• The Guild: this is a web-based sitcom centered around the lives of an online role-playing-game guild, The Knights of Good, who play countless hours to the point where it takes over their lives. The main character is Codex, the guild's Priestess, who begins attempting to live a more normal life after one of her guild-mates, Warlock Zaboo shows up on her doorstep wanting to date her. Because it is based around webisodes, each season is about an hour long and I have found it most enjoyable when viewed on dvd where you can "Play all". It is very funny, especially to anyone who has ever lost hours of their life playing an RPG game (not that Baldur's Gate ever stole hours of MY life or had the girls and me trying to work out puzzle solutions ... no, indeedy!)
  
  
• Flight of the Conchords: This cable series revolves around a couple of New Zealand musicians who have come to New York City to try to develop an American fan base for their band, Flight of the Conchords. They are sweet but clueless which, naturally leads to many amusing situations. What puts this over the top is that each episode has at least one song whose performance is woven into the story line. The songs are take-offs of other musical styles or artists (a favorite of mine is the one based on David Bowie's music).
  
  
• Better Off Ted: canceled after two seasons, this ABC sitcom revolved around Ted Crisp who headed up a research and development department for a faceless giant corporation, Veridian Dynamics. His supervisor (Portia de Rossi) embodies the goals of the conglomerate whose soullessness Ted must try to moderate while dealing with the erratic scientists under his management. A gentle comedy that grows on you after watching a few episodes ... and then turns into a necessity.

2010 Discoveries: Audiobooks

Except where I mention it specifically below, I imagine that these would be just as good for regular reading as when listening. I simply encountered them via audio first.

• The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton
  At the beginning of the 20th century, in detective fiction there was Sherlock Holmes and that was all. There were other fictional detectives, to be sure, but they were only bad imitations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous consulting detective. The sleuths offered by other writers would try to outdo Holmes in eccentricity and in solving crimes that were evermore contrived and convoluted.
  
  But in 1905 a book of mysteries came along that finally managed to turn the Sherlock Holmes idea on its head. The book was The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton. His detective, Rupert Grant, is a Sherlock Holmes-like private eye who investigates crimes and chases crooks with great self-assuredness in his powers of deduction. But he is always wrong. The hero of these stories is not Rupert, but his older brother, Basil Grant, a retired judge. In each case, Basil proves to Rupert hat there has been no crime and no crooks. (Read the entire lecture on this book, of which the above which has been an excerpt, here.
  
  This book was a delight from beginning to end, and I'm not really a G.K. Chesterton fan. I listened to the Librivox recording which was wonderfully read by David Barnes. This is an old book that is probably available free on the Kindle.
  
  
• Cleek: the Man of the 40 Faces by Thomas Hanshew
  I listened to the Librivox recording done by the marvelous Ruth Golding. Cleek is a bad man who goes right for the love of a good woman. As well he is perhaps the cleverest detective I have ever read of, putting M. Poirot's little grey cells to shame while indulging his idiosyncratic love of flowers and nature. This allows for many short, quirky mysteries with the overarching theme of how Cleek hopes to redeem himself enough to approach his true love with honor. A wonderfully entertaining story from the turn of the century of mystery, chivalry, and intrigue. Again, this is old and probably available free on the Kindle.
  
  
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
  Mr. Norrell is a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside. He is also the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Jonathan Strange discovers, to his dismay, that he is a natural magician. Because he "feels" his magic rather than depending on books as Mr. Norrell does, they wind up representing two distinctly different ways of doing British magic. Clarke deliberately used a style that calls to mind Jane Austen or Charles Dickens and thus transports the reader to a time gone by when spelling varied, footnotes could be long and involved, manners were paramount, and when it is possible to believe in such a thing as British magic.
  
  I tried this book several times but either wasn’t in the right mood or was expecting something different. Hannah read it, loved it, shoved it on my nightstand, and nagged me about it (with that hopeful, wistful, little puppy look that a mom can’t say no to…). Once I began reading I couldn't understand why I didn’t warm to it before … the writing is charmingly understated and amusing. It is about magic, English practitioners of magic, books about magic, and set in England during the Napoleonic war.
  
