Original Writing – Tattooed Professor

Wonderland: Movie Review

Wonderland 2003 Rated R 1 hour 44 minutes

Lion’s Gate Home Entertainment

Takes place in the summer of 1981. Laurel Canyon’s Wonderland Avenue was the scene of grisly murders. Porn star John Holmes was a prime suspect.

Actors: Val Kilmer (John Holmes), Kate Bosworth (Dawn Schiller), Lisa Kudrow (Sharon Holmes), Josh Lucus (Ron Launias), Dylan McDermott (David Lind), Eric Bogosian (Eddie Nash), Carrie Fisher (Sally Hansen), Geneane Garofalo (Joy Miller).

Directed by James Cox

For quite a while I have recognized that I have a harder time deciphering movies that employ multiple timelines that flashback, roll forward, land in real-time, roll forward, real-time, flashback…ey, yi, yi. Not only that, the story is told from two, at times three, points of view. Each point of view has a different take on what actually went down. Some people are lying and some people are telling the truth. Some characters are doing both. At movie time it is as if my mind goes into relaxation mode and multiple timelines make me work harder than I want. It’s irritating, but that’s just me. Give me a chronological tale anytime. So, when it comes to the 2003 movie Wonderland the cards were already stacked against it for my particular tastes. Four people were actually murdered in 1981 in Laurel Canyon. This makes me think of the Manson murders which are actually referenced when one of the detectives says the place was one of the most horrific crime scenes he’d witnessed in his entire career. That is where the comparison ends since there is no mastermind or brainwashing going on here; just out-of-control druggies who want a big score. I do like the setting of L. A. with its flash and desert landscapes but we don’t get much of that. Boisterous house parties? Check. Sleazy motels? Check. This is not the shiny side of Hollywood. This is the down-and-out, drug-addled, detective questioning type where you wish everyone would snap out of it. It is somewhat interesting to learn about the real lives of porn stars, but almost instantly the character of John Holmes is someone you definitely do not want to know. Far from my favorite activity lies watching dumb characters consistently stay dumb and fumble their way through their lives.

While John Holmes (Val Kilmer twelve years after his spot-on portrayal of Jim Morrison in The Doors) was being “The King ” of porn, he obviously was not planning his future with a money manager or buying valuable land in California. Maybe he thought he could ride his massive train forever and not worry about the future. Come to think of it, this Holmes character shares many similarities with the characterization of Jim Morrison: always making self-defeating moves; being oppositional at every turn. Holmes is a cokehead and crack smoker and continues on this path for the entirety of the story. His wife has already left him and although they are still married, he treats his current lover, Dawn Schiller (the beautiful Kate Bosworth) in exactly the same manner. Although he is done making the porn that broke up his marriage, he has become an unhinged druggie and Dawn puts up with it. Holmes is such an out-of-control addict that he burns every drug dealer in town which forces his hand to become involved with Eric Bogosian’s character, Eddie Nash (aka “The Arab”). Just to be on the safe side, you probably don’t want to depend on The Arab for anything. Why would Holmes’s peers put him in charge of making a drug deal with The Arab? He’s totally unreliable and keeps stringing the group along as they beg for their next fix. At one point Holmes sends his girlfriend into The Arab’s house alone. Why? The motive is never established. There was once a short duration when Holmes and Dawn were broken up. You know what psycho addicts do? They call your parents every night when they can’t find you and say they love you and shit like that. In one of these timelines, but after the hit on The Arab’s house, Holmes visits Nash very casual like as if nothing is out of the ordinary. They take him hostage and threaten to track down his family. Holmes is just a stinking pile of idiot. Holmes lies to the detectives during questioning and lies to everyone else as well. During a flashback, we see that Holmes and his wife were actually in a good relationship until he had an epiphany one day that he could make money with his giant cock. He chose porn over his marriage and that is where it ended. After the murders, Holmes and Dawn escape to Florida where they live under assumed names. She eventually turns him in because god…he is such an asshole. There is no arc in character; he learns nothing. There are no redeemable character traits within Holmes. Although that makes him frustrating to watch, at least we didn’t have to live with him. John Holmes was never convicted; AIDS got him instead.

Another and perhaps stronger frustration with Wonderland is that the women in this movie are simply there for show. They play no part in the meat of the plot; it could have taken place without them. They have no agency and display no active thinking skills. When she is freaking out on the street surrounded by prostitutes, Sally Hansen (Carrie Fisher) picks up Dawn in an effort to take her home, clean her up and feed her but Dawn keeps calling for John. She wants John Holmes to come pick her up. This makes no sense; he’s not the one who saves her from the streets. Next, Holmes and Dawn are driving place to place for money and drugs. Dawn says she really has to pee but has been ordered to stay in the car. When she begs to pee Holmes hands her a Coke can so she can pee in it. And she does it! What the fuck is going on here? She’s a semi-drug-addicted semi-prostitute outside of a drug dealer’s house…pee anywhere! Holmes gets them a sleazy motel room but she doesn’t mind. Dawn begs him not to smoke crack, but he does anyway. Oh, well. She doesn’t want him to leave her alone in this crappy motel, but he does anyway. She ends up so bored that she smokes crack herself. I have to say that women who are in love with addicts will go to the ends of the earth for them, even if it doesn’t benefit them and it makes no sense. They will sometimes get addicted themselves and will make allowances for almost anything because they are in love. Dawn could have left at any time! She could have gone to a variety of places to get herself back on track but it doesn’t even cross her mind. At one point Dawn is asked (forced?) to go into The Arab’s lair to what? Case the place? Find the location of the safe? It is unclear why she went into Eddie Nash’s mansion (the biggest nightclub owner in L.A.) but the results are not good. She ends up being scrubbed in a hot bath while she stares off into space. This doesn’t make Dawn want to leave Holmes? Dawn, you don’t even really like drugs. Coke heads usually can’t get it up so why exactly are you torturing yourself? Dawn has somehow become friends with Holmes’s wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow). In a meeting with Sharon before questioning by the detectives, she tells Sharon that she did get away once. She went to Oregon and worked in health care. Then her parents began telling her that John was calling every night saying how much he loved her and to tell her good night. Dawn doesn’t get angry that Holmes is disturbing her parents. She doesn’t get livid that she still hasn’t completely gotten away from this loser. No! Oh, it is all so romantic how he just couldn’t forget her. She eventually takes his calls and boom! She’s back where she started. Dawn ends up lying to the cops and running away to Florida with Holmes as if they are going to get away with the botched everything. For whatever reason, six months later Dawn turns Holmes in and never sees him again. Just like many of us when we finally get over the “gotta have that bad guy/girl” phase, she grows up, moves back to the Pacific Northwest, starts a family, and writes a book. (I would much rather have met this Dawn Schiller.)

There is one bright spot in this entire wacky drugs and gun-toting world and that is the former (but still married) wife of John Holmes (Sharon) played by Lisa Kudrow. All of the characters have been so dumb and out of control that when Sharon comes on the scene with her no-nonsense attitude and sharp words you feel like shouting, “FINALLY!” She has enough emotional distance from John that she totally does not care that he has a girlfriend; in fact, she likes Dawn. She encourages Dawn to get out of this dysfunctional relationship. Pack all the bad things up in a box and leave it behind (like she did). Dawn admires Sharon and did attempt at one time to begin a better life, even working in the same field as Sharon. The best part is when Holmes comes to Sharon for help and is trying to convince her they can go into the witness protection program and run away. She says she doesn’t want to fucking run away with him. What the fuck are you talking about? “Are you going to fucking cry? Don’t cry, John.” Holmes’s trumped-up emotions have no effect on Sharon; she’s seen it a million times before. If Holmes were to call her parents every night she would fucking change their number. No wonder Kudrow took this role. She is the first woman who has any gumption and point of view in the entire movie. Since all we’ve been surrounded by are dimwits she shines bright like a biting diamond. She eventually pays Holmes off to permanently exit her life. She is never asked to testify against her husband but after his death reveals that she did see Holmes the morning of the murders. She maintains a relationship with Dawn Schiller.

All told, there are some fun moments like when crazy house party Ronnie takes an epic leap over a coffee table to land on Holmes’s chest. The fashion and music are fun and I really wish I’d been at that crowded house party although I would have been in the pool and not in the room with tweaking Ronnie drunkenly shooting antique guns. There are some sped-up and split-screen transitions that look very cool. If you enjoy unhinged drug culture movies and don’t require chronological continuity, sex, gore, realistic goatees, or intellect, you may enjoy this flick. Three out of ten. Kudrow’s character earns all three stars.

Stream of consciousness synopsis with digging commentary:

John Holmes was the first porn star dubbed “The King”. “This is the story of what happened once the legend was over.”

Monday, June 29th, 1981 Hollywood Hills. Prostitute on street stands alone at 1p. She bites her fingernails while holding a Chihuahua. She cries and shakes while other prostitutes roam the street. VW bus pulls up. The girl, Dawn Schiller, (Kate Bosworth) is picked up by Sally Hansen (Carrie Fisher) but the girl wants her boyfriend, John Holmes (Val Kilmer) to come pick her up. Holmes: “Whatever it takes to get you back, baby. Whatever it takes.” He breaks out the coke as she starts to laugh. Mountains of snow. Snorting coke and having sex in the bathroom.

Next, John makes Dawn wait in the car while he scores more drugs. She badly needs to pee so he hands her a Coke can. She doesn’t get out of the car to fucking pee? She pees in the Coke can? How dumb is this person? We’ve gotta turn what is in the briefcase into cash. John keeps hopping into rundown places to do skeezy things. Now in motel. He blocks the door. Smoking the coke although Dawn doesn’t want him to. He leaves. This is just what almost every female partner of an addicted man goes through. She doesn’t want him to do it, he does it anyway, then leaves her alone.

Cool transition with split-screen and music. Now Dawn is smoking the coke in the motel room alone. A map shows John’s meanderings. Quick click views, split-screen.

When he comes back it is daylight. He brings beer. He takes some unknown pills and drinks a beer for breakfast. John says he’s had an accident. Dawn hears on the news that four people have been found dead during the time John was missing. A detective says it is the most horrific crime scene he’s witnessed in his entire career, reminiscent of the Manson murders.

Random guy in bar on the phone. Phone on other end of call is bloody and no one answers. Random guy has flashback of pointing a gun at a man. So far, all we know is that the random guy at the bar is calling his connected friend who says he’s going to take care of everything. The guy in the bar is having flashbacks of violent events. We have not been properly introduced to these two new characters. Eddie Nash (AKA “The Arab”) is played by Eric Bogosian. He steps off a plane. He’s the biggest nightclub owner in Hollywood.

The bar guy is now at the crime scene wandering around. Blood everywhere. Detectives Nico and Cruise arrive. They’re just going to let a dude walk around a crime scene and break things and take things? What kind of cops are these? The bar guy’s name is Lind who ends up in the questioning room and he’s about to tell a story. Lind looks totally stupid. The costume department looked like they pressed on his goatee and his hair is so colored black it is fried. Right now he has on a do-rag with a sleeveless black t-shirt. He looks ridiculous. Why is his hair that black? Detective Nico (played by Ted Levine) is the actor who was the killer in Silence of the Lambs. If you spotted that in the first ten seconds you would be as good as my movie-watching partner. I don’t think many people can do that. Flashback to good times with drugs, girls, and money. Mr. Lind is trippin’ back to the good old days of house parties where all the chicks are hot and everyone is doing drugs. Bell bottoms, leather jackets, rock and roll, guns. In a house with a hundred and fifty people, Lind starts talking to his drunk friend, Ronnie, who is brandishing guns. “Hey man, you gonna sell those?” Ronnie says he’s been looking for a fence. Lind asks for a place to crash. There’s the couch. All of a sudden we see Lind making out with his girlfriend. What happened to the hundred and fifty people? Is this three days later when everyone is passed out or what?

John Holmes is introduced to Dave Lind. Holmes has already established himself as the king of porn which the detectives know. This is of interest: male-on-male sexual intimidation. When gun-wielding Ronnie knows Holmes is at the party he publicly challenges Holmes to show everyone his penis. Holmes doesn’t want to show off his dick, but Ronnie shoots his pistol into the ceiling. “Show them!” Holmes does it. A girl looks to Ronnie, (not the owner of the penis) and asks, “Can I touch it?” So he doesn’t even own his dick? I like this little switcharoo even though it’s icky. Have a man sexually intimidate another male every once in a while. Why not? No wonder Holmes is a cokehead.

Why did Holmes hang out at Wonderland? Because he had burned every other drug dealer in town. The detectives know Holmes as a scumbag, thief, bad news. Joy Miller (Geneane Garofalo) comes in and is tweaking on the couch. It is inexplicable why Garofalo even took this part. The guys need to go to The Arab because they can’t find drugs anywhere else. When Holmes doesn’t come back with drugs from The Arab, Ronnie makes a fucking epic leap over a coffee table and lands on Holmes’s chest. Ronnie gives Holmes a deal: the money or the guns in two days. “Now get the fuck out of here.” All these tweakers are around Holmes asking what is the deal with The Arab? When are we getting our shit? We just have to wait; he’s bringing it all in at once. The plot is becoming a little confusing because we are at the same time listening to Lind tell the cops this story, so it’s a nested tale. Lind is telling the cops and we are seeing the story in flashbacks. It is getting convoluted.

Holmes draws a map to give his friends so they can break into The Arab’s place. They case the place. The more Holmes says a stash is hidden there, the more Ronnie wants to do it. Ronnie wants a big score so he can live in Maui. Earlier that day, Ronnie gave Holmes money to go to The Arab to get some shit. Bogosian as the Arab is surrounded by women, drugs, rock and roll. They wait for The Arab to go to sleep. They are loaded for bear. A gaggle of druggies break into The Arab’s house at 8a all coked up. The mayhem begins. Ronnie has The Arab by the hair. They want to find the safe. Lind discovers as the safe is opened that this is Eddie Nash…he did not know that. They take as much as possible and exit. Great ‘70s music with a smoggy L.A. in the background. Getting in the car with guns and other stolen goods. Pretty cool. Holmes was waiting back at the house. In this version of the story, Holmes was not involved in the hit. They are all excited when they return to the house with the loot. Everyone is kissing and hugging. Yea! A great Saturday morning. Seven kilos of cocaine, cash flying everywhere. Two, three, four hundred fifty thousand dollars. One ounce pure heroine. They are adding up the money. Five thousand quaaludes. Antique guns. Total take: one point two million. Everyone is clinking glasses. It was a good score and nobody got hurt. There is a strong Natural Born Killers feel to the scene where all the goods are being revealed. All the girls are excited.

Here is where the rift begins between Holmes and the rest of the drug ring. Although Holmes sets it up and knows when the target is going to be out or asleep, the ring feels they are the ones who take all the risk and do all the hard work. They are the ones who go into the house with guns blazing. When they get back and Holmes wants his cut, they give him just a wee bit and Holmes doesn’t think that is good enough. Lind does some heroin as his reward while Holmes smokes crack. Do you want to see a guy take a shot of heroin in the tongue? Oh wait, no…that’s a pixie stick. It would have been cooler to take a shot in the tongue. Ronnie and Holmes argue until Ronnie throws a briefcase out the window, breaking it. Holmes leaves in a huff. Lind says when he saw the news on television he knew it had to be Holmes. The group becomes paranoid and begins to close ranks. Nobody gets into the house unless buzzed up. They have to keep a low profile. Holmes is the only one who knows about the Nash hit. He is the one who let Nash in and “got my butterfly killed.” When Holmes is all fucked up in bed with his girlfriend, she asks why four people are dead in a house that he’d talked about and taken her to before? Holmes is so fucked up he can’t really give a straight answer. Women are totally ineffectual in this film.

LAPD breaks into the motel room and now Dawn is in for questioning. In a flashback, Dawn takes on an alias and goes into The Arab’s house and says, “What do you want me to do?” The Arab says to dance. The women in this film have no agency, no weapons, no thoughts, no free will, no vote. Holmes waits in the car freaking out because he’s sent his girl into no man’s land. The Arab says, “Touch me.” Despite this flashback, Dawn tells the cops she’s never met The Arab. Dawn and Holmes go to the motel. He is scrubbing her in a bathtub with bubbles. Drug addicts don’t usually have the wherewithal to stop at Walgreens for bubble bath. Obviously, she didn’t just dance. She was violated in some way because she is being scrubbed with hot water and soap and she is staring as if disassociated.

