The English Patient review

 A while ago, I went through every Booker shortlist and noted down books that sounded potentially interesting.  The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje is one of the books I subsequently acquired, though it has been on my shelf for nearly two years.  I finally decided to read it this week, and persevered to the end over four days, despite not getting on very well with it.  My main problem with the book was that I didn't really understand either the plot or the theme.  Parts of it were very difficult to follow, and its fragmented and very loose structure made it confusing.  I'm glad I finished it, though, as the ending did pull things together to a certain extent, and offered something of a conclusion for at least one of the characters.

I just read the synopsis of the film version on Wikipedia, which made some interesting changes to the plot in order to give it more impact.  I had wondered, throughout reading the book, how it could have been made into a film, and what the adapters chose to change certainly make the story more comprehensible, although rather drastically altering a couple of its points.

I have come to the conclusion that I'm not as good at appreciating literature as I would like to think - this book was definitely a bit beyond me, and I find I generally prefer my reading material to be a bit more coherent.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist review

 This film reminded me of American Graffiti (one night in the lives of high school kids contemplating college) and Adventures in Babysitting (people driving around trying to collect a friend from a bus station and encountering unexpected obstacles along the way) - it was short, sweet, fairly random, and reasonably forgettable.  Michael Cera nailed his trademark nice guy performance, his gay friends stole every scene they were in (uh, Scott Pilgrim, anyone? though I guess Cera's character in that wasn't actually all that nice), and there wasn't the slightest suspense as to which girl he would end up with.

A fluffly 90 minutes, but nothing to write home about.