The Secret Thread: Literature & Spiritual Life: Coming Soon: Mutt's Best Books of 2005

Friday, December 09, 2005

Coming Soon: Mutt's Best Books of 2005

Lists are lists, you kind of take 'em for what they're worth, but it struck me that if this blog isn't the right place to list my favorite reads of the year, then I don't know what would be. This is the ideal venue for such a list, and I don't think I have made a list like this before, at least not an 'official' one.

My brother and Secret Thread creator Duke Altum makes a list every year, and they're always filled with whoppers. If he wasn't planning to already, I am tossing down the gauntlet and practically insisting that Duke post his list also. This is the time of year for Best Of lists!! You will notice when we have both posted our lists that Duke & I do venture down very different paths reading-wise throughout the year: I will leave you to discover the differences. But trust me, though twins share a lot of their tastes, you will see that Duke & Mutt move in different directions in our literary pursuits. This is as it should be!! As we are all singular individuals, our interests and the books we read reflect this........

Keep your eyes on this blog for Mutt's eagerly anticipated Best Books of 2005. Note: this list does not mean the best books that were released in 2005. It means the best books that I read in 2005. Might seem obvious, but just to make it clear.

1 comment:

Duke Altum said...: Awesome Mutt! Looking forward to reading your list on The Thread... adn you better believe I will be posting my (now annual) 'Notable Books' list as well, whenever I can find the time... been thinking a little bit about the list already! And you're right, it's sure to be different but who would want to read their own list twice? I'm looking forward to seeing what "makes the cut" for you...; 9:27 AM

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Duke Altum's Recommended Films

Monsters (2010) – As many have already said, calling Monsters a movie about an alien occupation of Earth seems to do this fascinating, original film a disservice. Certainly the fact that huge, bioluminescent squid-like extraterrestrials are running amok through the jungles of Central America is an important (and entertaining) element of the plot, but anyone coming into this one looking for non-stop, Aliens-style action or special effects eye candy a la the concurrent alien invasion flick Skyline is going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, what you have with Monsters is an intriguing and meditative hybrid of road movie, post-apocalyptic thriller and surprisingly believable human drama. Director Gareth Edwards wrote, edited and created special effects for the film on his own, which gave him the freedom to make exactly the kind of movie he wanted to make - that is, a love story that just happens to feature alien life forms ominously howling and lurking in the background (this approach, by the way, gives the film its pervasive suspense and intensity, as you are as in the dark as the characters are about when the next encounter with a pissed-off, tentacled alien might occur). The many scenes of unscripted, natural banter between the lead actors as they trek across the "infected zone" and get to know one another help you, crucially, to identify with them enough to care by the final act - which provides an unexpected, subtle twist that gives the entire story added poignancy and irony. I am sure that a great many viewers of this unusual film will come out feeling somewhere between perplexed and downright cheated, and Edwards does provide so little backstory about the aliens and what they might be up to that one may well wonder why they were in the movie at all (and, justifiably, why the film was ever called "Monsters"). But I found that their mysterious, vaguely menacing presence gave the entire story a kind of haunted and other-wordly atmosphere that reminded me a bit of the best bits of James Cameron's The Abyss. I guess you could say that early encounters with new life forms - like those with potential lovers - can be both exhilarating and weirdly disconcerting at the same time.