July, 1981 Newspaper headlines. Lisa Kudrow (Sharon Holmes) finally shows up. She’s reading the headlines in her house. Opens door to find Dawn and her dog. Kudrow is not happy to find Dawn has nowhere else to go. Sharon is mad at Dawn for still being with this loser creep. Dawn says she did get away when she went to Oregon. “I was a nurse, kind of like you.” I had a job, but he kept calling. Okay, here’s what psychos do. She is explaining to Sharon (her sister? The connection has not been established) that Holmes used to call every night. He used to call my mom every night and say, “Tell Dawn I love her. Tell Dawn goodnight.” He used to call every night. So eventually I took his calls. This is what weak women do when they date addicts. The advice Sharon gives her is put all the bad things in a box then you put them away and you get away. One of the detectives is going to take these two women to see Holmes. Why? One of my weak points in movie watching is getting easily confused with timelines. So, if we go forward in time, then backward in time, then we are current, followed by backward then forwards, I get confused. So I don’t know where in the timeline we are now. I know that some shit has gone down and these two women are with the detective. Maybe the detective is in real-time and they are going to see Holmes. Holmes and Sharon meet. Sharon says they have offered her a deal and she thinks she is going to take it. Is Sharon the first woman who has any sense in this movie? Holmes is trying to convince her that they can go into the witness protection program and run away. She says she doesn’t want to fucking run away with him. What the fuck are you talking about? “Are you going to fucking cry? Don’t cry, John.” OMG, they are married! No wonder Kudrow took this role. She is the first woman who has any gumption and point of view in the entire movie. Finally!

Old friend Bill comes in. Maybe an ex-cop? He comes to question Holmes in a separate room while other detectives listen in. Holmes says Lind is the liar, not him. OMG, I think Paris Hilton is on this yacht. This is where Eddie Nash introduces himself. “This is my boat!” This is Holmes’s first meeting with Nash. Flashback to Holmes trying to make a gun deal with Nash but Nash refusing. This is an alternate story of events where Holmes is with the group about to hit The Arab’s house. He is in the backseat and they create the map of the house. He doesn’t want to go in (contrary to the earlier related events). Holmes is giving an alternate story to what we’ve seen so far. The group wants Holmes to unlock the kitchen door and he does. In this alternate story, the group who comes back after the hit is trumpeting their success, answering the phone, telling everybody, using the drugs, living it up. Another Natural Born Killers knockoff scene of chaos where a girl punk band is blasting. The scene speeds and speeds.

Holmes calls Nash (after the hit?) and acts casual. Hey man, what’s going on? The Arab says come on up. Now when Holmes goes there they all know or suspect he was involved in the heist so they beat him up. The robbers do drugs all during the robbery and on the way out someone says, “John Holmes says hello.” The Arab is holding Holmes hostage and is looking up the addresses of his family members. “When they’re dead, I’m going to cut off your fourteen-inch cock and shove it down your throat until you are dead. You are going to do to those guys on Wonderland what they did to me.”

After all this goes down, Holmes returns to his delinquent friends and says hello. Let me in. He does a couple lines and when he goes out he leaves the door ajar. Holmes lies for all the rest of the questioning session. No, I didn’t see them go in. No, I didn’t see them in the car outside. (From flashbacks we know he is lying.) Were you present during the murders? No, no, no. He doesn’t finger Nash and he doesn’t put himself at the scene. The detectives begin to piece together that Holmes set this whole thing up: a revenge murder that he wasn’t involved in. Sharon is willing to pay Holmes off to get him out of her life. She gets Dawn her dog back and gives Holmes money and is like, good riddance. Another flashback: Holmes drives to Sharon’s house in the middle of the night, his shirt red with blood. She discovers he has no wounds; it’s not his blood. Holmes confesses he killed (who?) so The Arab would not get her name…his black book. He insists he left before anything happened. We get backstory between Holmes and his wife and why they broke up. She loved him, but when he discovered that his dick could make him money he decided porn over her. That is where the whole thing broke up. In the flashback, Holmes goes to the house and is the one who, with a gun to his head, beats Ronnie’s wife. She ends up in the hospital.

End of movie script: “John Holmes and Dawn fled to Florida under assumed names. Holmes was arrested in Florida six months later and stood trial on four counts of murder. He never took the stand and was acquitted of all charges. He died of AIDS in 1988. David Lind served as lead witness in the state’s prosecution of John Holmes and Eddie Nash. Both trials ultimately ended in acquittals. Sharon Holmes was never asked to testify against her husband. After John’s death, she revealed that John had visited her the morning of the Wonderland murders. She maintains a close relationship with Dawn to this day. Susan Lenias survived significant injuries. She testified to remembering nothing more than shadows that night. Her whereabouts are unknown.” We see a car driving crazily into the desert. “Dawn Schiller escaped with John to Florida. She reported his whereabouts to authorities six months later and never saw him again. She has just finished a book about her experiences and lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and daughter. Eddie Nash was indicted in 2000. He pled guilty to federal racketeering. Charges including conspiracy to commit the Wonderland murders the night of July 1, 1981 and was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison. He currently resides in the greater Los Angeles area a free man.”

A Hard Day’s Night: Movie Review

A Hard Day’s Night: Disc 1 Collector’s Series [rented disc from Netflix]

A review

1964 Directed by Richard Lester and often considered his best film

Comedy Black and white 1 hour 32 minutes Rated G

Starring: Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Wilfrid Brambell

I don’t often choose a movie that is purely a showcase of talent, but that is the simple premise of A Hard Day’s Night. I quickly realized I wasn’t waiting on a plot to formulate; instead, I was merely asked to sit back and take in the mania and glory that was the Beatles. This movie came out before I was born so although I grew up with the Beatles, I did not go through the teen freakout of the 1960s that was Beatlemania. Viewing the movie today allows current pop culture explorers insight to the elements that made the band so beloved.

For current music lovers this movie is a great example of what “mania” really meant back in the day. The screaming girls often drowned out the songs they came to hear. One of the tropes of musical mania is a voracious mob of teen girls chasing their male idols in such a way that can amount to real pain! In the opening scene the band is running from a frenzied mob and Harrison bites the sidewalk in an obviously unplanned heap. The band duck, weave and hide in order to outwit their fans and end up escaping by train. We also see young teen girls losing their minds during the culminating “show” with close ups of their tears and hair pulling. They wave their scarves in a desperate plea for eye contact. This is a clear window through which modern music lovers can gaze at mania history and see how our mothers and grandmothers used to go insane. Although there is an innocence in that the girls are not up-ending bottles of Jack Daniel’s or passing joints around, there is a strong vibe of being totally unhinged and out of their minds. (The same thing happened to me when I saw Shaun Cassidy in the ‘70’s. I cried all the way home and didn’t know why. I know of what I speak.) Point is, these gals were rabid and would probably tear their idols limb from limb and scurry away with the pieces to place at religious altars to pop music to worship forevermore. A fellow viewer who was equally bowled over by the fanatical energy asked, “What do they hope to gain from this [chasing and pounding on escaping car windows]?” The only idea I could manage was, “A kiss?” More realistically (but totally unrealistically) the girls were most likely ardently wishing that their Beatle of choice would take one look at them, swoon, scurry her away to a gothic castle at which time he would get on bended knee to ask for her hand in marriage. Oh, she’s only thirteen? No worries; we’ll have a long engagement. That the members of the group were at least ten years their senior made no discernible difference to the fans. In a way it is creepy, yet it has been this way since time began.

Another element the movie provides for young lusties is close up shots of their idols. When you are young and in love, you just can’t get enough of the images of your beloved. A Hard Day’s Night does not disappoint with director Richard Lester really getting the camera in close to revel in every drop of sweat and every tweak of the eyebrow. If young girls of the day could have only paused the movie they would have sat staring and crying while their parents and brothers left to eat dinner. The up close and personal approach is multiplied in one scene in which McCartney is singing and his cute little head is copied and repeated down the line as he sits next to multiple televisions. An added bonus comes at the end of the movie when a variety of headshots is displayed of each of the band members. Each band member sports a black turtleneck against a white backdrop and employs various expressions across multiple shots. The close up clarity and excellence of these photos may have caused a swoon or two while credits were rolling. I suppose movie theater staff had to call some parents for assistance at that point.

