OK, it’s not really taking me “forever” to read The Traveller. But it’s taking me longer than it should, because I am afraid to finish it. There are two reasons. It is just that entertaining, and when I finish it I know I’ll have a hard time finding anything else that good to read. Worse, what if it disappoints? I’m over three-quarters into the book. There have been some minor flaws which I can easily overlook, but it could be a sign of bad things to come. Will the denouement be thrilling? I am afraid to look…

The first Jean Claude Van Damme movie that I saw was Timecop. In one scene, he leaped up from the floor to avoid electrocution, landing in a split on a kitchen countertop – in his underwear, no less (see it in the trailer). I became a fan instantly!

Unfortunately, that was my peak Jean Claude Van Damme experience – until today, when I saw JCVD. I like my mindless action and violence as much as anyone else, and that’s really the most I was hoping for, although I had read a short review which promised more.

Well, this movie delivers. If you need convincing, go read the review at the Washington Post. For someone who is a fan of both the martial arts genre and French film, as I am, JCVD is a dream come true.

SPOILER ALERT – this review contains some plot details that you might not want to know if you plan to see the movie.

The Day the Earth Stood Still was only mildly entertaining for me. It might be more enjoyable for children and teens, or anyone who hasn’t seen the original 1951 movie.

It has been a long time since I’ve seen the original, and I recall liking it. The remake requires way too much suspension of disbelief for me. The aliens come off almost as dumb as the humans, which I don’t recall in the original.

I refreshed my memory of the original by skimming the synopsis at wiki. In the older movie, the aliens’ motives were more convincing – a fear that humanity would become a danger to alien races. In the current movie, the vague rationalization is that humans are destroying the earth, but the aliens don’t give a strong reason for caring about that. It’s something like “we’re going to kill all humans in order to save the other living species on the planet, and besides, humanity’s going to extinguish itself anyway.” This goes way beyond deep ecology. And they’ve based their conclusions on a perfunctory study of the human race… Another giant plot hole.

Worst of all, in the remake we never hear the magic phrase “Klaatu barada nikto.” Major, major flaw!!

Is it worth seeing this in the theater as I did? Well, if you’re going to see it at all, see it on the big screen, to get all the spectacle (try to ignore all the blatant product placements). Go for a discount matinee, like I did. But if you’re waffling, I’d say don’t bother. Rent the original instead.

The Brave One is a simplistic, fantasy vengeance movie. Jodie Foster plays a woman who is brutally assaulted, along with her fiancé, who doesn’t survive the attack. The story follows her as she tries to deal with surviving the event.

I was disappointed because I was expecting something more complex from Jodie Foster. Not that she doesn’t do a good job acting the part. However, in her “prosecution” of the criminals that she meets (with unrealistic frequency), her character has an omniscience which is completely lacking in reality… she (and the viewer) are always completely certain of the guilt of the people she kills. This kind of certainty is rare in real life; and even when it happens, one person’s certainty is no guarantee of their correctness. That’s the reason that vigilantism is generally a bad thing, and we’re better off with our admittedly flawed justice system.

Is it interesting that a woman is playing the role of vigilante? I suppose so. I don’t think I would have bothered watching the movie if it had been about a male vigilante; but in that case, I wouldn’t have been expecting more depth either.

The redeeming feature of this movie is its realistic portrayal of the impact of violent crime on its victims. The manner in which Foster’s character completely changes is very believable, although the rest of the plot is not.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a suspenseful page-turner. Although it deals with some lurid sex crimes, I didn’t feel the topic was exploited.

The characters are pretty well fleshed out, but I was disappointed to meet yet another fictional character with eidetic memory. Here, it really wasn’t even necessary as a plot device. Despite the quibble, I’m adding Larsson’s other books to my reading list.

I wanted to like The Handmaid’s Tale. Unfortunately, I found it ferociously boring. I suspect that Atwood was trying to relay the incredible boredom that comes with oppression, but she did it too well.

The protagonist is extremely weak, so much so that I didn’t care about her, or become absorbed in her story. Stuff just happens to her. In fact the only thing she initiates involves a silly and unbelievable “love story” which is tacked on near the end. I suppose the love story may be an ironic commentary; presumably the protagonist has some form of Stockholm syndrome.

I suppose some might argue that she was strong, because she was a survivor. That might be my perspective if this were a real, living person. But this is fiction, and I want more from my fictional characters than what was given here.

I’ve been trying to read more about this book, to discover if there’s any underlying meaning or symbolism that I’m missing… so far, zilch. It is what it is.

Thoreau’s Walden is a classic, no doubt about it, and worth reading twice. The best chapters are the first and last, “Economy” and the “Conclusion”, in which he exhorts us to spend as much time as we can doing what we want, and not what others expect of us. If life is too costly, just stop spending money and go live in the woods, he says. And that’s what he did.

However, he did cheat a little in doing this himself. He went to live on a friend’s land. Back in the 1800’s, how many poor people had friends who would let them squat on their property? How many people today could do this? I think it’s easier said than done.

Further, he completely ignores the fact that many people have health issues which are quite costly to treat. He himself suffered from tuberculosis, and died at the early age of 44. Would he have lived longer if he had had more money to spend on treatment? Perhaps money was not an issue for him, since a successful treatment for tuberculosis had not been developed in his lifetime. But it was for many others with treatable diseases, and continues to be today.

These are the main flaws that I see in Thoreau’s arguments to live simply – they are unrealistic in some respects. I give the book four stars because of these problems, and also because it’s overly lengthy and could have used a strong editorial hand in trimming some of the last chapters, which got rather boring. Despite all that, I still find his views very appealing. And now that I live close to Walden Pond, the book is made richer than it was for me originally, because I can “put a face to the name” of local features like Lincoln Woods and Flint’s Pond, and towns like Fitchburg.

It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age and in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that of gold…. In this town the price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how much higher it is to be this year than it was the last.

I’m still slogging through Walden; the last few chapters strike me as downright dull!

“The Worst Thing I’ve Done” lately is listen to this audio book. It was terrible! I have no idea why I didn’t just stop listening altogether. I kept hoping something interesting would happen and it never did.

I dislike weak characters and this book is full of them. There were several supporting characters which filled out the book who weren’t so bad, but they just irritated me, although in better circumstances I suppose they might have been more interesting.

I have yet to experience any joy from my library’s audio books. I guess I had better do some research before checking out any more.

As a psychological drama, I find Alice et Martin rather heavy-handed and obvious. But, Juliette Binoche is fun to watch, and Mathieu Amalric, the guy who plays Benjamin, is interesting, too.