Book 10: Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey

“For eleven years, I’ve been worked over and abused in ways you can’t imagine by things you don’t want to know about. I’ve killed every kind of vile, black-souled, dead-eyed nightmare that ever made you piss your pj’s and cry for mommy in the middle of the night. I kill monsters and, if I wanted, I could say a word and burn you to powder from the inside out. I can tear any human you ever met to wet rags with my bare hands. Give me one reason why I could possibly need you?”
She looks straight up at me, not blinking. No fear in her eyes. “Because, you might be the Tasmanian Devil and the Angel of Death all rolled into one, but you don’t even know how to get a phone.”
I hate to admit it, but she has a point.

Sandman Slim receives:

Movie 7: Dogtooth

What in the world did I just watch? Κυνόδοντας, the Greek nominee for Best Picture, is a very dark satire. Funny in an uncomfortable way. The "Flashdance" scene is a classic, though.

Dogtooth receives:

Book 9: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Jean-Joseph Sue, the librarian at the Paris School of Medicine, declar[ed] his belief that the heads could hear, smell, see, and think.  He tried to convince his colleagues to undertake an experiment whereby "before the butchery of the victim," a few of the unfortunate's friends would arrange a code of eyelid or jaw movements which the head could use after the execution to indicate whether it was "fully conscious of [its] agony." Sue's colleagues in the medical community dismissed his idea as ghastly and absurd, and the experiment was not carried out.  Nonetheless, the notion of the living head had made its way into the public consciousness and even popular literature.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers receives:

Movie 6: Buried

Ryan Reynolds in a coffin.  As a thriller, excellent, but I wish the writer/director had not tried to add any "messages" (the final "corporations are evil" scene strains all credibility.)  I also think that eliminating the music entirely would have been a better choice to heighten the tension.

Buried receives:

Book 8: Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell

Let me tell you about revenge. Particularly murderous revenge.
It's a bad idea. For one thing, it doesn't last. The reason they tell you revenge is best served cold is not so you'll take the time to get it right, but so you'll spend longer on the fun part, which is the planning and the expectation.
For another thing, even if you get away with it, murdering someone is bad for you. It murders something in yourself, and has all kinds of other consequences you can't possibly foresee. By way of example: eight years after I shot the Virzi brothers, Skinflick completely destroyed my life, and I threw him headfirst out a six-story window.
But on that night in early 1993, all I could feel was the joy.

Beat the Reaper receives:

Movie 5: The Town

Ben Affleck continues to deliver excellent Boston neighborhood-themed films.  I'll look forward to his Revere Beach movie. 
The Town receives:

Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres

"Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should even part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don't blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being "in love", which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident."

-- Corelli's Mandolin

The Fourth Hand by John Irving

...[B]ooks, and sometimes movies, are more personal than that; they can be mutually appreciated, but the specific reasons for loving them cannot satisfactorily be shared.
Good novels and films...are comprised of the whole range of moods you are in when you read them or see them.  You can never exactly imitate someone else's love of a movie or a book...

-- The Fourth Hand

Movie 4: The Last Exorcism

Decent premise, pretty good execution, but the last 15 minutes or so make it all seem silly. Very nice performance by Ashley Bell as the possessed girl.

The Last Exorcism receives:

Book 7: The Rook by Steven James

"....Even after their fish hatch, the male continues to carry the young fish in his mouth, to protect them while they grow."
Oh.
So this wasn't a conversation about fish.
"How does he know when to let the young fish go?" I asked.
She stared at the barricades, then at the jawfish. "When they're big enough to make it on their own, then he lets them swim away. I think sometimes they probably go where they're not supposed to, but he trusts them, even though they're not perfect."
I felt my throat squeeze. "Do the young fish come back?"
"Maybe," she said. "If the dad makes them feel safe."

The Rook receives:

Book 6: The Breach by Patrick Lee

A sound broke the moment. Rotors. This was it, then. Two minutes from now, he and Paige would be dragged from the building, onto the aircraft, and then they'd be winding through the valleys at low level, probably on nobody's radar. Maybe these people would have drugs and instruments to keep Paige alive for a while, and wake her up for a new marathon of agony.
Unless he killed her first.

The Breach receives:

Movie 3: 9th Company

9th Company is a 2005 Russian movie about the war against the Mujahideen in Afghanistan told from the point of view of one group of soldiers and is based on actual accounts. Reminiscent of Full Metal Jacket and Platoon, the movie follows the men from their basic training to their assignment: maintaining control of "Hill 3234." Gritty and unsparing.

9th Company receives:

Movie 2: Benny's Video

An early film from director Michael Haneke, better known for the recent The White Ribbon, Cache, and Funny Games. It's about a boy and his camera, and his desire to capture acts of violence and death.


Benny's Video receives:

Book 5: I Found This Funny edited by Judd Apatow

"....Keep up the pace or it'll take too long."
More prophetic words were never spoken.
I looked down at the list of player names.
It's here that I need to give you a small factoid about the metro Detroit area.  Detroit has one of the largest Polish communities in the country.  And a lot of Polish Americans went to my school.  And the minute I looked at that list, I realized that every Polish kid in our school was on the football team.  Sitting on the counter before me was an endless list of names, none of which were less than ten letters long and all with a definite shortage of vowels.  These were names that looked more like "words" a toddler with a bucket of plastic consonants would construct than the proud family monikers of onetime immigrants who fought and struggled to come to our country.  Names like Krymnikowski and Pfekotovsky stared out at me like a street map of Warsaw.  Before I could even consult with my mustachioed cohorts, the band hit its warbly fanfare and three guys kicked my chair.
 "You're on!"

          --from "And Now a Word from the Booth..." by Paul Feig
I Found This Funny receives:

Book 4: The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

Godzilla rises late the next morning, hung over. He remembers the dream. He calls in to work sick. Sleeps off most of the day. That evening, he reads about himself in the papers. He really did some damage. Smoked a large part of the city. There's a very clear picture of him biting the head off of a woman.

          --from the story "Godzilla's Twelve-Step Program"
The Best of Joe R. Lansdale receives: