Coastal Breeze News

REEL REVIEWS By Monte Lazarus [email protected] Run; don’t walk, to see this movie. It’s advertised as a “silent”, but it’s not quite. There are a few sounds, and a continuous musical background. Other than that there’s no real dialog. On its surface the film appears simply to be a tribute to the silent movie era. However, that’s only the façade. Few of us remember silent movies. They dominated the screen until the late twenties when “The Jazz Singer” opened the new dimension of sound, and revolutionized the business. Yes, the film tells a story of a matinee idol of the ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS  Diane Bostick  [email protected] Author: Alice LaPlante.  Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press 2011.  If you are a regular reader of Book Remarks you probably have noticed that you often don’t know what the book I am reviewing is about until close to the end of the column. I tend to chat a bit about various other things first. In this case I will tell you right up front this book is told through the eyes of Dr. Jennifer White, an orthopedic surgeon, who, at the age of 64, has dementia, the intermediate stage of Alzheimer’s disease. Her best friend has been ... Read More »

By Monte Lazarus  [email protected] The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Rooney Mara is mesmerizing as Lisbeth Salander, the tiny birdlike product of the Digital Age. She’s tattooed, pierced in all the wrong places, fierce, anti-social, abused, and sheathed in black leather and even wearing “Oliver Twist” gloves with the fingers cut out. Lisbeth is a genius computer hack. She joins forces with Mikael Blomqvist (ably played by Daniel Craig) a journalist who is on the wrong end of a very expensive libel suit. Ms. Mara’s performance is truly remarkable. The film is shot in cold, desolate Sweden where snow is ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS  Diane Bostick  [email protected] Author: Janet Evanovich.  Publisher: Bantam Books 2011. If you haven’t read a Janet Evanovich book you have missed a reading experience like no other. However, I must warn you, don’t even pick up the book if you aren’t prepared for some funky, quirky humor. If you are at the library you will find them in the mystery section, but I wouldn’t exactly call them mysteries. The author started out writing One for the Money and is now up to Explosive Eighteen with a book for each number in between. Her heroine, if you want to call ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS Diane Bostick [email protected] Author: Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. 2011. While reading this book I was entranced and when I finished, all I could say was, “Wow.” Back in the ‘50s when I was taking American History in Fort Myers High School, it was all I could do to stay awake. For one thing, there was no air-conditioning then and the class was right after I had eaten lunch. But to make things much worse I had the kind of teacher who felt she had covered all her bases if she had us learn ... Read More »

REEL REVIEWS By Monte Lazarus [email protected] The latest movie version of “Sherlock Holmes” (“A Game of Shadows”) is decidedly not the Holmes we know and love from the much beloved A. Conan Doyle stories, or even the old Basil Rathbone films. The new Holmes is a macho gunslinger and hand-to-hand fighter. He’s just not very smart. His favorite violin has gone missing. So, too, is his finely tuned mind. He’s now more of a comic book version complete with massive explosions. This time around, against a largely sepia background, Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) more ... Read More »

Diane Bostick  [email protected] Author: Andrea Levy  Publisher: Picador (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) 2010. Available in Hard cover, soft cover, audio and Kindle.  I know that some of you would rather be shot in the foot than read anything considered a “Historical Novel.” (Yes, I know, some of you think I should say ‘an’ rather than ‘a’ before the word historical. I took the time to look it up and both are correct depending on where you live, but the ‘a’ seems to be preferred in America today.) Now to get back to the subject at hand. “Historical Novel” brings on ... Read More »

By Monte Lazarus [email protected] “Hugo” is a charming mixture of the real Georges Melies, a French film pioneer, and Hugo Cabret, a 12 year old boy who lives in the Gare Montparnesse in Paris, and is a combination orphan, station clock minder, and part-time petty thief. The film is based on Brian Selznick’s 526 page book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret. In 3-D, the colorful and beautifully conceived and acted movie intertwines the stories of Hugo’s search for family after his beloved father’s sudden death in a fire; and the search of Georges Melies for his past life. Hugo lived ... Read More »

By Diane Bostick [email protected] Author: John Grisham Publisher: Doubleday 2011. When we think of John Grisham, our minds go automatically to courtroom drama. However, this man is no one note wonder. Although the majority of his twenty-five books have indeed been about lawyers, law firms and the courtroom, he has also branched off into other subject matter, though not with as much success. I, personally, think that his very first book, A Time to Kill, is his finest by far. It was written in a fine literary style. Since then, although I have enjoyed almost all of his books, I ... Read More »

By Monte Lazarus [email protected] At the very beginning of this engrossing film, “The Descendants” Matt King (George Clooney) cautions us that Hawaii is not the total paradise we mainliners think it is. Matt is neither poor nor deprived. On the contrary, he is a hugely successful real estate lawyer, a descendant of generations of haoles (whites) and native Hawaiians, a member of an exclusive beach club and very well-off certainly by Hawaiian standards. Matt, however, is personally “thrifty”…he drives a small Honda; he lives in a modest home and he dresses in Aloha shirts and casual slacks. We learn immediately ... Read More »

