What I'm Reading: Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series

Change-Up: Mystery at the World Series is one of the books my son is reading for his Battle of the Books team at school. (I recently read Re-Start, another of the books he's reading for BoB.) I can see why Virginia picked this one for the Battle of the Books tournament--it's about the Washington Nationals, and specifically it's something of an alternate history where the Washington Nationals made it to the World Series in 2009.

The book is about Stevie Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson, two 14-year-olds who work as sports reporters for Washington newspapers. They seem to have made a reputation for themselves as able to ferret out big stories in unexpected places, as they previously uncovered mysteries at the Final Four, the U.S. Open, and the Superbowl. (Apparently Change-Up is the fourth in a series.) In this book, they land an interview with Norbert Doyle, a 30-something journeyman pitcher who learns during the interview that, due to a series of injuries to other pitchers, he'll be pitching the opening game of the World Series for the Washington Nationals that night. Of course, Stevie and Susan Carol were lucky enough to be present so they're able to break this news in the national media.

Doyle lost his wife years before to a drunk driver and has raised his two kids by himself while bouncing around from city to city in the minor leagues. For him, his chance to pitch the big game is a dream come true--and after he wins the game that night, publishers and movie studios want the rights to his inspiring story. The problem is, when Stevie starts digging into Doyle's background, his version of the drunk driving incident doesn't seem to hold up. Meanwhile, Susan Carol meets with Doyle's son, an athletic 14-year old boy who appears to have a romantic interest in her--or is he trying to get between her and her co-reporter/boyfriend, Stevie, so they don't dig up any more on his dad?

This book was a lot fun, moved fast, and kept up a steady beat of snappy dialogue. It was also fun to read about all the players and coaches from a decade ago whose names I remember from attending games, reading newspaper articles, and listening to games on the radio. Only one player from that era remains--Ryan Zimmerman, then-third baseman, now first baseman, but still a pretty good player. (While there are many real people who pop up as characters in this book, all the main characters are fictional.)

Still, there were two things I found hard to accept. One, this maybe more of a quibble, but it's the idea of the 2009 Nationals making it to the World Series. Fun to think about--but it was never going to happen! The team that year simply wasn't good enough. They had Zimmerman and slugger Adam Dunn and... well, that was pretty much it. As much as I enjoyed reading about shortstop Christian Guzman or center fielder Austin Kearns or catcher Wil Nieves, those guys were decent but not great players and that's being generous. In fact, the Nationals won only 59 games that season--this is not a team that was only a hot streak away from the postseason. I believe that was the year I attended seven or eight games at Nationals Park and the team won none of them. (Maybe I was the problem?)

The other thing is that Stevie and Susan Carol do not act like fourteen-year-olds. My son is thirteen, and from observing him and his friends, as well as my own memories, Stevie and Susan Carol are not believable for that age. They are simply too mature in their romantic relationship with each other, their ability to write copy to deadline, their ability to keep their cool in stressful situations. I might have accepted them as sixteen-year-olds. But fourteen just doesn't work, and having them referred to as that age repeatedly broke my suspension of disbelief.

More because of the latter flaw than the former, I find I can't wholeheartedly recommend this book. Nevertheless, Change-Up would likely really appeal to a middle schooler interested in sports, and it has enough of an eye for detail and ear for dialogue that it would be a fun and quick read for a baseball-loving adult as well.

Ranking: Aquaman

My son and I saw Aquaman in the movie theater this past weekend. It was his second time seeing it, and it was entertaining enough for a 13-year old that he eagerly went back with me. The nice thing about going to a movie that's been out for a while--both our tickets together came to $13.00. Pretty cheap for a movie nowadays!

I'm not sure I liked it as much as my son, but I found it plenty entertaining. Unlike most DC films lately, it didn't have an especially dark tone. It was fun and fast-paced. Best of all, it didn't take itself too seriously, just like it's lead character, Arthur Curry, who was born to an Atlantean mother but raised by his human father in a small town in Maine. Arthur's main hobbies are drinking and hell-raising, though he sometimes likes to go for long swims to commune with the fish and, um, fight off pirates. When other characters start coming around asking him to come to the ocean to take up the crown of an undersea kingdom called Atlantis, all he knows is how inadequate he would be to the task of kingship.

When a war between Atlantis and other underwater kingdoms comes to the surface, though, he knows he finally has to visit Atlantis and overthrow his half-brother, Orm, a war-mongerer who sits on the throne in his stead. Not surprisingly, Orm doesn't want to go, and he tosses Arthur and their beautiful and headstrong cousin Mera, who has befriended Arthur, into a deep ocean trench filled with demonic deep-sea creatures. It is there that Arthur and Mera make an important discovery....

Like I said, the film is fast-paced and humorous, and it has plenty of great special effects without overly relying on them. It also has some surprisingly A-list actors: Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe. I don't know that muscle-bound and heavily-tattooed Jason Momoa is one of history's great actors, but as Aquaman, he has definitely found a role that suits him. All in all, I rank this movie as Pretty Good, the second-highest rating in my system, putting it just below the first Spider-Man movie from 2002 (yes, I know there was a 1970s made-for-TV Spider-Man movie, but I'm not counting it) and above X-Men 2.

I have previously ranked Avengers: Infinity War, the Avengers movies, the Batman movies, Black Panther, Captain America: Civil War, Dr. Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Logan, Man of Steel, the Man-Thing, the non-Marvel and non-DC comic movies, the other DC movies, the Spider-Man movies, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the summer 2015 comic movies, the Superman movies, Thor: Ragnarok, Wonder Woman, and the X-Men movies.


As ever, my ranking system is
Green=excellent  Blue=pretty good  Black=Okay  Red=avoid


_______________________________________________________________________________

Here's the master list of all comics movies I've rated so far, in order from best to worst:

Crumb
American Splendor
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Iron Man
Heavy Metal (1981)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Avengers
Superman (1978)
Captain America
Wonder Woman (2017)
Batman Begins (2005)
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Spider-Man (2002)
Aquaman
X-Men 2: X-Men United
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Superman II
Batman (1989)
Ant-Man
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Dr. Strange
The Dark Knight (2008)
Logan (2017)
Iron Man 3
The Wolverine (2013)
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Sin City (2005)
X-Men: First Class
X-Men (2000)
Black Panther
Man of Steel (2013)
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
Swamp Thing (1982)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Iron Man 2
Watchmen (2009)
Batman Forever (1995)
Superman Returns (2006)
Thor 2: The Dark World
Incredible Hulk (2008)
Mystery Men (1999)
Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Man-Thing (2005)
Superman III
Supergirl (1984)
Thor
X-Men 3: Last Stand
Hulk (2003)
Fritz the Cat (1972)
Batman and Robin (1997)
Batman Returns (1992)
Superman IV

Amazing Spider-Man (2012) (Haven't seen)
Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) (Haven't seen)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) (Haven't seen)
Batman (1966) (Haven't seen)
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Haven't seen)
Catwoman (Haven't seen)
Constantine (Haven't seen)
Deadpool (Haven't seen)
Green Lantern (Haven't seen)
Hellboy (Haven't seen)
Judge Dredd (Haven't seen)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) (Haven't seen)
V for Vendetta (Haven't seen)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Haven't seen)

Ranking Diamonds Are Forever

I previously ranked some of the James Bond movies here, here, here, here, and here. Last night my son and I watched Diamonds Are Forever, the final of the six Bond movies Sean Connery appeared in. It's acquired a reputation as one of the more ridiculous Bond movies--for instance, much of the first Austin Powers movie mocks/homages this installment in the Bond series. Sean Connery was really phoning his performance in--he had not intended to return as Bond and only came back because of the large paycheck the producers offered--and this is also the first of three or four Bond movies to use a lot of US locations to save money. It's in no way one of the better Bond movies.

