Friday, July 23, 2010

Day #21,764

Walk km 5110-5112: to T&T Supermarket
Walk km 5112-5118: 29th/Imperial/Discovery/8th/Courtenay/10th/Alma

a road through the bush
aprox km 5115 Imperial Drive

Movie #1332 (#153 this year): The Firebird (1934, William Dieterle)

For God's sake, keep your children away from this music!

It seemed unlikely but the title does reference the Igor Stravinsky composition.
It's a whodunit with a strange ending. An 18 year old girl is kept from the real world by her parents. At her 18th birthday her mother objects to two gifts. She burns a book by Tolstoy and refused to allow the daughter to listen to "The Firebird". Her explanation: a young lady should only listen to classical music!
Naturally, the daughter finds this situation intolerable and so she has an affair with a man in another apartment of her apartment building. And then she kills the guy. All the time, the parents are being accused of causing all this by being over protective. Until the end! Then it's not their fault, it's these modern youths. What will they do next! It appears the ending was tacked on. Since this was released in 1934, did the start of the Hay's Code, cause the ending to be re-shot? I must check IMDB to see if I can find the answer there.

Book #301 (#25 this year): Dog Eats Dog (2006, Iain Levison)

This is the 2nd Levison book I've read and they're both excellent crime dramas with oddball characters who get themselves into a pickle (think Westlake).
Prime example here is Elias, a college professor, who decides to murder someone with the gun he found. He goes to the gun shop to buy bullets. He gets charged $18 for the bullets and all of a sudden murder is no longer top priority. Forget the murder, I'm sure this guy is overcharging me! I'll check the true price on eBay when I get home.
Update: Reviewer says this compares to E Leonard. That's right. This would be more Leonard than Westlake.

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