A movie worth watching for its visual and conceptual aspects. Unfortunately, it lacks in story, which pretty much writes itself from the synopsis: Lone wolf player of virtual reality war game seeks to access dangerous level of game from which others have not returned.

Other writers might have taken this idea and found interesting approaches into the story. In this case the writer seems to have grabbed whatever came to mind first, which is “the obvious.”

And the problem with having a “lone wolf” as your main character… little dialogue and not much action, especially in the beginning. After she fed her dog and checked her mail (no messages) I thought, this is about as interesting as my miserly life. Maybe she could watch a more interesting movie and I could look over her shoulder.

Eventually the story builds a little steam. And I like the movie’s cinematic qualities. But most video games these days have more developed plots than Avalon.

Not the worst samurai movie in the world, nor the best. But what in Buddha’s name is up with that jive tap dance routine at the end?

A movie which leaves me feeling maybe it’s all worth it. All those piles and piles of unimaginative, derivative stories. This one is a detective story. Oh, a horror flick. A family drama. Once the formula is recognized, the obedient ending follows along like a dog’s tail. Not so, Suicide Circle.

Most movies are diversions. People watch them as such. Absorb a little melodrama. Phase back into reality with a souvenir keepsake called “the hook.” When a friend asks, hey is that movie any good, present the hook. Great special effects. Girl saves world. Robot dog. Whatever.

People killing themselves with apparent joie de vivre. I suppose that is the hook for Suicide Circle. Why? Why are they killing themselves? Why so happy? An answer is expected. Detectives throw out dragnets. Strange voices make ominous predictions. Answers never materialize. Instead, the movie turns around and asks, “Why expect an answer? Who are these people to you, and why do you care? Do you even know yourself?”

You. Yes, you. This movie is about you. Suicide Circle asks you to connect to yourself, not the story, not the characters.

Is that the meaning? Is there meaning? The story doesn’t say, but I love the fact that I still have access. I can search for meaning in this movie.

What is this movie about? What are movies? An object shaped like a roll of film. An audience applauding, not a performance, but a true intention. Clues overlooked by the characters, because they are in the movie. But we exist outside the movie. Or do we even realize it?

I call it Stephen King’s Syndrome. The ending murders the mystery. What starts off as chilling horror ends up being a giant spider. Except in this case, the syndrome is not so pronounced and doesn’t kill the movie.

Also suffers from highly predictable reverse-logic morality. If the character seems pleasant and docile, it’s because they’re planning to stick a knife in someone’s ribs and enjoying the anticipation. As for the knife-wielding maniacs, they’re your knights-errant.

That being said, a worthwhile story with high-grade cinematography labeled, “Fabriqué en France.” I only mention the faults because everything else was so perfect, what can you say?

My father and I were hauling trash in my truck, and I put this CD on as something he might tolerate. When the first track, Rehab, started he said, “I love this song.” Apparently he’d seen the video on TV and it’s been stuck in his head ever since. This from a man whose music timeline ends somewhere around CCR.

The album feels both old and new. “Instant classic” applies here. Everyone I know loves it, as they should. But I’m still dumbstruck that my father and I both like an artist I first heard on NPR. Inconceivable. Highly illogical. Does not compute.

Slowly reading this. Working long hours now. Besides, this book is a draught worth savoring.

Josephine W. Johnson won a Pulitzer for her fiction, but handles creative non-fiction just as well. The Inland Island follows a common format found in nature writing, each of the 12 chapters meandering through a different month from January to December. Short pithy sentences. An amazing vocabulary, employed not for the sake of showing off, but for the poetry of language.

Here nature is imperfect and complete. Despoiled by human concerns and yet undaunted. Johnson writes this memoir from the heart of the Vietnam War. Her anger and desperation turns up on one page or another, but mostly she focuses on the natural world, with teeth, instinct and that mad desire to live on.

Reading this book made me poke a slug’s antenna just to see what would happen. (It retracted back into its gooey head.)

I found Idée Fixe and three other volumes of the collected works at the library bookstore. A dialogue between a physician and a man representing Valéry himself discuss, primarily, the idée fixe, or fixed idea. For Valéry, the mind is too dynamic for ideas to truly be fixed. Rather, people who seem fixed on a particular idea are more likely to revisit the same idea again and again. He calls this, rather mockingly, an “omnivalent” idea. Mixed in with the philosophical discourse is quite a bit of intellectual humor and wit. The two characters have a fascinating sense of reality to them. In a way, it’s a classic tale of two very different people brought together by circumstance.

I read this book in my teens somewhere, and picked it up again last week. Amazing how quickly the book goes, how it draws you in. The story is told in a disjointed fashion… as it progresses, Vonnegut tells you what will happen later that day, or a million years in the future, and the suspense is in wondering, how the heck is that going to come about?

I’m disappointed with some aspects of Kafka on the Shore, but overall, the novel was worth reading. Since I’ve read nearly every work translated into English, I’ve come to expect the unexpected when I read Murakami. I don’t have that, “what the #@%! is going on” reaction that will keep new readers turning pages. But the concepts are so clearly illustrated in this novel, it’s almost a guidebook to understanding everything else he’s written so far. Like Murakami’s saying, “maybe this is what my way of writing a story is all about.” The writing is weak at spots, and could have used more work, but he is definitely still growing as a writer.

Other Murakami books I recommend are Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World,Norwegian Wood, or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Read all three if you have time.

How do you contend with a single-minded, non-communicative alien species that has swarmed across the galaxy exterminating all life on the worlds they colonize? Quite handily, actually. Blow up the alien ships with your thoughts, duh.

Lyon’s Pride reads like a soap opera, only without the drama, and minus the conflict… you can’t even keep track of the characters since there are so many of them all speaking to each other from different parts of the galaxy all with their thoughts.