That having been said, I think my little rubric for rating the Bond movies is going to do Diamonds Are Forever a disservice. It's a thoroughly mediocre Bond film, and yet there's little really bad about it. It's entertaining all the way through. It's certainly better than, say, The Man With the Golden Gun, but because that movie did a couple things pretty well despite its overall terribleness, I think it will end up ranking higher than Diamonds Are Forever, which does no single thing especially well. Let's see how it works out.

Since the Bond movies are formulaic and their quality is based on how well they fulfill the formula, I created a little rubric to rank the Bond movies, with several categories a movie can get points in. A Bond film gets 2 points if the movie is one of the top 4 Bond movies for a category, and 1 point if it's in the top 8, plus a couple special categories. Here are the criteria, with a maximum of 14 points available:

Story/Plot--2 points--Is the plot coherent and logical? Are the stakes high?  (2 points, top 4; 1 point, top 8)

Action--2 points--Are the stunts exciting? The car chases thrilling?  (2 points, top 4; 1 point, top 8)

Villain--2 points--What's a Bond movie without dastardly villains and their henchmen? (2 points, top 4; 1 point, top 8)

Setting--2 points--The Bond movies are all about exotic locations. (2 points, top 4; 1 point, top 8)

Gadgets, Vehicles, Lairs--2 points--What's the cool stuff?  (2 points, top 4; 1 point, top 8)

Bond girls--2 points--The ladies, oh yes, the ladies. (2 points, top 4; 1 point, top 8)

Sean Connery or Daniel Craig?--1 point--These are the best Bonds (no need to debate) and get an automatic extra point if appearing in the film.

Musical theme--1 point if in the top 5

Diamonds Are Forever
Story/Plot--The story involves Bond trying to stop some smuggled South African diamonds from reaching their mysterious buyer in Las Vegas. Not real high-stakes, the ultimate use of the diamonds is a rather perfunctory surprise, and there's at least one Wha? moment in the plot, when James Bond just shows up at a house where he needs to be in Las Vegas with no indication of how he knew where to go. (0 points)
Action--Hmm. An early fight in a slowly-rising open elevator in an Amsterdam apartment building is expertly staged, but not all that interesting. A car chase in a casino parking lot has some impressive driving by Bond, but not actually that great to watch--I mean, they're just driving around a parking lot! I can do that myself! Another chase with a moon buggy in the Nevada desert is fun, but not quite Top 8. A scene with Bond scaling the outside of a casino in Las Vegas is nice but also not quite Top 8. (0 points)
Villain--Blofeld is the villain, played here by Charles Gray, who's no Telly Savalas. The henchmen, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, are an unfortunately-stereotyped gay couple with a shared penchant for elegant, sadistic, but only mildly creative assassinations. (0 points)
Setting--Amsterdam is a bit exotic from the American point of view, I suppose, but Las Vegas certainly is not. (0 points)
Gadgets, Vehicles, Lairs--There are some cool vehicles and gadgets in this one. Blofeld's cover for his nefarious doings is an aerospace firm outside Las Vegas, where they are apparently practicing driving around in a moon buggy in the stark Nevadan landscape (and possibly filming fake moon landings?). Q wins multiple jackpots on Las Vegas slot machines with a magnetic something-or-other he's testing out. Bond must evade a deadly pipe-cleaning robot when he's buried alive in some sort of pipeline that's under construction. Bond scales a casino with a grappling hook that can embed itself in concrete. This ranks #6 on my list for this category, pushing Live and Let Die out of the Top 8. (1 point)
Bond Girls--Lana Wood is extremely hot as Plenty O'Toole, but dumb as a rock and only in the movie briefly. However, she, together with Jill St. John as diamond smuggler Tiffany Case, manage to edge out Fiona Volpe from Thunderball. (1 point)
SC or DC? Sean Connery (1 (point)
Music--Theme song is sung by Shirley Bassey, who also sang the great Goldfinger theme. Unfortunately, this one is a pale imitation. (0 points)
Total: 3 points

