How about I just keep reading, OK?

It seems like you have to take a side with just about everything these days.

You have to be a Democrat or Republican. If you love baseball, it must mean you hate football. Do you watch MSNBC or Fox News? Paper or plastic?

Apparently, this now applies to books, as well. Do you read e-books? If so, why aren't you reading print books? 

Maybe that's a bit exaggerated, but after reading Jonathan Segura's post at NPR Monkey See, it seemed as if a line in the sand had developed among people of the book.

This flame was lit by Jonathan Franzen, who thinks it's "going to be very hard to make the world work" if our literature isn't permanently available on print, rather than flirting with obsolescence on an electronic screen. 

I've been thinking about this even more over the past couple of days, as I prepare for my visit to Malaysia and collect things to read for the long trip. Almost all of the books (and magazines) I'll be reading are going to be loaded on my iPad.

Why? For one thing, there's a hell of a lot less to pack and carry around. I won't have to try and cram all of it in the pocket of the seat in front of me. I'll be able to switch between materials without having to rummage through my bag and constantly elbow the person sitting next to me. (Sorry, Mom.) And I won't be leaving anything behind for someone else to pick up because I'm done with it. 

Although to be honest, I probably will bring a print book or two with me to read later on. Because I happened to buy that particular book in printed form. And it's virtually impossible for me not to spend at least $20 any time I'm at an airport newsstand. Because I still like books and love magazines. I wasn't aware that reading them electronically and not holding the actual publication in my hand could call that into question. 

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I love books. Other than my sofa (and probably the desk I'm typing this on), my favorite pieces of furniture are my bookshelves. I enjoy having all my books right there in the living room and bedroom to pick over. I feel like it says who I am. And if I visit someone else's home, and they have a huge bookshelf, it's probably what I'm most impressed with. 

But my buying preferences are definitely changing. 10 of the last 12 books I've purchased have been e-books. (I might buy Freedom as an e-book, Franzen. Deal with it.) I actually didn't realize I'd bought that many in recent months because they're not strewn all over my coffee table, kitchen counter, or bedside table. And I haven't been fretting over how I'm going to cram them on my bookshelves. 

I'll agree that owning those books doesn't seem as substantive without all them physically accounting for their presence in my living space. And if I want to recommend any of those books to someone, I can't loan him or her a copy anymore. But it's sure as hell a lot more convenient to have all of those books zippered into my iPad. (I'm sure I'll be especially thankful next time I move.) 

So I'm sorry that a guy like Franzen doesn't think the version of The Art of Fielding or The Leftovers I read on my iPad somehow aren't as helpful to society than the printed versions of those books. If I talk to a friend who read those books in print, will we be able to discuss the same piece of literature? Or will my opinion hold less weight because I read it on a screen? 

As Segura said in his post, it's not an either/or proposition. You don't have to be an e-book person or print book person. And to make someone feel as if he or she has to choose a side is ludicrous. We're all still reading books. How about we be happy with that? 

Or maybe I'll just load a bunch of TV shows and movies onto my iPad for the trip instead. No, I'm just kidding. 

Movie review: The Grey

If I was a filmmaker, I imagine it would drive me crazy if the marketing for one of my movies misled audiences, with trailers and TV ads giving people the impression they might be seeing something different from what was actually made.

So when The Grey was being sold as a man vs. animal, man vs. nature drama, I wonder if Joe Carnahan was grinding his teeth a bit. Maybe not, because this movie is indeed about those conflicts. (Plus, it finished No. 1 at the box office last weekend, so he's probably cool with it all.) The characters battle sub-zero temperatures, roaring winds and thigh-high snow. And then, there are those big, bad wolves, ready to tear up some people for meal and sport.

But maybe you've also been reading that The Grey goes a bit deeper than that. This gets downright existential.

Working on an oil pipeline in remote Alaska, marooned from family and friends, with getting drunk at the on-site bar the only means of recreation, would probably push anyone to the brink of insanity. But Liam Neeson's character, Ottway, is on the brink of something else when we first see him. He's deeply unhappy, presumably over missing his wife.

We don't know why the two are apart. Did she not like him leaving for Alaska and being gone for who knows how long? Did he go to Alaska because his life had fallen apart back home? Is he the detached, aloof sort of personality that's better suited to solitude? Just a man and his rifle, off in the distance, deriving some sense of purpose out of picking off the wolves that might attack the pipeline workers?

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Ottway seems to find another purpose after the plane carrying him and his colleagues crashes onto an isolated arctic tundra with nothing around but snow, more snow and at least half a dozen hungry wolves. He wants to survive, and help as many fellow castaways as he can.

That help doesn't always exclusively apply to survival, either. In one of the film's more memorable scenes, Ottway helps comfort someone who is near death, making sure he's not alone and thinks about what's meaningful to him in his final moments.

But what makes The Grey truly compelling is that it questions the very nature of survival.

What is it about your life that makes it worth living? Is it the people you love? Is it the sense that you haven't accomplished everything you've wanted to? Is it the fear of death? Is it simply ego? And just how hard are you willing to fight for those things when circumstances push you to your absolute limit? Faced with an uncertain outcome and seemingly insurmountable adversity, would you just give up? Or would you take the struggle head-on, even to the very end?

