I Have an Opinion On Almost Everything

[Play] 40 Weeks by Michael Henry Harris

2012-01-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

It is not often that a play surprises me. Particularly to the degree this does. Good characters are flawed, excellent characters are very flawed. There are five characters in this story and they are all in love with each other. Its more of a love...pentagon? The basics of the plot are that a couple who love each other but are not entirely ready for a child discover that they are pregnant (or rather she is). Of course, this is complicated that the would be father's reaction is immediately somewhat hostile, and this concerns her greatly. Moreover, he has a novel that needs selling and she is the provider for the family and the stress over income causes...tension. To say the least.

Still, while the first act builds up a shot gun to each of their heads, and it is pulled off of the wall, whom shoots who in what room and in what order, not to mention Col Mustard in the Billiard Room was quite unexpected. And it works.

I would highly recommend seeing this if you get a chance. The version I saw at On Stage Atlanta was very well done, not only in writing but in the rather astonishing breadth of spectrum put out by those who performed in it. There is chemistry and lack of chemistry at exactly the right moments. It has a genuineness that such a piece demands.

And you have only four more opportunities to see it.

Book Review: The Communist Manifesto

2012-01-21T20:40:00.001-08:00

I put this on my Political blog because of its political nature.

Review of Hugo

2011-12-27T17:40:00.001-08:00

Martin Scorcese is a master film maker by anybody's barometer, and I certainly enjoy his work. But I think he has achieved something transcendantly new in his most recent release of "Hugo." My initial impression of the movie, based on the whimsical but mysterious trailers leading up to it, was that it involved a train station and some kind of hidden world within the world that all revolved around a mechanical man that Hugo, an orphan living inside of the train station, was desperately trying to recreate.

I only got it partially right. And I do think that any attempt by the marketing department to mismarket a film will cause its demise. Anyone remember the fate of Kangaroo Jack or Hudson Hawk? Of course, I'm not exactly weeping over the fate of Kangaroo Jack, which I understand to be miserable, but Hudson Hawk was a whimsical fourth wall breaking 'crime drama' that did not at all take itself seriously, which was instead marketed by yet another Hollywood genius as something similar to Die Hard. Yeah, because lying to your audience is always a brilliant idea.

Then again, when one looks at the fare targeted to the audience in most network TV in recent years, this is no surprise. Then again, given my opinion of Slines after 2010, I'm not entirely convinced they're wrong. Then again again, the Slines do not appreciate being underestimated and most stupider shows have died horrible deaths this season. So I suppose the trick is to play for the lowest common denominator, but not to bid beneath the actual IQ of the critical mass of the mob thereof? Who knows. The price is wrong Bob.

Regardless, this film is both a heartwarming trip into whimsy, but also a celebration of the lost work of the early pioneers of cinema. To begin with, it formally attributes the creation of the motion picture camera to France instead of Edison (who was noted for stealing other people's ideas). The movie basically involves (spoilers follow) the discovery of the long lost works of Georges Méliès and how due to the bitterness and jaded hyperrealism demanded after the horrors of WWI, the fantasies of Georges Méliès were considered trite. Ruined, Melies retired into obscurity as a toy maker. The toy maker who happens to be in the very same shop in the very same subway station being run by the orphan Hugo. It is a whimsical tale in which everyone gets a happy ending. But what else do you expect from a movie set in France but made by Americans? Still, in this case it works, and not only does it work, it works fantastically so.

It is particularly ironic to me that this film is about the robbing of future generations from their cultural heritage as so many of Georges Méliès's works were destroyed that the major zaibatsu studios are destroying their 9mm collections because they find them difficult to maintain. And after all...digital copies exist right? I mean, it isn't like future generations will want to see them on film or anything...they'll want to see them on the latest ASTOUNDOVISION(tm) digital or hyperdigital or whatever made up format that the zaibatsu's dream up next.

I enjoyed this movie and highly recommend seeing it.

ATLRetro - Its a Wonderful Life

2011-12-18T16:52:00.000-08:00

Its a Wonderful Life Review

Review on Pumpkinhead for ATL Retro.

2011-11-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

My Review of Pumpkinhead for ATL Retro

2011-10-13T18:43:00.000-07:00

I saw the car from the road and was intrigued. I pulled in and saw right in the middle of nowhere (Well...Flagler Colorado to be precise) a perfect 1950's replica Diner. The people were very nice, but the food was awesome. I liked the Hamburger Flights and LOVED the Pie (Cherry), Potato Soap, and most of all the small samplings of Chili I was given to show how awesome they were. The red chili was the best. These guys are trying to get on a TV show, and I agree they should be there. Nice little place, incredible food, with weird little wind up car out front.

Book Review: High Midnight by Rob Mosca

2011-09-23T11:10:00.001-07:00

Full Disclosure: I know the author and he is a friend.

The book is an excellent read and masterfully crafted. For being his first novel, Rob Mosca seems to have harnessed magic in words. He has an intuitive sense of pacing, and makes an image in your mind of exactly what is going on without it being bogged down by excessive details. In truth, if there was a literary opposite to the works of Faulkner, High Midnight is such a work. Not that Faulkner is excessive in his details, rather, High Midnight hits the 'sweet spot' in my personal spectrum.

The genre I would call this would be 'Stew' in honor of a Passage in the 6th Dark Tower novel, "The Song of Susanna" in which the characters fret about the restrictions of genre in literature. Of course, at that point in the Dark Tower series it has begun to enter the bizarrely (but cool) metaficitonal stage. High Midnight blurs many genres but it does not break the 4th wall.

To give you an idea of how much I like the book, I'm adding it to my permanent library. Something only gets on that shelf if is something that I am going to read more than once. And I assure you, I will be reading this again. Some books are page turners, that you only get a proper sense of the second or third time that you read them.

Theme wise, the phrase, "High Midnight" is an excellent choice, since the original western upon which the name is based, "High Noon" is a good mirroring point. Though the townsfolk of Unity, Texas are not quite as craven as those in Hadleyville, the pattern still remains the same. A lone sheriff, defending what is right and good against impossible and deadly odds, despite the fact that he has strong personal interests not to. There is a strong sense of Good and Evil, properly shadowed by postmodern shades of gray. Evil is evil, but it is not cartoon evil. Good is good, but it is a slovenly harrowed good. Well, OK that Cartoon evil is not entirely correct, but for the most part it is.

I speak, of course, of Mooseburger, who I feel is the true protagonist. Now most people would regard Sheriff Laredo as the true hero of the story, and while it is true that he is definitely a figure that would feel right at home in any western you care to name (sans Mexican wrestling mask perhaps), no literary critique would be complete without a complete mangling of the original intent of the author. This is why I feel that this is really Mooseburger's story. A large, misunderstood man-child, who possesses extraordinary strength and physical resilience, it is his choices that make the difference in the story. It is his decision not to pick up a gun that gives the mayor enough courage to take on the gang, stalling for enough time for the sheriff. It is Mooseburger who chooses the brawling tactics in the dramatic fight scene between the Sheriff and the gang of clowns that ultimately allows Good to triumph over evil. Mooseburger keeps his word, when other, unnamed characters do not.

For despite the surface of schlock in Saturday afternoon action movies upon which, by declaration of the author that the story is based (Zombies, Psychopathic Clowns, Western Crptids of a menacing variety, Anthropomorphic Simians etc) deeper and more interesting themes manage to creep in none the less. There is a consistency of imagery and setting that only someone who's soul has gone to dwell in the town a while or for days and weeks at a time can truly manifest. To me, from a literary perspective, the billboard of the laughing cowboy, rotting away in all its mocking glory is no different than that found in the Great Gatsby with its accusatory menacity. (Yes that's a word, I just made it up.) Magic, the appropriateness of oaths, love, what love is, the physicality therein, tragedy, loss, sacrifice, honor, betrayal, friendship, bravery and even humanity itself are covered within its pages.

