Underworld / DeLillo

The first few pages of this doorstop, which I picked up for $1.99 at the Goodwill, indicate it is a work of conventional realism, in other words an aesthetic drag, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, probably dip into it here and there and see if something hooks me.

March 19, 2015--I dipped into it here and there and nothing hooked me so I went back and resumed reading from the beginning and have got to say his description of the famed Dodgers/Giants game at the Polo Grounds that ended with Bobby Thomson's tomahawk homerun reveals a deep knowledge of how beautiful and affecting watching professional sports can be and, having recently witnessed the last-second win of the Patriots over the Seahawks in the Super Bowl--all praise and honor to Malcolm Butler!--I credit DeLillo for devoting the time and effort he did to conveying reverence for the experience.

N.O. Ting in a Mood

"The pestilential presence of other writers on the face of the earth--don't they realize writing fiction is my job?  Who do they think they are, generating all that income for themselves and revealing all those insights into human nature and creating all that pressure for me to be aware of what they're doing so I can ridicule and revile it?"

Birdman / Innaritu, N. Giacobone, A. Dinelaris, Jr., A. Bo

So a self-absorbed has-been celebrity film actor craving adulation attempts to obtain it by staging, at his own expense, a stage play in New York adapting a work by drunkard Raymond Carver and accidentally shoots himself in the face while attempting suicide on stage--who gives a sh*t?  And so there are touches of fantasia--this is impressive?  Such a shame to see high quality acting wasted on such a worthless character.

The Wolf of Wall Street / T. Winter

The characters in this 2013 epic-runtime adaptation of Jordan Belfort's Wall St. memoir are massively disgusting, fascinating to watch, hilarious in their anything-goes vulgarity and depravity--but the next day one feels as if one has been swimming through a cesspool.  I suppose it aspires to be a Citizen Kane, but what it delivers is Citizen Sleasebag.  Leonardo's performance is essentially flawless, but his Jordon B. is so contemptible one is overcome by a feeling of talent going down a drain.  The cinematic Jordan Belfort is someone to be reckoned with--as one would reckon with a dog foaming at the mouth.