Even more intriguing to me was that the movie is willing to challenge the concept of faith. As one of the character says, why would God — if there is one — allow these people to survive the plane crash, only to then let them die in the wilderness? How important is faith? And does it have to be earned, rather than just accepted? 

Of course, you can't really sell any of that in a trailer or commercial. Action and suspense is what's going to bring the people to the theater. But The Grey provides plenty of those things, too. It's not entirely ponderous and philosophical.The characters don't sit around and talk about this stuff through the whole movie. It's actually more up to the viewer to ponder these questions as they're watching, leaving the theater, or writing blog posts.)

It's just gratifying to have those sorts of themes weaved in with the main narrative. And as strange as this might sound, I was happy for Carnahan for getting to make a movie like this. In someone else's hands, this might have been all about man vs. wolf or some kind of survivalist porn, especially as Neeson has developed into an unlikely action hero late in his career.

Carnahan looked like a very promising director after Narc, but maybe the system beat him down a bit as he tried to get movies like White Jazz and Killing Pablo made. Instead, he had to make overly stylish crime movies like Smokin' Aces or messy attempts at blockbusters like The A-Team just to stay afloat. 

Of course, it's entirely possible that those projects scratched a creative itch and made him a better director. Perhaps The Grey is the result of that. I hope so, because I'm eager to see what he does next. (Reports have him doing a remake of Death Wish.) Maybe he'll have to alternate films he wants to do with films he has to do. But it's becoming increasingly clear which of those movies are better.  

Movie review: The Artist

I doubt I'm going to see all nine Best Picture nominees before the Oscars broadcast on Feb. 26. But of the six I hadn't seen previously, The Artist was the one I wanted to see the most. 

Maybe it's buying into the hype, but there's been so much talk about this movie from film festivals (including Asheville's) and year-end best-of lists that I figured I'd see it at some point. Of course, the idea of a modern black-and-white silent film getting so much acclaim was also intriguing. But was this a gimmick meant to stoke feelings of nostalgia among moviemakers? Or is The Artist actually a really good film?

At the risk of a cop-out answer, I think it's both. 

It's impossible not to be charmed by this movie. Everyone on screen seems to be having a great time. No one more than John Goodman, who really seems to relish overacting with his facial expressions and pantomimes. You don't even need the title card to know what he's saying.

Jean Dujardin captures the smiling, preening, swashbuckling, high-wattage style of the old-style movie actors. It's not at all hard to buy that his George Valentin is the kind of matinee idol that women want to be with and men want to be. With a thin mustache and hair slicked back by pomade, he's dashing in romances and rugged in adventures. 

Berenice Bejo plays exactly the sort of spunky gal that typified stars of the era, beautiful enough to make anyone turn and look at her, but ready to shake off that coat so she can dance. She's no China doll, Mister! Even her name, Peppy Miller, has moxie. ("The name's Miller! Peppy Miller!") 

And then there's the dog, Uggie. You will love that dog. 

Perhaps you could say the movie is about the constantly changing nature of art. What was popular and successful in one era becomes obsolete as technology and cultural tastes move on. Adapt or die. I think The Artist wants to believe this is what it's really about. 

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Dujardin is a star in silent movies, but with the advent of sound, "talkies" are the new rage and he's quickly seen as a dinosaur. Yet he still has major film ambitions — Get it? He's an artist! — and funds a tragic war epic with his own money. There's really no reason why he couldn't still be a star in movies with sound, though perhaps we learn why eventually. 

What he seemingly needs to do, above all else, is get over himself and realize that the movie industry is bigger than him, that the newest star is a flashy audition and discovery away from taking over the marquee. Or maybe he just needs the nurturing love of a good woman.

By the time the credits roll, you just feel good having watched The Artist. And I think that's what people are responding to, more than anything else. Do you have the feeling that you saw something "great"? No, but you have a smile on your face and maybe you want to do a tap dance in the lobby afterwards. That's what the movies used to make us feel before they got so damn serious. Or stupid. 

The AV Club's Nathan Rabin also astutely points out that The Artist doesn't have anything that would automatically raise a red flag as to why it would never win Best Picture. There's no unlikable lead character. It doesn't play loose with the facts. Nor is it a genre film. There's nothing at all challenging about this movie. So that's probably exactly why it will win the big prize. 

And in a way, that will probably be unfair. The Artist is the kind of movie that will probably win Best Picture, yet we'll look back in five to 10 years and wonder why the more "important" film didn't win. The Oscars do this all the time.

Yet I don't think the filmmakers ever had Oscar ambitions with this. (That could be incredibly naive of me, given Harvey Weinstein's involvement.) It's not Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close or War Horse. It's just a film that was fun and utterly charming — while harkening back to a simpler, more innocent era — at the right time. 

In my opinion, The Descendants is a better movie and should win the Best Picture Oscar. But I wouldn't have a big problem with The Artist winning, either. There's nothing not to like about it. 

Planning an overseas trip makes one delusional

I meant to write this three weeks ago, but with no football on this weekend as we anticipate the Super Bowl, I figured it was okay to post now.

I'll be taking a return trip to Malaysia next week. It could very well be the last time my mother gets to see her mother, and she really wanted me to go with her. Not that she had to twist my arm very much. I went for the first time four years ago and have been wanting to go back ever since.

For one thing, I haven't seen that side of my family very much. And as Ms. A. has reminded me since the trip became official, I didn't write a lot about that last trip and would like to do better this time around.

What does any of this have to do with football? Well, nothing — except that I will be missing the Super Bowl. I suppose there's a chance I can watch it during our layover in Seoul, South Korea, if I'm at all lucid after a 13-hour flight. Oh, of course I'll be lucid. I'll sleep that whole flight, man.

As we were finalizing the details of our trip with the help of my sister three weeks ago, hours before the Detroit Lions were playing the New Orleans Saints in a playoff game, I mentioned that we'd be missing the Super Bowl.

Shoulders shrugged. Then a sentence I probably should've been slapped for uttering came out of my mouth?

"But what if the Lions make it to the Super Bowl?"

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Yeah, I know. Although that wasn't as outlandish a question this year as it would've been in years past. Beating the Saints was in the realm of possibility. Would the Lions have advanced any further in the NFC playoffs? Probably not, but if they'd have beaten the Saints, they'd have had a shot.

However, when I asked that question, the idea of the Lions winning a Super Bowl championship, achieving triumph in perhaps the biggest sports event in the world, felt very real. Why? Because it would just figure that the team I've rooted for and suffered with for my lifetime as a sports fan would finally break through when I was out of the country and unable to watch it.

Coming back to the United States after the Lions had won the Super Bowl would've felt like Cillian Murphy at the beginning of 28 Days Later, when he awakens from his coma and discovers that the world has been through a catastrophe. What happened? Why are the streets empty? I wouldn't have recognized the place I used to know. 

With the Saints winning 45-28 over the Lions, I don't have to worry about that. Thanks, Drew Brees? I'll just have to watch "The Big Game" and all those commercials when I get back. Gotta remember to set that DVR.

Thoughts on the 2012 Oscar nominations

As Crash Davis once said, a player on a streak has to respect the streak. Well, this isn't that kind of streak and I'm not a player. But as long as I've had a blog, I've written about the Academy Award nominations.

Usually, I try to get a post up as soon as the nominations are announced, but I was busy Tuesday morning. And it's not like I would've accomplished anything but trying to get the nominations up as fast as I could. 

But we're going on seven years with these Oscar posts, so I didn't want to let this year go by. Even if I was a bit underwhelmed by the nominations. And maybe about the movies in general. I enjoyed plenty of them, but there's only one that I could truly say I loved: The Descendants. (I should really write something about that.)

I usually list the nominations, but since we're four days after the fact, you can read them here. But here are some thoughts that jump to mind.

▪▪ The one glaring snub? Shailene Woodley absolutely, positively deserved a Best Supporting Actress nod for The Descendants. Yes, George Clooney does a great job, but in many ways, Woodley's character — as Clooney's daughter — drives the story. Without her, it's not as good of a movie — period. 

So which nominee should go in favor of Woodley? Well, I'd probably knock off Jessica Chastain in The Help. She's a great actress, but I don't think this was even her best movie this year. And as fun as Melissa McCarthy was in Bridesmaids, and as cool as it was that she was nominated, come on. 

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▪▪ A lock? Clooney looks like a strong bet for Best Actor. I'll say Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian are a lock for Best Adapted Screenplay on Moneyball. Woody Allen for Best Original Screenplay on Midnight in Paris, too. And Viola Davis for Best Actress in The Help. Is that too many locks? 

▪▪ My favorite nomination? Christopher Plummer in Beginners. I wasn't embracing that movie as I watched it, but it's stayed with me and my appreciation has grown. (Another one I need to write about.) Plummer could've made bad choice and made his out-of-the-closet-at-75 character too flamboyant. But he doesn't.

You know, he's probably another lock. Should we even bother tuning in this year?

▪▪ I would've added Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to the Best Picture nominees. Or trimmed the list down to five films.

▪▪ However, I've only seen three of the nine nominated films, so I probably shouldn't say that. That is probably the fewest number of Best Picture candidates I've seen in years. I had a bad year at the movies. (Or should I say, not at the movies.) 

▪▪ Movies I still need to see: Hugo tops that list for me, while The Artist is a close second. I didn't see Midnight in Paris despite it playing in theaters all summer. And Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close looked compelling from its trailer, but it's been getting killed by critics. Maybe Albert Nobbs, but there has to be a promise of drinks or dinner to follow.

▪▪ I know it was never going to happen, but it would've been so cool if Andy Serkis was nominated for his motion-capture performance in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Yes, the computers did a lot of the work, but Serkis gave them a base to work from. Best Supporting Actor, maybe? Knock Kenneth Branagh off for him. (Though to be fair, I didn't see My Week With Marilyn. Maybe he's really good.)