But it is also popcorn munching fun.

Just read the damn thing. Better yet, buy it.

[Band] The Sexual Side Effects

2011-09-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

There are three things that every band must have in my opinion to be successful: Music, Magic and Mojo. The music is either there or it isn't. They have to have at least one song, preferably more that stick in your head. For me, the litmus test for this is, "Do I want to pay money to own this song or not?" For I am a cheap bastard and do not own much a music collection. Magic is something that sets the band apart from other bands. There is something between the members of the band that makes them greater than the sum of their parts, and there is an interaction between the band and the audience that makes the live concert experience a living thing. Mojo is an image, that something that you can fit on a cereal box or in a 15 second sound bite on MTV or whatever randomly stupid entertainment reality TV show, but something about the band that is different and also memorable that makes them stand out.

The Sexual Side Effects have all three in spades.

I have only heard them once, and I want to own the CD. I don't do that that often. In the last year I've only bought three. And they had three of the songs that I really enjoyed. "Dancing to the Radio." And...I don't remember what the other two are. The truth is that I'm not exactly an expert on music, I just know what I like and I liked what I heard.

Magic was the only way to describe the interaction between the band members and also the band and the audience. Everyone enjoyed the music. There was electricity in the air and it worked. Its just something you have to be there to feel.

Mojo is...complicated, but I think the Sexual Side Effects have it. They each dress as a different icon of the 1970's or 1980's, which is also reflected in their music. There is something about their poster/image thingy that seems to work as well. And they are the 'it' band right now. I'm not exactly someone who has their thumb on the pulse of the Atlanta scene, but I know history and I know how to 'feel' society or a group very well, and you can see the band's trajectory going up, both in the gigs they're booking and their general attitude.

I think one reason the band has only recently begun to ascend, despite being around for about five years, is becaause Amber Taylor, the lead singer for the band has only recently completed a journey of her own, but it shows in everything she does. She practically drips sex appeal, and it echoes off the stage in waves. I am eagerly awaiting the purchase of the band's CD in December and seeing their next show on Oct 1.

Watch them. They're going places.

My review of Raiders of the Lost Ark

2011-09-18T19:02:00.001-07:00

On ATL Retro. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Play: Body Awareness

2011-08-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

This is a great play. Its a 93 minute comedy playing at the Seven Stages theater. It is about a couple that have a son with Asberger's (well, one of them does, his mother, the other is his step mother). The son is rather in denial of this fact. The mother is a high school teacher and the step mother is a psychologist at the extremely PC local university running Body Awareness Week. Frank, an artist who takes nude photos of women, shows up as the guest artist in their home and all hell breaks loose.

Without giving too many spoilers in the play I will say a) It is a comedy. b) It has some surprisingly insightful things to say about the human condition. c) It is an excellent opportunity to learn a lot about the dictionary and what not to say at McDonalds. The actors are all quite talented, and with just four characters, they are able to establish unusual and interesting chemistry between all four of them. Seeing the group dynamics is one of the more interesting elements of this play as it the slow descent into madness or apotheosis for three of the four characters involved.

It runs through the 28th.

Movie Review: The First 20 Minutes of Percy Jackson the Lightning Thief.

2011-08-07T18:42:00.000-07:00

The Book is interesting and fun.

The movie is a joke.

The book spends the better part of the book building up who Percy's father is. It is no secret he's a demi god, but it spends a long time trying to make the reader guess.

The movie reveals it in the first 30 seconds.

The movie goes from scene to scene with adequate but mostly forgettable flare after that. Its not really good, but its not horrifically bad either; about on par with the average forgettable fantasy movie until they get to the scene with the minotaur right before they get to the camp.

First of all, this is a critical scene that defines Percy's character, and they do it in about 2 minutes 30 seconds....but even that is forgivable (if not a tragic loss.)

Then his mother dies.

He looks about as upset as if stepped in a pile of dogsh*t. He doesn't cry. Doesn't stoically swear revenge. He just goes, (essentially) 'bummer'. Then they proceed to show him the camp.

And that's when I stopped watching.

Voice Acting Class by September Day and Bob Carter

2011-08-06T15:52:00.000-07:00

So, if you have the slightest interest in doing voice acting work, I can't recommend this class enough. They typically advertize by only advertizing on Craigslist, primarily because they really don't need the class to make a living but use it as a recruitment and filtering tool for their talent agency. And they both make an excellent point, about the fact that you really want to take a class from someone who has recent industry experience and someone who knows how to get more work.

In fact that is the first half of the class. The basic XYZ's of what you need to do to put together a home studio and how to put together a demo reel without coming across as a jackass. It is practical and it works.

The second half of the class involves how to network and basic studio etiquette. It also involves taking concrete steps and setting up a plan to put their counsel into concrete format. The last portion of the class involves an actual audition in the studio where you read for a commercial and then an anime character.

To be honest, the banter and chemistry between Bob and September was worth the price of admission alone. Their story is the kind of thing you can't make up, proof that reality is more interesting than fiction, and they make even the driest subject seem interesting. There is also a genuine honesty about them that makes them very fun to watch.

If you want to get into voice acting, contact them and take their class. You won't regret it.

Play On Con 2011

2011-08-01T11:45:00.001-07:00

This was a most excellent con. Play On con is a largely gaming based convention merged with party and other fan aspects. The entire thing takes place in a Birmingham Mariott this absolutely the right size for what it does. I don’t have precise attendance numbers but I’d estimate it between 300-400 people, which lets it have enough numbers to sustain the parties, the costuming and the gaming but still keeping an intimate feeling. By the time the con is done you’ve had a chance to get to know many of the people there though there are still strangers.

One thing I’ve come to realize from these cons is that the costuming aspect is very important. Its kind of the glue that brings a lot of fandom subcultures together, and more importantly the costume contest is often the single largest gathering of a con. Especially of the medium sized ones. The effort that goes into building them ranges from the sublime (such as the winner of the contest who made a Steam Punk bordello owner who was able to give functional body shots on stage to the MC with an extremely elaborate hand piece) to the simplistic (such as the Liono costume the guy put together in two to three hours the night before which still looked pretty damn good.) Many of the secondary prizes seemed invented on the fly, but they were also appropriate such as ‘fan favorite’ for Judge Dread or ‘most creative’ etc etc. Each of the costumes that won an award definitely deserved something. One VERY nice thing about a medium sized cons is that there are no huge lines anywhere.

There were six panel/room locations sites which tended to be going for all of the prime hours and only seemed to have a few vacant spots. One of the more interesting to me was the ‘how to’ element which showed everything from how to make your house haunted, how to dance (anticipating national dance off week) to how to design your own world. It also included a whedon track, media track, anime and gaming. The Cheese Grinder from dragon con was also there and ran a marathon session from Friday through to 1pm Sunday. I made three characters, which lasted from 2-3 hours to 5 seconds. The rooms can be lethal but fun. I spent most of my time doing the alternate activities rather than the games, primarily since the rpg aspect of things focused mainly on Pathfinder. If I end up going next year I’ll probably run some Shadowrun missions. It could use a bit more variety in that department.

The parties were very fun. There were three parties I wasn’t able to go to Sunday night. Attendance dropped off a bit on Sunday afternoon and Evening but they also had an election and party congress. I also greatly enjoyed the casino on Friday night where I won enough chips to be able to become a party judge. The con suite was very well run as was the video game room. Basically the whole thing worked very well.

