all style and no substance
927474
it's sad that so many students seem to be attracted to "Essentials of International Relations" due to its prose and organization, because its substance is pitiful.  I had the displeasure of serving as a Teaching Assistant for a freshman-level course that used this text and could not believe the number of inaccuracies, misleading statements, contradictions, and outright flaws.

for example, Dr. Mingst properly uses the definitions of "deterrence" and "compellence" from Tom Schelling, the recent Nobel Laureate.  But then she proceeds to get compellence exactly wrong when she claims that "compellence ends once the use of force begins."  Apparently she didn't read (or understand) the chapters in which Schelling shows how war is mainly the use of force in order to compel an adversary.  She talks about decisionmaking is affected at the individual level by "mirror images" -- absolutely.  But then she "explains" the concept exactly wrong as the "tendency of individuals and groups to see in one's opponent the opposite of characteristics seen in oneself."  Rather, mirror imaging refers to the tendency of understanding the actions of others by assuming that others must have the same characteristics as oneself -- "he/she must be doing action X for reason Y because only reason Y would cause me to do action X"

in other words, I had three types of students -- (1) the ones who didn't read it; (2) the smart ones who read it, understood its flaws, and sought clarifications; and (3) the not-so-smart ones who read it, and took its flaws as truth.  In the end, I felt sorry for all three groups, but most so for the last.  It is a waste of money, a waste of time, and a waste of Norton's opportunity to provide a clear and credible IR text.
3903478
I've never written a negative review before, but keep looking if you're trying to find a book on the "soul".  The writer meanders aimlessly through the book, almost like a very long free-association about anything and everything... yet, ironically about nothing substantive at all.  It's full of generalities and countless shallow ideas-- like the basic analogy that runs through the work: the acorn theory of calling, fate, and character.  (Yawn.)  Other words that come to mind to describe this: inane, trite, boring, obvious.  And the extensive peppering of references to the great minds of philosophy and psychology (etc.) doesn't raise the level of the work.  Did you ever have a college professor that could drone for an entire hour and say virtually nothing?  That's what we have here in written form.  Finally, the style is awkward.  An example: "The contrary direction to narrowing nature to brain simplistics is expanding nurture to a far more embracing notion of environment.  If environment means literally what's around, it must also mean whatever is around."  (What?!)  Get ready for almost 300 pages of that.
3935845
As a fan of Blonde Redhead's work for quite some time, I bought this as soon as I had money to do so. I was so excited to hear this record. I loved their old stuff, I loved Misery...even with how different it was from the old stuff. It was just so beautifully done, I didn't care. 23, on the other hand, is just plain bad. The music definitely picks up where Misery left off, but it's really boring. The vocals are equally boring. There is no intensity at all to this. Not to mention that there is no artwork really to speak of. The red wrap around banner is pretentious to say the least. Open it up and there's....nothing. No lyrics, no liner notes, nothing to really draw people to actually purchase this, as opposed to downloading it. Then again, the music doesn't really do that, either.
436736
The two stars I'm giving this slim, little volume of black and white prints doesn't necessarily mean that it's all bad. It does mean that I tried to see beyond my own tastes to find some redeeming qualities in it but couldn't. These photos are of men who with a single exception are just not that interesting to look at from any perspective I can come up with. Other than one muscular, dark-eyed, virile looking guy with dense shoulder-length braids who reminded me of a young lion and his mane, the dudes here come across to me as uninteresting sissies striking poses  la Madonna's old vid "Vogue."

Leaving aside the inevitable cries of "internalized homophobic" et. al. such a statement always elicits, I'm the first to ask if this is just a matter of taste and preferences, and to answer that to some extent it is. Yet I think it goes beyond that. Even Marcello Maia's photos of the "young loin" that adorns the cover of this collection, and whose hard, beautiful torso busting with masculine energy on display on some of the inside pages  can't in my judgment be described as much more than just another pretty face and sexy body. I don't get any qualities -- historical, imaginative or even the reactionary and racist but oh, so sexy "Orientalist" objectification on display in Brian Brennen's 2007 collection from the Latino Fan Club Studio from this collection. Pics of some skinny posing sissies and one sexy guy is all I see. A limitation of my imagination and frames of reference? Perhaps, but I'd advise anyone else to save his money.
4917047
The last year has found me fascinated by the New York of the 60's and 70's. I have read a number of novels and memoirs of this
era and found once again that it is easy to get caught up in an era I was born too late to experience first hand.
After I read this book, in 2 sittings, I found myself wondering how on earth anyone could make this era of history sound
so utterly boring and dry.

