Hey, it's Monday again! And so here's the list of what showed up in my mailbox last week, just like every other Monday. I haven't read any of these books yet, but here's what I can tell you about them even with that handicap:Kitty's Big Trouble
is the ninth book in the "Kitty Norville" series by Carrie Vaughn, and the second to come from Tor Books. (Who get a mild ding here: their card page, listing previous books by the author, only has her Tor titles, and so leaves off the first seven books in this series. I've always thought that was bad, old-fashioned thinking, and it's particularly egregious in the age of the Internet. It doesn't help anyone -- author, reader, or publisher -- to pretend that other books don't exist.) I'm several books behind on reading this series -- despite the fact that I read the first three back at the old job, and did an omnibus of them then -- which is not something I'd recommend; this one of the better contemporary fantasy series going currently, with a well-realized world and a sense of consequences and law rare in that subgenre. (I've more-or-less reviewed the middle three books of the series here -- Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand, Kitty and the Silver Bullet, and Kitty Raises Hell. Big Trouble is coming as a mass-market paperback in July, so even you cheapskates can get it right away.
Speaking of series that have been running a long time through many publishers, I also have in front of me An Embarrassment of Riches
, the umpteenth "Comte Saint-Germain" novel by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, which began in 1978 with Hotel Transylvania
. Embarassment's card page doesn't try to disentangle Yarbro's many novels and series, presenting a not-particularly-useful long list of books published by "Tom Doherty Associates" (the umbrella corporate name for Tor, Forge, and associated imprints) in pure alphabetical order. The Saint-Germain books are historical vampire novels; their hero is the historical charlatan of that name, though, in Yarbro's version, he's an immortal, mostly good vampire who keeps getting into various trouble with mortals. (Or so I understand; I haven't read the series.) Embarrassment will be published by Tor on March 1st, in hardcover.
Also from Tor in March -- this time in trade paperback -- is Demon Song
, the fourth book in a paranormal romance series [1] by the writing team of C.T. Adams and Cathy Clamp, writing under the non-secret pseudonym Cat Adams. The heroine of this series is Celia Graves, who is both half-vampire and half-Siren, though it doesn't seem to be the same kind of half in either case -- she's half-human compared to both of those, which doesn't add up to all human. (Reminds me of the Warner cartoon with a dog that was half pointer, half boxer, half setter, half watchdog, half spitz, and all Labrador retriever -- Porky's Pooch.)
And last this week is a novel for young adults with a very impressive array of armaments on its cover: Will Hill's Department Nineteen
. It's yet another vampire book -- I've just noticed that all four books this week have vampires in them, the way an old house has damp in the corners -- in which our young hero has to save his mother, who has been kidnapped by shadowy forces, with the aid of the super-secret portion of the British government that makes up the title. Department Nineteen will be published in April by Razorbill, a sharp (sorry) imprint of Penguin aimed at teens.[1] I can say that this is paranormal romance, and not urban fantasy, because the book itself tells me so, and I trust it.
and 
these last few weeks, and hoping that I can drag all of my various thoughts -- there are good things about that bifurcated novel, but many more odd or disappointing things -- into shape within the next week or so.
. (I think I follow the Twitter feed, but I've never quite figured out a way to read Twitter and feel like I'm keeping track there, so it doesn't matter either way.)
begins with what amounts to a gigantic "anyway..." and dives backward into the history of our new Big Bad, the Dark Man, explaining how he was captured by the empire of the previous Big Bad, in a single-issue story, "Boxing Days," with art by Jim Fern and Craig Hamilton. It's a decent story in its own right, but serves primarily to litter crumbs in the path of the main story, explaining where things will be going for the next ten or twenty or fifty issues.
-- Hayao Miyazaki's very first full-length movie has some moments and set-pieces that are clearly Miyazaki-ish in retrospect, and is an exciting and always fun entry in a sturdy, audience-pleasing series. But it's clearly a formula, and not a terribly demanding one.
-- Another French movie -- I find that a good French comedy is superior to all but one or two of the best American funny movies a year -- directed by Charlotte Gainsbough's husband, about a man who is married to the gorgeous actress Charlotte Gainsborough. Slightly less sexy than expected, but a lot of fun.
-- Yet another French movie, this time a romantic comedy with Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno stuck at an airport. It hasn't stuck in the memory terribly well, but it was enjoyable at the time.
-- A small-budget British romantic comedy-drama with some slight pretensions; it doesn't work 100%, but it does work well enough.
-- So, like, take off, eh? I will never apologize for loving Strange Brew, and I've now made my sons watch it as well.
