I haven't read much in the way of books recently; the last thing I read was Taleb's mega-selling non-fiction hit Fooled By Randomness which I can summarise thusly: people are generally stupid, and people who just happen to be successful fool themselves into thinking they are not.
We have been to a few films and shows recently. Films first.
Juno was not only funny but different. Although it might be described as a story about an unwanted teenage pregnancy it is much more. Throw in a bunch of interesting characters, avoid every cliché in the book and you have something unpredictable yet - well kill me for the saying this - heart-warming. We liked it!
Then there was Cloverfield. This was... okay. The idea of playing a disaster movie from the point of handheld amateur video footage was interesting (a la Blair Witch), but there were several problems with Cloverfield's execution. Un: wayyyy too much motion-sickening jerky jerky. Deux: The main characters were hideously sterile creations, cardboard cutouts you'd find in any disaster movie. Trois: The story stretches a bit too far into the unbelievable and simply becomes an amateur camera let loose inside a Hollywood disaster movie; at times, it felt like I was watching a video game, a first-person shooter like Half-Life. Still, its dark and oppressive atmosphere, with a few genuinely frightening moments, are worth the ride.