The peripatetic plot takes place over the course of two days while the band, one grandpa, and a couple managers travel to perform for a television audience. On the way we get to know each band member and as a bonus, they often spontaneously break into song. Getting to know them is pure pleasure. Although these guys were not trained actors, they have a natural feel and cadence to their dialogue and actions. I haven’t taken the time to look up and watch Beatles interviews from the past so I did not have a feel for each man’s personality. Each is comedic in his own way. The mood is light, fun and fast-paced. Wilfrid Brambell (he of gargantuan teeth and bespectacled shifty eyes) plays McCartney’s grandfather who, for unknown reasons, accompanies the group on their way to perform the TV appearance. One at first supposes he is there to play the straight man but we quickly learn he is cheeky and twisted in quite a different way than the others. One of the themes is that the band (and Grandpa) cannot be kept in hand; they are always running off like errant children with ADD. Supposed to be answering fan mail? No. They end up at a club dancing and drinking. Supposed to be prepping for the TV show? No. They have lost Ringo and are off to find him. The police, managers and television production crew play the exasperated “adults” who are continually aggravated by the group’s shenanigans.

The scene in which Grandpa is giving Ringo life advice is my favorite part of the movie and perhaps the only real conversation we can explore. They both end up at a diner where Ringo quietly sits reading a book. Grandpa, with his famous (and creepy) side eye, begins, “Would ya look at ‘em? Sitting there with his hooter scraping away at that book.”

Ringo asks, “Well, what’s the matter with that?”

Grandpa yanks the book from Ringo’s hands and asks, “Have ya no natural resources of your own? Have they even robbed you of that?”

“You can learn from books,” Ringo says, snatching the book back.

“You can, can ya? Bah. Sheeps’ heads. You could learn more by getting out there and living.”

“Like where?”

“Any old where! But not our little Richard…oh, no. When you’re not thumpin’ those pagan skins you’re tormenting your eyes with that rubbish.”

“Books are good.”

“Parading’s better.”

“Parading?”

“Ah! Parading the streets, trailing your coat, bowling along…LIVING!”

“Well, I am living.”

“You? Living? When was the last time you gave a girl a pink-edged daisy? When did you last embarrass a sheila with your cool appraising stare?”

“You’re a bit old for that sort of chat, aren’t ya?”

“Well at least I got a backlog of memories when all you got is that book!”

Ringo fights back. “Oh, stop picking on me. You’re as bad as the rest of ‘em.”

“Ah, so you are a man after all.”

“What’s that mean?”

Grandpa states, “Do you think I haven’t noticed? Do you think I wasn’t aware of the drift?” [This scene is enhanced by Grandpa moving about the diner in search of sugar while he doles out his advice.] “Oh, ya poor unfortunate scruff. They’ve driven ya into books with their cruel, unnatural treatment. Exploiting your good nature.”

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, sure, that lot’s never happy unless they’re jeering you. And where would they be without the steady support of your drumbeat? That’s what I’d like to know.”

Ringo agrees, “Yeah, that’s right.”

“And what’s it all come to in the end?”

Ringo beginning to turn, “Yeah. What’s in it for me?”

“A book.”

Ringo throws the book on the table. “Yeah. A bloomin’ book.”

“When you could be out there betraying a rich American widow or sipping palm wine in Tahiti before you’re too old like me.”

“Yeah, funny really, ‘cause I never thought but being middle aged and old takes up most of your time, doesn’t it?”

With a sad expression Grandpa says, “You’re only right.”

Ringo picks up his stuff and heads for the door. Grandpa asks, “Where you going?”

“I’m going parading before it’s too late.”

Out of ten stars I would give this a solid eight, especially if you are into pop music history, teenage mania and Merseyside/Liverpool-ish/”Scouse” dialect. Recommended.

Synopsis with light commentary and dialogue:

The movie opens with the band being chased through the streets until they escape by train. We discover their cute accents. We get our first evidence of magical realism letting us know that this story is in no way nonfiction. We see the guys leering inside a train window from outside the moving car; seconds later they reappear inside. We see a train passenger reading a Son of Mad magazine. Ringo says he plays the drums to make up for his short stature. They lock Grandpa in the luggage area, deal cards, then are suddenly playing a song with instruments that magically appear.

Next they arrive at a fancy hotel. Ringo asks if he snores. Paul says, “With a trombone like that it wouldn’t be natural if you didn’t.” Grandpa chides, “Paulie, don’t mock the afflicted. It may be a joke, but it’s his nose. He can’t help his great big hooter…and the poor little head tremblin’ under the weight of it.” The band manager commands them to stay in and answer pounds of fan mail, but the guys escape to a club while Grandpa finds a gambling hall. The manager has to round everyone up. Lennon ends up in a bubble bath with his hat on. When the water is let out John walks out of the bathroom perfectly dry.

The band has a press conference where they are asked only dumb questions. A stage is being prepared but the guys perform a song before everything is ready. It miraculously sounds perfect. Instead of getting ready in the dressing room, the guys take the fire escape. These days they would use a drone, but there is a long shot from above that watches the guys run around an open green area. The manager laments that it is “a battle of nerves between John and me.” Everyone smokes cigarettes.

Next we see Harrison wander into a fashion office but says fashion is “grotty” and that trendsetters are “a drag.” Grandpa has a money making scheme by taking the band’s promotional photos, signing them, then selling them on the street. The band has no patience for wardrobe fittings or makeup. There is a great shot with Paul singing with multiple TV screens focused on his face. The Beatles knock a dance troupe off the stage to do another song. They have a one hour break. Lennon leaves with a girl. Now that Grandpa has filled Ringo’s head with “notions” they don’t know where to find him. Ringo is out on the town taking pictures. He buys thrift clothes for disguise and plays near the water. He talks with a boy who is skipping school then Ringo becomes a troublemaker at a pub and gets thrown out. The stage manager is freaking out: where is Ringo? He is found by the police and taken to the station. Grandpa is brought in too. (That’s what they get for parading.) The general consensus is that “all coppers are villains”, but then the cops offer their prisoners tea. Grandpa, with his wiley ways, escapes the cops and goes to tell the manager where to find Ringo. They make it just in time for the cure all: a cup of tea and then on to the show.

The Beatles perform three songs and break a sweat. We see long shots and close shots of the screaming female audience; not a boy in sight. With the fourth song Grandpa escapes his handcuffs and the theater. The band runs straight from the show to a waiting helicopter. The movie ends with headshots of each of the band members. They are all taken with a white background. Each band member sports a black turtleneck and employs various expressions. These are excellent photos.

The songs that we get to hear during the movie sound excellent and appear as follows:

“A Hard Day’s Night”

“I Should Have Known Better”

“I Wanna Be Your Man”

“Don’t Bother Me”

“All My Loving”

“If I Fell”

“Can’t Buy Me Love”

“And I Love Her”

“I’m Happy Just to Dance with You”

A Ringo instrumental called “This Boy”

An instrumental of “A Hard Day’s Night”

A reprise of “Can’t Buy Me Love”

A reprise of “I Should Have Known Better”

“She Loves You”

And the reprise/closing credits of “A Hard Day’s Night”

Nightbreed: Movie Review

Aaron Boone (protagonist) played by Craig Sheffer

Psychiatrist Doctor Decker (antagonist) played by David Cronenberg

Lori (single name girlfriend of Boone) played by Anne Bobby

Directed by Clive Barker based on his novel Cabal

Rated R 1 hour 41 minutes 1990

Music by Danny Elfman

Review:

Nightbreed is a monster flick written and directed by Clive Barker who is mostly known for his novels (since the 1980s) and his breakout movie, Hellraiser. Before even viewing this movie ask yourself: 1) do I want to know more about the history of American horror movies and 2) do I like a cheesy aesthetic that can only look way out of date? If both of your answers are yes then proceed with a pinch of salt. It is difficult to determine the budget for this movie because at once there is top-notch music, explosions and an extreme variety of monsters. On the other hand, (besides David Cronenberg in an acting role) there are only lesser-knowns running this show although the acting is decent. In many ways, Barker (who wrote and directed) turns expected combinations on their heads. For example, the male is the one imperiled, the female is the hero and the monsters are the victims. Woven within the story (based on Barker’s 1985 novel Cabal) are various themes. Here is what I found.