Rejiggered points for other movies:
Live and Let Die moves out of Top 8 for Gadgets, Vehicles, Lairs (-1)
Thunderball moves out of Top 8 for Bond Girls (-1)

And, here are the updated results:
1) The Spy Who Loved Me (12 points)
2) Casino Royale (10 points)
3, 4) Goldfinger, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (tied with 9 points)
5) Skyfall (8 points)
6, 7, 8) Thunderball, Spectre, The Man With the Golden Gun (5 points)
9, 10, 11) Die Another Day, A View to a Kill, Live and Let Die (4 points)
12) Diamonds Are Forever (3 points)

What I'm Reading: The Dinner

Paul Lohman and his wife, Claire, are going out to dinner tonight with Paul's brother, Serge, and his sister-in-law, Babette. Paul is not looking forward to this dinner. He seems to be a bit of a homebody, dedicated to his wife and fifteen-year-old son, Michel, maybe even a bit of a misanthrope. He certainly doesn't want to go to the fancy type of place his brother always chooses, with their fussiness and small portions, as opposed to his favorite cafe around the corner from his house. Plus, his brother wants to discuss something, and Paul doesn't care to talk with his brother about whatever it is.

The Dinner, a 2009 novel by Herman Koch and translated into English (apparently it was a big seller internationally), starts off with this quiet premise, and the book takes place throughout the dinner, though with quite a few flashbacks. As the evening passes and each course succeeds the last (you know how those fancy restaurants are--lots of courses but still somehow not enough to fill you up) the thing Paul doesn't care to talk about gradually asserts itself, and with it a growing sense in the reader of dread at the proceedings. Actually, dread may not be strong enough a word--I don't want to give too much away, but horror may be more fitting by the novel's end.

This is a family with secrets, and Paul is a lot more complicit in them than one would think from the grumpy but basically simple family man image we originally have of him. Koch walks a fine line with the tone here. In the end, I think what he's going for, and what he achieves for a receptive reader, is black humor.

But it really does take a receptive reader. I think most literature-lovers would start this novel enjoying its precise observations and crisp style. I think a lot fewer are going to follow all the way through the increasingly off-putting plot developments and character revelations. For those with the stomach for it, this is an expertly constructed and executed novel about one family with a lot to hide, and how violence and moral indifference winds through the generations.

Ranking: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I went with my son and daughter earlier this week to see the new animated Marvel movie: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. After seeing it, I realized it was the first comic book movie I'd ever seen. You see, all the movies I've seen up until now have been taking the characters and idea from the comics and making movies out of them, but were not actually comic book movies. Spider-Verse does something more difficult than those other movies--it translates the actual comic book experience onto the big screen. It's one of the best comic movies I've ever seen.

Okay, so about five years ago, Marvel realized they had a number of different Spider-Men floating around in different media. There was the original comic book Peter Parker, of course, but they also had Miles Morales, the teen-aged African-American Spider-Man from their Ultimate universe line of comics. They had the Spider-Ham (bitten by a radioactive pig and given the proportional powers of swine) from the kids-oriented Star Line of comics in the 1980s. And they had various cartoon versions of the characters from over the decades. So Marvel decided to an event where all these Spider-Men came together in one story, along with a bunch of new ones they invented for the occasion-- the female Spider-Gwen, the 1930s Spider-Man Noir, the anime Sp//dr robot, Spider Punk, and so on. This story was called Edge of Spider-Verse and was very popular with readers.

It's that idea of a Spider-Verse that the movie runs with, although the plot is original. When the established Spider-Man Peter Parker dies in inter-dimensional vortex in an early scene, novice Spider-Man Miles Morales has to take his place. Only, he keeps running into strange other Spider-Folks around his hometown of Brooklyn. I won't say too much about what happens, although the main villains are the Kingpin, Tombstone, Prowler (who hasn't been a villain in the comics for a long time, but never mind), and a secret villain I won't reveal as it's a crucial plot point. The main thing is just seeing the interaction of all these Spider-Men.

