Harold is young and rich, and obsessed with death. Raised by a single domineering mother, Harold enacts many death scenarios which she ignores, no matter how horrifying. He also attends random funerals, which is where he meets 70-something free-spirited Maude.

Maude and Harold quickly become friends, sharing quirky adventures like "setting free" a tree that is planted on a public sidewalk. During this same time, Harold's mother decides he should get married via a national dating service. One of the best scenes is when she decides they should fill out his profile "together" but instead she answers all of the questions herself. Even better is when Harold lights himself on fire whent he first of his dates arrives at the house.

With a great score by Cat Stevens, this is a feel-good movie, even when the chips are down for Harold and Maude.

Robert Langdon, Harvard symbologist, is awakened in the middle of the night in Boston by the leader of a top scientific research facility in Europe. His help is urgently needed in the mysterious death of a researcher. He is flown to the center within hours and thus begtins a manic hunt for the equivalent of a nuclear weapon that is apparently set to blow up Vatican City within 24 hours!

Teamed with the daughter of the murdered researcher, Langdon seeks to decipher the clues that mark a centuries-old pathway to the lair of an ancient anti-Christian brotherhood. They are chased by a man known as The Hassassin the entire way, during a time in Rome when the next Pope will be selected. It is literally a race against time in order to save countless lives as well as the bedrock of Christianity.

As always, Brown has meticulously researched his work. He uses actual existing statues and churches throughout Rome that hide clues to the weapon's whereabouts in a very cryptic matter. He sets up the action early on and keeps the reader interested and on the edge of their seat till the end.

Some of the scenes -- such as descriptive deaths --- are graphic and horrific. But they are necessary and add to the plot.

I did get a bit fed up that, while trying to keep Vatican City from blowing up, Langdon still had time to have a crush on a woman way younger than him. Lines like "Vittoria's almond-scented hair" and "her hot Italian blood" were so contrived and annoying. There is really no need to intersperse a romance in a book as exciting as this-- it detracts rather than enhances.

... unless he is willing to be lucky.

NYC, notes E.B. White, is neither a state capital nor a national capital, but a capital of the world.

Written in June 1948, White captures the essence of new York which does not change, and not the minute details which he acknowledges will change many times over within minutes. "To bring New York down to date", he writes, "a man would have to be published with the speed of light --- and not even Harper's is that quick."

White writes how, more so than the natives and commuters, newcomers to New York is what gives the city her passion. How at any given location, one is near a site where someting that would make front-page news in a small town is a foonote in this teeming city where big things happen every day. How NYC is amazing because it does not have enough air and light yet nevertheless its population increases and survives. How the city is tolerant because the incredible diversity and international community it hosts would be a radioactive powder keg if it didn't. Why else is the United Nations headquartered there?

Perhaps what is most amazing is in 1948, White wrote "The subtlest chang in New York is somthing people don't speak much about but that is in everyone's mind ... a single flight of planes no bigger thana wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions." The city is both the perfect target and the perfect demonstration of nonviolence, he says. This is why it is a capital of the world.

The perspective of a 12-year-old boy in 1970s America is dead-on in this mosaic of his life: parents who fight ad nauseum and throw the word "divorce" around; an older sister with friends he lusts after; an older brother with whom he pals around; and a hodgepodge of good friends in the neighborhood and all the trouble they cause with and for each other.

This is no "Leave It to Beaver" per se --- it's how "the Beav" would have acted in real life without the lame script writers.

Reese Witherspoon takes the best parts of her "Legally Blonde" character Elle Woods and turns her into a veritable steel magnolia. Melanie Carmichael is a young successful designer in New York who has just gotten glamorously and publicly engaged to the mayor's son. She has NO successfully divorced her first husband (about whom her new fiancee has no clue) back in Pigeon's Creek, Alabama. She heads back to her hometown for the first time in 7 years to make him finally sign the papers.

She's not all sweetness and light -- she's human. Sometimes too human as deonstrated in the scene where she gets drunk in a local bar and insults all her childhood friends, proclaiming herself as better than them. It's sad.

This is a cute little movie but not that great. It's typical pablum that is amusing at best. I am frankly sick of all the Southern fried bull that Southerns are so downhome and friendly and Yankees are evil. I can't wait till someone finally does a movie about someone from New York living in the South and deciding to return to THEIR roots because their new life isn't all it's so romatically cracked up to be.