  However, once I was well into the book I got bogged down with the many wayside visits and long footnotes that added atmosphere but didn't seem to advance the story. That is when I picked up the audio book from the library to try (so do our children influence us!). Once I was listening, I began enjoying it immensely more than in simple reading. I think I do better with meandering books when on audio for some reason. It certainly helped with Charles Dickens when I was reading A Tale of Two Cities. Eventually I almost became addicted and couldn't stop listening.
  
  At the end the book suddenly picked up the pace with one thing happening after another. It ended in an unexpected way with some story lines being firmly concluded while others were left to drift off. Usually this would bother me but, in a sense, it was very true to real life, which makes me reflect upon the fact that the way the story was told was very like having someone tell it to you in person. They take little byways of explanation that may not have too much to do with the story and then come back to the point. In listening to the book this made for a delightful and somehow restful story. This was wonderfully narrated by Simon Preeble whose dulcet tones and perfect pacing helped make the There is no doubt that his narration is the key element that not only got me to the end of the book, but actually left me sad when it ended. Recommended but only for those who do not object to long, meandering stories with a lot of footnotes.
  
  
• Hamlet (Arkangel Complete Shakespeare)
  Distressed by his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is haunted by a ghostly courier bearing a grim message of murder and revenge. The young prince is driven to the edge of madness as he struggles to understand the situation he finds himself in and to do his duty. Many others, including Hamlet’s beloved, the innocent Ophelia, are swept up in his tragedy. Shakespeare’s most famous play remains one of the greatest stories in Western literature. Performed by Simon Russell Beale, Imogen Stubbs, Jane Lapotaire, and the Arkangel cast.
  
  Inspired by Chop Bard podcast, I have checked this out of the library and am now listening to this excellent audio version of the play. Wow, truly amazing and recommended to all!
  
  
• The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell
  I read this for SFFaudio, where you may find my review. I did enjoy reading it just as much as listening, as witnessed by the conversation I had about it with Scott at A Good Story is Hard to Find where this was the subject of our first episode.
  
  
• The Bellefaire: Victorian Horror in Modern Day San Francisco by M. J. Hahn
  I discovered this on iTunes and was hooked after hearing the first episode. In rapid order I have listened to all but the epilogue (simply because I ran out of listening time in the day).
  
  Yuki and her mother, who she mentally thinks of as The Doctor, are returning to San Francisco, the city of Yuki's birth although she left there when only an infant. When they move into the house where The Doctor grew up, they discover it is now partly a hotel and is called The Bellefaire. Very soon, Yuki discovers that the house's nickname is Curse Castle and there are ghost stories aplenty, mysteriously missing people in the neighborhood, and very odd happenings in the house itself.
  
  The story actually begins in the 1980s where we meet a very different sort of teenager from the obedient Yuki, Tina. Her story introduces us to some of the odd goings on in the Bellefaire. The story continues to alternate current day and past events, going further and further back in time as we discover exactly what's been going on.
  
  The author reads the story and voices the male characters. Different actresses voice the female characters and sound production is excellent overall with professional sounding sound effects.

2010 Top Discoveries: Blogs

At last I have the time to return to these lists and share my favorite discoveries of last year. Today we look at blogs and these cover a variety of things. Enjoy!

• Dust & Corruption
  Books and music, but mostly books of a Victorian horror sort.
  
  
• A Life of Life
  Begin with the first post on March first and trace journey of life itself beginning with a trip from the sun. Sadly, this blog hasn't completed its mission, pausing on July 31 and not resuming thereafter. I hope it does resume eventually, however, your time will not be wasted by reading the almost daily short posts there.
  
  
• Shelf Love
  A wide variety of books, well reviewed, with a large percentage that I find interesting enough to consider reading (a rarity!).
  
  
•  Ten Thousand Places
  Margaret shares the ten thousand places she finds Christ, from poetry to photographs to quotes to links to books. A lovely place to dip into every day.
  
