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About eplovejoy
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The exception disproves the rule. Find an exception and you need a new rule.
my e-mail: peterwarn@gmail.com
I can't speak too highly of Blue River by Ethan Canin.
Or of exceptional movies from the 1940s and '50s: Few innocents in the shadowy worlds of the ten best classic films noir.
This novel made my life better: The Front Runner by Patricia Nell Warren. Some of the prose is clunky, although not so much that I remembered to mention it in the review.
The Brass Wall: The Betrayal of Undercover Detective #4126 by Dave Kocieniewski is a gripping non-fiction account of justice denied.
Some things I've enjoyed tremendously:
Books
Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Ethan Canin's short stories in The Palace Thief, especially "The Accountant"
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley
Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize winner The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
The Queen's Conjurer: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Advisor to Elizabeth I by Benjamin Woolley
Jamie O'Neill's exquisite, only slightly flawed At Swim, Two Boys
Batman: Arkham Asylum, A Serious House on Serious Earth, writer Grant Morrison and artist Dave McKean's masterful collaboration, is perhaps the greatest Batman story ever. It certainly is one of the most chilling.
Movies
The Stunt Man starring Peter O'Toole
Bill Sherwood's Parting Glances
Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger's lively love storyI Know Where I'm Going with Wendy Hiller and Roger Livesey
Test Pilot starring Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy and Myrna Loy
the almost unbearably suspenseful Wages of Fear (Except for the last minute, which is ludicrous.)
Shadow Magic, a love story and celebration of the magic of early movies
Gunfighter starring Gregory Peck
Eytan Fox's touching love story Yossi & Jagger
Other
the Big Island of Hawaii
Cabo da Roca, Portugal
"Similar Features" by Melissa Etheridge
a Top of the Tops compilation album I got in elementary school
Powerful and memorable but "enjoy" is not the right word
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque has perhaps the perfect sentence.
"Touch", directed by Jeremy Podeswa, is a brutal masterwork among much lighter entries in Boys Briefs 2.
Jewish entertainer Kurt Gerron was forced to make a Nazi hell seem appealing: Prisoner of Paradise.
In a Lonely Place with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame is chilling.
Tremendous disappointments:
Books
Dominick Dunne's repugnant lack of empathy in Justice: Crimes, Trials and Punishments
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro's surprisingly clumsy but acclaimed novel
Andrew Holleran's collection In September, the Light Changes has none of the subtle brilliance of his Dancer from the Dance.
Marsupial Sue, in which John Lithgow crushes children's aspirations.
It pains me to say that Daniel Schorr's memoir is boring.
Movies
Bringing Up Baby and its astonishingly selfish character played by the otherwise charismatic Katharine Hepburn
American Nazis in The Dirty Dozen
Tightrope, in which Clint Eastwood is unbelievably brain-dead.
David Strathairn and Bonnie Bedelia in the engaging but ultimately insulting Bad Manners
Two of Us, which makes John Lennon and Paul McCartney boring.
The acclaimed thriller Night of the Hunter does not thrill.
Other
kd lang and Tony Bennett's somnolent "tribute" to Louis Armstrong
New book reviews by other writersare here and new movie reviews are here.
SOME OF EPINIONS' BEST
This page used to be packed with links to writing by some of the many exceptional writers with whom Epinions is blessed. Unfortunately, I deleted them accidentally. Some of them are preserved on something I call the Epinions Hall of Fame and Miscellany.
Provided below are other links, some of which are incomplete and unpolished but which nonetheless contain guidance that is worth at least considering.
EPINIONS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION: Links to terrific writing by gifted Epinions writers who also have posted on other Web sites.
COMMENTSMENT and COMMENTSMENT II: Two efforts to encourage Epinions newcomers. The first was quite successful, but the second suffered from bad timing. It took place too shortly after a protest against some misguided Epinions policies in which many writers wrote scathing reviews that have since been deleted from Epinions. Some of those reviews are preserved here: Epinions Blows Dog.
WRITE-OFFS VALHALLA: Often Epinions writers encourage people to join them to write reviews in coordinated efforts related to a specific theme. Past write-offs have celebrated Charles Darwin, John Steinbeck and women who visit grocery stores while dressed like French prostitutes.
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