Going for something a little bit different here, a shift from a post about books to one about movies. Well, one movie in particular.
Over the last few years, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the streaming service Shudder, as I may have mentioned. They have a great mix of older horror movies, exclusives, and original programming. There’s a grey line between “exclusives” and “original programming” with some films getting brief theatrical releases before arriving on Shudder a couple of weeks later or movies making their first appearance on Shudder. This brings me to 825 Forest Road written and directed by Stephen Cognetti.
Cognetti is best known to horror audiences for the Hell House LLC franchise, a series of found footage films that have gained a pretty strong following in the horror community without any theatrical releases. I’ve come to thoroughly enjoy the series of films (even the maligned third entry) so I quite excited when a new Cognetti movie, unconnected to Hell House LLC was announced as a Shudder original/exclusive arriving on the service in April 2025.
825 Forest Road is the story of not just a haunted house, but an entire haunted town. Chuck, Maria, and Chuck’s younger sister Isabelle move into the town of Ashland Falls after the death of Chuck and Isabelle’s mother in a car accident. Isabelle happened to be in the car, so there’s the associated survivor’s guilt. When they move into their house, they learn about a woman who supposedly haunts the town, after killing herself and the townspeople who tortured her daughter.
The movie unfolds in “chapters,” each from the point of view of the three main characters. I thought this was a wonderful storytelling technique and allowed some scenes to be viewed from different perspectives. Each character learns of how the town is haunted, how the town lines are redrawn to the point that the titular 825 Forest Road is not on any maps. People in the town, particularly the “Gardening Club” have sought to keep the curse of Helen Foster at bay…that curse forces people to take their lives if they delve too deeply into the location and origins of 825 Forest Road.
When Chuck and Isabelle realize the Helen Foster’s curse is affecting them, they try to find 825 Forest Road, along their own pathways initially. This leads to the fourth and final chapter that focuses beyond just one character.
The house the three protagonists move into has its own strange quirks and possible hauntings. Odd leaks, odd noises and perhaps the creepiest thing in the whole movie, Maria’s mannequin “Martha” which she uses in her vlog to demonstrate her crafted clothing. If inanimate objects have names in horror films, it isn’t usually a good sign. While the town and house itself have elements of being haunted, there’s a haunted aspect to the mannequin as well. Early in the film, the mannequin mysteriously appears outside the home and none of our protagonists seem to be able to explain why. Of course, Maria blames Isabelle for moving it because there’s a pre-established tension between the two. There are hints that this mannequin has a less than clean history prior to the events depicted in the movie.
One of the most effective elements I’ve come to adore in horror films is when inanimate objects (or objects the characters and viewers thought were inanimate) move of their own accord. Especially if the viewers don’t see them move, when these objects are immediately in another place than they were last seen, or the characters are focused on one thing and we see movement behind them. Cognetti masterfully employed this technique in his Hell House LLC films (compounded by those "objects" in Hell House LLC being clowns), it is the hallmark of one of Doctor Who’s greatest “monsters” the Weeping Angels, and the modern masterpiece from Scott Derrickson & C. Robert Cargil, Sinister. Other elements, like the tension, overwhelming grief that hangs over the entire narrative, and the haunted history of the town come together for a very effective horror film.
While many of the actors aren’t too widely known, they are up to the task and are very effective in their roles. I thought the story was largely well wrought, a couple of holes here and there, but I enjoyed it a great deal.
Cognetti peppers enough lore into the film and ends it in such a way that leaves plenty of room to continue and explore more stories. I’ll be on board, for certain.
October is obviously a great month for Horror and dark stories and this past October, I had a pretty good fill of darkness. The month started with Seanan McGuire’s enormously fun, Boneyard, a weird western/horror novel set in the world of the Dead Lands RPG. I reviewed that for SFFWorld so you can head over there for my full thoughts, but bottom line: engaging, harrowing, and entertaining.
But backtracking a little, September ended and October began with a vampire novel, but not an ordinary vampire novel. The late Octavia Butler’s contribution to the vampire mythos, Fledgling is more science fiction than horror, although there are of course some dark elements to the novel. Butler is never one to shy away from uncomfortable elements in her fiction and making her vampire appear to be a young girl leaves a great deal of room for many uncomfortable scenes. I love her Lilith’s Brood / Xenogenesis series and this one is pretty good, too. I really like her concept for the Vampire and how even the “vampires” themselves are unsure of their own history at times. This was an audio read.
Right about the time I was juggling those two books, I watched You Might be the Killer the movie based on the entertaining twitter conversation between Sam Sykes and Chuck Wendig. The film was at Fantastic Fest in late September and premiered on the SyFy network on the first Saturday in October, which also happened to be the Saturday of New York Comic Con. The movie was a lot of fun and works as sort of a mash up of Scream and Cabin in the Woods. The film stars Fran Kranz (who also starred in Cabin in the Woods, which happened to air just before You Might be the Killer premiered on SyFy) as an out of breath, on the run camp counselor named Sam who calls his friend Chuck, a video store clerk portrayed by Alyson Hannigan. The movie doesn’t waste time with revealing the obvious – that Sam is the killer. From there, it is a fun 90 minutes or so. I’ll be making this a re-watch come every October. The film worked for me on a few different levels, I like horror, I like humor, and I like both Chuck Wendig and Sam Sykes. Beyond that, the film is a fun send up of the Slasher subgenre of horror movies.
I finally started and finished a Clive Barker novel - Damnation Game, his first novel, in fact. The novel was a bit slow, but a very nuanced novel I thought. More subtle, at least in some parts and through some plot movements, than I would have expected from the man who gave us Hellraiser. Simon Vance is a renowned narrator and he did bring a nice level of class to the performance. The story tells the tale of an ancient man who is in debt to an even older creature. This is very much in the vein of the classic Faust tale and mixes in some pretty gruesome imagery.
Another solid page turner for the moth was Sarah Pinborough’s Breeding Ground. This is a horrific post-apocalyptic tale of women randomly giving birth to spider like creatures. Some great character stuff throughout against gorrific imagery. I would have liked a clearer explanation of the how and why of everything, if I’m being honest. Nonetheless, a good page turner.
The Witch is a movie that’s been on my radar since it hit theaters in 2015 and I finally watched it in the middle October. In the early 1600s of New England, a family of 6 (Mother, Father, baby, young twins, and eldest daughter) is banished from their church. They are left to make a home at the edge of a forest that holds dark secrets. Immediately, the baby of the family disappears and because eldest daughter Tomasin is last seen with the baby, she is blamed for the disappearance and even called a witch by the twins of the family. The film is extremely tense, has a wonderful atmosphere which lends such an immersive feel to the film, and leaves much of the terror to build on the raw emotions of the family. It was a fairly slow-moving film, but that pace was a deliberate effect that worked to reward patience. A modern classic, one might say about The Witch.