I am not surprised, actually. I have read a number of White's books and have always found them sterile and emotionless.
More than anything, I find his writing to remind me of the worst kind of journalism. There is no investment in the material.
Why did he love the men in this book? I have no idea. Why were these people his friends? No clue. With one or two exceptions,
I found every recounting of his memories to be distant, removed and told with an odd formality. There is plenty of energy
expended here to weave arcane literary references into the stories and descriptions. I was frequently reminded of his
knowledge of French and Italian by the dropping of phrases he gleaned from his experiences abroad. Sadly, such efforts just
cluttered the loose narrative and served only to remind me that the man has read a lot and traveled extensively. So what?
It is the least interesting thing about him. Where he has been and what he has read is incidental. After reading this
book, I have no lasting impressions about what it felt like to be in one of the most exciting places on earth during one
of the most fertile artistic and cultural times in recent history.

There is no soul in this book. No guts. No heart. I think it has finally broken me of reading his books.

I was far more moved and educated by Patti Smith's recounting of the era, Just Kids. I felt like I had devoured a gourmet
feast after I read it. City Boy made me feel like I had stared at a grainy photo of food in a long ago discarded magazine.
2849165
I can't believe any true fan from the 80's would give this doorstop anything more than 3 stars. The only passable song I hear on here is "Immovable Force". I had to grab the booklet and check to see if Perkins and Navarro were still in the band. These rhythms are so straightforward that any radio band can pull this off. Perkins drumming is the most 'in the pocket' I've ever heard him - and that's NOT good. No experimentation, no polyrhythms, no Jane's. This just plays as any other cd you've heard that could be filler for any moment on the radio. The last song is the most rockin' but that is just an underwhelming end to a mediocre cd. Barely any guitar solos. I know lots of bands build and come up w/ song ideas in the studio but this sounds like no rehearsal time was given or much thought going into the song structure. Average music from a stellar band. And, please don't get me started on the album cover artwork. I know that Perry likes to build his sculptures but someone should have told him that this sucks! I burst out laughing in the store when I saw it. The album art reflects what you get inside. The Perry Farrell show instead of Jane's Addiction. This is one instance when you DO want to judge a book (or CD) by its cover!
1760794
It's a good thing this band has a strong back catalogue, because otherwise this album would be invisible in the mountain of similar generic, unremarkable electronic music made by newbies. I'm sorry, but this is just not good Combichrist. Many of the songs are slow, plodding messes without any hooks or contagious sounds. Not interesting, not powerful, not threatening, just as bland as sonic hands-full of dough. Andy has an awful singing voice--it's weak, it's very much out of tune, and yet he tries and tries to sing on so many tracks! Andy's voice is made for industrial-strength shouting, like in "Sent to Destroy" and "All Pain is Gone"--THOSE are killer songs. Andy's sounding more tired here.

There are a few stabs of harder songs, but they're not actually very interesting. F---machine is an un-creative as they come: heap misogyny and abuse on a woman, tell her she deserves it--that's the whole song. It's crap. It's trite. It's not rebellious, it's typical woman-hating sexism without even the benefit of any interesting music (just a bunch of loops piled on top of each other to accompany Andy's rather wretched and SERIOUSLY disappointing sexism). Hey Andy: abusing women isn't edgy. It's not creative. It's not sexy. It's not fun. It's not even shocking. It makes you seem like a tool. It's just dull.

So there it is--the album I've awaited more eagerly than any other this year, and it's dull. Sure, some Combichrist fans will suck up to it, telling Andy another thousand times how awesome he is, but come on...they know. They *know* this album is weak. The songs are sludgy and so generic that only a couple are even conspicuous. They *know* Andy's singing voice stinks (but apparently nobody was brave enough to tell him that). This sounds like a gazillion other electro-industrial bands you've never heard of because they weren't noticeable, now forgotten in random COP and Cleopatra catalogues of 1994.
1378034
Wow, where do I begin. Besides not one song standing out, the project as a whole has a sleek but lifeless feel to it. Where are those signature hooks? One song had the sound Aerosmith while another was patently Queen in nature. This is not the Def I've grown up with. I don't fully expect them to put out a formula album, but guys you use to do something well. This is not it.

Snooze.
2970127
I awaited this with great anticipation, and to say I was disappointed is quite the understatement. In an attempt to support the whole futuristic theme, track after track is laden with seemingly endless electronic robotic noises - making every song sound exactly the same. The whole concept album thing is not revolutionary in the least, and the fact that every song hacks on the government isn't neat or cool or clever or demonstrative of any type of deep thinking. It's riding what the band thinks will be a profitable wave like many, many others before them. How about something positive? Of course not, positive things don't sell. How about at least something original with even a small degree of genuine musicality?
1522724
Wow, did this miss the mark. You can get the basic storyline for this film from the Amazon review. Sounds intriguing, right? Well, the filmmaker desperately wanted to make a different kind of movie, and the desperation shows. This film tries so damn hard to be full of "interesting characters" that everything comes off like a student film. This is most obvious in the flashback storyteller, an old woman named Angela, who we are supposed to think of as cool and vaguely hip because she can talk trash with the black kid that breaks into her house. Good Christ, this was a bad movie. Obvious and superficial. The director's so-called "homage" to various film genres are just simply poor rip offs. Sort of like the rappers talking tonelessly over former hits. I guess if you have no talent, an "homage" is as close as you're going to come.
2528386
Style is not a substitute for lack of story. At the mid-way point of the book it goes completely down hill and becomes unbelievable.
250235
This movie did not deliver. It was more about style and intentionally shocking scenes than content. The characters were one dimensional and the whole entire plot was predictable. We never learned much about the main character except that she is pretty, and she knows it. Many of the scenes were way too slow, and didn't add anything to the story. I guess if they cut this down to a twenty minute short film, and leave out the unnecessary shots, it would have a chance.
3044294
My subject line pretty much says it. There's nothing here. No spirit, no characterization, no plot, no beauty. Too bad.
326179
There's a very short list of albums that I just don't "get", albums whose hype I just have never been able to understand and the overall message just unheard. From what I have been reading since I knew it existed, that would never apply to Big Star's "Radio City": this was supposed to be a record of uncontrollable pop anthems, catchy-as-all-hell melodies, vocal hooks all over the placein other words, everything I normally can't live without. I suppose those things are evident here, but on my first-ever flirtation with this supposedly-classic album, I just cannot figure out what all the hype is about. At its best, it seems like a missed opportunity smothered in mundane production; at its worst, this album annoys me to tears.

Played at a low volume, "Radio City" delights from a distance because of the way it sounds: it brings to mind a lazy afternoon band practice, or a frat party, if that's your type of thing. But if you turn it up and try and engage it, it's paper-thin. The guitar sounds distracted and off, bright and face-forward in the mix but doing very little. The vocal harmonies (such as on "You Get What You Deserve") are an afterthought, sounding more like something that was added to only deepen the cheerless sound. The drums are serviceable but indifferent.  And although the songs are lightweight pop and unobtrusive, better production could have made them ascendant. If there was ever a record that needed a real producer, this was it. I can only imagine what someone with a little vision would have done to these songs (Todd Rundgren comes to mind), but here they just fall completely flat. That's actually a good word to describe how I feel about this album: flat and unexciting as the vinyl it's on.