BOOK Review: The Dervish House by Ian McDonald

2011-07-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this book. It provides an excellent view into the future, or at least one possible future. It is the best look on the potential ramifications of nanotech that I’ve read since Diamond Age. I admit I was far more interested in the implications of the ubiquity of drone technology than the nanotechnology, because I think robotics are finally starting to come of age, and this book reflects a potential path well on that vein. It also explores a lot of social questions in interesting ways.

The other thing I liked about this book was that it was set in Turkey in the 2020’s. I learned a lot about Turkey and it is quite clear McDonald did his homework. In fact I’d be rather shocked if he didn’t spend a good deal of time in Turkey conducting research.

The immerse quality certainly makes it feel like you’re there.
I do think that the book is definitely hard science fiction to me. The characters are interesting and engaging but the novel might be a bit too in depth for the casual reader to truly enjoy. Having said that it does provide a payoff for those who stick past the first 25 pages.

Book Review of Feed - by Mira Grant

2011-07-15T07:54:00.000-07:00

Book Review – Feed by Mira Grant
This novel is awesome. First of all, let me say that I’m not really a fan of Zombies. I mean, they’re fun. But I don’t go out of my way to see them or read about them like I do, say…Alternate Timelines (which is odd because I find that I actually LIKE a lot of zombies stories but rarely enjoy Alternate World fiction…sometimes the fill is not the same as the genre. Just like my taste towards Steampunk. Love the genre….less than impressed with almost anything this side of the original material.) Which is doubly particularly odd since my third book is “Grenademan vs the Zombies” (though admittedly that was written on a dare).
Now that we’ve gotten my tastes out of the way, let me say that one of the things I like about this book is the title. That’s because zombies are largely peripheral to the plot, even though they are not. See, this book is about a group of young bloggers that follow the presidential campaign in a post zombie world. Getting one scene element brilliantly right is an accomplishment, getting two is a work of genius, but Grant manages to do it quite well. She shows us a viable world after a zombie apocalypse that incorporates changes in as many areas as there actually would be, while still maintaining the level of normality that actually happens despite titanic changes in our own (such as 9/11). She also does an excellent job of showing one possible thread in the future of journalism.

In the world of Feed, Bloggers gain respect and prominence because the traditional media are lying to them about the Zombies. People, especially the younger generations simply do not trust the traditional media after their betrayal. (And who could blame them?) Such a trend is already kind of happening in the real world, though it is more of a jaded apathy rather than a religious following of stalwart independent journalists. Still, if we had a transformative event of a magnitude of what is happening Egypt or Syria in the United States, I could easily see this happening. Even if it does not, it is still a remarkably realistic future.

The characters are excellent as is the plot. Some elements are fairly predictable, but others are not. And even the ‘predictable’ elements leave just enough of an X factor that you’re never entirely sure, just mostly sure. And all of the characters are also interesting. I also really like her mirror image of the United States post apocalypse, since it is clever and I think realistic in the way people are reacting. She is quite clever in addressing elements that most people might not think of, such as Animal Rights when some of them might be zombies, the desire for some people to hunt said animals in massive numbers, and the fact that there is actually a slightly positive element that resulted from the zombie apocalypse in that people no longer get common colds or cancer.

I highly recommend reading this book.

BOOK Review of Cyroburn - By Lois Bjold Mcaster

2011-07-13T08:46:00.001-07:00

This story is about an Imperial Auditor coming from a neofuedal planet that suspects someone is attempting to mess something up in Imperial space. His cover is to attend a corporate sales camp, but when the local ‘freedom fighters’ attack things go horribly wrong. He is given the wrong drug and ends up meeting the son of the one hope this world might have. It turns out that the entire planet is filled with Hibernation Coffins filled with people waiting to be reborn. These people have given their votes to the corporations that care for them until the sleeping dead and their proxy’s rule the planet.
This book is an excellent mix of old school Asimovian science fiction with modern expectations of plot and character. The auditor is very likable but also has flaws, as is the young child that he accidentally runs into. The story is very engaging and makes you want to read more. I would definitely recommend reading this book.

Book Review: Blackout

2011-07-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

Blackout is a book by Connie Wills who has won a large number of hugo and nebula awards for her fiction. Blackout is basically about three time travelers who get stuck in WWII whilst documenting various elements of the bombing of London. The reader is left wondering if they have broken the timeline or not, thus leaving the suspense open and real for the planned second half of the book “All Clear” (which came out in the latter half of last year.)

Willis’s work with the historical accuracy of the book is uncanny, and it is clear that she has done an extensive amount of research. In fact, the characters who are not time travelers often show more depth and humanity than those that are. I am rather curious to know how much they were based on real people or not. Still while the book starts out somewhat slow, over time it draws you in more and more as the stakes are raised for each of the three, and their revelations that they are dealing with real people with real problems who face real consequences, even if it was (for them) more than a hundred years ago.

Blackout is an excellent lesson on the fact that the Past Is not Frontierland or a Pirates of the Caribean ride. Our ancestors had real hopes, dreams and fears and seeing them as people rather than as icons can help us understand ourselves a bit better. I greatly enjoyed the book and look forward to reading the second half of the story.

Book Review: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

2011-07-04T12:10:00.000-07:00

This book is a brilliant fantasy. It explores themes in the real world but does so with sufficient subtlety that they are not easily noticed until long after you have read the book. It starts off incredibly strong with the rejected heir to an all powerful empire that controls the world, thrown into the proverbial lion's den where she must sink or swim. The world has been shattered between a war of the gods where the victor shackled the losers and turned them into weapons for the governing regime.

The thing that I love about this book is that the author takes the story to its natural conclusions. All of the characters behave for logical reasons and are dynamic. There is no attempt to create a formulaic status quo. Actions have consequences and in the case of this book, titanic consequences. The protagonist is also very very likable and yet not a caricature at the same time.

N.K. Jemisin is writing a sequel in a world where the ending would make (to me) a sequel somewhat more difficult for a less daring author. But in her case I'm confident she can handle it. And I look forward to reading it as I recommend reading this book.

Movie: Red

2010-10-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

Bruce Willace plays a retired CIA Black Ops representative ("Retired, Extremely Dangerous") in this movie based on a CIA retiree. He and his girlfriend (who he has only chatted with online) must immediately go to ground and avoid teams of masked gun men who mean to kill them. I don't want to include spoilers for the movie, but the cast is masterful and the ending is very well done. While it has an element of the fantastic (ie violations of the laws of physics) they keep those to a minimum and the story is largely about the interactions of the old 'retired' and ...well...extremely dangerous...individuals that have to deal with the situation that has been dealt to them.

Souless by Gail Carriger

2010-10-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

This book is quite fun. Its a Victorian urban fantasy novel that takes a lot of the same tropes that we've seen over and over again (Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts and Frankensteins) and breaths fresh life into them. There is also a rather new twist on the way vampires are done (which these days is VERY hard to do). Essentially, the book combines the steam punk (Zeppelins), Romance, and Urban Fantasy genres with excellent skill.

The source of the title is essentially that the main protagonist is preternatural, who can drain the supernatural abilities. She accidentally murders a vampire at the beginning of the story who has no ideas about the proper protocols of British society. England has embraced its supernaturals and learned to live with them. The united states, with its puritan roots, not so much. Oh, and Vampires took the side of the South in the Civil War....

I liked it. It was quite fun and would highly recommend reading it. I look forward to reading the sequel.

Netherworld 2010 - Atlanta GA

2010-10-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

The production value on this thing is absolutely amazing. Its like walking inside of a Hollywood movie set. There are two separate haunted houses...one with mental patients and car crashes, which is smaller and not quite as interesting. It looks like they're either reusing old ideas or trying new ones out, but it still does a pretty good job of scaring people (based primarily on the reactions on the teenage/college girls within earshot.)

The second has more of a haunted house/gothic theme going, with extremely high decorations and @#$@#$ gargoyles. Yes, there are freaking things with wings flying around on wires that can scare the crap out of you. The main reason this matters is because everything and I mean *EVERYTHING* has to be looked at that it might have a possibility of moving and scaring the crap out of you. The makeup is such that the supposedly dead bodies can easily turn out to be living at any given time. There are also enough hidden doors and tight spaces that it is easy for something to come at you from any angle, but the @#$@#$@ gargoyles add a whole new dimension because you have to look UP in addition to everything else. A lot of the larger monsters were amazing to look at but not scary per se with a few notable exceptions. The final critter does not move much but especially when you look over your shoulder in the mist just as you exit it is extremely impressive.

Oh, and the very last thing that hits you, you will never see coming.

Dark Faith - Anthology

2010-10-14T12:22:00.000-07:00

This review took me a while to write, because the stories in this anthology are exceptional. I think it is a rather good read for Halloween even though it was released in May. This book explores the deeper questions of the relations between humanity and that which it worships. There are no sacred cows, as multiple faiths and multiple perspectives are explored.

Ghosts of New York by Jennifer Pelland – A fascinating commentary on the exploitive melodrama that our society has woven from the most profound event in our history in the last 20 years. It speaks from the perspective of the dead, and it is not a pleasant one. Excellently written it sets the whole tone for the book to come.

I Sing a New Psalm by Brian Keene – An excellent story on the consequences of believing and then having that source of that belief removed unexpectedly or arbitrarily. The formating of the story is also quite unique following that of an actual biblical psalm.

He Who Would Not Bow by Wrath James White – A fascinating take on particle physics and the true meaning of the term ‘God Particle’ as well as the true consequences of what the Rapture might actually entail when applied to the real world.

Zen and the Art of Gordon Dratch’s Damnation by Douglas F. Warrick – An amazing contrast between the religious overtones of Zen Buddism and Christianity, as well as the challenge and consequences of living up to our own convictions. It does a better job of describing hell than Dante, that is certain.

Go Tell it On the Mountain by Kyle S. Johnson – An interesting take on what reality would be like if Jesus were essentially a burnt out talent agent. It also has a pointed message on valueing what we have here on Earth whilst we have it.

Different From Other Nights by Eliyanna Kaiser – A demonstration on the exercize of being careful what we tell our children, why we tell it to them, and making sure that they have a complete understanding thereof. Innocence can have severe consequences when it belies ignorance. Also a very interesting look into Jewish tradtions of Passover.

Lilith by Rain Groves – Short poem that is well done.

The Last words of (Not Dutch Schulz) Jesus Christ by Nick Mamatas – This a rather abstract piece that starts with a documentary style account of what would happen if God were Nyrohotep and Jesus was his spawn and someone made a film that tapped into the collective zeitgeist. The second half of the story is the actual script of the film that kind of begs to be made. Mind warping but entertaining read.

To the Jerusalem Crater by Lavie Tidhar – Old Gods are deposed by the New as the walls between worlds bleed together until it is almost impossible to tell one from the other. A fascinating and somewhat surrealistic tale though a bit out of place compared to the others. The descriptions are lush and very visual.

Chimeras & Grotesquiries by Matt Cardin – What if God were One of Us? Just a Stranger On the Bus? Or Maybe a Hobo H.P. Lovecraft on Acid with a Side of Fries. Delightfully messed up story.

You Dream by Ekaterina Sedia – A highly personal experience in the second person. It blends the realm of the dead and the living and of dreaming and the waking world. Very enjoyable.

Mother Urban’s Booke of Dayes by Jay Lake – Danny Broke the World. Danny is rather guilty about this fact, and, as is highly appropriate, uses duct tape (among other things) to fix it. A wondrous look at the actual consequences of prayer and non monotheistic faiths.

The Mad Eyes of the Heron King by Richard Dansky - A lesson on why most human interaction with the supernatural would probably go unreported. Aesopic, whimsical and prophetic, it speaks of the dealings of Leonard, the office worker and the Heron King. And the consequences thereof.

Paint Box, Puzzle Box by D. T. Friedman – An artist conceives of a rather creative way to cheat Death. Death has other ideas. A very enjoyable read.

A Loss for Words by J.C. Hay – Muses can be quite destructive and often demand a heavy price, particularly when their gifts are not properly appreciated, but the relationship can work both ways, even if the victory is only phyric.

Scrawl by Tom Piccirilli – The implications of the supernatural have a light touch in this one, with a far more sensual muse. But what it lacks in the twisting of reality, it makes up for in the travel guide towards the twisted parts thereof.

C{her}y Carvings – A poem. Beautiful and extremely abstract, it invokes light and darkness…

Good Enough by Kelli Dunlap – Some consider Science a religion. The protagonist, Chris follows in the footsteps of those who have passed the path of its worship before, though without the same end result. Twisted but very well written.

First Communions by Geofry Girard – Takes a much different take on the concept of sacrifice, and what giving one’s life for the concept of unlimited unfathomable love can ultimately mean. A strange duality across time in a series of flashbacks between two girls; two witnesses just like in the book of revelations who bear witness to the concept of love in an extremely disturbing way.

The God of Last Moments by Alethea Kontis – A fascinating alegory I had never before considered between Pandora’s box and the hope chest. It also shows the hunger that can easily consume any of us, and the pointlessness of power for its own sake. Fame, fortune or glory can easily be substituted for the powers sought by Max. And furthermore, it ends well too.

Ring Road by Mary Robinette Kowal – Interactions between mortals and gods seldom go well for the mortals involved, though this modern incarnation of ancient norse mythology helps the reader appreciate corn flakes with a side of toast. A trip to Iceland meets disastrous results. It is very well told and, most importantly, is faithful to the feel and theme of the ancient Icelandic mythos.

The Unremembered by Cheysa Burke – The vast majority of the world’s cultures have oral, not written histories and as a result some of the greatest civilizations in the history of mankind have had their histories lost with an untimely death or series of deaths. But in a world where the supernatural can occur, these disquiet spirits take umbrage of this fact and choose Jeli to rectify it. But such knowledge does not come without price.

Desperata or the Desiderata of H.P. Lovecraft by Lon Prater (Poem): The Catacysm of Cthulu

The Choir by Lucien Soulban – The forgotten corners of history give wide berth for the shadows of darkness to move about unseen, providing ample explanation for why dark tentacled things at night might slaughter with abandon to the uncaring unhuman masses above. Set in WWII in a Qship returning to the states with a cargo of ‘shame’ it has an amptly appropriate ending.

The Days of Flaming Motorcycles by Catherynne M. Valente – This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a wimper. And a well stocked collection of spiral ring notebooks from elementry school. A slice of unlife story in which the apocalypse comes in a most uncinematic theme.

Miz Ruthie Pays Her Respects by Lucy A Snyder – A distant family relation comes to pay her respects in an unorthydox way. And a young boy is given a chance at redemption from an unexpected quarter. And finally, an excellent proof that God (in this story at least) does not play favorites.

Paranoia (a Poem) by Kurt Dinan - It isn’t if they really are out to get you. They are.

Hush by Kelly Barnhill - Written in the present tense. The moment is captured and unspoken wood gods of ancient york make their mark upon the modern world. A delightful bundle of mystery makes its mark known as well.

Sandboys by Richard Wright – There are those that believe all things in the universe are animate, that they have a spirit of their own. Is it any wonder then that if there is a grief of sufficient strength that nature herself might not answer back in reply to the unheard cries offered unto it? A story of personal growth.

For My Next Trick I’ll Need a Volunteer by Gary A. Braunbeck – Time takes a glance sideways in a world of infinite possibilities. Faith merges with cosmology in science to provide an explanation to an elemental question of life and death. A cop saves a child with the help of a magical reverend.

Movie: Winter's Bone

2010-10-04T12:18:00.000-07:00

This movie is excellent. It is a story about a young 17 year old girl who must take care of her mentally ill mother and two (much) younger siblings. Her father has put the house in rural Kentucky up for collateral on the bond that he received and has now skipped out on the bond. Thus, an ominous warning from the Sheriff forces our heroine to go searching for her ne'er do well father. Only it turns out that daddy was involved with some very dubious people and some very dubious activities, but the children and her mother have no where else to turn so she does what she must.

A very human and detail oriented drama. It also shows people in a fascinating light. I highly recommend it but not for children.

Dragon Con 2010 - Cards and Related Paraphinalia

2010-09-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

So every year at Dragon Con I pick up a stack of business cards, promo materials and the like and it gets lost. This year I decided to track it and review it here.

Darkstar - The interactive movie: So on the surface this looks like a game that is part Dragonslayer and part choose your own adventure but when I type in the promotional facebook pace I get nothing. Let's try google: Found it and the wikipedia article and am able to indirectly link to the facebook page via wikipedia. Not a good start for them but I really like the premise so I 'liked' it on Facebook.

GMX Geek Media Expo: Its close, Nashville and looks like a mini Dragoncon. Well put together 3 x 5 inch card. MTAC goes to Dues in easter weekend 2011 on the back looks...odd but potentially interesting. I might go to this, at least a day of it. Its in the 22nd through the 24th of October.

Anime Weekend Atlanta: Nice card. Going on next week. Went once, seemed nice but unfortunately the core of anime culture is really about 10-20 years younger than me. Still, this 'black tie event' thing Friday seems kind of cool. I might get to reuse the suit I got for Gencon...though it would probably be better if I was 'cosplaying' but while I've done costumes, I've never 'cosplayed' and have no idea what I'd do, plus just typing it makes me feel silly.

We shall see.

Dragon Con Steampunk Exhibition: Saw it. Took pictures of it. It was awesome. On the back it had play on con July 2011. Missed last year, I think I'll go next year. Its in Birmingham.

Operation Anime Storm: Giving anime to the troops. Sounds like a worthy charity. Might donate to it when I financially recover from dragon con.

The Legend of Atlantis: July 28-31 2011...a con in the BAHAMAS...You know...I think I can like that idea. I'll check out the cost later.

Web Comic I shall not name: Why? Because he handed out these well timed and well done fliers advocating his web comic...and...they're not well drawn. I might criticize something mainstream but this guy is obviously still learning. I remember what it was like to get one star reviews with Red Anvil. Nevertheless, pass. Might come back when he learns to draw.

11 Cents and a Marta Token: ?!!!!?!?! WTF? What is that doing in there?

The Devils Panties Web Comic...I'd heard about this before, now I'm adding it to my Reader list.

Vexxarr! Looks interesting. Another web comic. Its sci fi and Gag a day, which I like.

I'm also keeping the dragoncon pocket program because it is helpful going through and googling names from panels in areas that I didn't have time to attend later.

Thought there was more than that including some rather interesting steam punk web shows, but I'm sure I can find them on my own later. That will do for now.

Dragon Con 2010

2010-09-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Overall Con: A

The con still rocks. There are some problems, I still had some negative experiences, but on the whole I still highly recommend this con. Let me mention a few specifics:

*Registration: B-. They are more efficient than in years past, but a few minor things could make it go so much faster. I mean to email them some suggestions. They need to find a way to let the badges be mailed out, and even failing that, reduce the need to thumb through books of printed out names. Very stone age. If you paid for Will Call you sailed through in seconds.

*Tracks: A+ More tracks! Most of them were awesome. None of the ones I attended seemed poorly organized.

*Parties: A+. The parties worked like clock work and people knew where to find them and by all accounts had a lot of fun. I, of course, did not have as much fun but I'll address that in another blog. But if you want to go to a con to party, Dragon Con should be at the top of your list.

*Costumes: A-. This is a solid awesome though there were not quite as many truly eye popping costumes, on the other hand the general quality is very very high.

*Need Coffee Fun Time During the Masquerade: D-. I should have known something was wrong with this when they spent over TEN MINUTES of self congratulatory masturbation before they started on the 'fun' which consisted of getting audience members to read from scripts and 'improve'.....Which is sad because the promos they showed indicated that these guys clearly had talent.

*Film Track: A. I do this with reluctance since they consistently reject my stuff, but the reason they do that is because this stiff is ALL very good. The Dragon Con film festival is clearly a national, not a regional film festival and I expect that it will only increase in status and stature. Dr. S vs the Sex Crazed Reefer Zombies rocked on ice skates.

*Track Location: B+ FIVE hotels?! It worked. Barely. They isolated the whedonites and the steampunk stuff over into the Westin, which mostly worked but they need to double the number of shuttles (in my opinion) and add a third track since the Westin seemed kind of empty. Still for the most part, they used the space well.

*Gaming: B. Didn't do much beyond the LARP, but wandered around. They have separated the tournament gaming book into a separate publication. I have no problem with this but they could do to sell ad space in it, and they should have it available at registration rather than making people go down to gaming to get it. But the rest of gaming seemed to run very well and preregistration worked smoother than ever. The hours were really weird though. Also, I should be able to register for a LARP *AT* Gaming Registration rather than having to go to the individual Larp table. That's just silly.

*Dealers Rooms: A+ Awesome. They got this right. The dingy basement one didn't seem dingy this time. The crowds were minimal, and the mix of what I was looking for was very good. Rather strange side note: There were almost no software vendors there. I guess game companies have decided that Dragon Con is not worth their time which is kind of stupid on their part. Really stupid.

Movie: Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

2010-08-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

In a word...AWESOME! First of all, you should just see this because it is a good movie.

But if you have ever played video games and liked them, especially games from the eighties and the nineties YOU MUST SEE THIS.

The basic plot has been plastered all over the internet, but I'll summarize. Scott Pilgrim finds the girl of his dreams (literally) but to date her he must defeat seven evil Exes. This is a world in which video game physics rule (except for cracking open barrels and randomly eating stuff from them or breaking into people's houses and stealing stuff and...well...OK, SELECTIVE video game physics) and Scott's membership in a small indie band and his video game fighting skills come into play again and again.

The graphics are neat.

The homages to ancient video games are neat.

The character dynamics are actually quite interesting.

But the reason you need to see this is because it is also the FUNNIEST damn movie I have seen in a long time. It actually hurt to laugh. That hasn't happened in quite a while.

I can't recommend this movie enough.

The Dresden Files RPG

2010-08-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

Despite rumors that its demise is not yet here, the truth is that the RPG industry isn't what it used to be. Almost everything is moving to electronic. Stores are fewer and farther between, and new games are less. The rpg industry is still vibrant and strong but it is smaller than it was in the 80's or 90's. D&D of course is still alive and well.

One exception to that decline is the Dresden Files RPG, which in two (rather expensive) hard bound volumes creates and refines a system (Fate 3.0) which is revolutionizing most other games (something which in my opinion hasn't happened for a while) but also perfectly captures the spirit of the books upon which they are based. Quite frankly it has been a VERY long time since I've seen a non original (ie adaptation) setting be worth playing. The last one was Angel the RPG and that was what....8 years ago?

The game is essentially story based, which a lot of games claim to be, but this one uses a mechanic and rules set which actually encourages it, with just enough crunch to avoid the floaty 'our game is what we want it to be' feel that a lot of story based games end up being. More importantly in play the thing actually WORKS. It also beautifully put together. Some of the art is merely adequate, but even the adequate work is color INSIDE the book. That's part of the reason this is expensive and it ends up being worth it. This is a new game I not only want to play but WILL play in many games for years to come.

