A Week in the Realm [late edition:week ending 11/22]

Best of the Week
Film: Milk


BOOK:

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
by Atul Gawande
Detailed and well-written. He makes subjects as banal as hand-washing page-turners. I now have to read his other book.

FILM:
Milk
Brilliant acting by Sean Penn, James Franco, James Brolin and the rest of the cast. And this film, about 1970s gay rights activist Harvey Milk is powerful, profound, inspirational and a propos.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno
I love everything that Kevin Smith does. This is funny and sweet like Jersey Girl (largely overlooked in my opinion). Elizabeth Banks has shown her range this year as the First Lady in W and now here as the underachieving, insecure Miri to goofy but good-hearted Zack (Seth Rogan).


DVD:
saw a few indies-- Kabluey with Lisa Kudrow and The Promotion with Sean William Scott and John C. Reilly. Both darker and more sad than funny.

TELEVISION:
Cold Case and House both quite good this week.
Love: Samantha Who?, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Survivor and Chelsea Handler.

MUSIC:
it came out months ago but I just got into it--
Alanis Morrissette, Flavors of Entanglement.

OTHER:
RockNRoll
Tom Stoppard play at Huntington Theatre
Entertaining. About the fall of Communism.