The animation of the movie is highly urban, as befits Morale's home in Brooklyn, and extremely well-done, with the agility of the various Spider-Folks especially emphasized. The visuals are high quality to the point of awe-inspiring, the Spider-interactions are hilarious, and the plot if fast-paced and intelligent. I rate this movie as Excellent and would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of comics.

I have previously ranked Avengers: Infinity War, the Avengers movies, the Batman movies, Black Panther, Captain America: Civil War, Dr. Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Logan, Man of Steel, the Man-Thing, the non-Marvel and non-DC comic movies, the other DC movies, the Spider-Man movies, the summer 2015 comic movies, the Superman movies, Thor: Ragnarok, Wonder Woman, and the X-Men movies.


As ever, my ranking system is
Green=excellent  Blue=pretty good  Black=Okay  Red=avoid


_______________________________________________________________________________

Here's the master list of all comics movies I've rated so far, in order from best to worst:

Crumb
American Splendor
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Iron Man
Heavy Metal (1981)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Avengers
Superman (1978)
Captain America
Wonder Woman (2017)
Batman Begins (2005)
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier
Spider-Man (2002)
X-Men 2: X-Men United
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Superman II
Batman (1989)
Ant-Man
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Dr. Strange
The Dark Knight (2008)
Logan (2017)
Iron Man 3
The Wolverine (2013)
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Sin City (2005)
X-Men: First Class
X-Men (2000)
Black Panther
Man of Steel (2013)
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers 2: Age of Ultron
Swamp Thing (1982)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
Iron Man 2
Watchmen (2009)
Batman Forever (1995)
Superman Returns (2006)
Thor 2: The Dark World
Incredible Hulk (2008)
Mystery Men (1999)
Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Man-Thing (2005)
Superman III
Supergirl (1984)
Thor
X-Men 3: Last Stand
Hulk (2003)
Fritz the Cat (1972)
Batman and Robin (1997)
Batman Returns (1992)
Superman IV

Amazing Spider-Man (2012) (Haven't seen)
Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) (Haven't seen)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) (Haven't seen)
Batman (1966) (Haven't seen)
Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (Haven't seen)
Catwoman (Haven't seen)
Constantine (Haven't seen)
Deadpool (Haven't seen)
Green Lantern (Haven't seen)
Hellboy (Haven't seen)
Judge Dredd (Haven't seen)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) (Haven't seen)
V for Vendetta (Haven't seen)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Haven't seen)

What I'm Reading: Re-Start

Re-Start, by Gordon Korman, is the second book by this author I've reviewed on this site. The first, Ungifted, I gave a fairly positive review to here. I like the author fine, but I'm not trying to follow him or anything--this is one of the books my son is reading for his Battle of the Books at school, and he, my daughter, and my wife have all read it and said I would enjoy it. And they're right!

In both books, a troublemaking middle schooler finds himself with an unexpected second chance to do things differently, and tries to take advantage of it. Seems to be a Korman theme! In this case the troublemaker is Chase Ambrose, who has just awoken from a coma a few days before his eighth-grade year starts. Chase fell off the roof of his house and conked his head, and now has complete amnesia concerning everything that occurred before the fall. He doesn't even remember his own mother.

As the days go on, Chase learns that he was pretty much a jerk before. He and his best buddies, Bear and Aaron, were the stars on the middle school football team, which they led to its first state championship in 25 years. They had the run of the school, and took advantage of that to bully nerds and dweebs as much as they liked, and they liked to do it a lot. They even bullied Joel Weber so mercilessly that Joel had to enroll at a private school in another state.

