Albert Clarkson's Reviews

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  • BOOKS
    • A Little History of the World (1935), by E. H. Gombrich
    • A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Match Ever Played (2009), by Marshall Jon Fischer
    • Act of Congress (2013), By Robert G. Kaiser
    • All The Devils Are Here (2011), by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera
    • Bad Money (2008), by Kevin Phillips
    • Bloodlands (2010), by Timothy Snyder
    • Bright-Sided (2009), by Barbara Ehrenreich
    • Churchill (2009), by Paul Johnson
    • Dreams of Earth and Sky (2015), by Freeman Dyson
    • Enlightening Letters 1946-1960 (2009), by Isaiah Berlin
    • Enough (2023), by Cassidy Hutchinson; Sedition Hunters (2023), by Ryan J. Reilly: Two On Citizen Arrest
    • Finishing the Hat (2010), By Stephen Sondheim
    • Frank (2015), by Barney Frank
    • George F. Kennan: An American Life (2011), by John Lewis Gaddis
    • God’s Brain (2010), by Lionel Tiger and Michael McGuire
    • Gone Girl (2012), by Gillian Flynn
    • How to Read Literature Like a Professor (2003), by Thomas C. Foster
    • In the Garden of Beasts (2011), by Erik Larson
    • In the Year of the Flood (2009), by Margaret Atwood
    • Inherent Vice (2009), By Thomas Pynchon
    • Intelligence Wars (2004), by Thomas Powers
    • Isaiah Berlin: Letters 1928 – 1946 (2004)
    • Kansas City Lightning: The Rise and Time of Charlie Parker (2013), by Stanley Crouch
    • Latest Readings (2015), By Clive James
    • Letters from Oxford (2006), by Hugh Trevor-Roper
    • Levels of the Game (1969), by John McPhee
    • Miracles of Life (2008), By J.G. Ballard
    • Moby-Dick (1851), by Herman Melville
    • Monster (1993), by Sanyika Shakur
    • Morte d’Urban (1962), by J.F. Powers; Suitable Accomodations: An Autobiographical Story of Family Life: The Letters of J.F. Powers, 1942 – 1963 (2013), edited by Katherine A. Powers
    • Night Train (1997), by Martin Amis
    • Nudge (2008); Postcript to Nudge: “November 2008” (2009 Edition), By Richard H. Thaler and Cass Sunstein
    • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017), by Timothy Snyder
    • Physics for Artists and Poets and You (2024), by William A. Hogan
    • Prague Winter (2012), by Madeleine Albright
    • Protecting Capitalism Case by Case (2013), by Eliot Spitzer
    • Rafa (2011), by John Carlin and Rafael Nadal
    • Raymond Chandler
    • Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (2011), by Jane McGonigal
    • Reckless (2009), By Byron Dorgan
    • Self-Consciousness: Memoirs (1989), by John Updike
    • Solar (2010), by Ian McEwan
    • Sonic Boom: Globalization at Mach Speed (2009), By Greg Easterbrook
    • Speak Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (1966), by Vladimir Nabokov
    • Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (2003), by Simon Sebag Montefiore
    • Steve Jobs (2011), by Walter Isaacson
    • Strangers on a Train (1950), By Patricia Highsmith
    • String Theory (2016), by David Foster Wallace; Tennis Is My Racket (1949), by Bobby Riggs
    • Sweet Tooth (2012), By Ian McEwan
    • Television is the New Television: The Unexpected Triumph of Old Media in the Digital Age (2015), by Michael Wolff
    • Terrorist (2006), by John Updike
    • The Age of Turbulence (2007); Epilog (2008), by Alan Greenspan
    • The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined (2011), by Stephen Pinker
    • The Big Con (1940), by David W. Maurer
    • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), by Junot Diaz
    • The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump (2020), by William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina
    • The Castle in the Forest (2007), by Norman Mailer
    • The Children Act (2014), by Ian McEwan
    • The Crossing:(2015), by Michael Connelly ;The Waiting (2024), by Michael Connelly: From A Master
    • The Destructionists (2023). by Dana Milbank; Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (2018), by Michael Wolff: Two Bad Scenes
    • The Golden House (2017), by Salman Rushdie
    • The Grand Design (2010), by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
    • The Great Gatsby (1925- ), by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
    • The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution (2009), by Richard Dawkins
    • The Grownup (2014), by Gillian Flynn
    • The Letters of Noel Coward (2007)
    • The Long Fall (2009), Known to Evil (2011), When the Thrill is Gone (2011), by Walter Mosley
    • The Lowland (2014), By Jhumpa Lahiri
    • The Marriage Plot (2011), by Jeffrey Eugenides
    • The Mars Room (2018), by Rachel Kushner
    • The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (2011), By Evgeny Morozov
    • The Physics of the Future (2011), By Michio Kaku
    • The Pregnant Widow (2010), By Martin Amis
    • The Rest Is Noise: Listening To The Twentieth Century (2007), by Alex Ross
    • The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies (2014), by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
    • The Shallows (2010), By Nicholas Carr
    • The Society of Mind (1988), by Marvin Minsky
    • The Sympathizer (2015), By Viet Thanh Nguyen
    • The Whites (2015), By Richard Price (Writing as Harry Brandt)
    • This Time is Different (2009), by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff; The Sellout (2009), by Charles Gasparino
    • Three Disappointments
    • Ulysses (1922), Finnegan’s Wake (1939), by James Joyce
    • Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner (2013)
    • Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom
    • Vigilante (2011), by Stephen J. Cannell
    • War and Decision (2009), by Douglas Feith
    • Zero K (2016), By Don DeLillo
  • MOVIES
    • 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
    • 8mm (1999)
    • 99 Homes (2015)
    • A Matter of Life and Death (1946); The Big Country (1958); Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951); St. Ives (1976); Silver Streak (1976); The Bad and the Beautiful (1952); The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962)
    • American Sniper (2014)
    • Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
    • Barry Lyndon (1975)
    • Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
    • Bernard and Doris (2006)
    • Beyond the Gates (2005)
    • Birdman (2014)
    • Black Swan (2010)
    • Blue Jasmine (2013)
    • Boyhood (2014)
    • Bullitt (1968)
    • Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)
    • Capote (2005)
    • Chasing Madoff (2011)
    • Chinatown (1974), Erin Brockovich (2001)
    • Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
    • Contagion (2011)
    • Crazy Heart (2009)
    • Dead Poets Society (1989)
    • Deja Vu (2006), Premonition (2007)
    • Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
    • Dinner Rush (2000)
    • Don’t Look Up (2021); Leave the World Behind (2023): Two Apocalyptic Movies
    • Doubt (2008)
    • Dr. Strangelove (1964) — Fiftieth Anniversary
    • Elegy (2008); The Dying Animal, by Philip Roth (2001)
    • Force of Arms (1951)
    • Frantic (1988), Anna Kirenina (1935)
    • From Here To Eternity (1953)
    • Frost/Nixon (2008)
    • Gone Girl (2014)
    • Grand Piano (2013)
    • Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
    • Hell or High Water (2016)
    • Hitchcock (2012)
    • Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)
    • Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)
    • I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)
    • IL Generale Della Rovere (1959)
    • Ironman (2009)
    • Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
    • Lady Bird (2017)
    • Lincoln (2012)
    • Loving (2016)
    • Mao’s Last Dancer (2009)
    • Margin Call (2011)
    • Meryl Streep
    • Midnight in Paris (2010)
    • Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)
    • Molly’s Game (2017)
    • Mrs. Miniver (1942)
    • Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005)
    • Night Crawlers (2014), Fury (2014), Before I Go to Sleep (2014)
    • No Country for Old Men (2007)
    • Nocturnal Animals (2016)
    • Nomadland (2020); Breaking Bad (2007-2013); Into the Wild (2007): Three Variations on Whitman’s “Open Road”
    • Phantom Thread (2017)
    • Philip D’Antoni’s Trilogy
    • Rhapsody in Blue (1945)
    • Ripley’s Game (2002)
    • Shane (1953)
    • Shattered Glass (2003)
    • Splendor in the Grass (1961)
    • Spotlight (2015)
    • The Bicycle Thief (1948)
    • The Big Short (2015)
    • The Children Act (2017), by Ian McEwan
    • The Day of the Jackal (1973)
    • The Debt (2011)
    • The Descendants (2011)
    • The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
    • The Great Gatsby (2013)
    • The Hospital (1971)
    • The Hustler (1961); The Queen’s Gambit (2020): Two Films About Prodigies From Novels By Walter Tevis
    • The Ipcress File (1965)
    • The Iron Lady (2011)
    • The Judge (2014), Kill the Messenger (2014), The Equalizer (2014), The Hundred Foot Journey (2014)
    • The King’s Speech (2010)
    • The Kite Runner (2007)
    • The Lady Eve (1941)
    • The Last Picture Show (1971)
    • The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)
    • The Lives of Others (2006)
    • The Long Arm aka The Third Key (1956)
    • The Man in the High Castle (2015)
    • The Man Who Knew Infinity (2016)
    • The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
    • The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)
    • The Paradine Case (1947); Get Carter (1971)
    • The Queen (2006)
    • The Reader (2008)
    • The Shape of Water (2017)
    • The Snow Girl (2023)
    • The Theory of Everything (2014)
    • The Tree of Life (2011)
    • The Wife (2017)
    • Three Rules for Assessing Movies; Life Itself (2014)
    • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
    • To Catch a Thief (1955)
    • Top Hat (1935)
    • Trumbo (2015), The Martian (2015), Secret In Their Eyes (2015)
    • Up in the Air (2009)
    • Valkyrie (2008)
    • Vertigo (1958)
    • Vice (2018)
    • Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
    • Zero Dark Thirty (2012), The Hurt Locker (2008)
  • OTHER CULTURE
    • Albert Clarkson, Featured Barnes & Noble Author in Other Science Fiction Categories
    • Barnstormers (2016)
    • Bill Evans: “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”
    • Bill Evans: Solo Piano Version Of The Music Theme From The Bad And The Beautiful (1977)
    • Christmas with Dexter Gordon
    • Clarkson’s Favorite 19th-21st Century Novels
    • Clarkson’s Top Movies; Top Television Shows; Top Movie Scores
    • Clarkson’s Top-Rated Books, 2000-2018
    • How to Open a Movie
    • KVMH Classics Station
    • Lou Levy
    • Rafael Nadal: Blameless Disruptor of Tennis
    • Ray Bowers’s Remembrance Of Tennis Pros In Olden Days
    • Sanjay Gupta
    • Tennis Colorists’ Psyward (2010)
    • Tennis From the Archives
    • The Rockford Files (1974-80)
    • The Short Happy Life of Eliot Spitzer as TV News Journalist
    • Upstairs Downstairs (1971), The Remains of the Day (1993)

Grand Piano (2013)

One of the worst movies ever made. Worth watching for a while for a few guffaws. May define the lower limits of moviemaking.

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