Diane Bostick    A Jesse Stone Novel  Author: Michael Brandman  Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011.  What do V.C. Andrew and Robert B. Parker have in common? The obvious answer is that both are well loved authors who have written for years and still have new books being published as recently as this year. The less obvious answer is that both are dead! V.C Andrews died in 1986 with over 24 million books in print in many languages and has had over 29 books written by others, but published in her name, since her death. Another author suffering somewhat the same ... Read More »

By Monte Lazarus  From the opening bars of music this film is stamped “Director Clint Eastwood”. Mr. Eastwood serves us an inner look at the man who elevated the F.B.I. from a second-rate, narrowly limited police department to an all powerful force in the federal government. Interestingly, the movie is not about the intricacies of the F.B.I. It’s all about the psychological make up of the man who was obsessive, secretive, ambitious, single minded, sexually ambiguous, and amoral enough to lie and indulge in political blackmailing. Leonardo Di Caprio is J. Edgar Hoover from a 19 year old clerk at ... Read More »

By Monte Lazarus  David Frankel, who directed the hit “The Devil Wears Prada”, tries again with “The Big Year”, loosely based on a non-fiction book. By intertwining the lives and problems of three “birders” the plot uses the otherwise benign hobby of bird-watching to explore, superficially, their human problems. Champion Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson) holds the one year world record for most birds seen. He’s pursued in another one year competition by Stu Preissler (Steve Martin) and Brad Harris (Jack Black). Bostick, a successful home builder with a gorgeous wife (Rosamund Pike) is obsessed with winning – the Great American ... Read More »

Diane Bostick Author: Julia Glass.  Publisher: Pantheon 2010. Available in paperback by Anchor Books.  I think of myself as a reader of mysteries more than any other type of book. When I go to the library that is the section I gravitate to first. (I have yet to figure out yet why what I would call a “mystery” is sometimes to be found in the “Mystery” section and sometimes in the “Fiction” section. Who decides which it is?) However, since beginning these reviews I have read a good bit of fiction in trying to review books for everyone’s taste. And, ... Read More »

By Monte Lazarus  If you are not already cynical about the state of politics you may be after watching “The Ides of March”. This film is not about ideology; it keeps its focus on the human beings who tangle themselves in the political process. The story could easily focus on a Republican primary campaign by changing just a very few words in the script. The vital part is the human interchange. There’s virtually no end of double-cross, who leaked what, and the results of crass ambition. George Clooney, who also wrote part of the script and directed the film, plays ... Read More »

Diane Bostick  Author: Nina Revoyr.  Publisher: Akashic Books. Available in hardcover and paperback 2011.  Why we select the books we read is somewhat of a mystery. Sometimes we read something because it is on the best seller list or a friend has said, “You just have to read this.” Often it is a new book just published by an author we have come to love over the years. We would hope it is frequently because you read a review such as this that led you to feel the need to read the book being reviewed. Occasionally we are just caught ... Read More »

Diane Bostick Author: Ashley Judd Publisher: Ballentine Books 2011 It may seem harsh to say in this day and age that I have little sympathy for those who have made no effort to improve themselves and expect others who have studied and worked hard to pay their way. I understand that the economics of today have changed a lot of the rules and there are many who are suffering because of it who have truly tried to do all the right things. But, I also realize there are millions of people in the third world countries who, through no fault ... Read More »

By Monte Lazarus  Don’t expect “Moneyball” to be an old, hackneyed, romanticized Hollywood film such as “Pride of the Yankees” in which Gary Cooper couldn’t even pretend to be Lou Gehrig (they had to reverse the batting scenes because Cooper couldn’t even pretend to bat left-handed), or the monumental flop in which William Bendix does a horrible impersonation of Babe Ruth. “Moneyball” based on a 2003 non-fiction story, is all about the backrooms of sports enterprise and the characters who set values on human performances. It’s much more like “The Social Network” than my own favorite “Bull Durham”. Brad Pitt ... Read More »

Diane Bostick Author: Joseph Finder Publisher: St. Martins Press, 2011. I have given quite a bit of thought since I started writing these reviews as to what makes a book something I want to continue reading. Sometimes it is beautifully detailed descriptions of people and places. Sometimes it is the thrill of the chase. Sometimes it is learning about something I know nothing about, told in an interesting way. But one of the most important things for me in a book of fiction or biography is that I care about the people in the book; that I want to know ... Read More »

BOOK REMARKS Diane Bostick Author: Jonathan Dixon Publisher: Clarkson Potter/Publishers 2011. I doubt that I am the only one, man or woman, who loves to cook but is seldom able to produce anything to equal the gourmet delights I have been served in first class restaurants. You would think that with enough practice cooking meals for a family day after day you would eventually reach some level of acclaim, at least from that very family eating those lovingly prepared meals, but ‘taint necessarily so! You can spend all the time you want perusing cookbooks of all types and practicing what you read ... Read More »