As the month changes to November, I’m in the middle of the audiobook of Within These Walls by Ania Ahlborn narrated by R.C. Bray. I am thoroughly enjoying this novel which tells the story of a down on his luck true crime writer who is given a golden ticket to interview an infamous mass murderer. Think Charles Manson, except this killer never talks to the press. The catch – protagonist Lucas Graham has to live in the house where the murderer committed his heinous acts. As of this post, I'm about a third to halfway through the book. The novel is filled with negative emotions and anger, but that combination makes for an extremely compelling read especially from the great performance by R.C. Bray.
Cover design by Doogie Horner
The absolute standout Hallowe’en thing for me, and book/novel that is on my top 10 of the year and one of my instant classic favorite horror novels of all time was We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix. In a brief amount of time, Grady’s become a leading voice in the horror genre and although I’ve only read one other novel (the outstanding My Best Friend's Exorcism) by him, it is clear to me he’s a writer with great skill and honesty in his fiction. I also adore his Paperbacks from Hell book, an appreciation of Horror fiction of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s as well as his Great Stephen King Re-Read at Tor.com.
In We Sold Our Souls Grady managed to combine two of my favorite things in the world with this novel: heavy metal music and horror fiction. To that combo, he added a phenomenal protagonist in Kris Pulaski, the lone woman in the band Dürt Würk and our primary P.O.V. character. Kris is at the bottom of her rope despite having a once moderately successful gig as the guitarist for 1980s Metal band Dürt Würk. That all changed when her one-time best friend and lead singer of Dürt Würk Terry Hunt broke away from the band on “Contract Night.” This was a night few can remember, but changed the fate of the band forever. Grady does a masterful job immersing the reader in the heavy metal world and playing with some dark elements like Black Iron Mountain, the driving force behind Terry’s new band Koffin.
Grady takes readers on a cross-country journey that never falters, never takes a guitar solo of a break and is a relentless novel. Highly, highly recommended.
So there you have it, a recap of Hallowe'en fictional adventures for 2018.
Iron Man 3 is turning out to be one of the biggest movies of all time (as of this writing it is #15 all time box office) so what's the point of a review/reaction almost three weeks after the film's release? Well, it's a movie that I loved and really stood with me after leaving the theater and I've got this here blog for a reason, right?
The film continues the story of Tony Stark and his role in the world as Iron Man, picking up after the events of The Avengers as a new global threat, The Mandarin, makes great terrorist threats to United States of America. Tony Stark, outside of the suit, is dealing with business competition from Aldrich Killian, a man with science and business as his tools of power, the founder of the Extremis medical advancement and the company, Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.). Tony is obsessing with making better, more powerful, and versatile suits of armor, armor that is now neurally linked to him and can attach itself to him with voice and mental commands, not sleeping and spending many of his hours in his lab. How he deals with the Mandarin and the Aldrich Killian as both come knocking on his door sets the action for the film. Literally, Killian visits Stark Enterprises and the Mandarin attacks Tony's home after Stark calls him out on live TV - these things are revealed in the trailers so I'm not considering them spoilers.
HOWEVER,WORD OF WARNING IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED –
DO NOT READ THE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY FOR IRON MAN 3
(I'm not even linking directly to it)
The Mandarin, a villain who is the closest thing to an arch enemy Iron Man has, is finally is revealed in this second sequel. Hinted at in the first film, Ben Kingsley takes center stage as The Mandarin, threatening the world through acts of violence and terror. Many (including my wife and I) despite not being long-time fans, couldn’t understand why a British man was being cast as what was known to be an Asian character (especially a character that in initial appearances played up to racial stereotypes). By film’s end, any qualms we had were erased.
Stark’s other antagonist Killian, was played with great gusto by Guy Pearce (a terrific actor who should be in more movies and more importantly better movies than movies about space prisons) as an initially hobbling, scientist who comes across as a Stark fanboy (he actually reminded me of Buddy Pine, aka Syndrome from The Incredibles) when they first met in 1999, years prior to the film series. Killian eventually develops a solution for healing wounded people like himself, Extremis. The ‘side effects’ allow these individuals to have powers beyond those of mortal men, as a side benefit.
Killian’s #2 is a subject of the Extremis Process, Eric Savin, played by James Badge Dale in another great casting choice. I knew Dale from HBO’s The Pacific but it took a few minutes for me to recognize him here. Shaved head, and slightly different posture really helped to change his appearance and allowed disappear into the role.
Another scientist, Maya Hansen, a one-time romantic fling of Tony’s plays a role similar to Pepper Potts, except Hansen’s boss is Killian. Hansen is a brilliant scientist who is almost on the same level as Stark and Killian and provides as something of a balance between the two.
Returning are Paltrow as Pepper, Paul Bettany as JARVIS, and Don Cheadle as James Rhodes, christened the Iron Patriot in the beginning of the film as a result of Stark’s more global involvement with the Avengers.
The superficial elements of the movie, to put it mildly, worked VERY well. I’ll state right now that Iron Man was never a superhero I followed in the comics to a great extent. I read The Avengers here and there, some of Busiek’s Iron Man work and some of Matt Fraction’s Iron Man work, but Iron Man was never a comic on my pull list in the same way that Captain America, The Flash and Batman have been. In short, I don’t have as an emotional attachment to the mythos and characters as long time readers of ol’ Shell head do.
A.I.M. is a long-time supervillain outfit has been pestering many heroes in the Marvel Universe including Iron Man on many occasions. The Extremis storyline (including the characters of Maya Hansen and Killian) comes from one of the most popular and well-received Iron Man storylines of all time by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov.* As stated, The Mandarin is one Iron Man’s most visible and long-standing enemies. Working with these familiar elements and characters from the Iron Man mythos naturally, entails a great deal of baggage and expectations. By playing with the familiar elements and maneuvering them from 50+ years of comic book history into a two hour film, Shane Black and Drew Pearce wove a very strong story that keyed in on those important elements in the hero’s mythology.
For me, the element of the story that came across as perhaps the strength of the movie was the manner in which Shane Black’s script dealt with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD. Tony Stark, after being in a war with gods and aliens and shoving something into a black-hole and nearly dying in The Avengers, not surprisingly has a lot on his mind … and it wasn’t like he was smoothly sailing before the events of The Avengers, having fought off a corporate takeover, a larger version of himself (Iron Monger), a mad Russian with his own technological weapon hell bent on familial revenge.
PTSD is a real thing and something with which many military veterans must cope, or anybody who has suffered through severely anguishing circumstances. Sure Batman’s whole MO is that he is reacting to witnessing his parent’s murder at a very young age, but PTSD is not something discussed in the Batman films (and very much to a lesser extent in the comics). Even *if* some other comic books/superhero tales have dealt with PTSD (and I don’t doubt that it has been done), the fact that it is an integral element in one of the biggest films (i.e. a metric fuck-ton of people have and/or will see the film), is a great thing and smartly plays on the idea of stress and coping. It touches on some of the same things as does the Demon in Bottle storyline but puts a slightly different face on it.
Couple the smart script (maybe one of the smarter superhero scripts, IMHO) with some great action pieces (any time the armor flies around and attaches itself the characters, the final action sequence involving many of the Iron Man suits of armor Tony developed which was hinted in the trailers, Stark doing his best James Bond/Bluto Blutarsky mash up trying to get to the Mandarin) and calling Iron Man 3 anything but a success would be false. Sure the film takes a step back, in terms of scope from at the least The Avengers and maybe even the second Iron Man film, but this film was more intimate and I think more successful because of that. This one also had some solid banter/dialogue between Stark and Rhodes, but the two films prior to this one did too as did Black’s most famous script Lethal Weapon, so that shouldn't be a surprise. Dashes of humor balanced the action really well, too. The script also managed to insert a plucky young 'sidekick/apprentice/helper' for Stark in the middle of the film that wait for it...the kid was not annoying and came across pretty well.
I'll finish the review with this, for me, Iron Man 3 is in the top 5 super hero/comic book movies I've ever seen.
* Quite frankly, Ellis’s fingerprints are all over all three of the Iron Man films so I would like to think the fine folks at Marvel are rewarding him handsomely.
Through ‘found footage,’ Chronicle tells the story of three young men, seniors in high school, who find a strange object and gain telekinetic powers; the ability to move objects with the power of their mind and eventually the ability to fly. Sounds a bit like an origin for a silver age super-hero story doesn’t it? If anything, the film is a response to such stories and embraces wholly the fears people would hold against such super-powered individuals.
One of the young men, Andrew, is awkward, introverted and shy teen who blossoms with the powers he gains. He and his cousin Matt attend a party, or rather, Matt convinces Andrew that he should socialize with his peers and brings Andrew to a party. Andrew’s begun videotaping his day-to-day life, initially in what seems to be an attempt to film his drunken father beating him, but it soon turns to an obsession. Of course Andrew brings the camera with him to the party. Later in the night, Steve Montgomery, the most popular kid in school – jock, class presidential candidate, all around nice guy, beckons Andrew to follow him and Matt down into a mysterious hole emitting a strange noise, near the site of the party. The three boys venture forth and find a giant blue crystal that distorts the camera’s vision, causes the boy’s noses to bleed. The crystal turns red before the camera blacks out.
Andrew’s camera, a new sleeker version, focuses on the boys learning to use their abilities but they briefly mention blacking out and now knowing how they got out of the hole. After a few days of learning more about their abilities, they return to the hole which has been filled and they are soon turned away by police who shoo them away.
The three boys continue learning the strength of their powers with Andrew’s powers growing into the strongest and most daring of the three. The turning moment for the three young men is when Andrew ‘inadvertently’ causes a truck that has been tailgating them to swerve off the road and into a lake. Anybody who has seen commercials for the film has seen this scene.
The three young men argue about the rules governing their powers, with Matt sensing the instability in his cousin. Matt basically invokes Stan Lee’s great saying that “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” though in not so many words. The scene closes then switches to the two cousins who are summoned to what appears to be a rock quarry by a call from Steve, who is floating. The young men learn to fly. More scenes of the young men exploring their powers, including one point when Andrew states his wish to fly to Tibet in order to learn to harness and control his power and for calm and quiet.
The story departs from the typical silver age superhero origin story in that Max Landis’s story depicts the angst of the teenagers realistically. Andrew, in particular, as the abused son of an alcoholic father has a great deal of pent of anger and frustration dealing with his fears of his home life. Andrew is bullied at school, too, so in short, Andrew might be the last person you’d want to give the powers of a god.
When Andrew splits from his two super-powered friends, and by virtue of the shared experience the three young men had when they gained their powers, each of the three can sense when the other is agitated through a nose bleed.
Steve senses problems with Andrew and the two meet in the clouds during a thunderstorm. Steve, always the level headed guy, tries desperately to help Andrew. Unfortunately, Andrew is still reacting to the fight with his father.
Andrew later breaks his cousin’s rule and begins inflicting pain on his tormenters and soon robs neighborhood bullies and eventually a gas station to get money his mother desperately needs. Money his father spends on alcohol, it is implied. When the gas station robbery goes from bad to worse, Andrew is burned and hospitalized. There’s a brief hope, seen through the hospital camera’s that Andrew’s father might have some inkling of sympathy for his son’s injuries, but the hope is turned to rage. Mom died, as dad says, when Dad was looking for Andrew. It is Andrew’s fault his mother died. This is the last thread of humanity left in Andrew and he explodes, blowing out the windows of the hospital and dropping his father from the sky above the hospital.
Meanwhile, at a part with his girlfriend, Matt through a profusely bloody nose noticed by the other party goers, comes to realize Andrew is feeling troubled and using his powers. Matt swoops in and saves Andrew’s father.
What then ensues is quite possibly the most frightening and realistic depiction of super-powered individuals using their full powers in combat ever depicted on film. Carnage, devastation, and the sheer level of damage as a result of the fallout between the battle between Andrew and Matthew is nearly cataclysmic.
The film ends when through the lens of Matt flying and landing in Tibet, telling Andrew that “You made it.”
Chronicle is a film that is sitting with me days after having viewed it. I grew up reading comic books, particularly DC comics beginning in the 1980s and of and on until today. SO much of this film resonated with a lot of the comics I read and specifically, the unfathomable levels of destruction just two super-powered individuals can cause when they aren’t getting along. I’m thinking a bit of the destruction of Metropolis in the battle between Doomsday in Superman in Superman #75 when Superman died. I’m also thinking of the issues of Miracleman written by Alan Moore and lavishly illustrated by John Totleben, specifically the destruction of London in issue fifteen of the Eclipse series published in the US.
Unanswered is the origin of the blue crystal which granted the three young men their powers. While learning more about this thing would be interesting, it is just a MacGuffin for the film, it gets the ball rolling. As in Cloverfield, although the monster’s origins are of great debate and interest, it is the reaction to regular people that defines the story.
In some senses, even though about a decade separates me from Max Landis, I almost feel like this film was written exactly for somebody like me with the background of 20+ years of comic book reading. Conversely, by avoiding the capes and tights inherit in the superhero genre and featuring teens in everyday clothes, the film is grounded in a reality with which folks who don’t read superhero comics can more easily identify.
When the Matrix sequels were released, some said the rain-soaked battle between Neo and Agent Smith was the best depiction of a superhero / supervillan fight on the screen. While that wanton destruction was a good translation of such a fight, the stakes were not very high – it was a virtual world in a city with no real inhabitants. Chronicle raises the stakes – people get hurt, buses and cars are flung into buildings and buildings are destroyed. In other words, the otherwise happy supehero feel turns to horror and dread.
