Each Thursday (or Friday, since some weeks we seem to be running behind on everything), Needcoffee.com's staff of whackos will wrack our brains to give you interesting and new things to do over the weekend. Books, movies, whatever. We'll throw them out, you do with them what you will. And hey...if you have something you want to recommend--whatever it is--drop us a line.
Incidentally, we've provided links where we can for you to buy the stuff or find out more if you're interested, courtesy of those Amazon types. Hey, come on, we can't be totally selfless in this, can we?
February 6, 2003
Book of the Week:
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After reading
The List of Seven and The Six
Messiahs, in which Doyle himself is prominently featured, we decided we needed to go and delve into the source
material. This one-volume collection of all four novels and fifty-six short stories takes a while to delve through,
but is a great reference for anyone who loves Holmes--and worth working through at least once.
Audiobook of the Week:
by J.K. Rowling, read by Jim Dale. If you can’t wait any longer for Book Five to come out, spend a few
hours (well, okay, more like twenty hours spread across seventeen CDs) listening to Book Four to get you even more in
the mood. The talented Dale (you may remember him from Pete’s Dragon--the evil quack doctor who sings the
dragon song) brings the book to life with a very energetic reading. What stands out most especially are his many
distinct voices for all of those umpteen characters. The presentation of the audiobook is magnificent as well--the
cases are beautifully decorated with scenes from the cover art from the book.
Comic Book of the Week: Scars #2 by Warren Ellis &
Jacen Burrows. Ellis is a master of many things. But if you weren't convinced he could muck with your head before, then
you obviously haven't been following this Avatar mini-series. As his afterword to this issue explains, he's striving for
a blend of different types of horror that will, well, horrify. And we're not talking what movies with Wes Craven's name
stuck in front of the title have done to the genre--we're talking the kind of horror that makes you want to wash your
cranium out with a hose. Not necessarily a book you enjoy, per se, but it's compelling and driven.
Graphic Novel of the Week:
by Ron Marz & Jim Cheung. A strange and satisfying mixture of fantasy with sci-fi in which a young man receive
a sigil of power and proceeds to unwittingly screw up his entire world. This accomplished by means of unleashing a tremendous
war--the question becoming whether or not he has the power now to put that particular genie back into its bottle. Nice artwork
and a very interesting story; recommended.
DVD Series of the Week:
from Rhino. The latest three of these, featuring Brubeck, Coltrane and B.B. King...are just sweet. Taken from a show of the same name from the 60s, granted, each disc contains
less than thirty minutes worth of performance by each of the artists--but the performances themselves are so smooth, you
can't resist. There's nothing quite like seeing the Brubeck Quartet in their suits giving out "Take Five" like they could
do it in their sleep. If you love good music, you've got to give these a watch.
DVD of the Week: . Okay, so it's a week early. But let's face it, any fan of Schulz will enjoy the title short (and mayhap the two bonus ones that come on the disc as well). Charlie Brown wants to get something, anything, for Valentine's Day, the poor sap. And then there's Linus and his unrequited love...and Lucy and her unrequited love for Schroeder. I'm sure all the Peanuts gang grew up to expend some serious coin on therapy.
CD of the Week:
by Philip Glass.
This music, at times reflecting desperation, and at times tranquility, has an energy that follows through the whole soundtrack. It will make you want to get off your ass and go out and live your life. As an added bonus, the liner notes have an introduction from Michael Cunningham (the author of the book on which the movie was based), and excerpts from the novel itself.