Epinions Recent Reviews for eric_james

Inland Empire is in Kansas

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 15:15:48 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - I sat watching Inland Empire. I was about two hours into the surreal anti-linear succession of images and Laura Dern looking upset and not very attractive when there was a knock at the door. I went slowly to the door. Usually I do not have visitors,...

Wild, Killer Talent

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:26:43 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Someone said I should listen to Sufjan Stevens because, they claimed, he is a Muslim and the son of Cat Stevens. I began to listen, and thought, "this is pretty adventurous for a Muslim, really," and wondered why the son of Cat Stevens kept singing about...

Dark Dreams of Redemption

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 16:54:52 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - The Showtime series "Dexter" is based on a novel (Darkly Dreaming Dexter), which I haven’t read, by an author with whom I am not familiar (Jeff Lindsay). The serial killer in this DVD of the first season, like the pop comic superhero,...

Great Reading

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:37:44 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Man, are they ever killing trees these days. I just stole a copy of the 2006 Writer's Market, and discovered (again) that there are literally thousands of publications that will pay writers to write for them! This is where they advertise. End of story?...

Are You Alive or Are You Dead?

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 23:25:44 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - One wouldn't call Philip K. Dick a literary stylist. He writes in a style that is pretty much straightforward science fiction genre. But what made Philip K. Dick great was the driving force of the mind behind the prose, the ever-curious, questioning,...

Symbols of Antinomy and Useful Too

Thu, 2 Oct 2003 22:11:27 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Famous Anglican cum Zen Buddhist Alan Watts often used a nice example of "antinomy" in books like The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are which involved the word "cleave". To paraphrase, Watts helpfully pointed out that "cleav...

The Death of Death in the Death of Ivan Ilyich

Thu, 2 Oct 2003 01:19:42 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Ivan Ilyich's death in Tolstoy's novel speaks to more than the certainty and inevitability of physical cessation. Ilyich is dead as the novel opens, and the announcement of his death spreads and envelopes the entire novel. Yet this is not the entire bread...

The Perennial Question?

Fri, 24 Jan 2003 06:20:35 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Here is a slick quarterly magazine filled with a wide array of religious information, presented evenly without positing pantheist assumptions without alternatives. There is, however, a basic, unstated perennial assumption in the mag, which is more...

If you Grok this Review Title, Thank Heinlein

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 05:43:15 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - The basic premise is that Michael Valentine Smith, son of dead geniuses, is stranded as an infant on Mars and raised by aliens whose culure and values are not at all "earthly", only to return as a young adult to a strange earth and subsequent culture...

A personal watershed experience

Thu, 1 Aug 2002 19:13:44 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - I first saw Wired to Kill quite accidentally in a venue its director later named "late night Cinemax hell", recorded it on impulse, and watched it about thirty times in the ensuing years.

Thirty times! you ask. That must be some movie!
...

Is there a cure for evil?

Thu, 1 Aug 2002 19:09:46 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Rafael Yglesias published his first novel when he was sixteen, wrote both the novel and the script for the film Fearless, and finally sat down to scribe this epic novel about the nature of evil from the viewpoint of a psychoanalytic methodology.
...

Straightforward Ghosts: Earthbound by Richard Matheson

Fri, 1 Feb 2002 01:37:20 GMT

rating: 3/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Yes I admit it. I am a victim of advertising and endorsements. On the cover of the present book under review, Earthbound by Richard Matheson, Stephen King writes, "The author who influenced me most as a writer was Richard Matheson."

On the...

The Architect of Words, Andre Dubus

Wed, 30 Jan 2002 02:02:51 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Andre Dubus III has written a politically-incorrect book and not many have taken notice. He's spent his energy and time putting forth a well-crafted story that grates against the deathly torrent of our times. Andre Dubus III is the son of a brilliant...

Where Is This Going?

Sun, 2 Sep 2001 19:18:38 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - When I first read the ten stories comprising Destination, I fell in love with them, felt infatuated with them; they were brilliantly rendered, compact, flowing, eloquent and beautiful.

Later, however, upon another reading, I found...

Nihilism with A Heart: The World According to Garp

Wed, 4 Oct 2000 04:21:10 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - I was turned off to John Irving's writing due to an irrational prejudice developed several years ago based upon seeing snippets of the horribly castrated movie version of the novel presently under review, and after seeing and loathing the film, The...

Summer of My German Soldier: Banned Book Write-Off

Tue, 3 Oct 2000 15:28:49 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - If I didn't know any better, I might guess that Summer of My German Soldier was challenged or banned by concerned parents or teachers because of its narcotic effect--writing so dull and banal it might put even the most aspiring academic into a...

Lynch is Our Dark, Intense, Existential, Cinematic Shaman

Wed, 20 Sep 2000 04:45:57 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - An offspring of the popular television series, "Twin Peaks," David Lynch's Fire Walk With Me (R, 1992) tells the story of Laura Palmer's murder, a theme the t.v. program (which I never saw) apparently tried to solve.

The...

Surprising, Provocative, Sweet and Exquisitely Rendered

Mon, 11 Sep 2000 02:51:09 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - When I sat down to watch the film, Heavenly Creatures, I did not know what I was getting myself into, and neither should you. I knew nothing about this independent film, which made each unfolding scene a discovery, rather than an expectation...

Club for the Helplessly Banal

Thu, 7 Sep 2000 22:03:49 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Every pretentious gimmick utilized by this self-consciously clever flick grated on my nerves, beginning with the unfunny opening segment where Edward Norton's character backtracks to the point where he attended testicular cancer meetings. At best, the...

Through Rain, Sleet and Nuclear Fallout

Thu, 7 Sep 2000 20:15:51 GMT

rating: 2/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - At some point during the 'eighties, when I was a kid, I read a short story in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine by David Brin, derivative of the novel The Postman. At the time, the story was moving to me; the general premise was a good...

A Beautiful Tribute to a Great Writer--Iris Murdoch

Wed, 6 Sep 2000 20:50:18 GMT

rating: 4/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - One day in 1994, my girlfriend and I were gallavanting around town, using public transportation, when--while sitting at a bus stop--she produced from her pack a thin book, and commenced to read. I queried her regarding the novel in her hands, and...

Is There A Basis for Morality?: Iris Murdoch's Fiction

Wed, 6 Sep 2000 20:13:03 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - The first novel I read by Iris Murdoch plays upon an ironic idea, the notion that defeat can carry implicit triumph. The coetaneous notion that moral failure is without honor underlay the broad theme of Murdoch's finely wrought philosophical novel,...

I Discovered An Alternate Universe

Wed, 6 Sep 2000 04:36:22 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - I've never written about this before, but one summer several years ago (more than a decade), I left the monotonous dimension of my daily routine and entered into an alternate universe. Having been mostly conversant with the literary ebb and flow of...

What the Heck? Harris Got Worse?

Wed, 6 Sep 2000 03:24:40 GMT

rating: 1/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Thomas Harris wrote two barely credible novels, both of which I read, that etched out the persona of Hannibal Lecter. The previous novels were basic hack jobs with some decent genre characterization, and an enticing plot (though often held together by...

An Eclectic Compendium of Minutia: Nicholson Baker

Tue, 5 Sep 2000 23:35:46 GMT

rating: 5/5 by: Epinions Author eric_james - Have you ever wondered about the invention and evolution of the fingernail-clipper? Or considered the history and usage of the hyphen, comma, or the semi-colon? Or what books are used as props in mail-order catalogues?

Nicholson Baker's...