  
• Hand Me Down Heaven
  Julie Cragon runs a Catholic book and church supply store with her family. I like her short thoughts on those she encounters there as well as her meditations on saints of the day which she anchors in her daily experiences.
  
  
• Shirt of Flame
  Author Heather King calls herself "an ex-lawyer, ex-drunk Catholic convert with three memoirs: Parched (the dark years); Redeemed (crawling toward the light); and Shirt of Flame (forthcoming) (my year of wandering around Koreatown, L.A. "with" St. Therese of Lisieux, a cloistered 19th-c. French nun)." I haven't read any of her books yet but Redeemed has been recommended to me many times and I can see why from reading her meditations at her blog.
  
  
• I Have to Sit Down
  Simcha Fisher writes honestly about her life. She's a mother of eight. She's a writer. She's Roman Catholic. And she's hilarious. In an honest way. Which is why she makes me laugh. For example: My family converted to Catholicism when I was about 4, and I’m not going anywhere. I consider myself a Hebrew Catholic, as my parents are both Jewish by birth. I’m still sorting out exactly how I ought to be preserving my Jewish heritage, beyond putting horseradish on everything; but in the mean time, don’t piss me off about Israel.
  
  
• Art Inconnu
  Works by artists who are forgotten, under appreciated, or little known, as well as news, reviews and ephemera from the corners of art history. Works of startling quality can be found beyond the big names in the visual arts, whether it is just one exceptional work, an area of an artists oeuvre, or an entire career worth re-examining. And sometimes you might have seen them here too when I come across something I love too much to leave over there.
  
  
• A Momentary Taste of Being
  Steven Riddle posts scads of links each day and you never know which one (or two or more) is going to grab you but I find something interesting about literature and reading here every day. My only wish is that Steven would share more of his own thoughts than the sentence or two which may grace a post. I like the links but Steven himself is the one whose thoughts interest me most.
  
  
• xkcd
  How can a comic featuring stick figures be so darned funny? Because xkcd thinks like we do and then twists it a bit. (Like this, for example.) One of the funniest places on the internet.
  
  
• The French Sampler
  Dash blogs about all sorts of things but they tend to be beautiful things. Architecture, style, design, a French sunset, and more all come under her curious gaze.

2010 Top Discoveries: Podcasts

Most of these actually were new in 2010. I'm a bit more up to date on the podcast scene than in other areas. Also, podcasts are a much newer concept (which you may read more about in my podcast sidebar if you are not familiar with them).


These are those that I am fond enough to listen to repeatedly. As you can see, it has been a very good year for podcasts and there is something here for practically everyone. The description comes from the podcasters themselves for the most part ... enjoy!

Spilled Milk - Matthew Amster-Burton and Molly Wizenberg combine food and comedy in a bowl and stir it up until it explodes. Join your jovial (possibly too jovial) hosts, Molly and Matthew, for recipes, cooking tips, winning lotto numbers, and catfights.

The Sporkful - The Sporkful is an award-winning podcast and blog about food, but not so much about cooking or recipes or restaurants. We discuss, debate, and obsess over the most ridiculous food-related minutiae, always seeking new and better ways to eat. Hosted by Dan Pashman and Mark Garrison, former co-workers at NPR, The Sporkful is where sacred cows get grilled.

Guys Can Read - A weekly podcast book discussion from a guy's perspective (two guys actually and the book talk is great).

The China History Podcast - Five millennia of Chinese history brought to you each week for your podcast listening pleasure.

A History of the World in 100 Objects - from the BBC (and unusually available in podcast form for all to enjoy).

History of Philosophy - Peter Adamson hosts a podcast covering the entire history of philosophy... without any gaps!

My Merry Christmas Podcast - The Merry Podcast is our audio edition of the best of MMC featuring one-of-a-kind programs exploring everything about Christmas with the help of the team from Merry Christmas Radio, our online radio station broadcasting Christmas year-round.

Chop Bard - The podcast dedicated to picking apart the works of William Shakespeare, scene by scene, offering a fresh and entertaining look at some old goods- it is the cure for boring Shakespeare.

