Here’s a new Tumblr I’ve launched today: An Illustrated Guide. It’s a review site for picture books that I’ve created with my wife Catherine, covering illustrated books that have caught our eye. We’ll be publishing new reviews regularly, with a selection of titles that will appeal to both parents and collectors of beautiful things. Take a look, follow along. (There’s some extra interactive goodness for those viewing in Safari.)
The good news is I fixed the tag pages. The bad news is I deleted the whole shebang in a fit of impressive Tumblarity. The remaining posts will be restored in the next hour or two are now back.
The Staff Recommends
An advertorial publication from McSweeney’s editor-at-large John Warner and The Morning News founding editor Andrew Womack that presents paid advertisements for books that pass muster with John and his team of readers. Sharp design by Jason Santa Maria.
It’s hard to imagine even the most jaded and cynical having any issues with the last forty minutes, in which Cameron uncorks the action and shows all the young pretenders — the Bays and the Emmerichs and the Von Triers — how it’s done.
— From Chris Hewitt’s five-star review of Avatar for Empire.
The big hurdle was spinning a beloved, essentially plot-free … children’s book into a feature-length movie, but Jonze—along with co-scripter Dave Eggers, who knows a thing or two about the trials of childhood—managed to remain faithful to Sendak’s sentiment and visuals while expanding their scope.
— The A.V. Club’s Josh Modell loves the “expansive, wondrous, confusing, scary, and gorgeous place” that is Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are. (via Hadyn Green)
Hugh Hart reviews Shane Acker’s 9, produced by Tim Burton:
For all its visual splendor, 9 probably won’t win any trophies in the dialogue department. The earnest script efficiently moves characters to their appointed places but fails to deliver much in the way of wit or memorable profundity.
Science fiction movies don’t necessarily flourish in deep space. The best ones blossom in the fertile gray matter between your ears, and that’s precisely where Moon takes root. Trafficking in paranoia, isolation and corporate cover-ups, this delicately crafted first feature from director Duncan Jones shines a light toward the awkward shadow dance between science and humanity.
— Wired’s Lewis Wallace likes Moon.
When he gets a job, he already knows all of the lines. I could give you the exact number of … mission controllers he has played, but looking up his IMDb credits for a review of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian seems like dissipation.
— Roger Ebert on the typecasting of Ron Howard’s brother Clint. I liked him in The Wraith. (via Adam Lisagor)
Pedestrian dialogue doesn’t give the cast much to work with beyond rudiments of motivation and story points. Humor, gallows or otherwise, has apparently been annihilated along with the bulk of humanity.
— From Hugh Hart’s middling review of Terminator: Salvation for Wired magazine, in which he also complains about the explosions being too loud.
The Kaufman film has always been about the terror of being oneself, of being in this skin, this head, but it’s not a terror that causes him to turn away — instead it holds his unblinking attention.
— Philip Matthews with a few good words on Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York.
