weekend roundup

Ren and I watched two movies today. Inside Man by Spike Lee and The Da Vinci Code by Ron Howard. I'd heard a lot of bad things about Da Vinci Code so I wasn't expecting to like it, especially since I thought that the book wasn't written very well. Imagine my surprise then when I found myself liking the movie. I thought the movie held the interest and theme far better than the book did. Shortening the globe trotting that goes on was a very good move on Howard's part. In the book, Brown just didn't know when to stop with the continuous clues to yet new locations or the preaching about the Feminine Devine stuff--the movie handled it a lot better.

Inside Man really impressed me. I was quite taken by the movies pace and approach to giving hints and clues in very small doses. While I have some reservations about the final scenes of the movie that didn't spoil the enjoyment of the excellent pacing and writing of the movie. And talk about an all-star cast. Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, and William Dafoe. Wow. At the heart of the movie is a bank robbery but it's not your run of the mill robbery. Oh no. This heist is well planned, orchestrated and there's purpose behind every move. Denzel, as a young police detective, is trying to figure out what's happening inside the bank before it's too late. Will he deduce what's really going on in time? Watch the movie and see.

I finished Beach Road, a James Patterson book, late on Thursday night. I actually liked it. I was surprised. I tend to mostly like his Alex Cross books but anything out of that series usually falls short. Beach Road does have its problems--and they're huge serious ones which prevent me from recommending the book despite my personally liking it. First of all the ending is so bogus that it actually had me chortling with glee at its silliness. It also had several false endings that were also pretty silly. What I liked was the adroit way that Patterson (and coauthor Peter de Jonge) changed the point of view from one character to another throughout the book. Sure, cynics might charge that the authors did this to attempt to hid how thin the plot and characterization was in the book--and they're accurate charges--but I still liked the book. So sue me! LOL

On the other hand, never ever buy this book. It's not a novel, it's a short novelette. The page count was 289 if I recall correctly (I returned the book to the library on Friday so I can't check), which doesn't sound bad but.... the pages ended 2/3 the way down, the font was so big it almost seemed like one of those books for the near-blind, and the chapters were so short and choppy it was obvious they were splitting chapters into two or three to pad the blank space in the book. A real page count on that book would be more like 120-130 pages. For $28 you should get a real novel, not some short thing these two jokers whipped off in a week or so. But it's fine if you get it from the library, and since it's such a fast read you can bring it to the doctor or dentist's office or even traffic court and you'll be finished before the bailiff calls your name. I Promise.