Quite simply, Chronicle is a superb film, rounding out a quartet of essential “found footage” films with The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and Paranormal Activity. It is an essential science fiction film and an essential super hero film for the audacity of Andrew to spit in the face of Stan Lee’s “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” and his cousin’s ultimate embracing of that ethos.
A sequel is in the works, though one hopes (and would like to think) Max Landis and his co-horts learned a valuable lesson from the second Blair Witch film and the Paranormal Activity sequels. There is great potential for more stories about the crystal’s origins or Matt’s exploits in and after Tibet.
Highly, highly recommended.
As a coda, anybody who has seen this film and/or has a knowledge and interest in superheroes, specifically the Death of Superman, should take about ten minutes to view this great youtube video which Landis released to the internet the same day Chronicle hit theaters.
Avatar is quite possibly, the most anticipated film in the last decade. It is what James Cameron has been working on for the better part of that decade and his first fictional film since the Oscar-winning Titanic in 1997.
Cameron has a great pedigree in film and science fiction, boasting some of the most well received films of the genre by both critics and larger audiences: The Terminator, Terminator 2, Aliens and one the favorite films of both my wife and myself: The Abyss. Both Terminator 2 and The Abyss helped to take special effects to another level in film making – the T-1000 in T2 and the water creatures in The Abyss. So to say expectations are high on this film is an understatement.
The story is one that may be quite familiar – an ambitious military man is told to invade the enemy to gain intel about their society and their faith so his superiors can gain a better foothold in conquering them, but who is then so taken with the enemies he joins their side instead once he falls in love with a woman of this enemy ‘tribe’ and their way of life. The native tribe, in this case, is the 14-foot tall Na’Vi who inhabit the planet Pandora. The Na’Vi are strong, agile, large and their bones are much more strong and dense than a human’s bones. The military man is Jake Sully, who is tasked by Colonel Miles Quaritch to get the Na’Vi to leave Hometree (the Na’Vi’s enormous living home), which sits above a large cache of unobtanium, a spectacularly valuable mineral that could make the RDA corporation extremely rich. Zoë Saldaña plays Neytiri a Na’Vi princess who takes Jake into the tribe once he is revealed to be some kind of unique, nigh-saviour figure. Quaritch eventually attacks Hometree before Jake can convince the Na’Vi to leave and a war between human and Na’Vi erupts.
While I never saw Dances with Wolves or Ferngully the two movies many (perhaps jokingly) compare to the story in Avatar, it was difficult not find elements in the film that seem to have been lifted from other movies or books. The bonding with banshee creatures (horse-sized creatures similar to dragons) was very reminiscent of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern. The super-armor the marines wore was reminiscent of both the robotic assistant Sigourney Weaver wore in Aliens as well as the armor of a Warhammer Space Marine. This is just a smattering of the similarities.
Despite the predictability, Cameron is able to tell this story convincingly enough to keep the emotional investment strong throughout the majority of the film. Sam Worthington as Jake Sully does an acceptable job; Zoë Saldaña as his love interest is terrific; Sigourney Weaver is very good as Dr. Augustine, the authority on Na’Vi and her role here (perhaps intentionally) echoes similar themes to her role as Diane Fossey; Giovanni Ribisi is also fine as the corporate punk who wants the unobtainium, and is reminiscent of Paul Reiser’s corporate scum character in Aliens. The stand-out performance; however, is Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch, the Bad Ass villain of the film. Lang was very good as the despicable Ike Clanton in Tombstone, but here he chews up the scenery quite nicely. He exudes strong will and Bad-Assery.
The color palette and CGI effects were, in a word, mindblowing. The creatures, the Na’Vi themselves, and the floating mountains were a seamless element of the film. I didn’t once find myself thinking the Na’Vi were computer generated, the facial expressions, the body movements, and perhaps most importantly the eyes were remarkably rendered. It was only when the Na’Vi were standing next to humans did their alien-ness come to the fore, but that is likely only because they are 14-feet tall. Much like Gollum was able to seamlessly interact with the Hobbits, (and the Hobbits themselves as 3-foot tall humanoids) in the Lord of the Rings films, so do the Na’Vi seem as other actors on the proverbial stage.
I’ve already mentioned the predictability of the story as a drawback. The other drawback was actually seeing the film in 3D. Many people have told me the best way to see this film is in 3D. I have to disagree. While it wasn’t a distraction entirely, both my wife and I found that my eyes were straining to see through the glasses and my sense of awareness was later distorted after the film. My wife and I also both concluded how spoiled we are by HD Television. This was confirmed by seeing a trailer for the film on HD NET when we got back home and realizing how much more crisp and beautiful the dragon-creatures looked in HD compared to the 3D film.
This is a must see film and a doorway into the future of filmmaking. Cameron laid some good groundwork on this one and could build impressively with the supposedly planned sequel.
For just about a decade, Alastair Reynolds has been publishing some of the best Science Fiction in the genre. His stories are galactic in scope, but still manage to key down to the human level. His latest, House of Suns is no different. The story spans millions of years and is to put succinctly, awesome. My review went up last night and here’s the requisite snippet:
The ancestors of humanity, specifically the clones or ‘shatterlings’ (of both sex) of Abigal Gentian, known throughout the universe as both the Gential Line and the House of Flowers are set to meet in one of their 200,000-year reunions when the reunion is sent asunder by a hostile attack. Luckily, two of the clones (Campion and Purslane) who have fallen in love were delayed and are among the very slim number of shatterlings of the Gential line not destroyed. In their delay, they contact a somewhat disreputable broker named Ateshga, who they hope can sell them a ship upgrade in order to arrive at the reunion party with plenty of time to spare in the 1,000 day celebration. This of course does not go according to plan since Atheshga tries to sabatoge Campion and Purslane. However, the two shatterlings turn the tables and get their ship upgraded and secure the freedom of Hesperus, a robot and member of the ‘Machine People.’ . . . The sheer scale of intelligent civilization in this universe is mind-boggling. Perhaps most fascinating are the Machine People and the Machines who preceded them thousands of years before the events in even Abigail Gentian’s time. On the other hand, that sense of time, that tens of thousands of years can pass so effortlessly in these characters lives really adds to the sense of wonder for which Reynolds is so well known. These themes are handled with an expert’s care in Reynolds’s assured storytelling ability.
Mrs. o’ Stuff and I caught District 9 on Friday and we both thought it was easily the best film we’d seen this summer. I might go into more detail in a post later this week, but suffice it to say, this film does everything Good Science Fiction should do – it was at turns frightening, plausible, and awe-inspiring. Very few movies exceed my expectations as much as this one did, and I went it expecting it to be good – it was GREAT.
