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An amazing account of one of the bloodiest battles in the
history of warfare. Stalingrad marked the zenith of Nazi
Germany’s Russian invasion and also the beginning of the end of
Hitler’s dictatorship. Beevor’s scintillating narrative prose
style is rarely found these days among the de rigeur bad writing
of academic historians. Read this book and you’ll appreciate why
we spend all of those billions of dollars on military
technology.
David Sedaris, Holidays on Ice
Sedaris’ six short stories about the Christmas holidays are some
of the funniest things ever written about “the most wonderful
time of the year.” The author’s account of his experience
working as a Macy’s SantaLand elf is perhaps one of the most
hysterical stories ever written. A true dysfunctional holiday
classic.
I remember walking into City Lights Books in San Francisco in
1997 and seeing this book in hardcover. It intrigued me but I
didn’t have the 25 bucks to fork out then. Flash forward: two
years later I walked into the Feltrineli bookshop in Padua,
Italy and bought the paperback for 25,000 lire. “Conceived as a
distraction, it immediately took on the distracted character of
that from which it was intended to be a distraction, namely
myself.” Dyer’s chronicle of his failure to write a study about
D. H. Lawrence is perhaps the best book ever written about
Lawrence and about the process of writing. We follow Dyer from
Rome to England to Sicily to Mexico as he tries to avoid writing
his novel and tries to write his Lawrence study, failing
miserably. Anyone who loathes academic writing about canonized
writers will love this book.
One of the best films of 2002. Oscar, a precocious 15-year old
prep school boy (who loves to read Voltaire in French), has a
crush on his stepmother (Sigourney Weaver), but ends up sleeping
with her best friend (Bebe Neuwirth). A witty, erudite film that
features literate dialogue. John Ritter is outstanding as
Oscar’s clueless history professor father. Yes, yes, I know,
many of our conservative readers will be upset that I am
recommending a film that deals with sexual relations between an
underage boy and a mature woman. Well, there are no graphic
details and no naughty dialogue. The double standard is alive
and well.
Paul Thomas Anderson is one of ZCPortal’s favorite film
directors (and for those of you from Cleveland, he’s Ghoulardi’s
son) . If you didn’t get to see this film when it was released
last year, now you have the opportunity to do so. In Boogie
Nights Anderson actually got Burt Reynolds to act, and in this
film he does the same with Adam Sandler. Sandler’s character is
the owner of a novelty plunger business who runs afoul of a Utah
sex phone line operator while he’s romancing Emily Watson and
trying to collect a million frequent flyer miles from a Healthy
Choices/American Airlines promotion. This film was a big hit at
Cannes last year and for once the French got it right.
It’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Girl Fight. A young Indian
girl in England loves soccer but has to deal with the
disapproval of her traditional Hindu family. Of course you know
how it’s going to end, but that’s beside the point. It’s funny,
witty and a chick flick that guys will like. Because of the
various accents, even native English speakers will find the
English subtitles to be useful.