One of the themes of Nightbreed is misplaced trust in authority. In a way, this movie is based upon the premise that we should always seek a medical second opinion. If our protagonist, Aaron Boone, (Craig Sheffer) had refused his psychiatrist’s assessment that he must be repressing memories of murderous rampages he would have at least appeared to have a mind of his own. Then Boone is given some unknown pills by the evil Doctor Decker (David Cronenberg) who just happens to have them in his desk drawer. Boone immediately downs one of the pills without even asking what they are! This is one of the illogical drawbacks of the story. Doctor Decker then begins working with the police in an effort to frame Boone for a spate of recent murders. Why do the police believe in and consistently work with the doctor? This is another unexplained misstep within the story. In effect, we have authority (the police) trusting authority (the doctor) and they never question each other. Is that the normal tacit agreement between white men in suits and uniforms? In Nightbreed, one should always question authority because they are hiding sins much greater than those with less power. The ones with power in this story are serial killers and violent instigators. A mob forms towards the end of the movie made up of stereotypical rednecks and hicks who each bring a truckload of arsenal to the monster fight. The police and fathers in the mob would ideally be peaceful citizens enjoying their homes and families. Too much faith is placed in these authority figures to do the right thing.

These men of power must destroy that which they don’t understand. To “other” is to set oneself apart from those who differ from the self; moreso in a hierarchical format where the norm is believed to be better than the unique. The evil Doctor Decker wants to destroy all; for everyone has become sick in his worldview. Instead of helping those with mental disorders, he comes to view them as irredeemable cretins and decides they need to be wiped from the face of the earth. Ironically, Doctor Decker becomes more sick than his patients and takes up a side gig as a serial killer. In addition, there is a very dynamic and gruesome scene reminiscent of the Christian Crusades–the ultimate act of othering. This short sequence shows us how the monsters (the others) were killed, beheaded, crucified and burned due to the fact that they did not look like the majority. They were driven underground and eventually rebuilt their own society away from the judging eyes of the “naturals” living in the sunlight. The monsters progress to build their own culture. They seem to live in peace within their underground gated and guarded community. It is only when the protagonist draws attention to the group that the transgressions against their way of life begin to repeat history. The monsters are living underground where no one (except the few who are “called”) knows about them. Why take the time and effort to destroy a community hitherto unknown? It is the deliberate seeking out and killing of the other that Barker highlights placing the monsters squarely in the category of underdog for whom we cheer. The theme of good vs. evil within this story is a turnabout: the monsters are good (although a bit blood-thirsty and strange) and the evil ones are the men in power who destroy those around them for no reason other than a vulgar display of power.

We cannot forget that the driving force of the story-telling thread woven throughout is the love between Aaron Boone and his faithful girlfriend, Lori (Anne Bobby). In a welcomed flipping of gender roles, it is Boone who is in trouble and Lori who sets out to save him. While Boone believes mad doctors, swallows unknown pills and feels he is being called to hell through his dreams, Lori is the sane and stable force that figures out various ways to locate and save Boone from himself. She finds Midian, the underground lair of monsters that seem to be calling Boone in his nightmares. She passes her first test by picking up what looks like a skinned cat to return to mystery woman, Rachel (Catherine Chevalier). This thing is super gross, but Lori is brave enough to perform this request in order to gain access to the underworld. Lori does get an assist from Boone when Narcisse (Hugh Ross) gets overly amorous, but she plays an important role in being our eyes when we flashback to see how the monsters were driven underground. Lori is also our guide through the underground highrises of the monster world which is one of the highlights of the movie. She doesn’t scream, tremble, cry or fall down while running away. Lori is determined to find Boone and that is what she does. Lori also owns her sexuality and can be a little kinky. While making out with Boone before leaving his jail cell she says she is not afraid of him. As they begin to make out, she pulls away to look at his face which is turning into a beast. She doesn’t care; she digs it! Let the girl get her freak on! Lori survives the entire story and gives Boone the strength to carry on and rebuild Midian. Note that the monsters hailing Boone as their new leader is a third misstep in the logic of the story. Yes, perhaps Baphomet was calling to him in his dreams, but if Boone had stayed well away from Midian their home and culture would still be intact.

If using a scale from one through ten with ten being the best, I would have to break that in half to say that any grade under five would be a waste of time. Any movie over five I would recommend with either more or less drawbacks. I would rate Nightbreed a six. The music is top-notch and the acting is not too bad. Narcisse’s cutting of his own scalp and the flashback to the Crusades-like scene are worth a viewing. Horror movie fans, especially of flicks from the ‘80s and ‘90s, along with long-time Clive Barker fans, will be interested if only for the vast and spectacular city of monsters to be paused and played again to wallow in all their gory glory. Don’t worry too much about logic; just have fun.

Detailed synopsis with light commentary:

Aaron Boone (known by his last name) has nightmares of hell. His psychiatrist, Doctor Decker, is calling him…always a bad sign. Elsewhere, a masked man is stabbing a family of three. The mask is super creepy and creates a feeling of dread. It pulls over the head with button eyes and an off-center slit for the mouth. It seems to be made of a pliable, extremely grungy light canvas. During Boone’s first meeting in a long while with his doctor, the psych brings up Boone’s nightmares. Weren’t those dreams of a hellscape called Midian? (Midian is a true spot on the map mentioned in both the Hebrew bible and the Quron. In the Hebrew bible, Midian is related to the Israelites.) The doc asks what sins Boone was seeking forgiveness for; possibly murder? Six families have been slain in ten months. For some reason, Boone puts up no resistance to the idea that he may, without his own knowledge, be a serial killer and asks what he should do. Doc pushes unknown pills on the young man and he immediately takes one. (This movie seems to be based on the premise that one should always seek a second opinion.) Boone ends up in the hospital after a hallucination. Upon waking, he hears a fellow patient desperately calling to be taken away to Midian “where the monsters go. It takes away the pain.” When Boone approaches, he asks directions to Midian (since he’d been dreaming of this place). The crazy guy’s name is Narcisse. He thinks Boone is his savior there to take him to Midian so Narcisse must show he is worthy of entry. Narcisse has rings with shark-fin-like talons. He puts them on and at 14:01 into the movie we get our first gore…and it’s pretty good for 1990! Unexpected and extremely gross. Narcisse begins cutting around his own face which makes one think he is going to pull it off, but eventually he ends up scalping himself. For the rest of the movie we see his bloody skinless head. Narcisse is meant to be our comic relief as he continues to appear throughout the movie, but he’s never very funny. Humor is not Clive Barker’s strong suit. When Boone sees Doctor Decker who deliberately gave him hallucinogens, he runs. Decker begins building a murder case against Boone. Our protagonist then takes the basic directions Narcisse gave and finds a cemetery known as Midian. The headstones suggest it is a safe place for satanists and their deceased. Boone has trouble getting into the underground lair of Midian. He wants to commune in hell with other serial killers. When he is confronted by the monster watchmen they test him and find Boone innocent which leads dreadlock monster (who looks to be played by a professional wrestler) to take a bite out of him: “Meat for the beast.” (There is also a moon-faced monster played by Nicholas Vince. Although his costume looks dumb in this film, he played the stuff of nightmares three years earlier in Hellraiser when he was the Chatterer Cenobite.) When the cops show up to apprehend Boone the evil doctor says the young man has a gun so Boone is shot multiple times. (Why does this doctor keep showing up with police? Why are they allowing him to tag along and share all their information?) The bite Boone incurs is imbued with magical powers allowing him to escape the coroner’s table. “In Midian I live forever.” Doctor Decker sees his plans begin to unravel. Lori is Boone’s girlfriend. At most, I heard her name twice in the movie while the name Boone is said about a million times. Lori is on the trail of Boone. She meets Narcisse who becomes her guide. Boone passes a monster test and is accepted into the underworld of Midian. Lori asks a beautiful mysterious woman, Rachel, (played by Catherine Chevalier) to take her to Boone, but “what’s below remains below.” Lori must enter the subterranean world. She only makes it to the bottom of the stairs; innocence is not allowed. When Lori returns to her friend who’s been waiting in the car she finds her dead and bleeding tied to a tree. She sees the canvas masked killer and runs back to Midian. (Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.) It is around this point that the audience knows Doctor Decker is the serial killer and is trying his best to deflect attention. Boone’s new powers allow him to sense that Lori is in danger. He fights monsters to get above ground. Boone confronts Doctor Decker who stabs Boone, but the dead can’t die. When Decker runs, Boone inhales a cloud of wispy magic in order to shape shift into a monster. (The cloud-like magic air is very cheesy.) Boone shifts back to hot guy to protect his girl and the monsters are getting upset that he has brought attention to their happy, quiet gated community. While Decker continues killing, Lori wakes up underground in a coffin with Rachel and her daughter, Babette. Rachel explains that the nightbreed are weirdos, shape shifters, who had been driven underground by those who did not understand their differences. The nightbreed do not feel they are any less than those who persecuted them; instead, they feel they are the things of dreams and to be envied. When Babette takes Lori’s hand she is able to see the past and how the nightbreed were forced underground. The scene is definitely intended to evoke the Christian Crusades (from 1095-1291). The “weirdos” (the other) were slaughtered, crucified, and beheaded. Great job on the wicked scenes of genocide. Dark, blustery, red, filled with torturous imagery. There is a central figure of the nightbreed called Baphomet. Lori asks the entity for Boone’s location. There is a great visual juxtaposition when we see Doctor Decker in his ugly mask while wearing his business suit; perfect combo. Decker explains to an extraneous character that he got sick of treating sick people who went on to have sick children and the sickness would leak from one generation into the next. If he is so disgusted with treating the mentally ill, why does he turn into a serial killer? Does he want to become the king of the mentally ill? Decker becomes “death, plain and simple.” Lori travels through the underworld on her quest to reunite with Boone. This is an excellent part of the movie where we travel past window after window of monsters just hanging out at home. They are all different; the sheer variety is extremely impressive. Where did they get this budget? The cops are still listening to Decker. Why? Lori and Boone finally reunite. Although Boone feels he can’t leave, Lori convinces him they are meant to be together. They escape to a motel to rest and re-group. Boone can smell blood and sees that Decker has increased the body count in the room next door. When Boone smells blood he shape shifts (very vampire-esque) and has to have a lick. One hit of magic breath and he is back in human form. The cops find Boone at the scene, call him a “freak and a cannibal”, and beat him up before shoving him into a cell. Meanwhile, a posse of small town folk and all the police within a ten-mile radius are at Midian kicking monster ass. One can see a clear message when one of the monsters named Ohnaka (played by Simon Bamford who was the Butterball Cenobite in Hellraisers I and II) reaches out to touch the shoe of a black cop as Ohnaka is being beaten. He makes eye contact with the cop as if to ask, Don’t you feel my pain? The cop moves his foot back and the monster is killed. This cops sees the monsters burst and turn to dust in the sunlight. While the town is distracted with monster killing, Narcisse releases Boone from jail. Lori runs to his arms saying she is not afraid of him. They begin kissing and he turns to beast. She sees his monster face, but continues to make out. She’s digging it! The mob vengeance being pummeled on the monsters is reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster and the ending of Night of the Living Dead. The townspeople use all their explosives to blow up Midian. Boone becomes a leader: “If we want to survive, we can’t hide. Brother and sisters, it is time to fight.” One female monster named Shuna Sassi (Christine McCorkindale) uses her exposed breasts to entice a couple of distracted cops; so easy. Then she showers them with giant porcupine quills that sprout from her skin. Pretty cool. It is all-out war; even Baphomet seems to want to give up, yet “we are the tribes of the moon.” In this monsters vs. “naturals” war the sympathy is squarely placed in the court of the monsters. They are the ones persecuted by the normie white men who don’t understand their kind. Deep within the heart of Midian a cell door is opened and a gaggle of super beasts is released. Clive Barker throws in little fun things like a female monster who bends to get some blood on her fingers then wipes a little on her bare breast before taking it to her mouth. Doctor Decker and Boone meet in the underworld. When Decker stabs, Boone turns to monster. Boone removes Decker’s mask and pushes him off a ledge. Baphomet is then reanimated and speaks. Boone begs him to rebuild and save the monsters. “You are Cabal!” (According to Merriam-Webster, a cabal is “the contrived schemes of a group of persons secretly united in a plot [as to overturn a government].” One could also “unite in or form a cabal.” In Clive Barker’s novel Cabal [1985] Baphomet baptizes the protagonist: “He was no longer Boone. He was Cabal. An alliance of many.” Another title associated with Cabal in the novel is he “Who Unmade Midian.”) Boone, Lori and a core group of monsters make it out of the burning underworld. Boone becomes a legend. Why? His coming there leads to their destruction! Decker remains in hell, but he has his acolytes as well. When one evil worshiper imbues Decker’s flayed gut with secret sparkling sauce, he is reanimated. A surprise ending to set up the next battle between good and evil: Aaron Boone the shape shifter vs. Doctor Decker the serial killer!

On Reading

[Author’s note: There are all types of reading material and all reading time is well-spent. This information is specifically focused on books and how to study books. Thoughts on reading are never final; I may be adding to and editing this piece until I die.]

Do not undertake the acquisition of a book lightly. In fact, do not even pick up or buy a book that you do not sincerely intend to read. Books not only take up physical space but mental space. Now you are expected to do something with that thing you bought; that money you spent. When you buy or acquire a book, you are making a promise. Think of the book as a living being. You are now committed, at least until the last page of the book, to that being. In the acquisition of a book you are saying, “I may place you on the shelf, but you are there for a good reason. I will see you. Although you must wait your turn, you will have your time to shine. You will be lovingly handled, read, contemplated, marked, discussed, explored. What is inside of you will end up inside of me. I will not make you wait for nothing. You mean something to me.” If you are not going to read the book, why have it around? Ego boosting? One who has a well-curated bookshelf but does not read is only a fake.

Do not short-shrift the reading of the book. The reading of the book is the enactment of the commitment you have made to the book. Don’t attempt to read deeply in noisy or distracting places. Everyone knows you are not absorbing that Shakespearean play in the middle of a Starbucks. You are not contemplating moral philosophy while also watching television. Turn off your music. Turn off the tv. Go to a quiet place. Set yourself up for success by having something to sip within arm’s length. Have a pen or pencil nearby. Chew gum. I prefer the use of a bookmark rather than torturing the book with dog ears; that’s disrespectful. (Remember when I said to treat your book like a living being?) Bookmarks can be any flat material (even that Starbucks napkin), so don’t say you don’t have one. Proper bookmarks that have flat-edged stiffness are good to use for underlining so your annotations look less palsied. Choose active brain time to read as well. Sure, you can read at bedtime, but once you have determined you are falling asleep, you are no longer absorbing the material. Magazines are better suited for this purpose. If you only use reading in order to sleep, then you are not sincerely reading; you are using the text for an off-brand purpose. What you need is chamomile tea, not zombie-like meanderings through books.

Once you begin a book, commit to finishing the book. Don’t punk out. You can view the book as a challenge: You won’t best me! I have endurance! If the book evokes your fighting spirit, all the better. Don’t allow even the longest of books to intimidate you. YOU intimidate the book! If you are not on a timeline, who cares how long it takes you to complete the book? A page a day is for babies, but even three or six pages a day will eventually lead you to complete that book. Of course, it is best when the book absorbs your mind and you cannot put it down. In this case, you have found your genre and/or author. Find more books of like-kind because now you know this is your jam. The converse may be true. You may be reading a sci-fi paperback and early on you think this crap is really not for me. What are you going to do…give up? No! Finish that book if only to come to learn what you don’t like. It is difficult to argue against something you’ve never tried. When I find myself committed to a book I am not enjoying, I shift into viewing reading as a practice. I am practicing reading. I am practicing mindfulness. I am practicing patience. I am practicing reading aloud. I am expanding my vocabulary and knowledge. I am exploring what I don’t like. It sounds counter-intuitive, but we can’t constantly surround ourselves with only the things we like. We also learn from fully engaging in the things we don’t like. We are learning all the same.