What else can be said about Watchmen (the film)? It is perhaps one of the most scrutinized films of its kind and anticipated adaptations in the last couple of decades. I initially read Watchmen in its single issue format and have re-read it numerous times in the past decade or so, having poured over the Absolute Edition a couple of times, including a re-read the week prior to the film’s release. With that in mind, I don’t think the film could have been translated from page to screen any better than it was by Snyder. The overall theme, character arcs (with some modifications) are in place. The feel of the film is very much a mirror of the comic, with a little more blood and broken bones. On to some more thoughts…
One of the most logical decisions Snyder made is perhaps the one that has given rise to the most outcry – the ending. Whereas the Giant Squid in the graphic novel is effective and built up rather well over the course of the 300+ pages of the novel, the re-written ending of the film is more organic to the story and is a more contextually logical ending for the film. It is a more tight and convincing ending to the story.
Even though Jackie Earle Haley’s performance as Rorshach is the one everyone’s talking about, I think Jeffrey Dean Morgan was superb as the Comedian. I’m surprised at how much I liked Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl II and Crudup and CGI were terrific as Dr. Manhattan. Akerman works well in the physical scenes as Silk Specter but isn’t as convincing in the emotional scenes. Matthew Goode was more than OK as Ozymandius if a bit foppish, but I would like to see more of his character which I suspect will be the case for the extended cut of the DVD. In short, the cast is nearly perfect. Nearly.
A few other things, and they are minor, didn’t quite work for me. I liked some of the slow motion scenes that mirrored their exact counterpart in the comic, but felt many of the fight scenes were bloodier than the comic, particularly when Dreiberg and Laurie fight the Topknots in the alley. Their bated breath and exhilaration at getting back in the game upon the fight's conclusion; however, was displayed very well by Akerman and Wilson. This was perhaps Akerman at her most convincing in her role. I didn’t quite like Ozymandius’s costume and didn’t like that they called themselves Watchmen – in the comic the heroes are only referred to as this in a graffiti scene and never really refer to themselves in any kind of collective manner outside of the meeting where the Comedian burns the map. Granted, those are comic-geek quibbles that may not bother other folks and considering just how much detail from the comic Zack was able to put into the film, the minor quibbles really are negligible.
As for how the film worked for non-comic fans Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff, her brother, and his girlfriend didn’t read the comic and liked it. Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff even said it was better than she expected it would be. Their only real complaints was that there was too much blue penis; I can’t argue that one even if Manhattan was brought to life very well in the film
So, Zack Snyder has done it – he’s crafted an intelligent superhero mystery that is very true to the roots of its source material. At times some of the lingering shots lingered too long, but creating a film under three hours was an achievement in and of itself. The fact that the film was excellent and just under the greatness of the two new Batman films is an even greater achievement.
On a side note, our little group noticed a young boy, who couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old leaving the film. Call me crazy but that is complete irresponsibility on the side of the parents of this child, who left more than 2/3 into the film so he got to see the rape scene, a lot of blue penis, and bones breaking the surface of the skin.
Regular readers should know the drill by now. Sunday I post what I received the previous week, some Monday’s I’ll post randomly, and Tuesdays I post the link and an excerpt to the Book Review I posted the previous night. In this case, the book review I posted last night was Charlie Huston’s The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death.
Huston tells the story completely from Web’s eyes, the dialogue is real, raw and puts the reader into the narrative of the story in a very effective manner. All of the characters Huston brought to life in Mystic Arts are vibrant (Po Sin, Chev, Web’s father – a former screenwriter and script-doctor), Web is the lynchpin and sun around which they all rotate. Initially, Web’s arrogant and off-putting manners are questionable. A dark event in his past is alluded to and through the course of the narrative, Huston illuminates two life-shattering events which have led Web to be the person he is. It’s a wonder Web hasn’t taken his own life because of the events, but he’s basically too stubborn to give in.
Prior to the novel’s events, Web was a teacher, which doesn’t come out immediately, which begs the question: how did a guy who once taught young kids become trauma scene cleaner? Huston answers the question in brief passages peppered through out the “current” plot of Web’s involvement with Soledad’s (and her brother Jamie) problem. This is where Huston’s storytelling skill really shines – he intricately weaves the past and present into a seamless story that by novel’s end you wonder how he packed so much into such a relatively thin novel 336 pages, many of which comprise single line dialogue. The dialogue is another strong point of the novel, Huston conveys character, setting, and plot so well with the dialogue. The story seems like it would transition very well to the screen maybe through the help of a director like Quentin Tarantino.
Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff and I made to to movie theaters two weeks in a row. This weekend it was Taken which was pretty entertaining. I had a tough time reconciling the fact that the daughter, portrayed by Maggie Grace, was only 17. After all, this is the same actress who was on Lost as Shannnon; a character that was at the very youngest 20 years old and in real life is in her mid-twenties, so I had a tough time buying the fact that she was only 17 in the film. Her scenes were pretty much set up for Neeson going over to Europe and destroying everything in his way to finding her so it didn’t really spoil the good parts of the film. There were some awesome fighting scenes in the movie and it ended rather predictably, but still a solid adventure/ass-kicking movie.
I've a feeling the next movie we see in theaters will be this little film:
Drood by Dan Simmons is a staggering novel that completely immersed me in Victorian England and the lives of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Part thriller, part mystery, and part horror novel, Drood is, quite simply, one of the best novels I have ever read and now stands in my personal top 10. Here's a preview of my review:
The feel of the novel is rich and exquisitely evokes Victorian London. Since I can’t really travel back in time to check on Simmon’s veracity in his ability to evoke the time and place, I can only go with my gut and it tells me Simmons hit the mark in this respect. In that sense, the novel’s haunted feel is only strengthened by the time and place – an era of gaslights, trains and a world at the cusp of vast technological change. The London of Drood, especially the London nights, is very much hidden in shadows with smoke ‘round the corner and hints of danger and otherworldy Underworlds.
Both Collins and Dickens take mythic journeys in this novel, most notably to the Underworld of London. A vast cavern of tunnels underneath the great city where day laborers live in abject poverty and opium dens are visited by men of society, including Collins. It is a dangerous place, a place where vagrants live, where “lost boys” roam the catacombs, and where the dark figure of Drood and his two steersmen usher Dickens on a gondola to the deepest recesses of Underworld. The mythic parallels to Charon, and more explicitly, the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis are evocative and resonant in their power. Here again, Collins’s role as Unreliable Narrator comes into play, if not during these scenes as much as they do later upon reflection of the events.
Lastly, it looks like Prophets (Apotheosis Book One) by S. Andrew Swann was voted as “the book I should read next” from the poll for the books I received W/E 02/07/2009. While it may not be the absolute next book I read, it will be bumped to very near top of the pile. I was going to run another poll this week, but I didn’t want the poll to take up my entire sidebar with all the books in last week’s haul.
I posted my review of Brandon Sanderson’s final Mitborn novel, The Hero of Ages, last night. I really enjoyed the whole series and think it is one of the better completed series I've read. Like Greg Keyes, Sanderson had a plan for a set amount of books, stayed to that set amount and managed to pull off an incredibly well-told tale. Here’s more from my review:
Brandon Sanderson brings his Mistborn saga to a close (for now) in The Hero of Ages, wherein mists are now seemingly destroying the world and two ancient forces are about to clash. The only hope Vin, Elend and their allies has are clues the now-dead self-fashioned god the Lord Ruler left in various caves where metals were stored.