Chase is horrified at the person he used to be, and at the barbaric behavior of Bear and Aaron. Because the doctor said he couldn't play football the rest of the year, he joins the video club and really enjoys it. The geeky members are terrified of him at first, but soon realize he's genuinely changed. What's more, he's really good at camerawork, and within a few weeks has become a valued member of the club. He also joins Shoshanna Weber, Joel's twin sister, on her visits to a local senior citizens' center so they can interview a Korean War vet for a video project she's putting together. (But what would Joel think if he knew the kid who'd bullied him out of school was now hanging out with his sister?)

The football team, however, is really struggling without their star player. Bear and Aaron hatch an evil plan to spoil Chase's newfound friendship with the nerds and remind him of who he really is. Soon Chase will have to make a decision about who his real friends are--only he doesn't remember enough about his previous life to be fully informed about the possible ramifications if he chooses the nerds over the jocks.

This was a great book--tons of humor and a meaningful story. The characters are really well-drawn. Even Bear and Aaron, the villains, are well-rounded, and bad as they are, you can see the attractive qualities in them that led Chase to be their buddy. I did find the ending a little pat--in particular, Chase's dad, who had seemed to tie his love to his son to Chase's performance on the football team, has a real change of heart at the end that comes out of nowhere..

Another strange thing I noticed in the book is that I think it was originally aimed at an older, high school-aged audience. For instance, Chase's dad is proud of his son, the star football player, because he himself was on the last middle school team to go the state championship decades before, and he looks back on that period as the best time of his life. Plus, all the townspeople know who Chase and his friends are because of the football team, which is why they're able to get away with so much. But this doesn't seem right--it's high school football that is the most important thing in so many small towns, and it seems silly for Chase's dad to look back on middle school as the best time of his life. Moreover, Shoshanna wants her video project to win the National Video Journalism Award. This sounds a lot more like something a college application-building high schooler would be interested in than a middle schooler.

That doesn't make anything wrong with the book. I suspect Gordon Korman originally wrote it as a YA, not a middle grade book, and decided to change it. Or maybe the publisher asked him to, since he's known as a middle grade author. Regardless, it's more of an oddity than anything else. The book is still well-written, hilarious, and sometimes touching, and despite it's slightly overly sentimental ending, I would recommend it to any middle schooler, and any adults that might be interested, too.

What I'm Reading: In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made

In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made, by the late NYU Professor Norman F. Cantor, is billed on the cover as the best and most thorough book of the Black Death ever written. I don't know. It may be the most thorough popular history on the subject ever written, but at not quite 250 pages, there must be thicker scholarly histories. Moreover, the book has a decidedly England-centric perspective on the subject, and I bet there are French or German or Italian histories that cover the Black Death in those countries more thoroughly. Still, I'm sure this is quite enough for your average reader.

The Black Death arrived in Italian ports in December 1347 and had reached the entire continent by early 1350. At least partly an epidemic of bubonic plague--but as Dr. Cantor argues, almost certainly fortified in some areas by simultaneous anthrax outbreaks--the Black Death killed one-third of Europe's population in three years, and in some towns and cities more than half. Europe's population did not recover for 150 years. It was one of the greatest calamities to occur in human history. Along with the Hundred Years War between England and France, it ended the prosperous High Middle Ages in Europe, while in some ways clearing the way for the Renaissance to come.

The chapters in the book are of highly variable quality. The chapters covering the actual history bit are quite good--and the chapter on how the Black Death affected Europe's Jewish population is a special highlight. (I mean, the pogroms against the Jews by a gentile population looking for a scapegoat for the disaster is a lowlight of history, but the event is related with an especially informative and impassioned authorial voice.)

The chapters covering the epidemiology of the disease are far weaker, however, not delivered as confidently and little more than re-wording of others' research, and with very little interpretive force. The chapter on the origins of the Black Plague, which gives a number of pages over to astrophysicist Fred Hoyle's theory that the disease arrived on a meteorite, was a particular eyebrow-raiser.

Still, the whole book is easy and fun to read, full of interesting facts and tidbits and theories, and certainly gives your typical reader all the information you'd want on the subject. Not without its weaknesses, but I would definitely recommend this book to anyone with a curiosity about the Black Death.