Movie: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

2010-08-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that he basically plays Nicholas Cage in every movie that he's in with only very minor variations on the I Am Nicholas Cage In This Movie character, I actually LIKE Nicholas Cage...he makes crappy movies better. In some cases, he even makes a movie good...like say...Next. In this movie he actually plays the character I like him most in....Wizard Who Looks like Harry Dresden and Acts Like Nicolas Cage Playing a Warden in the Dresden Universe.

And he does a damn good job of it!

Unfortunately this movie is not really about that character at all. Instead its about Clueless but Nerdy Science Wanna Be Mage But Doesn't Want To Be Mage Chosen After a Thousand Year Search Who Uses Science! This kid is an OK actor....I could maybe like him in something but in this movie he sucks compared to what I see what the movie should have been. This kid plays the character like obnoxious side kick when unfortunately the movie is ABOUT the obnioux side kick.

The main villain does a pretty good job. He's not Alan Rickman but he holds his own. HIS Sidekick is actually pretty funny. Draco Malfoy as Duche Magician is the second best part of the movie. Also not very much screen time.

But then again this is a Jerry Bruchheimer film....which is to say don't expect much. If you see this cable, its worth watching. It you pay money like I did, I feel sorry for you. If you put it on Netflix....I assure you there are better movies out there to rent.

Movie: Inception

2010-07-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

This movie is by Christopher Nolan, the same guy who did Batman the Dark Knight.

It is not a movie for stupid people. This might be one of the reasons I like it. I think I over analyzed the movie while I was watching it, but despite that I greatly enjoyed it. The real trick to this movie is that because it involves dream logic, you'd better be prepared to change realities like you're changing a channel. The key to keep track of them is to understand that basically each major 'place' in the movie is in fact a dream; a chase, a hotel, limbo and a snow fortress. Dreams within dreams.

There were some bizarre inconsistencies in that, the dreamers could obviously affect the dream but hardly ever did so. They explained some of this away with the fascinating idea that, anyone invading the dream of another became the subject of attack by all the subconscious projections (ie people who populate the dreamscape besides the person invading the dream) but there were times where they distinctly didn't care about whether or not the person was aware and still used really small changes.

Then again, maybe I think more outside the realm of the possible/impossible than normal. Still, as long as you can keep track of what's going on, this movie is quite enjoyable. I wouldn't recommend seeing it with someone who is easily distracted or can't keep track of the plot of something else that was complex though. If you can, see it in the theater, for it is visually stunning but if you can't, DVD is a good second because I hear you catch more things the second time.

Movie: Despicable Me

2010-07-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

An excellent Children's movie. Its not as good as Toy Story 3, but its still pretty fun. Basically the plot is about a super villain that uses three orphan girls in his plot to steal the moon. Its pretty funny though pretty basic at the same time. Then again, that basic frame work helps make the movie work since you don't ask a lot of questions about how the world works and why the characters are doing what they're doing. Gru (the main character) is by far the most complicated character, since he is both the protagonist and primary villain (though not the antagonist). I'd recommend seeing it.

Movie: Toy Story 3

2010-06-28T09:53:00.001-07:00

So, the movie was not all it was hyped up to be. However, that doesn't mean what you think it does. I liked it. It is one of my favorite Pixar movies. In terms of quality I put it behind Ratatoui and Up. So it wasn't a life changing experience. It hasn't and won't be floating in my head for days making me view the world in a profoundly different light.

But that does mean I'm putting it ahead of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, the Incredibles, Wall-E etc. All of which are masterpieces. I can think of *NO* other trilogy that goes from Strong, Stronger, Strongest. This movie successfully wraps up the series. It answers questions that anyone seriously pondering the ending of Toy Story 2 can do, it helps children deal with unanticipated questions, and is actually a spiritual thing without being preachy.

I cannot recommend seeing it enough and as usual it is absolutely light years ahead of anything else that is out there. Why Pixar doesn't win best picture each year I simply don't know. A few movies can compete, but when it comes consistently to hitting it out of the park, no other studio even comes close.

Movie: Splice

2010-06-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

This movie is more frightening because it is going to happen. Please understand, it is not a question of "might happen" but WILL happen. It might be a year or five years. It might even be five centuries but sooner or later someone is going to start splicing human genes with animals and this movie does an excellent job of showing the result.

OK....partially. The super superior combo that is the 'monster' in this is not the likely creation. No, instead the part of the movie that is the most accurate is the extremely human child hood of the 'creature' growing up, and the monstrous way that the scientists that created her treated her.

This movie is definitely worth watching, if for no other reason that to understand that sometimes there really *IS* a reason to grab pitch fork and torches, but not for the 'monster' but for the real monsters that make them. And they will.

Forever Odd by Dean Koontz

2010-06-28T08:04:00.000-07:00

I listened to this as an audio book on the way back from St. Augustine. I liked it. It wasn't quite as good or original as the first book in the series, "Odd Thomas" but it was still fun to read. The thing that made the first Odd Thomas book so fun was the curious cast of characters in the small California town "Pico Mundo" (which means Small World) as well as the odd quirky nature of the protagonist.

The sequel has the supporting cast only in a small part of it, with most of the book being a conflict between Odd and the villain and her henchmen. Koontz does an excellent job creating a believable story, villain and plot. All of the things that happen fall well within the parameters of the rules set up by the story, keeping the level of the super natural exceptionally light. I liked it, but without the unusual setting and human element, it felt a lot more like another book of his that I read that was extremely sparsely populated because it was the end of the world.

I have come to the conclusion that I like Koontz books that take place in places with lots of people in them. Those that in sparse areas are enjoyable reads, but not quite as exceptional.

Review: Movie - The A-Team

2010-06-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

Mindless mind candy that has no mind.

They fly a tank. Let me repeat that. They fly a tank.

And yet unlike so many remakes of late, this one captures the spirit of the original better than most I have seen. GI Joe didn't really FEEL like GI Joe. Transformers....kind of felt like transformers.

THIS? This felt like the A-Team. The origin idea is often tired but since they never showed it in the original show, it was quite welcome for me in this case. They show how the team assembled, and their first mission and how they got screwed over by the government. Moreover, the way they transferred the old Vietnam War origin to the Desert Storm origin worked quite well.

Movie: Iron Man 2

2010-05-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

They did a good job with this one. It wasn't quite as good as Spiderman 2 or the Dark Night, but it was a solid performer and still quite enjoyable. As a comic lover I was particularly appreciative about how they incorporated all of the other movie projects that they're working on.

Normally, having more than one villain is a terrible idea, but the truth is that we have one 'super villain' and two minor villains in the form of Hammer and a rogue senator that wants to take Stark's armor. I also like the fact that they addressed in a somewhat realistic fashion just how much the government wouldn't like the idea of such armor being in the hands of a relatively unregulated private citizen; even a billionaire.

Movie - Kickass

2010-04-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Kick Ass is Kickass.

Basic Premise: Average high school student decides to become a super hero and ends up in circumstances beyond his control. A disgraced cop and his brainwashed daughter are exuding revenge against a local mafia. They see the would be super hero in action, like the idea and become super heroes themselves.

Good: The fight sequences, the acting, the cinematography, the plot, the writing and the dialog. In short, just about everything in the movie.

Bad: Nothing.

Of Note:

*Is Nicholas Cage in EVERYTHING?

*This is based on a small miniseries comic. I think that helped it because it kept the story scale limited, while still leaving loads of room for a sequel.

*This is NOT a movie for small children. AT ALL.

*However they will probably see it anyway and like it.

*You will never listen to the Banana Splits song quite the same way ever again...

