DEAR WHITE PEOPLE

Dear White People - I went to the theater thinking I was going to see a light-hearted college comedy making fun of the way we see each other when it comes to this thing called race. What I got instead was an excellent movie about a college campus, kids growing up, adults not quite growing up, leadership, labels, perceptions, mistakes, and bad decisions. There are a bunch of stories intertwined, and where you start in this movie is not where you end up. It's almost the modern day America Do The Right Thing. Note I said almost; they are two different movies telling two different stories. I hope they'll watch this and study it in high school. No matter how you feel about the movie, it will make you think, and it actually gave me hope. Young people make mistakes, which they are supposed to do. The question is whether they learn from those mistakes and use their experiences to make the world a better place.

THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE * FLIGHT BEHAVIOR

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace - A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League by Jeff Hobbs - Absolutely one of the best in its genre. Even though the story is told in the titles, the author knew Rob, and writes about him with the non-judgmental love of a good friend. Most of us don't know every part of most of the people we know, and Jeff is able to write about both the Shaun he didn't know and the Rob he knew very well.  Why did this one bright life go the way it did?  It's a book worth reading because even with his flaws, Rob was a beautiful person, and you want to know his story.

Flight Behavior  by Barbara Kingsolver - Hmmmm. Barbara Kingsolver wanted to get global warming on the table with this story, and she does it with a seemingly clueless young Tennessee housewife and the curious scientist who comes to town to study the butterflies that have come to the mountain above her house. I didn't like the writing, though. Dellarobia is OK, but as the novel unfolds we are privy to every little thought and incident with a comment from the author on the thought and incident. Which makes it way too long, boring, and causes us to not like Dellarobia in the middle of the book when we realize that she's even more limited, but more intelligent than we'd been shown in the entire first half of the book!  I finished it by speed reading most of the pages and picking out the main events and conversations. If you want to read Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible is the way to go, although now I'm questioning whether it was as good as all that after this.  Grown ups 2 - This is such a bad movie that it's funny. And it's really funny! There is barely a plot, constant really bad humor, jokes and situations, especially the visuals which can be disgusting. And I watched. The entire time I'm watching, although I'm thinking this is such a bad movie, I'm not wanting to be watching anything else. So I saw it through to the end. These moronic dads are so bad they're good. Is this a bad review of Grown ups 2 or a good review? I don't know! You decide. (And don't blame me either way - I warned you!)