The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - 7A
" Bewitching books
'Lincoln' logs in a win
Some suprising
literary works just
kick us in the gut
By ANT MITCHELL
Daily Arts Writer
Over the years of my fairly lit-
erary academic career, I've come
to the conclusion that it's not
merely the assumed greatness
of any given book you read that
has an impact. Rather, it's the
stealth with which it manages
to kick you right in your emo-
tional balls that really makes
a book stand out from the rest.
It's the unexpected and out-of-
character book that shocks you
into being impressed. While this
effect by its very definition can
come from nearly anywhere, I
have three favorite sources.
The first falls under the cat-
egory of children's books;,that
shattering content disguised as
innocence. Sometimes I sit and
read children's books - just curl
up in the aisle and take in the
pictures and nostalgic good-
ness while parents and children
step around my inappropriately
adult-sized body. I was in the
process of this relaxing medi-
tation on my own mental age
when I came across "The Big
Ugly Monster and the Little
Stone Rabbit" by Christopher
Wormell. It's not very nicely
* illustrated. It looks unremark-
able. But it managed a bookish
little nip at my tender under-
belly. It tells the story about a
monster so hideous that all of
nature retreats from him in dis-
gust, leaving the lonely monster
talking to rocks. Then the mon-
ster dies, and immediately all
the plants and animals return,
leaving it "a beautiful place now,
perhaps the most beautiful place
in the world," Wormell writes.
Could there be a more sim-
plistic yet unspeakably cruel and
sad book floating about? Possibly.
However, feeling like my story-
bookguts hadbeen pulled out my
throat was not what I'd expected
fromthe children's aisle of Barnes
& Noble. And that's what made it
fantastic. "Strega Nona" and it's
disturbing Italian noodles, "The
Giving Tree" with whispers of
one-sided needy relationships
and the ever-poetic "Frederick"
all share a similar magic.
The second category comes
with a dose of academic pain.
Most have had the experience of
having to read an assigned book
of biblical length. Everyone
shares in the pain when they put
the book off till the last minute,
reading it all at once in a sicken-
ingly slow dose. And while you
make thattorturousjourney, you
hate the book. You hate reading
it: You hate each and every hour,
each page abamboo shoot under
the fingernail in your tired and
dragging mind. But the moment
you come to class there's an
explosion of passion - everyone
wants to talk about the book.
For a brief moment you're all
the same person with a million
voices cathartically listing off
everything you hated and how
painful and terrible and long
the whole experience was. But,
having been brought together
through trauma, each begins to
discover merit where once only
hate could be found.
For me, it was reading James
Michener's 688-page novel
"Caribbean" overnight in high
school. It read like wading
through a mental mud of his-
torical fiction - generations
of characters dying off, politi-
cal facts and sludge. But by the
end of class that day, I'd transi-
tioned through my hatred, and
found myself inexplicably lov-
ing it. Like a book tattoo, it had
to hurt to leave an imprint, and
once that imprint was made,
it became tough to forget. Yet
part of me couldn't comprehend
why I liked it. So many hours of
loathing its existence, wishing
the author nothing but a fiery
libido and an influx of watery
rejection and suddenly I was
turned on, as it were.
The last in the trio to bruise
those bookish family jewels
is the quirkily translated and
anciently filthy - those prehis-
toric texts whose interpreters
go wild with their word choice,
or whose original authors, born
in, say, 446 B.C., still slathered
their works with the most mod-
ernly dirty innuendo. Examples
abound here, from the descrip-
tion of a woman's "high arching
caverns" and Aphrodite's shout
of "Don't vex me bitch!" in "The
Iliad," to Aristophanes's "intes-
tinal insight" into the status of
the gnat's anus as a wind tunnel
"trumpet." Now that's classic lit-
erature, and classy classic litera-
ture to boot.
My point is not that of a liter-
ary hipster. I'm not saying that
because a book is well known
it can't be that dose of magic
you're looking for. I'm simply
suggesting that every once in a
while it's O.K. to put down your
copies of "Lolita" or the sprin-
kle-covered "A Million Little
Pieces," remove your cup and
open yourself to the possibil-
ity of a swift and startling read
from an unthought-of source. Sit
down with a picture book, hate
something into greatness and
remember that if aged wines get
you drunkest, age may have a
similar effect on books.
By ANKUR SOHONI
Daily Arts Writer
The middle of March is char-
acterized by an eerie quiet in the
film industry - the Oscar frenzy
is over, and
we enter the ****
calm before
the storm that The Lincoln
a Hollywood Lawer
summer inevi-
tably becomes. At Qualityl6
But in amoment and Rave
like this, there
are a certain Lakeshore
collection of
targeted male-protagonist films
that go relatively under the radar,
like "Brooklyn's Finest" and
"Green Zone" last year. This year,
that void was filled by two releas-
es this past weekend - "Limit-
less" and "The Lincoln Lawyer."
In a way, "The Lincoln Law-
yer" is the perfect film for this
time of year. It's a crime drama
and thriller without the flash
and awe that many so-described
films tend to devolve into, and
its quiet nature is reflected by its
focus on the personal develop-
ment of its macho-smooth pro-
tagonist. Therein lies the source
of its success - it doesn't go too
far, but stays within reason to
illuminate the believable life of a
fictional hero.
The charismatic Matthew
McConaughey ("Ghosts of Girl-
friends Past") capably embodies
the slick Mick Haller, a defense
attorney with just as much street
cred as experience. He has no
office, instead running his busi-
ness out of his Lincoln towncar.
When a biker gang wants to meet
with him about one of its own
needin
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g legal help, the bikes Tomei ("Cyrus") is characteristi-
all him up to set up a meet- tally delightful as Haller's pros-
hey surround his car, ask ecutor ex-wife, and supporting
pull over and talk terms characters played by William H.
gh the open window. Macy (TV's "E.R.") and Laurence
n though his job is often Mason ("The Take") are amiable
resent scum, we're imme- additions who allow Haller to
in love with Haller and generate the sympathetic world
onfidence he exudes. We he needs to convince us of his
ok the negatives of his own validity.
ter because we feel like we The structure of the film is
, and the film facilitates much like the "Law & Order"
'focusing on his insecurity courtroom drama formula that
llowing the innocent to be allows time for investigation
'ted. followed by the trial itself. The
appropriate, then, that the problem with developing that
ltimately focuses on just division into a film is that by the
Rich-boy real estate agent end of the second act and the
Roulet (Ryan Philippe, beginning of the third - when
of Our Fathers") hires excitement is high - the audi-
to defend him against ence is stuck watching lawyers
appears to be a false rape and witnesses talk rather than
In investigating the back- act. The jump we need to make is
to realize that Haller's ultimate
conflict comes down to a deci-
e~ona ghey, sion in a courtroom, and that,
C onaughey, in a moment, his character is
ith shirt on. revealed by the actions we don't
see, not those we do. The third
act isn't as visually dynamic or
invigorating as the first two, but
d of the case, Haller finds is intellectually the strongest and
e complicated scheme, one most satisfying part of the film.
ing an old murder case that Director Brad Furman ("The
ues to haunt him. Haller's Take") - as a young and largely
sion into Roulet's case is unproven helmer - controls the
ed by the lawyer's deep variables in his film with grace,
g inside his own identity as and fitfully delivers consistent
nse attorney, forcing him to drama. With a quiet success like
between the innocent and "The Lincoln Lawyer" - even if
ilty while legally bound to it doesn't exactly kill at the box
ils of his job. office - Furman will likely see
exploration is an uncom- plenty of offers coming his way.
ne and it's fascinatingto see Despite any comparisons to films
wood allow such a concept released in other parts of the
e the reality and serious- year, "The Lincoln Lawyer" is an
t deserves. The cast takes illuminating case of a film that
as seriously, as Marisa does exactly what it means to.
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