Hustlers (2019)

Rotten Tomatoes

Hustlers (2019): Ex-strippers move on to seducing, drugging, then separating men from their money. First half is trashy (you might be tempted to walk), second half is melodrama, the whole barely gets a thumbs-up, I guess because it shows women taking charge of their lives?? C+

Review: Fleishman is in Trouble

Amazon

From Fleishman is in Trouble, by Taffy Brodesser-Akner:

Rachel was gone now, and her goneness was so incongruous to what had been his plan. It wasn’t that he still wanted her—he absolutely did not want her. He absolutely did not wish she were still with him. It was that he had spent so long waiting out the fumes of the marriage and busying himself with the paperwork necessary to extricate himself from it—telling the kids, moving out, telling his colleagues—that he had not considered what life might be like on the other side of it."

A novel that captures the unhappy state of a marriage as believably as the most talented writer can. Not bad for a debut novel.

The Goldfinch (2019)

Rotten Tomatoes

The Goldfinch (2019): Museum explosion. Missing painting. Traumatized boy. A coming of age tale that is worthy of the Pulitzer Prize novel. The famous painting is the hook, which eventually is at the heart of a thriller plot. But mostly this is a character study of young Theo. B+

Compare to my review of the novel by Donna Tartt. Spoiler: I liked the movie, but I liked the novel even more.

POTD: Monument Valley Happy Hour

From 2018 09 20 Monument Valley

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Arizona's Monument Valley. Monument Valley likely conjures up old Westerns like John Ford's "Stagecoach," but modern day tourists can enjoy it at leisure from the deck of a hotel and visitors center that offers as spectacular a view of the Old West as you can find anywhere.

POTD: Geronimo

From 2018 09 20 Monument Valley

Today's photo-of-the-day is from Monument Valley along the Arizona/Utah border. This was the location used by Hollywood director John Ford for several classic Westerns, including the 1939 movie that made John Wayne a star, "Stagecoach." In the movie, a U.S. Cavalry Lieutenant warns the stagecoach passengers that "Geronimo and his Apaches are on the warpath." (Yeah, old movies were racist.) It was John Ford movies like Stagecoach that stamped Monument Valley in generations of movie-goers minds as what they think of when they think of the American West.