The Dragon of Feldra - LARP

2010-04-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

I played in this LARP with Jennifer at Gen Con in 2009. They're running it again this year and I've volunteered to help them 'promote' it. This thing was awesome in a hat box. Here are six things I liked about it:

1) The out come is HIGHLY flexible. You as a player, can make a huge difference. It was obvious looking at the design that there were probably 10-12 different story lines, each of which could end a different way, and each of which was somewhat independent of each other whilst still affecting the other story lines.

2) All of the parts matter. There are no small parts in this thing. It allows everyone to do some really cool stuff. I didn't see anyone looking at their character sheet and going, "Well that sucks!"

3) The world makes sense. And yet at the same time it is extremely unique. It is obvious that the GM's have put quite a lot of thought into it.

4) The people running it are cool. They'll take the unexpected but in many cases they've also already PREPPED for the unexpected. This is their baby and it clearly matters to them, which only highlights how awesome it is that they're so flexible about what the outcome can be.

5) The system rocks. Its very simple. Its an excellent blend of crunch and yet it allows for creative flexibility in interpretation of how to do things.

6) Most important of all, the system and setting are very 'newbie' friendly. I've been doing LARPS for years and yet I had a blast with it, while my wife, who had never played a LARP before was also mastering things in a few minutes.

If you have the chance, I highly recommend playing this or the sequel, the King of Feldra at Gencon 2010.

Bohemian Girl and Other Stories

2010-04-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

By Stacy Danielle Stephens. (Full disclosure. I received a free electronic copy of this book from a friend.)

Right. First of all, this book is about the experiences of various Transsexuals dealing with their experiences in reality and life. The book is excellently written, and I'm a bit surprised at the fact that there appears to be a deliberate attempt at not mentioning what the book is about anywhere I've seen. Given that the theme of the book involves living with and coming to terms with the truth of who they are; it seems a bit of a mixed message to spring a 'surprise' in how it is marketed. Its not like there is some big reveal at the end. The reader learns about it in the first three pages. It seems a bit of a Kangaroo Jack to imply otherwise. I make this comparison not because the book is bad, which it isn't, but because Kangaroo Jack was marketed as a movie about a talking Kangaroo...which it wasn't. At all. Bohemian Girl doesn't go quite into that territory, but it certainly is approaching Hudson Hawk levels (which was marketed as an action drama and was in fact, a quirky surreal fourth wall breaking romantic comedy.)

This book is strong enough to stand alone as what it is. It doesn't need a Shyamalanian twist to get people to read it. I highly recommend it.

The characters are interesting. Personally, I still liked the title story the most. It obvious that the writer has put a lot of their personal life into the book, or researched the lives of others rather thoroughly. Common themes of Nebraska and the Catholic Church seemed especially prominent. The details draw the reader in.

I have often pondered what things I was doing now that might be disapproved of by future generations. For example, while there were blatant racists in the 1940's...there was still a baseline of acceptable behavior by less racist people that would be considered shocking today. I do not want to be judged by history. For a while, I thought that this might be the way we treat animals (and it still might be) and in discussing with others they've said that it might be plastic (or how we treat the planet in a broader sense of the word (and it still might be) but after reading this, I have come to realize that it will DEFINITELY be the case with the way society treats Transsexuals, and if one desires to avoid being judged harshly in the light of future generations, one would be wise to avoid stereotypes and preconceptions as much as possible.

This book does an excellent job of doing that. The characters are real people, with real hopes and dreams. More importantly, while the greater facts of their lives are taken into account, they are still all quite different as individuals and are extremely in depth. This is literature in the finest sense of the world; both for the quality of writing it uses and for the themes that it explores.

Lazy Review

2010-04-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

The following things suck:

Space Chimps (as if that wouldn't be obvious.)
Meet Dave

The following things are flawed but watchable
Igor

The following things rock:
The Wire Season 3.

That is all.

Movie: How to Train Your Dragon

2010-03-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

It was awesome. This is an excellent kids movie. It teaches a lot of important lessons like using your head, and avoiding stereotypes without beating you over the head about it. It also has a fascinating mythology to the whole thing that is pervasive but comes nowhere near overwhelming anyone unfamiliar with the setting (and I certainly wasn't going into this.)

The summary of the story is that a child named Hiccup doesn't fit in with the rest of the village of Vikings that are routinely raided by Dragons. Obviously (since the title kind of gives it away) Hiccup ends up with a dragon that he has to deal with and bonds with it. The rest of the movie involves how Hiccup solves the challenges that brings him, including how to rectify being the friend of a dragon amongst a people that hate dragons and want to kill them on sight.

Movie: Inglorious Bastards

2010-03-22T19:42:00.000-07:00

This movie is seven kinds of awesome. Basically it is a Quentin Tarantino movie about a group of US Jews who are sent behind Nazi lines to kill Nazis. That and the fact that it is basically a movie for those who felt the Nazis, especially the Nazi upper echelons that killed so many people and died before they could really be held accountable to the whole thing. I enjoyed it. There are a few elements of violence that are a little over the top, but since it largely involves blowing up nazis it is very hard to call it extreme. The ending is a classic that will be remembered for quite some time and the very very ending is even better.

In short, this is a movie worth watching.

Movie: Alice by Tim Burton

2010-03-09T11:15:00.000-08:00

This was a good movie. It was my third favorite Tim Burton movie after Batman and Beetlejuice. First of all, it was visually stunning. It was pretty, haunting and unique, but not garish like some of Burton's works. His style seemed to work perfectly for wonderland. Second, I liked the plot. He managed to set it up in such a way that you have certain expectations about the world at Alice and the beginning which are pleasantly turned on their head in the middle of the story. Third, comparing it to the recent sci fi mini series of the same name, it also incorporates the original mythology but this time with the same character and the books. While it mixes and matches "Through the Looking Glass" and "Adventures in Wonderland" freely, it does so in a way that actually makes the story work well.

Fluffernutting is a nice easter egg. Depp's performance, some say, is upstaged by the Red Queen. This is true. By a long shot, but in this case that makes sense since the Red Queen is the primary villain of the story. Depp is not so insecure a performer that he'll overact just to be the main stay of the series and it reflects in this, despite the fact that it is marketed with Depp's hatter on the movie poster. The hatter isn't the main character, not even by a long shot, though he is among the most interesting.

I am entirely mixed about the statements it makes about how women are treated at the time. On the one hand, it does so in a personal and visible fashion. On the other hand...it has a ham fisted, almost forced feel to it, but to be fair; one cannot make a historically accurate piece without acknowledging it and Burton takes his worlds too seriously not to. I respect him as a film maker and simply hand waving it away was not warranted. Still, personally I'd have been a bit more subtle about it; not reducing the content in the story but minor changes to the dialog to bring the same point home.

Not that I'm Tim Burton mind you.

The film left the door wide open for a sequel so expect, "Through the Looking Glass" sometime in the next year or two.

Movie: Shutter Island

2010-02-25T08:37:00.001-08:00

The last movie that Leonardo deCaprio did with Martin Scorsese directing it was 'the Aviator' which my Wife and I saw on our first date, so I'm not entirely unbiased about this, but nevertheless, I enjoyed it a great deal. The quality is good and it doesn't try too many gimicks, especially unfair gimicks to get its point across.

The basic premise of the movie is that two Federal marshals are called in to an asylum for the Criminally insane (note that it is not called Arkham) called Shutter Island 11 miles off the coast of California. The girl is gone when they get there, and the staff and patients are all behaving rather erratically, as if they are clearly hiding something. One doctor wants to use benevolent treatments while the other believes in old school treatments like Lobotomy, and there are hints early on of associations with the horrific German experiments at Auschwitz. The main character helped liberate the death camps in WWII and as such is highly suspicious of the older doctor.

In short, I liked it. The acting and the directing were perfect. The music score was occasionally a bit too overbearing and loud but I didn't notice it until after the fact when it was pointed out to me.