Freakonomics Radio - Just like the books, Freakonomics Radio will explore “the hidden side of everything.” It will tell you things you always thought you knew but didn’t, and things you never thought you wanted to know, but do.

Movie Date from The Takeaway - Each week, Newsday film critic Rafer Guzman and Takeaway producer Kristen Meinzer get in a heated, but friendly debate about the movies.

99% Invisible - Trying to comprehend the 99% invisible activity that shapes the design of our world. (In the design category ...)

A Short History of Japan - A quick tour through the cool bits of Japanese history.

Catholic Stuff You Should Know - modeled after the popular podcast Stuff You Should Know, this podcast explains a wide range of topics ... everything from Stylites (standing on pillars in style) to Ethiopian Christianity to Bishop's Wear and beyond.

2010 Top Discoveries - Nonfiction

Again, these may not have been new this year, but they were new to me. Today more hold-em-in-your-hand books (including Kindle ... but NOT audiobooks).

(Any short summaries are from my GoodReads list where you may see everything I read in 2010, which I may have shared here earlier in the year ...)

Paul Among the People - Sarah Ruden
My review is here (loosely written but you get the idea).

Confections of a Closet Master Baker - Gesine Bullock-Prado
Sandra Bullock's sister finally couldn't take Hollywood any more after running her famous sister's production company for years. She turned to her true passion, baking, and has a wonderful voice in this book about her life as a baker. A thoroughly enjoyable book that holds up standards without judging everyone around her by them, which these days is increasingly rare in the food writing world. Also, this is one of the few baking books that I have read recently to excite my imagination and interest me in trying some of the recipes. I have baked for long enough and read so many baking books that such an achievement is rare indeed.

Finding Martha's Place -Martha Hawkins
My review is here and an early, personal reaction may be read here.

You Are What You See - Scott Nehring
 I was privileged to read the galley for this book by Scott Nehring. He opens people's eyes to the power of film as a cultural force and unlocks the "key" of story so that you really understand what you are watching (well, ok, I already watched that way ... but I still was riveted by this book). It is simply fantastic. You will never watch movies the same way again. Scott lays out movie structure in a way that helps any movie viewer understand and enjoy movies better.

The Habit of Being - Flannery O'Connor
I grew to love Flannery more and more while I read this compilation of her letters to friends. As well as the little bits of daily life that she shared, there was a steady revelation of the underlying thoughts behind her stories and the underlying Catholic worldview that she wrote from (and lived from).

I read more and more slowly as I grew close to the end of the book. Her early death seemed so tragic and I dreaded it. Yes, this seems melodramatic but it is how I felt. She was pragmatic, straight forward, brave, and funny. In her letters to her friends I learned a lot about writing, the Catholic faith, and living a full life under difficult circumstances. And when I read that her last letter was found scribbled by hand after her death, I cried. Not a lot, but there were real tears and emotion there. I must say that now, when I get to Heaven (fingers crossed), one of the people I hope to meet is Flannery O'Connor.

The Roots of the Faith - Mike Aquilina
My review is here.

Full of Grace - Judith Dupre
My review on Patheos is here.

Oh Holy Night - Mark C. Snow
My review is here.

2010 Top Discoveries: Books - Fiction

These may not have been new this year, in fact I can practically guarantee many of them were not, but they were new to me. Naturally I had to share them with you! Today we'll look at fiction in actual, hold-em-in-your-hand books (including Kindle ... but NOT audiobooks).

(All summaries are from my GoodReads list where you may see everything I read in 2010, which I may have shared here earlier in the year ...)

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
How did this author do it? A story about an 11-year-old detective that is a unique blend of Sherlock Holmes, eccentric English country house murder mystery, and Nancy Drew. And it works. Fascinating and wonderful. I say that even though I pegged the murderer the first time there was an appearance. The discovery of why and how and who was entirely enjoyable despite that.

