The Cloistered Vandal

The Thick Red Lines

Posted on August 4th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus

Book title: The Thin Red Line

Author: James Jones

Film director: Terrence Malick

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Joel's Coffee Shop, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 9/24/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: He camouflages himself in bold, bright colors. He hides in plain sight, taunting those who hunt him with an insolent wave and an unadorned expression of bemused indignation. He despises the civilization in which he longs to submerge himself, yearning to disappear into anonymity while hoping against all hope that someone will care enough to work harder at finding him than he will at concealment. He wages his own personal war against society, against the paradox that is life, and against his own mind and soul.

The Lucky One

Posted on July 27th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Taylor Schilling, Zac Efron, Nicholas Sparks

Book title: The Lucky One

Author: Nicholas Sparks

Film director: Scott Hicks

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Cupprimo, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 11/12/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: We have not read this book. We have not seen this film. We have eaten this cereal, and we approve. Of the marshmallows, at least. And of Alison Krauss.

Dances with Stars

Posted on June 25th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Kevin Costner

Book title: Dances with Wolves

Author: Michael Blake

Film director: Kevin Costner

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Cianfrani Coffee Company, Georgetown, TX

Bookdrop date: 7/6/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: We suppose Kevin Costner earned enough money over the course of his career to avoid reality television purgatory in his later years. We have not watched any "reality" programs since the seventh season of American Idol, but we would break our fast to see Lieutenant Dunbar/Eliot Ness dance a Tango dressed in sequins.

Toy Gump

Posted on June 18th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Tom Hanks

Book title: Forrest Gump

Author: Winston Groom

Film director: Robert Zemeckis

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Cherrywood Coffeehouse, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 7/9/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: There is an old one-act play performed by high schools all over The United States titled The Actor's Nightmare by Christopher Durang. The protagonist in this play is an actor who finds himself in a play he is unfamiliar with, which shifts to another play he is unfamiliar with, and so on until he dies. This, apparently, is a common nightmare among actors. However, an actor might also awake with a jolt on a moonless night, sweating and trembling with the simultaneously lucid and hazy memory of finding himself on the cover of a non-performance-based work of art, menaced by the phantasm of a fictional character who also does not appear in the book. Both seem equally terrifying.

The Descenders

Posted on May 28th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, George Clooney

Book title: The Descendants

Author: Kaui Hart Hemmings

Film director: Alexander Payne

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Summermoon Coffee, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 5/31/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: We like to think that George Clooney, beyond being a handsome-beyond-belief, extravagantly-and-multi-talented, legendarily charming A-list-leading-man and Cary-Grant-successor, is also an obsessive typography geek.

Hannibal the Great and Powerful

Posted on May 10th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Anthony Hopkins, Edward Norton

Book title: Red Dragon

Author: Thomas Harris

Film director: Brett Ratner

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Joel's Coffee Shop, Austin, Tx

Bookdrop date: 5/18/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: The link for the non-horrible cover shows the cover of the first edition, and it is one of the few covers of this book that does not contain some version of the phrase "by the author of The Silence of the Lambs" or (and in this case, and) the borderline-nonsensical "Meet Hannibal Lecter for the first time." Making Anthony Hopkins look like the Wizard proved more difficult than we anticipated, but we get a strange and disturbing pleasure from seeing Edward Norton in a Dorothy dress.

Apollo Thirt... uh...

Posted on April 2nd, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Tom Hanks

Book title: Lost Moon

Author: Jim Lovell & Jeffrey Kluger

Film director: Ron Howard

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: StoutHaus Coffee Pub

Bookdrop date: 4/7/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible cover

Note: We ask the reader to note that the title of the book is Lost Moon, not Apollo 13. And while we appreciate the publisher's effort to make this clear in the fine print, we are bewildered as to why the screenwriters get equal billing with the astronaut author and his writing partner on the book cover. Also, please note that according to Jim Lovell, when things went haywire on the Apollo 13 mission, Jack Swigert said, "Houston, we've had a problem here." We understand giving the line to Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell, and massaging the wording for enhanced quotability, but we heartily disapprove of putting the wrong quote on the cover of the book, and of visually juxtaposing it with the wrong "astronaut."

The Aliens of the Day

Posted on March 29th, 2015

Filed under: Bracatus, Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson

Book title: The Remains of the Day

Author: Kazuo Ishiguro

Film director: James Ivory

Crosspatch Artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Baked 'n Sconed, Hutto, TX

Bookdrop date: 4/3/2015

Reference: Original | Non-horrible co ver (and here)

Note: This is a fine book for those who appreciate the kind of subdued, introspective drama that certainly inspired the creators of Downton Abbey. However, we believe the film would have benefited greatly from the appearance of a xenomorph.

The Crap of the Mohicans

Posted on March 18th, 2015

Filed under: Daniel Day Lewis, Bracatus

Book title: The Last of the Mohicans

Author: James Fenimore Cooper

Film director: Michael Mann

Crosspatch artist: Bracatus

Bookdrop location: Cupprimo, Austin, TX

Bookdrop date: 3/24/15

Reference: Original Cover | Non-Horrible Cover

Note: Daniel Day-Lewis is reputed to be a person of, shall we say, some intensity. We imagine that his intensity grows when he becomes constipated, and therefore frustrated on the toilet. Curious readers may find an essay on Hollywood and TLotM interesting, if they are the type of people who read James Fenimore Cooper in the first place.

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