BOOK
DAVID THOMSON: Have You Seen...?
(Knopf)
Just how many list-based books of delectable movie commentary can David Thom­son compile? Well, how many movies are worth seeing? At least this thousand, according to Thomson, an English-born San Franciscan and most famously the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film. This compan­ion piece, self-consciously described as a “gesture toward history,” offers even more of his profoundly learned, personal ruminations on what movies mean to us and why—without illustrations or a rating system, because he simply doesn’t need them. That’s the beauty of it: Thomson proves how far beyond synopsis and verdict the literature of cinema can and should go. His detractors in the field might call him stifling, but they should be glad, for their own sakes, that real fluency has fallen out of fashion in movie criticism. It’s fair to enter this book already overwhelmed by its scope, and you may want to refute some of its pronouncements, but that’s how you know it’s working. Before long, you’ll wonder what you ever did without it.  A+  JONATHAN KIEFER

ALBUM
JOLIE HOLLAND: The Living and the Dead
(Anti-)
When an artist does something really well, audiences tend to want her to keep doing it. But true originals like Jolie Holland have no interest in standing still. On her fourth album, the former San Francisco and current Brooklyn resident trades in her past jazz and country stylings for a clean rock sound inspired by Neil Young and Daniel Johnston. Tracks like “Your Big Hands” recall Lucinda Williams’ tunes in sounding both mournful and exultant, as if misery were easier to escape when sung about really loudly. Lyrically, Holland spins mythlike tales of heavenly choirs and funereal dances, at one point detailing how a woman murders her cheating man, then threatens to off the par­rot that witnessed it (on “Love Henry”). Elsewhere, the Texas-born songbird calls on renowned guitarists M. Ward and Marc Ribot to apply evocative feedback and chugalug riffs to her dust bowl vocals and shiver-inducing whistling, infusing tracks like “Fox in Its Hole” with the spooky charm of ’90s-era Los Lobos. With The Living and the Dead, Holland follows her wander­lust down some fascinating new avenues.  A-  DAN STRACHOTA

BOOK
JOHN ADAMS: Hallelujah Junction
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Berkeley composer John Adams, 61, begins his mem­oir with a nice portrait of his bohemian family heritage in New England. I’m afraid it’s a little flat. Acclaimed for his orchestral works (Harmonielehre) and operas (Doctor Atomic), Adams should have begun with his revelation at age 29, while driving through the Sierras and listening to Wagner: “an ear-opening experience that reminded me in vivid terms of the power of tonal harmony.” That would have announced his originality—his break with reigning minimalists Steve Reich and Philip Glass to achieve “something less predictable, capable of evoking multiple layers of atmosphere and activity”—and given a compelling inner drive to his

narrative. Adams is a pungent guide to his many literary and musical influences, and he displays humor and wisdom in responding to the pounding that his “politically correct” works, particularly The Death of Klinghoffer, have taken. But much as I appreciated his hugely learned insights into contemporary music, I wanted more of the fearless Dionysian artist and less of the careful Apollonian chronicler. In other words, I wanted Hallelujah Junction to be more like Adams’ music.  B  KEVIN BERGER

FILM
Soldiers of Conscience
(Oct. 16, 10 p.m., KQED)
The latest documentary from the Berkeley-based producing-directing (and wife-husband) team of Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg has a deceptively straightforward premise: “This film is about killing in war,” we learn early on from Marin dweller Peter Coyote’s narration, “and about some U.S. soldiers who have chosen not to.” As its title suggests, Soldiers of Conscience grapples with an apparent moral contradiction. It asks the questions that we have presumed are forbidden by decency, and it tests a counterintuitive hypothesis that the call of military duty need not be dehumanizing by default. This involves chillingly inti­mate recollections from a handful of conscientious objectors, each astonishingly articulate, and from veterans who have taken lives without hesitation—and will again, if required. It’s a modest, unpretentious film, and more affecting for it. Conveying not just the grimly harrowing circumstances of modern combat but also a real sense of the bright, mature, and morally serious minds that terrible crucible has forged, Soldiers of Conscience amounts to a timely cross-examination of the human killer instinct.  A-  JONATHAN KIEFER

BOOK
DIANE JOHNSON: Lulu in Marrakech
(Dutton)
Pulitzer-nominated author Diane Johnson, who divides her time between Paris and San Francisco, has earned an international reputation for nuanced, biting portrayals of the cultural differences between Americans and Europeans. In Le Divorce, Le Mariage, and L’Affaire, she introduced her readers to a series of modern-day Daisy Millers fumbling with French mores and French men. Johnson’s newest novel channels less Henry James and more Graham Greene, as she again directs all of her characters abroad—this time to Africa. Lulu, a thirtysomething Amer­ican intelligence agent, is sent to gather information about extremist groups in Morocco. Her work is complicated by her cover: an affair with the enigmatic Englishman she fell for while stationed in Kosovo. As a spy, Lulu proves less than stellar. She worries more about her boyfriend than her mission, and her analysis of women in Muslim culture is limited to that peculiarly Western obsession with burkas and head cov­erings. But Johnson has a light touch, and she makes us love Lulu despite her cluelessness. With its generous helping of suspense and double-crossing, Lulu in Marrakech is that rarest of pleasures: a thinking person’s beach read.  B+  SHEERLY AVNI