Friday, July 10, 2009

Abandoned Books and/or Movies #3

Sometimes when you are reading a book, you realize that you want to stop. Sometimes that happens with movies, too. Here are some recent examples:

Peeling the Onion by Gunter Grass. Famous German author admits that he voluntarily signed up for the Waffen-SS as a youth during World War II.
The Black Arrow by Robert Lewis Stevenson. Adventure story set in England during the War of the Roses. I read it once as a kid. I have tried (and failed) twice as an adult.

Rebels Without Borders by Marc Vachon. True story of a Canadian hoodlum who becomes a logistics expert for an international medical relief organization. Not as interesting as it might sound.

Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball's Most Enigmatic Slugger by Jean Rhodes and Shawn Boburg. Discussed elsewhere.

The Italian Job. Boring movie from 1969 that was remade into another boring movie in 2003. I actually have watched the 2003 version twice but could not quite make it through the 1969 one.
Escape from New York. Way back when, movie director John Carpenter needed to find a place that looked like Manhattan would look if they turned it into an island prison colony run by the prisoners and then the prisoners went wild. He chose downtown St. Louis, which is the only reason I would ever watch this movie. I fell asleep on the couch about halfway through.
Below- downtown St. Louis
The Sixth Man: A Season Inside the NBA Playground by Chris Palmer. Do you know those little, tiny square candy bars that are about two centimeters across? This book has the same relationship to a real basketball book that a little, tiny square candy bar has to a real, full-size candy bar. (The "season" in question is 2004-2005.)

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"Hockey ought to be sternly forbidden, as it is not only annoying but dangerous." Halifax Morning Sun, quoted in Michael McKinley's Hockey - A People's History