A Lit Chick

The Oscars Cometh ...

2012-02-01T08:45:00.007-05:00

Time to review the Oscar nominated films in my now yearly marathon ... here we go! I will try and do a review every two or three days leading up the Oscars on Sunday, February 26th. Here is a list of the nominated films. I usually try and review about a dozen films. They won't necessarily be the most nominated. Certain films I enjoyed a great deal but I feel that I wouldn't have much to say

The January Cultural Roundup

2012-01-31T08:29:00.020-05:00

January ... some look forward to the snow. Not me, you snow bunnies. I look forward to cuddling in front of a fire with a good book or a good film! Films:Pina (Germany, 2010) directed by Wim Wenders, 106 minutesTsunami: The Aftermath (U.K./U.S., 2006) directed by Bharat Nalluri, 186 minutesThe Misfits (U.S., 1961) directed by John Huston, 124 minutesNiagara (U.S., 1953) directed by Henry Hathaway

This Beautiful Life

2012-01-27T08:34:00.002-05:00

This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman (HarperCollins Publishers, 2010) 222 pages **SPOILER ALERT** I recently met a woman who is raising her teenage son on her own; he's a good looking, smart kid who gets a lot of female attention. Naively, I was a little bit surprised to hear that her concern as a mother was overly aggressive girls who send him provocative texts, images and messages. I have

A Victorian Soul

2012-01-20T08:17:00.031-05:00

Once, a dear friend told me I had a Victorian soul. I think it was her poetic way of saying I loved old things. I do ... very much so. As you enter ... Our Victorian era house in Riverdale, a neighborhood in the east end Toronto, was built in 1889 according to mpac.ca, a provincial government website that assesses the value of your home and tells you how old it is (contact me if you'd like to

The Sense of an Ending

2012-01-13T08:47:00.102-05:00

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (Random House Canada, 2011) 150 pages ** SPOILER ALERT ** “A man’s closest-held beliefs about a friend, former lover and himself are undone in a subtly devastating novella from Barnes.” Kirkus review of The Sense of an Ending, November 1, 2010 To which I reply meh … This book recently won the 2011 Man Booker Prize. I’ll tell you honestly the first thing

Blue Nights

2012-01-06T08:22:00.000-05:00

Blue Nights by Joan Didion (Alfred A Knopf/Random House, 2011) 190 pages Unspeakable loss ... that's what Didion excels at articulating here and in her previous memoir The Year of Magical Thinking (2005). To lose one's husband as Didion did in 2003, while still painful and life-altering, could not have compared to the loss of her child Quintana Roo Dunne a few short years after that. I faced this

The December Cultural Roundup

2011-12-31T07:57:00.001-05:00

The month slipped away from me ... there were so many more films I wanted to see and books to read! Films:How to Marry a Millionaire (U.S., 1953) directed by Jean Negulesco, 95 minutesThere's No Business Like Show Business (U.S.. 1954) directed by Walter Lang, 117 minutesMy Week with Marilyn (U.S., 2011) directed by Simon Curtis, 99 minutes Into the Abyss (Germany/Canada, 2011) directed by

Mr. Bennett, Mrs. Brown and the Birth of the Modern Imagination

2011-12-27T10:43:00.006-05:00