I suppose there are some who enjoy a spare mix, but I expected to be grabbed by the collar and the overall feeling is of disinterested boredom. A thousand bands play(ed) songs like "Mod Lang" and "I'm In Love With a Girl", but for some reason this particular album is canonized? "O My Soul" is endlessly boring to the point of annoyance, it literally never wants to end.  In the hands of someone with talent, "September Gurls" could have been a real burner; instead, it's just fodder for discussion among middle-aged dudes in ponytails and sandals who work in vinyl record shops who like debating things like "the tonal capabilities of Gibson Falcon amps". I just don't get it.

To demonstrate how desperately I tried to get into this album, I even got the 33 1/3 book about it. I think I'm about halfway through and I've been playing this album incessantly, and I guess I'm "supposed to" like the music but it sounds more like a demo for a great album which never was.  Maybe that's why think it's not that great: I'm a sucker for the sales pitch.
2584104
No substance,  just the same old thing, don't waste your time. Honestly this movie was certified fresh by rotten tomatoes and I am kind of at a loss for words. Whoever these reviewers are need to do some serious soul searching.
1950773
If only as much effort and thought had gone into the writing of this book as into the design, Ugly Town might really have had something. The covers and illustrations, the intro pages- heck, even the size and weight- are darn near perfect in exactly the retro way they intended. But the writers have a background which includes scripting comics for Dark Horse, and that's how this reads.
It's a meatless tribute to all things hard-boiled, featuring prose written in a spare (much too spare) style. Descriptions are sorely lacking, and the dialogue, while it talks "tough," is un-creative.
There is really only a couple of instances of good dialogue. Here is one: "There's nothing like a mourning widow. And [she] was nothing like a mourning widow. More like a morning window, and I could see right through her." Not classic stuff, but if the rest had at least attempted this style the book could have attained a kind of punny vitality. But no. It doesn't attempt real spoofery, and it certainly is not authentic.
It's like boys playing in sandbox much too vast for them. Descriptions of drinks and cigars give the impression that the authors just wanted to feel naughty, while a scene where the hero talks his way out of being killed by a thug is especially contrived, obvious and amateurish. Other aspects detract as well, but suffice it to say, Red Harvest this is not.
I really can't see true pulp fans being fooled by this, but give it a try... after you've read Chandler and Hammett and James Cain and Paul Cain and Whitfield and Burnett and Daly and Browne and Brown and Huggins and Brackett and Cave and Whittington and Fischer and Ballard and Bellem and Latimer and Martin and MacDonald and Gault and Spicer and Miller and Dewey and Woolrich and Nebel and Gardner and Adams and Davis and Spillane and Kane and Chase and Albert and Halliday and... you see?
There are much better out there. Lots of 'em. Then check back with the authors of this book after they've gotten some practice. Maybe they should check the above list, too.
462179
The dialog of this film is hormonal, temperamental, skittish, erratic, and most of the time nonsensical. The Girls Room is written by a female and this may explain these things. The blocky, clunky, scene fade in and fade outs is very aggravating and amature. Low budget film with trendy wardrobe attire and artsy lighting for it's generation now in current times outdated but yet nostalgic. Soleil is the lead actor for which the story devolves around, no reason does the viewer get to be drawn to her character unless you are attracted to her physically and in that she has never looked better than in this film. She plays a floosie, a vapid, self indulged, i can do no wrong while everything and everyone else around me is always wrong. She is a foul-mouthed, sex-crazed, college student with no purpose than to just exist and get high. This seems all fine and dandy until there are no real sex scenes to speak of. A lot of sex talk and sex overtones is all we get here. This character is very confused as is the plot and meaning of this entire film. A try to be art house film which is not arty enough. A try to be deep-introspective, intellectual film, which is not near intellectual just a pseudo hipster english class of jumbled thesaurus phrases like a spoken word coffee house poetry jam for an hour and a half that is painful to endure to its end. I say avoid this over-inflated, big ego, big headed, flat film, unless you are absolutely hellbound to see Soleil look very attractive but very very fully dressed for the entire film. Moody and melancholy, with no depth or plot. As one amazon review here is quoted "not a chic flick" B.S.> MY FRIENDS THIS IS A TOTAL CHIC FLICK AND A BAD ONE. 2 Stars for Soleil looking her all time best and the early 00's generation hipster style's that are a pleasant throwback to a simpler time.