Media Report

DVDs

*Hellboy-- I didn't like it. I tried to, but I actually found it really boring. The beginning-- with the Nazis and the occult links-- was intriguing....but then it degenerated into l-o-n-g fight sequences between various monsters. I got bored and went to go check my e-mail.

*Torchwood-- I just started watching this British series on DVD. So far, I've only seen three episodes, but I really like it! It's kind of like Alias crossed with X-Files. The series is a spin-off from Dr. Who, but I've never seen Dr. Who and am having no trouble following Torchwood's plot.

*Prime Suspect: The Final Season-- Another British drama, I think I've watched all of the "seasons" (more like mini-series, by American standards). To be honest, the ones in the middle all blur together. However, this last one is about a murder rooted in things that happened in Bosnia. I don't know very much about the Bosnian genocide, but I appreciated the chance to learn a little bit more.

Books

*Seductive Poison (Deborah Layton)-- This has gotten almost 100% 5-star reviews on Amazon. I'd give it a 3 or a 4, but I think that's because I already know so much about Jonestown and cults, in general. I was hoping for new insights, which this didn't really provide. However, if I had read it without that background, I probably would have found the story more interesting.

*Spiderwick Chronicles (Holly Black and Tommy DiTerlizzi)-- I was hoping that this fantasy series would have cross-age appeal like Harry Potter. Unfortunately, it really doesn't. However, it seems like an enjoyable enough series for kids 7-11ish.

*The Book of Three (Lloyd Alexander)-- I hadn't read any of the Chronicles of Prydain so I decided to give it a try. I enjoyed this book. I can't say I adored it, but it was a typical hero's quest.

*Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir (Paul Monette)-- This is a memoir about Paul Monette's experience of his lover's battle with AIDS. His lover, Roger Horwitz was diagnosed with AIDS in the early 80s, when so much of the disease still remained a mystery. Monette has significantly more self-awareness than most autobiographers, and he frequently qualifies his perspective. The memoir, drawn from Monette's extensive diaries, frequently reads like an extended diary. This is both a positive and a negative. On the negative side, sometimes it gets bogged down in references to a plethora of people in Monette's social and business circles, as well as an overabundance of little details and daily schedules. On the positive side, it captures the ordinariness of their lives, as well as the subtle effects of AIDS on that life. Monette acknowledges (and I don't think it can be stressed enough) that they weren't "typical" in terms of people in the first wave of the AIDS epidemic. They were both well-educated, well-to-do and well-connected. Their financial resources alone meant that they could afford private nurses, private hospital rooms and time without work. Their connections (to well-connected doctors and scientists) proved to be an even greater boon. Roger was one of the patients in a clinical trial for an early AIDS drug, suramin, which ultimately proved to hasten the progression of AIDS. According to Monette, Roger was also the first person west of the Mississippi to get AZT. However, despite all of that, Roger died about a year after his diagnosis. Monette, who learned of his HIV+ status during Roger's illness, died in 1995.