Tag: Donald Trump

Book Review – The Accidental Further Adventures of the 100-Year-Old Man

Recently, I read Jonas Jonasson’s The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared. I really enjoyed the book and laughed out loud a lot. So when I stumbled on a sequel, I naturally had to read it.

Perhaps it is a given that most sequels are bad. I suppose I felt that this would be just as good or close to that when I picked it up. Sadly, I was disappointed. It truly lacked so much of what the first book had.

The first book had many flashbacks to the main characters past experiences, while this book was set almost exclusively in the present. The first book contained some political things, but this book has a lot more of it.

I probably should give you the the Goodreads synopsis here:

It all begins with a hot air balloon trip and three bottles of champagne. Allan and Julius are ready for some spectacular views, but they’re not expecting to land in the sea and be rescued by a North Korean ship, and they could never have imagined that the captain of the ship would be harboring a suitcase full of contraband uranium, on a nuclear weapons mission for Kim Jong-un …

Soon Allan and Julius are at the center of a complex diplomatic crisis involving world figures from the Swedish foreign minister to Angela Merkel and President Trump. Things are about to get very complicated …

I listened to the audio book and the narrator was different from the first book. The fact that he voiced the old man in a very “throaty” voice was a bit annoying to me. His vocal interpretations of anyone in the book from the Koreas was very stereotypical sounding, while his Donald Trump was even more over the top than the real Trump.

I had hoped for a bit more adventure based on the synopsis, and to a degree there was some travel, but there was so much politics that I never really felt that I understood it all. As a matter of fact, when the book was over, I still wondered if that was the conclusion or if I was missing something.

All in all – a disappointing sequel that was best left unwritten. 2 out of 5 stars.

Just my opinion…

Last night on ABC, Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel presented a live broadcast of two original scripts from All In Family and The Jeffersons.

I was working, so I only got to see bits and pieces of the show. I will give credit where it is due, however:

First, it was an all star cast, it almost had to be – look at the great people who were in the original roles! Some seemed to fit perfectly, others, well, not so much. Second, the sets we’re amazing! If I didn’t know, I’d swear they were shot on the actual set from the 70’s! Very well done. Lastly, kudos for doing it live. That takes guts.

Now, here’s my opinion:

I understand Jimmy Kimmel’s personal desire to do this. I also understand Norman Lear’s involvement. My question, however, is – why?

This wasn’t your typical reboot. With those, you either have the old cast reunite for some new episodes (like Rosanne, Will and Grace, and countless others), or you have new episodes with a new cast in a “updated version” of the show (Like the One Day at a Time on Netflix). This special, however, was a new cast in the classic roles doing a word by word rendering of an old script. That’s right – an old show, word for word, the only thing that changed was the cast.

I read an article about the reboot and Sally Struthers, who played Gloria on the original All in the Family, basically trashed the idea! She asked the same question I did – why? She stated that it would not be the same without the original stars. I tend to agree with her. Did we really need this?

Hollywood proves again that they are out of original ideas! It’s bad enough it’s a reboot, it’s also not an original story idea! It’s an old script! Sure, you could replace the Nixon references and make them Trump references and they still work. You can also point out that even though the script is 40+ years old, the story is relatable. That only proves my point of this blog (in my final thought below).

The characters of Archie and Edith and George and Louise will forever be associated with the actors who played them in my mind. (I was impressed with Jamie Foxx and Marissa Tomei’s performances, but they weren’t Sherman Hemsley’s or Jean Stapleton!)

Final Thought

While it was interesting to have these shows back with a new cast, I didn’t really understand the point. It was a word for word production of an old script. You know what? If you are going to do that….I’d rather you just air the original episodes. If they were good enough to copy word for word, then just play the original!

Thoughts?