Reading is The Great Escape. Don’t want to twiddle your thumbs in that waiting room? Take a book. Standing in line at the DMV? Take a book. Being told to take a nap but you are wide awake? (I’m thinking of my granddaughter here.) Take a book. Called for jury duty? Take a book. In jail again? (What did you do this time?) Demand your reading material! Reading is a tool to make certain periods of time that would normally be torture, fly by with the greatest of ease. We can’t all travel the world, but most of us can get to a library. We can’t all afford luxurious lives, but we can read about those who can. We can’t all be heroes, but we can find them in books. I know about so many things I’ve never experienced in real life because I’ve read about these things in books. In books, we can travel to far-away places and learn of ancient customs. We can envision people on the other side of the earth or aliens from outer space. We can explore imaginary worlds or knock around the thoughts of a crazy person. Being able to escape our current moment to experience the world through the eyes of others allows us a greater capacity for empathy. Perhaps there is a connection between an ancient sherpa’s quest for home and your own longings for your childhood abode. We can escape by reading more profound thoughts than we could ever think on our own. We can find words that represent images in just such a way to make us burst out laughing or crying. We can come across a set of ideas so achingly beautiful that we tattoo it on our arm…and it came about through words on a page!

Don’t judge yourself regarding the type of reading you prefer. Who cares? Like trashy romance novels? At least you are reading! Into manga or graphic novels? Historical war novels or biographies? Plays or sports writing? Children’s literature or Native American narratives? The topic is up to you; the exercise is the reading. When it comes to reading, there is literally something for everyone. Here is where your local library comes in handy. Walk right up to the closest librarian, plant your feet like Superman and say with all dignity, “I’m into dancing robots who farm but also use technology to learn about humans. Have anything like that?” They’ll come up with something, and it’s free! If some jerk comes along and says, “Ech…why are you reading that?” You could possibly deflect punching them in the nose by asking, “What are you reading?” If they don’t have an answer, you just won. If they do, then maybe you can discuss reading again in the future. You will just as often find people who say, “Oh wow! I love that book!” Instant friend. Books can bind people.

Some people are book borrowers (like those library visitors) while others are book keepers, like me. Both are excellent and most people are probably a combination of the two. People who frequent libraries perhaps seek a wide variety of reading material without having to give up money or space for the luxury of reading. They are discouraged from marking or dog-earring the books; they are merely a temporary keeper of the kingdom. They can start something, dislike the proposed journey and return the book the next day; no harm done. Book keepers are involved in a deeper commitment. They are willing to invest money and concede space to inanimate objects that simultaneously capture their hearts. They mark books. They highlight, underline, circle and write in the margins. They revisit the book and stick nameplates inside the front covers. I write short summaries at the end of each chapter. Lately, I’ve taken to writing not only my name inside the front cover but the season and year in which I read the book. I can picture my son or grandchildren one day inheriting the book and seeing what their grandma (or great-grandma!) marked in a book decades before. If I have enjoyed the book more than normal I make a note to myself to read it again in the future. Conversely, I may get to the end of a book and be so happy it is done! I don’t place a nameplate in those books; I give them away or take them to the Goodwill.

There are many different reading levels. You will hear of a child in third grade who “reads on a ninth grade level.” That means they are able to comprehend material above the normal reading comprehension for their age group. Try to diversify your levels of reading. Some stuff you read might be kind of dumb or just for fun. Some stuff you read is right at your level and you don’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about unfamiliar concepts or words. Every once in a while, try to tackle a reading project that is a bit beyond your normal comfort level. You are pressed to do this in school, but don’t drop the habit just because you’ve graduated. Pressing your reading into territory just beyond your total comprehension stretches and exercises the mind. There may be so many words in a row that you don’t completely understand, but are you comprehending the broad overview? Are you able to understand the overall idea? You may not want to spend time looking up every word you don’t know while in the midst of this exercise because it would prove too time consuming (unless looking up the meaning of unfamiliar words is your new super cool hobby). In this case, read slowly and in smaller chunks. Write notes in the margin when you clearly understand an idea. Spend time simply sounding out the words and reading upper-level sentences out loud. It does feel strange to be exploring a world of words and ideas that seem abstract, but if we practice reading beyond our level every once in a while we become less stressed by the practice. There is no shame in saying, “I don’t understand half of what she is saying, but I’m trying.”

On that note, don’t forget that you can always bring in outside reinforcements if you are not understanding what you are reading, or if you simply want to know more. If there is a concept that is not quite clear, you can always Google it! If you have completed a short story and now you are wondering how a certain theme works within it, you could use Google Scholar and type in something like “the role of domestic violence in the works of Zora Neale Hurston” and see what comes up. You could also use the search word “critique(s)” which will lead you to critics who have analyzed and written about the work. For example, in a Google, library or Google Scholar search box one could type: critiques on “the mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks. You may then be bombarded with different points of view pointing out different ideas of that one work. Filter through and see what you are looking for. The text is not simply the text; there are usually texts (or some sort of outside reference) about that text that expand upon and attempt to explain the original work.

Reading for School/Study

Once you have signed up for a literature course (in high school or college) see if you can acquire the syllabus or reading list right then. Ask the teacher or school which books you will need and find a way to get them. If you are reading older material, don’t forget you can find many works in full on the internet or through your school’s library or online resources. Project Gutenberg (gutenberg.org) has tens of thousands of works-in-full whose copyright has expired. Beginning the reading list and taking notes before the semester begins is a life-saver. We are unable to predict a future in which we may acquire a new job or experience a bump in the road that will throw off our reading schedule. Reading early safeguards against unforeseen misadventures.

Once you have received the syllabus, (a rules and to-do list for the semester) create a reading calendar. The best syllabi will have the reading pages listed for each entry. This will let you know how many pages are required per week/project. If the page numbers are not listed, go inside the book and, using the table of contents, jot down how many pages are involved in each reading. Only you know how much reading time you have per day or on particular days. Break down the number of pages into a per-day goal. If all the readings for the week add up to one hundred pages, you will have to read 14.2 pages per day over the course of seven days. In school, there is no getting around this. If you skip a day of reading, guess what? Instead of fourteen pages tomorrow, you will have to read 29. Now you are under pressure and you are not going to absorb the material as well as if you’d stuck to the reading plan. At the end of each week check to see if you have met your reading schedule. If not, you have to set your alarm earlier or stay up later in order to get the reading done. Mark the readings off in your calendar as they are completed; this will boost feelings of success and accomplishment.

Accept the challenge that while taking a literature course you must do the readings. This is not a sit-in-class-and-I’ll-probably-pick-it-up scenario. Your professor may focus on one work and not the others for the week. They may focus on answering questions rather than deeply exploring the text. They may discuss historical events or the backgrounds of authors rather than the text. In all of these scenarios, you have not gained a deeper understanding of the readings themselves just by being in class. Do not take a reading class unless you sincerely commit to the process of reading deeply.

When reading for school you are always reading for a purpose. If you are not given reading guides or questions to answer along the way, then you are reading in the wilderness out there on your own to decide what is and is not important to note within the text. Whatever situation you are reading for in school, always incorporate your reading tools. You should never just plop down with only the material. You must have a pen or pencil and notebook paper or computer to take notes. With the amount of reading you have to do for school, you are not going to remember everything. As you read, mark what you have critically determined to be the most important elements on the page. Train yourself to think of a page, section, or chapter like this: If a person asked you “What was _ about?” what would you tell them? Would your notes (without the book) sufficiently answer their question? Imagine even more pressure: you are in the classroom and the professor asks you, “So, what takes place on page 375?” Would you be able to answer the question from what you underlined or highlighted on page 375? What would your notes from page 375 reveal? In this particular situation there is a handy trick: as you are writing or typing notes from the reading material, note the number of the page you are on along the left-hand margin of your notes. For each new page of material, update the page number. This trick helps in many ways. Page numbers within your notes help you save time when you are searching for something specific, and the professor can never trip you up in class with the above question. When the professor asks about the plot twist in chapter five, you have noted “Chapter Five” at the top of a page along with the page number. Your notes reveal the unusual twist that happened in this section. Boom! You raise your hand.
You are taking separate notes in addition to your in-text annotations for three reasons: 1) it keeps you on-task while reading. Constantly going back and forth from the page to writing/typing notes keeps your thoughts engaged and your body alert; 2) knowledge of the material goes deeper into your brain if you not only read the material but also put the ideas into your own words by writing or typing reading notes; 3) you will study these notes for quizzes and exams. Once you have read the material and notated the most important information into your own words and notes, you have a way to go over and over the material for whatever may be thrown at you in the future. Many professors allow/encourage open-note quizzes or exams. How smart would you look without your book having taken excellent notes you can now use to pass the test? Score!