Doubt and perspective could be the themes that characterize Sazed’s character, as well. Although on the surface he plays the role of Royal Scholar, Sanderson plays with that character type with nuance. Sazed’s faith is continually in question throughout The Hero of Ages because of SPOILER, something with which he has difficulty coming to grips. As a cataloguer of world religions, Sazed is searching for the “true” religion. The only thing in which Sazed continually shows his faith is in the prophesized Hero of Ages. Though he can’t quite grasp the intimate specifics, his faith in the vague prophecy is what keeps him grounded. Here again, the cliché of the prophecy is toyed with by Sanderson (reminiscent of Tad Williams Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy) to great effect.
Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff and I were probably the only people who went to see Body of Lies of the weekend, rather than that stupid fucking talking Chihuahua movie. Anyway, Body of Lies was a pretty damned good movie, with good performances by Crowe, DiCaprio and Mark Strong. I didn’t completely agree with the plot device used to advance one part of the plot, but other than that, a solid political thriller that really echoes well against some of the issues in today’s geo-political spectrum.
So with great fanfare, promotion and anticipation, The Dark Knight opened on July 18th and I was able to sit and watch the film with Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff. The film starts a bit slowly but pretty powerfully – a nice gradual reveal of The Joker. Mark Hamil’s Joker was probably the definitive interpretation of the Joker for me, but because the exceptional Dini/Timm Batman Animated series was aimed at a younger audience, the Joker couldn’t quite be as insane and murderous. Well with The Dark Knight, there are no limits and Ledger has redefined the villain and what he represents. When I initially heard of the three villains from Batman’s rouge gallery being in the film – The Joker, Scarecrow and Two-Face, I thought it would be villain overload. Boy was I wrong, but more on why I was wrong later.
Bale is more confident as Batman in The Dark Knight, which might be because of the new suit with which he was outfitted for the majority of the film. His Bruce Wayne is the perfect arrogant fop, but the Wayne persona isn’t in the film quite as much as the first. The Batman persona has fully taken over Bruce Wayne. Granted, Bale performs a great many scenes without the Batsuit, but in a good portion of those, he’s in the new/ temporary Batcave plotting his plans with Alfred and Lucius Fox. Unlike the Spider-Man films, seeing Bruce Wayne/Bale without the Batmask is not contrived. Bale’s Batman in this is even darker than in Begins and his methods at the film’s conclusion lead one to question whether he has gone too far. This methods is a great parallel to fairly recent events (JLA: Tower of Babel and Infinite Crisis) in the DC Universe. I thought those themes that have been present in the comics over the past few years worked in the film without asking the general audience to have the vast knowledge of the comics a lot of geeks and fanboys like I have.
Goyer and the Nolans flesh out the players of the film very well, with the primary new characters being (of course) the Joker and Harvey Dent. A lot of people are praising Ledger’s performance as the Clown Prince of Crime, and rightfully so, but there doesn’t seem to be as much chatter about Eckhart’s ownership of the Harvey Dent role. Dent/Two-Face has never been one of my favorite Bat-villains, but Eckhart’s intense performance, seemingly ripped from Jeph Loeb’s stellar portrayal of the character in The Long Halloween was really good. Not to sound too corny, but after Eckhart’s portrayal, I Believe in Harvey Dent. He stood in great contrast and comparison to Bruce/Batman.
Although Jim Gordon was an important character in Batman Begins, here he takes another step up in both the filmed Batman mythos and as a character in his own. Gary Oldman is becoming one of my favorite actors and I’m learning why he is considered a great actor. He must have read Batman: Year One and a lot of the Gotham Central comics to really get Gordon, because he just is the character.
Fox and Alfred, as Batman’s ‘assistants’ were perfect and like a lot of the other players in the film, Caine is the perfect Alfred. Gyllenhal’s Rachel Dawes was just sort of there, she is a better actress than Katie Holmes and her role served its purpose. Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni was very good too, once I got over the fact that it was Eric Roberts.
As for the plot of the film, in its barest simplicity, the Joker arrives and stirs up a lot of shit. Of course there are a lot of layers and threads to the film, all of which are amazingly tight and feed well off of each other. There isn’t any plot element that seems unnecessary or just filler; everything is necessary to the greater good of the film and establishing the character of Batman, his world, and ultimately, his relationship with the Joker. The same night of the Joker’s robbery, Batman breaks up a heist led by the Scarecrow. It wouldn’t be such a tough job for Batman except for all the Batman imposters who want to help Batman. After The Joker’s bank robbery, which began the movie, he soon enters a mob meeting where a Japanese “businessman” and potential partner of Wayne Enterprises is telling all the mob heads how he can secure their money after he learns of an attempt from the police and Harvey Dent to seize their marked money. The Joker; however, offers a deal to the collected mob heads after poo-pooing the Japanese businessman– give him half of their money and he’ll kill Batman.
The stuff between Dent, Gordon, and Batman was played really well, essentially a triumvirate of good. Corny analogy aside, what these characters represented to the film, to Gotham and each other was a strong theme from the movie and one that was [again] played out equally well in Loeb/Sale’s aforementioned The Long Halloween.
The Joker is more of a terrorist in this film and promises to kill one person a day until Batman unmasks. Batman contemplates revealing himself in order to save lives, but here the story mirrors the threat of terrorism in the real world. Does Batman give into the terrorist and let the Joker “win?” Dent makes the decision for him and ‘reveals’ himself to be Batman.
The scenes in the Police HQ are absolutely brilliant and where Ledger’s Joker is spectacular. His tone and vocal affectations take on a darker and more considered approach – the Joker walks a fine line between speaking the truth of the world as he sees and flat out insanity; and it is scary how right he just may be. Of course that is the power of an individual like the Joker – his insanity is laced with truth and sane talk.
As the scenes in the Police station continue, it becomes clear the Joker wanted to be caught, again showing how everything in this film is tied together. The chaos the Joker spins touches everything, from Batman, to Dent to the Police and as a theme it is convincing and effective. As the Joker says, he is “an agent of chaos” and “I just *do* things.” Even though the Joker hints at a “multiple choice” origin, his past is never revealed truly revealed and that’s just how it should be- the Joker is, aftera all, probably the most famous unreliable narrator .
The Joker reveals that Rachel and Dent are in two separate locations and Batman can only save one of them. This eventually leads to Dent becoming Two-Face and allowing Eckhart’s acting ability to shine even more. As Two-Face, we see just how much of a vigilante and dark demon Batman can be come if his conscience were left uncheck. At times, I found myself rooting for Two-Face, but that was somewhat short-lived.
