Helvetica

Film #32 of '08 was Helvetica.

My NetFlix rating: 3 stars
Jamie says: Font geeks of the world unite!
RIYL: Hating on Times New Roman, Ligatures + Serifs

Official Site
Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia

Irresistable Force Meets Immovable Object

Switch Hitter meet....Switch Pitcher. This may be my new favorite baseball clip ever. The real fun kicks in at about 1:20.

2008 Reading List - Books #1-20

Here are the first ten books of my '08 50 book challenge:

1. The Best American Non-Required Reading 2007* - Various
2. This Is Your Brain on Music - Daniel Levitin
3. Hellfire* - Nick Tosches
4. The Nimrod Flipout - Etgar Keret
5. Shortcomings* - Adrian Tomine
6. McSweeney's #25 - Various
7. Kafka - R. Crumb & David Mairowitz
8. The Worst Hard Time* - Timothy Egan
9. The Fermata - Nicholson Baker
10. The Call of the Weird - Louis Theroux
11. Y: The Last Man, Volume 1: Unmanned - Vaughan and Guerra
12. An American Dream - Norman Mailer
13. My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead - Various
14. Y: The Last Man, Volume 2: Cycles - Vaughan and Guerra
15. Rock On - Dan Kennedy
16. The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall
17. Y: The Last Man, Volume 3: One Small Step - Vaughan and Guerra
18. Knockemstiff* - Donald Ray Pollock
19. A Voyage Long and Strange* - Tony Horwitz
20. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

* = Highly recommended

Previously: My 2007 reading list, My 2006 reading list

All The Pretty Horses

Still working my way through my backlog of posts...

Book #20 of my '08 reading list was All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.

This was the second McCarthy book I've read with The Road being the first. I liked this one a lot more, though Entertainment Weekly now assures me that The Road is the best novel of the last 25 years...ah well. Anyhow, this is the McCarthy I'd been assured exists: raw, biting, gritty and all those other overly used adjectives.

Wikipedia page

Melvin Goes To Dinner

Film #31 of '08 was Melvin Goes To Dinner.

My NetFlix rating: 3.5 stars
Jamie says: Entertaining screenplay centered around a dinner conversation between strangers. Would be worth seeing for the fantastic cameos by Jack Black and David Cross alone.
RIYL: Dialogue, Bob Odenkirk

Official Site
Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia

Some Assembly Required

Film #30 of '08 and Film #4 of SIFF was Some Assembly Required.

My NetFlix rating: 3.5 stars
Jamie says: Very nicely done documentary about kids competing in a contest to build their own toys. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder how many variations of the contest documentary we'll see before it goes out of vogue.
RIYL: Spellbound, Mad Hot Ballroom, Word Freak, Word Play, etc.

Official Site
SIFF page

Dan In Real Life

Film #29 of '08 was Dan In Real Life.

My NetFlix rating: 3 stars
Jamie says: A little cheesy but overall not a bad flick. Most impressive is they managed to include Dane Cook without him being incredibly annoying...no small feat.
RIYL: Juliette Binoche, sappy rom-coms

Official Site
Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia

In Search of Kennedy

Film #28 of '08 and Film #3 of SIFF was In Search of Kennedy.

My NetFlix rating: 3 stars
Jamie says: Some great footage but an oddly edited film...and as J-Ho pointed out it's pretty weird that we managed to watch a whole film on Kennedy without learning anything new about him...
RIYL: Pontificating about what would've happened if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated

Official Site
SIFF page
Trailer

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Tennis Shoes

Film #27 of '08 and Film #2 of SIFF was Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Tennis Shoes.

My NetFlix rating: 2.5 stars
Jamie says: So-so documentary about a fascinating man. Will be screening as a part of the American Masters series on PBS.
RIYL: Prairie Home Companion...but you probably already knew that

SIFF page
Official site

Cassandra's Dream

Film #26 of '08 was Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream.

My NetFlix rating: 2.5 stars
Jamie says: Straight forward ho-hum Greek tragedy with none of the typical Woody Allen goodness.
RIYL: Match Point, Colin Farrell

Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia

Deliverance

Get ready for movie posts galore. Been workin' and got a nice long backlog.

Film #25 of '08 was Deliverance.

My NetFlix rating: 4 stars
Jamie says: Hard to compete with the amazing book, but it's a pretty solid adaptation. Bonus points for casting James Dickey as the sheriff.
RIYL: Southern gothic, Burt Reynolds

Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia

A Voyage Long and Strange

Book #19 was Tony Horwitz's new book, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World.

Horowitz is one of my favorite writers, so I've been looking forward to this one for awhile. Turns out it was well worth the wait. In this book Horwitz digs into the history of America between the time Columbus 'discovered' it and the time the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock. Sadly, it's a part of American History that few of us know anything about, so it's nice to have Horwitz fill in the gaps. As a bonus for us Florida folks there's a good chapter on St. Augustine.

If you haven't read any Horwitz books I'd start with Confederates in the Attic or Blue Latitudes (just cause they're so good), but this is certainly a nice addition to his canon.

Encounters at the End of the World

Film #24 of '08 and my first SIFF movie this year was Encounters at the End of the World.

My NetFlix rating: 4 stars
Jamie says: Four words tell you all you need to know: "new Werner Herzog film".
RIYL: Excellent documentaries

Official site
Rotten Tomatoes reviews
Wikipedia