Alisa's review

Excellent review - I only saw the movie & really enjoyed it. But anyway even if I disagree with a review I always enjoy it when someone really puts the boot in.

thanks! and yay, I have a reader!

well I just so happen to have the most fun writing/talking about books I really don't like (what does that say about me??), so good thing we're bookfriends.

ACK! Alisa! I LOVED this book! I did not see the movie, which I heard was bad. I wonder if seeing the movie first might have spoiled it.

That said, I've never seen M Cunningham talking about anything, but I can easily imagine him being a huge pain in the ass. I can't help thinking you might have liked The Hours, though, if you'd read it without seeing the movie or him being a bore and talking about "his work" in a tireseome and overly serious way. I really truly adored this book, and being a rigid and immature thinker I just can't help feeling that everyone else should've loved it too..... though I guess I understand that sometimes that happens. I mean, the big lesson I've taken from Bookface is that everyone on the planet doesn't have exactly the same taste as me, and I guess it's an indication of self-absorbed and out-of-it I am that this has been such an enormous shock to me.

I guess the end might be a little silly, with the guy flinging himself out the window. And I know that a lot of people didn't go for the ersatz Mrs. Dalloway-ripoff style, but all that stuff with aging rich lady Clarissa lurching around the West Village getting ready for her party, well, I am just CRAZY for it. I am. Oh man. It all just seemed so perfect to me.... See, I know you don't necessarily think not liking this book had anything to do with the movie being bad, but I persist in that suspicion, and for me this just confirms one of the dangers in their making a movie of every single book out there......!

P.S. I love this book!

Nicole Kidman's nose was really good. Don't diss the movie.

Whenever people talk about this movie being good, their reason is always Nicole Kidman's fake nose! I have to say, I don't find that terribly encouraging. I mean, I have gotten this movie out of the library before meaning to watch it, but I can see her fake nose right there on the package, so really why bother with all the trouble fumbling around with the elecronics and all that? I have even sat through the credits, and maybe even her drowning herself. But I don't really have the attention span for movies these days, though I did watch the Charlie Brown Xmas special last night which was, as ever, brilliant. It just goes to show you that no beautiful actresses need be harmed by false noses or putting on massive amounts of weight, just for our own selfish entertainment purposes.

Nicole's nose was like Renee Zellweger all over again. It was very brave of her to pile on the pounds for Bridget Jones and I confess I was impressed, and being a feeble male was inclined to prefer her as Bridget rather than her other stellar appearances. The same could not be said for Robert De Niro in Raging Bull. I bet Renee was annoyed that she was too young to audition for the role of Jake LaMotta. Likewise I'm sure Nicole thinks she could have been just as good as Brando in Godfather. She would have stuffed her cheeks with even more tissues. Virginia Woolf did have a very long nose and a very long face to go with it. She would have been complete rubbish as Jake LaMotta though.

Yes, Paul, as usual you are right about everything. De Niro is no Zellweger, and the fact that he was able to pack on so many pounds is really not amazing because in the end he just looked ugly, and everyone knows that boxers are supposed to look attractive. At least, that is what I am counting on when I pay all that money per view....

Renee was indeed very brave to become so morbidly obese, a breathtaking and inspiring sacrifice she made for us all, and more importantly and lastingly, for her Art. Zellweger is definitely up there on my wall of heroes, along with George Orwell for fighting in the Spanish Civil War and all those kids in the south in the fifties, flinging themselves in front of dogs and fire hoses. It must have hurt like hell to get that fat! She looked DISGUSTING! But at least, for heaven's sake, they were merciful enough to let her wear lipstick. We must never forget the even more astounding bravery of Charlize Theron, who went so far beyond simply getting fat and actually looked UGLY in that monster movie, for which someone surely should have given her a medal, a badge, some kind of award... oh wait, that's right, they did!

I would just like to point out, in case any members of the Academy happen to be trolling Bookface in these wee dawning hours, that I am currently wearing some ripped pajama bottoms, nursing a mild hangover, eating a huge double portion of grits, and periodically bursting into brief tearful tantrums whenever I think about returning to my hateful job, which has got me so stressed that I'm breaking out in hideous pimples. That is to say, I am looking kind of fat and ugly myself this morning, and while I do not own a clay nose I do have some hilarious "funny teeth" from a vending machine that I'd be happy to slip in on a moment's notice.

Well you may be in luck, I understand from Variety they are casting now for a new movie "I Saw What You Did Through This Hole I Drilled In Your Wall". They are looking for a few Pouting Blonde Teenage Undead and Pouting Blond Teenage Cannibals. I think their definition of teenage and pouting may be negotiable, you'd have to check with your agent. Shame that Virginia Woolf when writing her scintillating novels always chose subjects like Mrs Dalloway or that artsy craftsy family in To The Lighthouse as her vehicles for her patented evanescent moment by moment sensual impressions. Imagine what she could have done with Jake La Motta, or even Miss Dalloway - Pouting Teenage Cannibal. Well, I think it would have sold.

Okay, I am in a pitch dark and reeking period of my professional (and thus, to some extent, personal) life, working as I am at the social service version of Vichy France. Yesterday I was party to the most morally repugnant abuse of power in a social work context thatI have ever even heard of, let alone witnessed, let alone collaborated in. I had to get rip-roaring drunk last night so that I could get to sleep, which I did at nine, and I've been up today since four am, hungover and hungry, drafting resignation letters, experiencing whatever the next thing is after a complete moral and existential crisis, and just generally freaking the fuck out about the depravity of humanity, the world, and the looming question of my future place in it....

Somehow while this has all been going on, though, I've managed to collapse into giggles every hour or so, whenever I recall the movie title "I Saw What You Did Through This Hole I Drilled In Your Wall."

Thanks, Paul.

Now if only I were BLONDE! That could solve my sticky employment problem....

It's like two people I just barely met came to my house while I was sleeping and had a fascinating conversation right under my nose. my real nose. why didn't you guys wake me up?

Jessica, I think it was on webmd.com that I saw this before--supposedly in ancient Roman times, they ate fried canaries to help cure hangovers. too bad you're vegetarian. This also wouldn't help when auditioning for the Teenage Cannibal role. You'd have to go for the Undead.

It's just that you wouldn't be able to have that lovely pink feathery hair anymore, and that'd just be a shame. Not worth it, if you ask me.

and I haven't seen Raging Bull, but I just don't have a feeling that there would be a stream of any consciousness for that Ray Malotta. I picture Virginia's beautiful words trying to travel in his brains and before they get there he gives them an uppercut jab or something.

OH and as far as The Hours goes, I hear you Jessica, but I don't hear you. You could be crying at my feet, trying to convince me, but I have grown stony cold on the matter, and all my efforts of liking it have only served to make my memory of it still way too strong for me to attempt Mrs. Dalloway. And thinking of this makes me feel sort of ... Undead AND Cannibalistic, and actually my head just so happens to be glowing with blondness at present. I thought the hairdresser took my request too far, but maybe not..

Hi Alisa - would you care to dislike another book so we can go and have a lunatic conversation about that?

'd be my pleasure~

gosh, this review of yours is so funny. especially M-l C-m. so funny.

Alisa ~ all that PLUS - it was boring as hell.