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-- Tim Burton really needs a high-profile failure or two to bring him back ot earth and get him to engage strong again; sadly, this movie didn't do that. It's an interesting-looking mess, but it's completely a mess, even by the standards of an Alice movie.
-- I like George Clooney's work, and I've missed a lot of his movies -- this one is a sturdy, smart thriller that I expect most of you saw ten years ago.
-- The comedy version of a kitchen-sink problem movie, circling around Andy Garcia as a middle-aged NYC cop who really wants to be an actor. It all comes together too patly in the end, but everyone is good in it, and it has a fine sense of place.
-- It fails the Siskel test, in that the viewer keeps suspecting that the jokes that Steve Carrell and Tina Fey told each other in the makeup chair were funnier and less formulaic than this movie, but it is entertaining, and Carrell and Fey are both completely game and utterly likable. Plus, I am one half a boring, married, middle-aged couple in New Jersey.
-- Most of the old movies I see are pretty frothy, but this one is more biting, though a lot of that bite is due to the specific sexual mores of 1960, which are solidly exploded now. It certainly had more impact then, and would have more impact for a younger viewer, but it's still a great movie.
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-- The surprise Oscar nominee of last year, once it was finally available on video. Visually inventive and heartfelt, but awfully slow for a movie that's not even ninety minutes long, and not without the sound of axes grinding. See it to look at rather than to think about.
-- A silly British mockumentary about a reality-TVish competition by a bridal magazine for the Most Inventive Wedding of the Year. It doesn't take advantage of all of its opportunities, but it creates some great characters and is entertaining to the end.
-- Ian Holm is Napoleon, who switched places with a lookalike to escape from Elba back to Paris and reclaim his power. It doesn't work out that way, though he does find love instead. Holm is always fun to watch, and this deviates enough from the costume-drama template to be worth seeing.
-- It is what it is: loud, brash, full of itself, but enthralling and ever-so-occasionally smart.
-- Russell Crowe shows us how Hood was dull and depressing, and his life a rough slog through mud and shit. Has almost none of the things anyone wants to see in a Robin Hood movie.
-- Yet more costume drama, with a female Italian Renaissance painter who -- in the movie-ized version -- falls in love with her teacher, which leads to Big Trouble. (In real life, he raped and blackmailed her into sex, but that's not Romantic enough for a movie.) It's better if you don't try to learn anything about Artemisia Gentileschi ahead of time.
-- Broad, obvious, and massively renormative in all the worst ways. The incidental jokes are funny, as they should be, given how much money and time went into them.
-- A mostly-forgotten Hugh Laurie movie from a decade ago, which I missed then like everyone else in the world. He's a screenwriter for not-the-BBC, and secretly turns his own wife's fertility drama into a comedy -- the ending runs off the rails for a while, but otherwise it's so good that you'll wonder why it was so forgotten.
-- A small Boston romantic comedy, except it's not all that funny and not really a romance. It is a good character piece about the two people that the audience knows will eventually get together -- though the movie itself keeps them apart practically the entire time.
-- A masterclass in great acting; there are scenes that hinge on body language or glancing expressions. The central drama is arguably trite -- that a lesbian couple can be just as mixed-up, but still fixable, as anyone else -- but the dialogue is excellent and delivered perfectly.
-- Emma Stone is damn good, and this movie is smart and sneaky; this is a movie about teenagers, but it's as much for people who were teenagers two or four decades ago.
-- A German movie about a restaurant and its various comic dramas; it's sweet and lovable but mildly predictable.
-- The movie that made everyone wonder how close it was to the real relationship of Drew Barrymore and that Mac guy; it's a good view of a relationship that has real strengths and depths but is being seriously tested. All processed through the usual Hollywood rose-tinted lenses, of course.
-- Anyone who had trouble following this is just dumb; I have to say it. It's not as profound or brilliant as some people seem to think, but it's an exceptionally well-constructed and entertaining astonishment machine. (And The Wife and I cracked each other up every time it cut back to the van falling into the water, calling out "Buffering!" as it happened.)
-- The end credits were almost better than the movie, and the movie could have done with a bit more of the credit's viewpoint and cold anger. But the movie, as it did exist, was a decent odd-couple story, and had a particularly watchable set of characters.
-- Not nearly as good, or as subtle, as the first movie, and much more of a film for kids. But The Wife and I enjoyed it anyway.
-- Yes, well. It's not as bad as some people said, but I saw it in non-eye-straining 2-D, so I may not have seen it at its worst. Shamalyan does have some good camera work, particularly his swooping shots in the battle scenes, but that wasn't enough.
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