Paralleling Two-Face’s revenge is Batman’s chase and final confrontation of the Joker. Nolan and Co. have said they used The Killing Joke as inspiration for the portrayal of the Joker and his relationship to Batman – itself one of the landmark stories in both characters evolution. No surprise that Alan Moore wrote it and damn if the echoes of that story weren’t loud and clear in this confrontation. The theme of one bad day changing a person forever, though not implicitly stated in the film, is another great parallel to The Killing Joke.
“I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness...and I won't kill you because...you're just too much fun.”
Of course talk of a follow-up to the film is inevitable. I almost don’t want to see a follow-up, this film is too good and I fear anything might be a pale specter of the greatness of this film.
As good as Spider-Man 2 and Batman Begins were this movie is in a whole other league. There were a lot of plot threads but all of them were necessary for the whole of the film. The same goes for the themes, most notably chaos v. order. This film shows how three villains can be used effectively in one film. This is absolutely the best comic book/superhero movie, hands down. On its own merits, it was a great film, a great crime/caper film, and it is in my all time top 5 films. I can’t fully judge how high that ranking goes, if for nothing else that is reason enough for me to see this film in repeated viewings.
This week’s review is Greg Keyes’s The Born Queen, the final volume in his Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone quartet. I’ve been a fan and supporter of the series since it burst onto the scene with The Briar King and through each subsequent volume. The Born Queen is no exception – I think Greg pulled off something really special in this series, something not a lot of his contemporaries have been able to do. He set out to tell a certain type of story (Secondary World Epic Fantasy with a Large Cast) in a set number of volumes (four). He did that and did it very well.
Unfortunately, this series inevitably is considered Martin-lite, which is an unfair comparison. Yes both series have very large casts and both authors don’t falter when it comes to allowing primary characters to die, but Greg’s series really stands on its own. Just check out my review, I say it there in more detail.
Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff and I caught The Incredible Hulk on Friday. I went in hoping it would be good and at the least, better than the one from a few years ago. Unlike Iron Man, I read The Incredible Hulk for a number of years, most of Peter David’s legendary run on the character, and some of the recent stuff – I had expectations of what a real Hulk film needed to do and was surprised – it was better than I expected it would be. I don’t know that I’d consider it in the upper echelon of Super Hero Movies like Batman Begins, Iron Man, Superman, Spider-Man 1 & 2 but solidly in the next class along with Hellboy, X-Men 1 & 2 and Superman II. Good action, ambiguous ending and a Geek out moment for me when the Green Goliath exclaimed HULK SMASH! I really hope Edward Norton, and the studio for that matter, decides to stick around for the hinted and hoped follow-up. In terms of summer movies of 2008, I enjoyed The Incredible Hulk more than Indiana Jones.
Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff, myself, and another couple caught Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Sunday night at the best movie theater ever.* I thought the movie itself was OK, maybe better than Temple of Doom but far short of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then again, Raiders is probably one of my top 5 films of all time, so I wasn’t expecting Crystal Skull to be as good as that film. I went in with lowered expectations, so perhaps that’s why I enjoyed it as much as I did. Either that or the beer.*
In some respects, the movie captured the fears of the era – Commies/Communism and Aliens, but the execution was slightly off. I also have to say, unlike many film trailers, the trailer for Crystal Skull didn’t give away too much of the film. My biggest problem was that in the three other Indy movies, Indy took charge and led the expeditions. Here, he seemed more a passenger on the ride. That and he found the plot device – the Crystal Skull – much more quickly than the other plot devices in the previous films. On the one hand it seemed a little too easy, but on the other finding the object wasn’t the quest of the move as much as returning it was. I also though Shia LaBeouf did a pretty good job, which surprised me especially after that piece of garbage Transformers where all he seemed to say was “No no no no.”
So, was it worth the wait? It's been almost 20 years so maybe they should have waited that exact amount of time. Nonetheless, I think Indiana Jones films need to be seen on the big screen – the action in this one never stopped and there were some great effects. Ever since (and probably before, but I hadn’t really noticed until then) The Phantom MenaceLucas seems utterly obsessed with chase scenes. That is fairly evident in Crystal Skull. I will see the movie again if for no other reason to see how much I enjoy the film without the assistance of my friends from the Yuengling family, but probably not in theaters. A number of people will not buy into the plot device (which was the case with Mrs. Blog o’ Stuff), but like the plot devices in the entire franchise, it it is otherworldly. In the end, it was a fun ride but something that could have been more.
*The Cinema Cafe Pizza Special - $25.75 includes 2 movies tickets (Adult, Child, or Senior), large pizza, pitcher of beer or soda which is also available for all showings. How can you beat that when a standard multiplex theater charges $8-$9 for one ticket?!
Here's the list of books I recieved for review last week:
Invincible by Troy Denning Star WarsLegacy of the Force Book 9 The series looks pretty good (as I said in my last post), but I've got some catching up to do. I think the writers and behind the scenes folks did an impressive job with the New World Order and I've heard the same type of positivity about these books.
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Ellen Datlow This looks to be a new anthology of short fiction, in an increasingly impressive market of original anthologies. I still have Jonathan Strahan's Eclipse on my TBR pile. There are some impressive writers in this book - Jeffrey Ford, Elizabeth Bear, Paul McCauley and Kim Newman
Kilimanjaro: a Fable of Utopia by Mike Resnick (December Subterranean Press) This is a follow-up to Resnick's watermark novel, Kirinyaga. I haven't read that particular book by Mike Resnick, but what I have read from him, I've enjoyed.
Those Who Went Remain There Still by Cherie Priest (December Subterranean Press) This looks to be a southern ghost story involving Daniel Boone. I haven't read anything by Cherie Priest so this looks like a good opportunity to giver her a try.
Stonefather by Orson Scott Card (October Subterranean Press) A novella set in Card's soon-to-be released Mithermages fantasy saga. I went through a pretty big OSC phase a few years ago and haven't read much by him since (I think) Shadow Puppets. This should be a good chance to get reacquainted with his work.
Mrs. Blog o' Stuff and I caught Iron Man over the weekend. I was never a big fan of Iron Man. If I have 20 Iron Man comics in my collection, then that's a lot. I always considered him a B-list Marvel character despite Marvel putting him at the forefrunt of their major storylines over the past few years.
The movie kicked ass. I loved it and didn't expect to like it nearly as much as I did. Downey may be the most perfectly cast superhero this side of Christian Bale. Jeff Bridges was good as the slime-ball enemy. I've seen a lot of his movies but is really that big a guy? Maybe I will give some old Shellhead comics a try on my next visit to the comics shop.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
I was asked by John DeNardo, of SF Signal, to participate in one of their regular MIND MELD roundtable discussions. The subject for this go-round wasWhich SciFi Movie Ending Would You Change? As the introduction to the article states, I’m a “luminary.” Cool! I’ve been popping onto SF Signal on a daily basis for a while now as there is always something interesting in their great coverage of the genre.
Thanks to John and the folks at SF Signal for letting me join in the fun. My response is the last of the group, the title of the movie I chose lies hidden within this post. Well, sort of.
