Z/Web

Unusual film from an Asian-American perspective. The main characters are high school seniors, overachievers working hard to get 4.0’s and master extra-curricular activities in order to get into Ivy League colleges. In the process four Asian boys form a club to pull scams, sell cheat-sheets, and eventually get into drug dealing and murder. The plot’s thin — there isn’t as much of a story here as a sequence of events — but what holds it together is the terrific performance and character of the lead, Ben (Perry Shen), who comes across as intelligent yet naive, cool yet completely approachable. His love interest, Stephanie (Karin Anna Cheung) is also excellent, as are the actors who play his crime buddies. But it’s Ben’s moral confusion which fascinates, as he waffles between wanting to be cool and rich, wanting to earn his way on his own merits, and yet tempted by crime that is so easy. The conclusion does not end the way I might have guessed: in fact, it’s left unresolved in some ways, which is an interesting choice. Overall this is a stylish, thoughtful film, reminiscent of teen classics like

Author: Laura Blumenfeld

I received this audio book as a gift: I doubt I would have gotten it on my own, but it’s a fascinating story. It’s a true story, something I didn’t realize until partway through. It’s about an American woman who’s father is almost killed while on a trip to Israel. Years later, the daughter, now a journalist, travels to Israel on a quest for revenge. She wants to seek out the man who tried to kill her father. It sounds like an outrageous idea, especially for a woman (and considering her father wasn’t permanently injured). Laura questions her quest frequently, and in many places the book resembles a journal of her doubts and fears more than a story about revenge. Ultimately, it’s a story about healing as she meets the assassinŐs kind family (they don’t know her true identity) and she begins to communicate with him (she discovers he’s in prison for his crime). Fascinating, even more so considering it’s true, and especially in light with Sept. 11 and the recent freeing of Iraq.