Samantha Stone is 34 and sick of being the one who always messes up, particularly in her implacable mother's eyes. When her childhood friend, one-time boyfriend and lifelong crush Greg reveals to her --- moments after sleeping with her -- that he is in love with a single mother named Debbie, she decides to hire an actor to portray the fake boyfriend she has been telling everyone about. He is Alex Graham, a gorgeous orthodontist who is crazy about her.

The actor Mark Simpson wants total creative control over this character, and turns Alex into a sanctimonious creature whom everyone BUT Sam loves. She wants to break up with both him and Mark -- and often does not know when Mark is "in character" or himself.

The social approbation of having a boyfriend soon wears off, but now she is so deep in the lies that it looks like she has to marry her fake boyfriend.

This is great fun for everyone who knows that they are not the daughter their mother wanted, and tries to make her happy anyway.

Patrick Bateman is a 26-year-old Wall Street hotshot who runs with a crowd of materialistic people just like him. They're always looking for the latest hot restaurant or club to take their spoiled whiny women who are part of their group. Pat likes Courtney, who is dating Luis but cheats on him with Pat.

Beyond this lifestyle, Pat is a raging murderer, unapologetic as he commits random violent executions -- some die fast, others (partiucularly women) die painfully and horrifyingly slow.

Pat drops clues about what he does constantly for he wants his character to be acknowledged. He flat out tells people what he's done and they act like he's said something else (I liked when he said he was in murders and executions and the person to whom he's talksing says "ah, yes -- mergers and acquisitions!") He buys pets to torture and kill them -- the fact that one of his girlfriends does not notice her pet's body is in the freezer for days says more about her than him.

The murder scenes are graphic and hard to take. But there is also the chilling notion that there may well be several American Psychos out there right now. Patrick is very believable and on the surface, very ordinary. You probably know 12 people like him right now (the part that is trendy and successful, that is.) BRRRR!

The third installment of the Austin Powers franchise starts off hilarious with the 2002 filming of Steven Spielberg's "Austinpussy", featuring Tom Cruise as Austin and Gwyneth Paltrow as "Dixie Normous".

It progresses into typical Austin hilarity as Powers blasts back to 1975 to find the criminal Goldmember and runs into his old flame Foxy Cleopatra (a dead-on Beyonce Knowles in her reincarnation of 1970s blaxploitation films) and his estranged father Nigel.

There are a lot os plays-on-words as well as some gross scenes involving Fat Bastard. And a gratuitous unnecessary and annoying scene featuring the Osbourne family as themselves. Oh, the humanity.

But all in all, a very funny movie indeed!

Roseanne Arnold is a very good actreess, when all is said and done. She does well with her portrayal of Ruth, an overweight mustachioed wronged wife who decides to get back at her cheating husband. Bob has just left Ruth for mary Fisher, a thin rich glamorous writer of Ruth's favorite romance novels.

Ruth doesn't want Bob back, she just wants to get back at him. Bob, an accountant, yells at Ruth that she is his only liability, and his assets are his home, family, career and freedom.

Armed with this list, Ruth goes after all of his assets while simultaneously building up her own life and self-esteem.

Fans of the defunct soap opera "Santa Barbara" will enjoy watching A Martinex aka Cruz Castillo as Mary's eschewed boytoy butler Garcia. He does comedy well!

This is such a great book! The protagonist is Karrie Kline, an actress who has not quite made it but gets enough work to be considered a "working actress." Originally from Queens, raised Jewish while passing for a Shiksa, Karrie is single and about to turn 45 when she puts together this anthology of dating that takes her down memory lane --- throughout the decades, in different cities and states, in the personal ads, set up by friends, and back to the present.

Her mother Millie, stepfather Henry, building superintendent Gomez, friends Fred and Jane, and the absence of her father Mel (since age 4) all figure in as Karrie tells us her life. It never borders on maudlin. Stories are funny, not in the over-the-top ha ha slapstick or because of some stupid incidence, but becasue that is how life naturally plays itself out sometimes.

The dates run the range from awful to awesome, one night stands to long-term to possibly "The One". She also ruminates on the lovelife of her mother Millie, and how she manages to move on from her first marriage. The chapters that bring up Mel are particularly good. Especially hilarious is when she is dating Alan, a Jewish boy who does not want a Jewish woman, so she pretends she is Gentile so later she can 'convert' to Judaism for him.

This is amazing writing for what could have been trite subject matter, but instead it's a great read you can't put down.