Me, a luminary!
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Just in time for Hallowe’en, I posted my review of the H.P. Lovecraft collection, The Horror in the Museum. Well, the stories are re-writes/ghost-writes/co-written by Lovecraft, but most were still pretty damned good. As I say in my review, my only other foray into Lovecraft’s writing was Black Seas of Infinity, which I thought was a superb collection edited by Andrew Wheeler.
The Yankees named Joe Girardi their new manager today after the unsurprising firing/non-acceptance of contract by Joe Torre. As much as Don Mattingly was my favorite player, I think Girardi is the right choice as manager. I liked him as a player and probably more as an announcer on YES. Granted, the way Joe Torre was not brought back was sloppy, I think Girardi is a step in the right direction. The best news out of Yankee-land is Alex Rodriguez opting out of his contract.
Somehow the fact that a film version of Stephen King’s The Mist is coming out in November slipped by me. I liked the story a lot when I first read it years ago. Even more so, I enjoyed the Cool Audio version of the story released more than a decade ago. On the good side, Frank Darabont wrote and directed it, who also had a hand in The Green Mile and TheShawshank Redemption. On the other, Thomas Jane (who I thought was great as Mickey Mantle in 61*) was also in the King clunker, Dreamcatcher.
The more I watch Reaper, the bigger my crush grows on Missy Peregrym. I like the show and make sure I see it every week, it reminds me a little bit of Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters is one of my favorite, most quotable, and most quoted movies.
I posted my review of Hurricane Moon by Alexis Glynn Latner the other day, but since sffworld.com was a little wonky yesterday, I couldn't retrieve the review to mention here. It was an interesting book, but didn't completely work for me.
Rutgers seems back on track after taking down the #2 team last Thursday. On one hand this is great, on the other this tells me they "should" be undefeated. Their two losses were to teams that were not of the same caliber as USF. Granted, Cincinatti is doing some pretty good things, butstill frustrating nonetheless.
I have to say, one of the cool things about doing these book reviews is getting early looks at some forthcoming books. Case in point, I received a nice big fat ARC from Del Rey of Peter F. Hamilton's next Epic Space Opera, The Dreaming Void. Another, equally cool, perk is receiving the same e-mail from Simon Spanton Pat did, with the synopsis of Richard K. Morgan's foray into Epic Fantasy, The Steel Remains.
MEME: Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time (gacked from SFSignal)
Below is Snarkerati's list of Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time. A great topic for a meme! You know the drill...copy the list and BOLD the movies you have seen. Post yours in the comments, or on your own blog (a link back here would be appreciated!)
1. Metropolis (1927) 2. A Clockwork Orange (1971) 3. Brazil (1985) 4. Wings of Desire (1987) 5. Blade Runner (1982) 6. Children of Men (2006) 7. The Matrix (1999) 8. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) 9. Minority Report (2002) 10. Delicatessen (1991) 11. Sleeper (1973) 12. The Trial (1962) 13. Alphaville (1965) 14. Twelve Monkeys (1995) 15. Serenity (2005) 16. Pleasantville (1998) 17. Ghost in the Shell (1995) 18. Battle Royale (2000) 19. RoboCop (1987) 20. Akira (1988) 21. The City of Lost Children (1995) 22. Planet of the Apes (1968) 23. V for Vendetta (2005) 24. Metropolis (2001) 25. Gattaca (1997) 26. Fahrenheit 451 (1966) 27. On The Beach (1959) 28. Mad Max (1979) 29. Total Recall (1990) 30. Dark City (1998) 31. War Of the Worlds (1953) 32. District 13 (2004) 33. They Live (1988) 34. THX 1138 (1971) 35. Escape from New York (1981) 36. A Scanner Darkly (2006) 37. Silent Running (1972) 38. Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) 39. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) 40. A Boy and His Dog (1975) 41. Soylent Green (1973) 42. I Robot (2004) 43. Logan's Run (1976) 44. Strange Days (1995) 45. Idiocracy (2006) 46. Death Race 2000 (1975) 47. Rollerball (1975) 48. Starship Troopers (1997) 49. One Point O (2004) 50. Equilibrium (2002)
As my little sidebar indicates, I posted a new review today - Joel Shepherd's Breakaway. Good, action-packed Science Fiction here.
I saw 1408 last weekend and thought it pretty good. I went in with middle-of-the road expectations, so I was pleasantly surprised. I grew up watching John Cusack movies, and I have liked almost everything I've seen with him. This was no exception. I, as anybody who reads this blog knows, like most of Stephen King's work, though I never read the original story which inspired the movie.
One or two spots spooked me, more out of surprise than anything. When did a telephone ringing become such frightening thing in movies, by the way? The movie got a little hokey towards the end, but I enjoyed it. What I particularly liked about the film was some of the ambiguity - the ending seemed as if it was open to viewer interpretation, as did Samuel, "Evil Fucking Room" Jackson's role. I say this mainly because Mrs. Blog O' Stuff and I had different reactions to both, or rather, different interpretations.
So, a good movie, but not one I would judge as a Must Have on DVD.
I am fighting very hard against my urge to see the Transformers movie. I grew up watching the cartoon and had a bunch of the toys, and like most boys my age, loved the movie, which was Orson Welles's last role. I also dislike nearly everything* I've seen from Michael Bay, almost walking out of Armageddon, so I won't be expecting much. Well, The Rock wasn't so bad. Then again, Transformersdoes seem like a movie that should be seen in theaters and Speilberg has his name attached to it, so that gives me a faint glimmer of hope.
As it is, I will be seeing the next Potter film, part of me wants to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, but the film I'm most looking forward to seeing is Stardust. Despite it's crappy title, the trailers of Shoot 'Em Up have me intrigued - to see it when it hits cable.
Enough ranting for now, but I haven't been doing enough ranting here lately.
Mrs. Blog O' Stuff and I watched Little Miss Sunshine over the weekend and I hadn't even realized it was nominated for best picture. It was a quirky, fun and entertaining movie. It reminded me of, just a bit at least, Napolean Dynamite. Both films captured people who, externally, seemed very strange and off beat. When you get into their stories, they seem almost normal. I liked it a lot, being a fan of Steve Carrell didn't hurt either. But no matter what Greg Kinnear will always be the Talk Soup guy to me. Just like Mark Wahlberg, Oscar-nominated actor, will always be Marky Mark of the Funky Bunch to me.
In book-related happenings, I posted my review of Patrick Rothfuss's debut novel, The Name of the Wind. This was an incredibly impressive novel coming from a debut novelist. Rotfhuss set the bar pretty for 2007 with this book. However, Joe Hill'sHeart-Shaped Box, which I just finished (review forthcoming) does come pretty close. They are definitely two different books, but the heart of what makes them both so great is not soo dissimilar. They both take what could be cliched stories and makes them fresh, original and damned entertaining.
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy
