After seeing it mentioned on one or two best movie lists, I decided to check out this 2005 film although I wondered if I would enjoy its story about a 1980s Brooklyn couple's decision to divorce and the resulting damage to their two sons. I was swayed by the casting of Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney...
This book's preface begins, " These are the faces of illness in America. Do not look away.......Quite simply, they are us. " If you have ever known someone with a chronic or terminal illness, you probably already know that each person approaches their difficulties in a way that is all their...
I just finished one of those books that will stay with me for a long while. Helene Cooper's memoir, The House at Sugar Beach: in Search of a Lost African Childhood is remarkable and haunting. Her journalistic expertise opens the reader up to a privileged Liberian childhood, which ended in 1980 when...
I picked this one up because I saw the face of Philip Seymour Hoffman on the cover. And as usual, he did not disappoint me. The story is about 2 brothers, Andy (Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke), who are both in need of money in the worst way. The elder Andy persuades his baby brother Hank to pull off...
I guess most of us know of someone who lost their life in a war. The documentary, Be Good, Smile Pretty , takes an emotional look at the personal story of one child who was left fatherless by the Vietnam War. Tracy Droz Tragos' lets us in on her journey to discover who her father, U.S. Naval Soldier...
The Real Dirt on Farmer John is a comeback story of the most fascinating kind. The documentary begins with Farmer John tasting the dirt on his farm and ends with him dancing around the farm dressed up as a honey bee! In between is the story of one man's struggle to keep his family's farm alive...
With its sympathetic portrayal of a family in crisis, "The Condition" reminds me of Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" and Joyce Carol Oates' "We Were the Mulvaneys." All three novels convey the message that every family has points of stress and conflict -- we...