When you are reading elevated college material, you may come across various unfamiliar textual practices. Anthologies are collections of writings that are merely pieces of larger texts. For example, instead of the entire novel of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in the anthology you may get chapter one, chapter seven, and bits of chapters thirteen and twenty. The point with anthologies is to give you a broad overview of the best works in a certain genre or area of writing. To read the entire work, you’d have to buy or borrow it separately. Ideally, while reading anthologies you will come across an author or work that resonates with you leading you to go out and seek the entire work to read later on your own. For school purposes, you are merely learning more about the characteristics of certain types of writing performed during a certain time in history (sometimes associated with a particular country or geographical area). Because the works do not appear in full, you will see the word “From”, often in italics, which indicates that what you are about to read is not the entire work but selected pieces. You may also come across a series of asterisks running across a page. This signifies that at this particular juncture, the editors removed material from the original work and we are jumping ahead; something is missing. In addition, you will often find little numbers (in order) scattered throughout a work. These mini-numbers indicate footnotes which can usually be found at the bottom of the same page. Footnotes provide a reader additional information shared by the editors of the anthology or the author of the piece. The information may not flow in the body of the text or the information gives a definition, background, or historical information not needed in the body of the text. I prefer to stop at each footnote to read it right then. Afterwards, I go back and apply that new information to the sentence and context. Others view footnotes at the beginning or end of reading the page.

While reading for school pay special attention to the full names of authors, the full titles of the pieces, the year they were published, and from what country or area. For each new text, write the name of the author in large script at the top. Include their birth and death date. Before their works begin, there is often a biographical section that tells us about the author. Begin taking notes here. Where were they born? Did they suffer through unusual hardships? Did they have early success? Were they rich, poor, educated, or not? Was there anything unusual about their families like mental illness or extreme poverty? What writing characteristics did they come to be known for? What are two or three titles of their most famous works? What I search for is any biographical information that may have influenced their writing. What in their background can give us insight to their work?

Once you get to the text itself, note the full title of the piece. It may be long, but thems the breaks. (Yes, I meant to write that.) Pay special attention to lead sentences (the first indented sentence of each paragraph) that announce the topic of the paragraph. You don’t always have to notate them, but each new paragraph should move the story or material forward. Also, pay special attention to the last sentence of the paragraph. Pause at the conclusion of each paragraph. Do you understand what is going on? If not, go back and read it again. If you still do not understand the material, jot down a question (or place a sticky note) next to that page number in your notes. At the end of the paragraph, ask yourself if there is anything important to note. Sometimes a paragraph can result in a one-word note like, “war” and the next paragraph might be “famine” and the next, “farming.” If the author is simply describing an area during a certain time, you will still have noted the broad ideas discussed on that particular page. Not all paragraphs warrant a note.
Look for themes that seem to run throughout the piece. Themes can be many things, but a few examples are man vs. nature, the search for immortality, the downfalls of hubris, gender roles, naming and identity, rituals, social mores, the family, ritual, the domestic sphere, etc. Is there a unifying idea that each part seems to reflect? What is it and how does each part reflect that theme? Is there a recurring symbol such as decay or death? Why do you think this symbol continues to appear? Does something happen more than once like dreams or missed opportunities? Does society place rules and restrictions upon the people? What role does gender play in the story? Is religion playing a role?

Depending on your reading experience, you will encounter words you don’t know. Depending on why you are reading, it may be best to pause, click over to dictionary.com, plug in the word, and note the definition. This technique is needed if you are analyzing or writing about a specific idea or if you are required to know certain vocabulary. Pausing to look up words does not mean you are dumb; it means you are becoming smarter. If, time and again, you simply skip over words you don’t know then you will continue not to know them. How is this learning? An expansion of vocabulary is a byproduct of active reading. Note the definition in the margin of the text or in your notes. You could also set up a vocabulary page that you revisit from time to time just to learn new words. Many words have more than one meaning. You will have to study the context of the word to understand how it is being used. Use clues from the rest of the sentence to choose the best definition. The meanings of words also shift over time and can be used in different ways in different countries.
Slowly sound out unfamiliar words; don’t simply skip them. I like attempting unusual names out loud just to see how close I can get to actually saying it. I may be incorrect, but I’m trying (and no one else is around, so who cares). I became slightly irritated one semester in class while observing students who mumbled their way through the name Dostoyevsky. Not only did it hurt my feelings for one of my favorite authors, but they didn’t take the time to look at the name more closely. The name Dostoyevsky may look intimidating at first glance, but sound it out: Dos-toy-ev-sky. You can say all of those syllables and the name is spelled like it sounds. It is only difficult if you skip over or mumble through it because you didn’t take the time to try.

From time to time, read out loud. It doesn’t matter how slow your progress. Sometimes reading slowly is better if it means you are taking in more of the information. Reading quickly doesn’t make you smarter; comprehending what you read makes you smarter. You may be surprised how difficult it is to smoothly read text out loud. While your mouth is verbalizing the current words, your brain is listening to the information while simultaneously your eyes are scanning ahead for the next bit of information. I often see students attempt to skip ahead of the wording in order to read faster; that is not reading what is on the page. You are “reading” what you imagine is on the page. Take the time to complete each word and try to incorporate inflection and emotion. The more you practice reading out loud the smoother you will become. Sometimes hearing the words out loud helps you make sense of a piece. Sometimes you want to share a particular thought or image with someone else. Sometimes you just want to hear your own beautiful voice. Sometimes you want a challenge. You can’t read all material out loud all day; it tires the voice. You may switch between reading out loud for one page and reading in silence the next just to keep yourself in active reading mode.

As you take notes you are also asking questions of the text. Active reading is like a conversation between the text and the reader. Your mind is doing multiple things at once. You are performing all the tasks mentioned above, yet in addition, you are using the back of your mind (I call it the back burner) to roll around ideas such as: This has happened to me! Can this be true? The same storyline happened in my favorite show this year! I like this writer’s tone or style. I wonder if the author combined events to give us a representation of reality at that time. This female character is taking on the role normally given to men. There is a leap in logic here that I don’t think holds up. This part is ridiculous. This reflects in direct parallel to what is happening today. These behaviors seem to indicate mental illness. Ect. Some of those “back burner” ideas and sparks could later lead to an essay or class discussion. You are reading what is on the page, but you are also connecting what is there to other things in reality.

Along with these critical questions, sometimes you just have flat-out questions. I don’t understand what is going on, or how did the author get from here to there? Not understanding while reading will cause discomfort. That is okay. When we are in a state of not knowing, we feel unmoored, somehow intellectually (and slightly emotionally) out of control. Becoming a reader means accepting a level of discomfort that varies with the material. Sometimes we see the big picture but may get lost in the finer details. Sometimes a piece is just beyond our grasp…above our heads. This is why you have a professor. Write down your questions. Go to office hours. Use email. Google it! Good professors and teaching assistants love to answer questions of students who have read the material, taken notes, and really tried to understand. They see you putting in the effort so they are willing to explain further. Don’t be upset if they tell you that you are concentrating on the wrong stuff. Ask to be re-directed so you don’t waste further time. You can’t get your questions answered if you don’t ask the questions! I remember in one of my grad classes I came upon a piece of philosophy that, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand. It was difficult to even take notes because the ideas were so muddled in my brain. When it came to writing a response paper that week I asked the professor if, instead of writing the regular short response, I could draw what I thought was happening in the form of a diagram or map. He loved the idea and accepted the work. What I found most interesting was that the diagram formed a circle! The point is that I was engaging with the text and trying (albeit in an alternate form) to make sense of it.

Another way of attempting to comprehend the material is pretending that you will have to teach the material. (Sometimes professors actually assign this project.) Pretending that you have to teach the material really shines a bright light on close reading, note taking and comprehension. If you have thirty minutes to teach a short story, would you first give the class a handout? What would be printed there? How much time would you spend on the plot versus various themes or ideas within the text? What issues would lead to relevant class discussion? If you were to give a quiz or test, what questions would you include and how would you answer them? If you were to generate a reading guide what would it include? The teacher’s point of view is a simple yet effective brain trick to hyper-focus your attention.