High Spirits - Robertson Davies
Can't remember where I saw this recommended but these are extremely enjoyable humorous takes on the classic English "Christmas Eve" tellings of subsequent experiences by the first Master of Massey College. Every year he experiences either a ghostly visitation or some other supernatural adventure which luckily happens in time for him to tell it on Christmas Eve. Funny without being over the top. I will probably have to investigate this author's other works after this.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simenson
My review is here.

The Help - Kathryn Stockett
Honestly, if I’d really known what it was about I’d never have been interested but once I was engrossed in it I was glad to have read this excellent book. Told by two different servants and one young woman who doesn’t fit into the Jackson, Mississippi society because she didn’t immediately get married and begin a family, this is a story of their unexpected collaboration on a secret project that results in all of them crossing lines that are not acknowledged aloud but which must be crossed in order to truly know themselves. I raced through the last fourth of it. Highly recommended. HIGHLY!

Vampire$ - John Steakley
My review is here.

Through the Wall - Cleveland Moffett
A noted detective is getting ready to go to Brazil for an important job. He drops by Notre Dame where a young woman he never met says a few sentences to him that leave him pale and canceling his trip. A young woman, deeply in love, spurns her lover's marriage proposal because she loves him too much. A international celebrity is found mysteriously killed in a variation of the locked room mystery. All these events are connected and are set in 1909 Paris, where the atmosphere is romantic and mysterious and the art of detective investigation is very much to the fore in the story. This was on a list from Michael Grost's list for Mystery Scene magazine of classic mysteries that you should read but probably haven't. Here is a piece about this book which I believe was written in 1907. It is a locked room mystery, which I normally do not like, but the way the author slowly uncovers layers truth behind the mysterious situations is already very apparent. It has the effect of a book of one cliff-hanger after another and I am hooked. Final word: what a splendid plot and story telling. Truly this is the story of a master detective pitted against a master criminal, all wound around a tale of love and friendship. I got this from the library but I'd bet it is available free at Project Gutenberg. I plan on  reading this on Forgotten Classics.

Carnacki, The Ghost-Finder - William Hope Hodgson
Whenever Carnacki finishes a tough case of tracking down the supernatural he calls together his three friends to have dinner at their London club and tells them the story. Sometimes he discovers the supernatural, sometimes a hoax, and occasionally an intriguing mix of the two. Thus we get seven fine ghost tales from William Hope Hodgson who is better known for The House on the Border Land, which I have never read, but surely shall someday. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which I picked up from Amazon for free and read on the Kindle. I would look at Project Gutenberg for it as a free public-domain book if you can't find it anywhere.

Trouble is My Business - Raymond Chandler
Having suffered through City of Dragons, I realized I'd never really read any of the prototypical genre she was attempting to emulate. My random selections of Raymond Chandler from the library yielded a book of short stories and a novel. Beginning with this book of short stories, I discovered that Chandler is an author I am enjoying. These pithy stories are exactly what you would expect from the creator of Philip Marlowe, except that they show the quintessential hard-boiled detective from a developmental stage through many different stories. The last four stories, so I'm told from the book blurb, have Philip Marlowe in them, though I am not sure how he differs from the 'tecs I've read about thus far (except in name). Great fun.

Nightmare Town by Dashiell Hammett
Yep. I couldn't just try Chandler without also sampling the other great master of hard-boiled mystery fiction, Dashiell Hammett. Again, my random library selections yielded a novel and this short story selection. It also has an interesting overview of Hammett's life in the introduction. These stories contain hard boiled detectives but also, surprisingly, twist ending stories from different points of view as well. Hammett is a more varied writer than Chandler and I am always amused whenever the main detective describes himself as short and stout (which seems to happen frequently).

Till We Have Faces - C. S. Lewis
This is an intriguing retelling of the story of Cupid and Psyche written in a way that puts me in mind of Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. It was gripping in a way I didn't expect and which I find difficult to explain. This story works as plain storytelling, as myth, as truth underlying myth, as character study, as unbelievably delicately written prose, and as fantasy. In short, this book is not nearly as difficult to read as I'd heard, while on the other hand containing rich layers that lend to repeated readings. I definitely enjoyed seeing Lewis's echoes of what is familiar in myth but which also is a bit of truth about Christianity.