Movie: Batman - Gotham Knight

2010-02-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

So the idea that a bunch of DC comics writers and Japanese anime artists collaborating to make Batman sounds neat...on paper. In practice what it means is that you end up with something similar to 2 out of 6 segments having awesome animation; 3 out of 6 segments having awesome writing and only 1 out of 6 segments having both. I think one of the things that hampered this was the idea that they were tying it in to the Dark Knight universe from Batman Begins (ie the highly popular movies) setting the story between them. They were obviously trying to go for something similar in scope to the Animatrix, but the thing is with the animatrix, the artists (I think) wrote their own scripts as well. I mean, had the anime people been able to take their own twist on Batman (as the whole video was originally marketed) I imagine that they would have been able to tell stories much more suited towards their animation style. I mean you could have had an homage to the 60's era Batman or the 90's cartoon or the Graphic Novel Dark Knight or even something wholly original. Instead they told a series of interlocking stories that could have been interesting but for the most part weren't.

The lesson from this is that one or two neat ideas might work in synergy...but three or four and you'd better wait to try it first with something simple before you take a huge leap into the abyss.

Play: Mama Mia!

2010-02-10T19:53:00.000-08:00

Mamma Mia is an excellent play. It is essentially a story written around a stuttered medley of Abba disco songs. You can tell they created the plot primarily based on the lyrics of the songs but they mesh together in an almost seamless format. There was one minorly uncomfortable moment where the main female young lead sings what was clearly written as a love song but with ambiguous lyrics to her father “What’s the name of the game” in a much more different context, but in the end it managed to work well. The play itself is just plain fun and contains a high amount of energy. The costumes are well done. The set is fairly minimalist but since this is a quasi surrealistic musical it doesn’t really need stunning vistas. More over, they are able to cram an extremely large number of characters into only almost two hours and still make them dynamic, believable and quasi realistic. I highly recommend seeing it if you get a chance.

Movie Review - Terribly Happy

2010-02-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

Terribly Happy is an interesting move entirely in Danish. The showing that we saw had a bizarre bit of Danish Film Festival propaganda about how cool Denmark was and how they were essentially the center of all things cultural, without actually seeming arrogant about it. It wasn’t really that bad but it was an interesting chaser right before the movie.

The basic premise of the film is that an out of favor cop from Copenhagen is sent to the middle of nowhere (and they spend like, the first three minutes of the film showing just how in the middle of nowhere it is) to be given a second chance and ‘do his time.’ The film states that it is based on ‘actual events’ however a careful search on my part could find absolutely no indication anywhere what those events were. I’ll explain below.

On the whole I enjoyed the movie. I found the actors and the plot moved at a reasonable clip and it had enough twists and turns that it easily drew you into it. The self described genre of the film is ‘Thriller’ and I found that appropriate. It has also been compared to Twin Peaks meets Northern Exposure. I think it has a little bit more Northern Exposure than Twin Peaks, because while there are no supernatural elements they do do a very good job of portraying just what life would be like in a very small Danish town in the middle of Southern Jutland (which is apparently the middle of nowhere.)

(Spoilers follow)

So, I spent like 30 minutes looking everywhere I could find on what the hell these ‘actual events’ were. The movie was based on a Danish novel called Frygtelig lykkelig by Erling Jepsen. After googling all of these people there was nothing mentioned about the actual events. Was it just a few events, like the fact that people died and they made wild speculation about it, or was it pretty damn close to the bizarre plot of the movie? The reason I wanted to look this is up is because, quite frankly, there is absolutely no explanation about how anything is discovered.

I know I said spoilers, but I don’t want to give too much away. But people DIE in this thing and the bodies are discovered, and the killer and many people involved end up going on their merry way (and yes, that’s not by itself the biggest spoiler of the damn movie….). So how did anyone see anything? As near as we can tell, the little girl who witnessed everything might have put the pieces together when she grew up and written a tell all or gone to court?

Who knows.

TV Show: The Wire - Season 1 and Season 2

2010-01-17T14:08:00.000-08:00

This program was originally made for HBO. It has a lot of swearing, a lot of graphic violence and a lot of nudity. With the exception of the swearing, however, it is not as gratuitous as some of the other original programming they have in the 'look, we're on cable and we can do this stuff' that I've seen with some of their other programs. (I'm looking at YOU Sex and the City). More hints and shadows. What makes The Wire so good is the writing. The writing is excellent which happens to be coupled with excellent actors and very competent directing.

The series for its first two seasons does an excellent job of basically showing the realistic obstacles, life styles and challenges of a police department in the city of Baltimore Maryland in dealing with criminals who are far more strategic in their thinking and in their level of sophistication. It is particularly adept at showing how society is harmed by the petty bureaucracies that often exist in our society and within the law enforcement community itself. Anyone who despises or wants to reform government would be well off studying The Wire to learn that the government can do a lot of good but that it is all about how the system itself is designed. People are human and are going to behave like human beings, which is to say good, wonderful, flawed, horrible and greedy.

Even the most heroic characters have their flaws, and even the most vile villains have their good side. This is largely the truth and the screen rarely wastes our time on cartoon characters or two dimensional characters. This is the way Law and Order was meant to be done and perhaps would have been done if it didn't have to be made for the lowest common denominator on Network Television. This is particularly ironic really since the very people the networks hope to capture the attention of are portrayed far more realistically in the Wire. People say "The suits" mess things up, but the truth is, that they really do.

And when you compare "The Wire" to "Law and Order" you really begin to see why.

Movie Review - Fortress (1985)

2009-12-29T15:24:00.000-08:00

This delightful little tale is a class example of a story that inspires children. As a parent, this movie is for you if you want to:

*Have scenes with the teacher disrobing in front of her student to swim in a cave.

*Have repeated double entendres from the teacher and others involving the use of spears.

*Teach that children and teachers should lie to law enforcement.

*It is an acceptable form of revenge to cut the beating heart out of your kidnapper and display it in a pickle jar at the back of your classroom.

However, aside from the terrible acting, terrible script, terrible characters and supremely predictable plot, there are some very nice shots of Australia.

Oh. Right. I should say something about what the movie is about. A teacher and 9 students are kidnapped by four insane guys who bring them to a cave and leave them down there alone while they slide a rock into the cave. They light a magic fire that runs on magic fuel while Teacher and Author Avatar Young Boy go to find a way out. Teacher disrobes in front of student who does not seem to mind him not looking away (not reacting at all really) and then swims out. They traipse through the wilderness and get to civilization where the bad guys are waiting. The bad guys then foolishly lock them alone again in a barn, only now they send in one guard who is trapped and accidentally shot. The kids then go to the wilderness and create a fortress with sharp sticks. In a brief struggle, the bad guys end up dead. At the end, the students and teacher are singing songs (there are a LOT of songs in this movie) and the police ask about irregularities in the body. The teacher says, "are you arresting us?" The police inspector says, "No." "Then shut up and mind your own business!"

The movie ends showing a human heart in a pickle jar.

It does, however, have a nice lord of the flies scene in which small children, big children and teacher are spearing a bad guy to death and enjoying it.

Fun for the whole family really.

Movie: The Fantastic Mr. Fox

2009-12-15T18:22:00.000-08:00

This movie is based on a 40 page book by Roald Dahl.. It was thoroughly enjoyable. The basic plot is about a fox that lives with his family and promises to 'go straight' when they have kids. He does that for a while but decides to take on last job where he robs three farmers. This causes problems for all of the animals and the farmers psychotically try to kill them all. Mr. Fox must get them out of trouble.

The thing about the animation and the script is the general feel of the movie. It is unique and a thorough pleasure to watch. The dialog is well written as is the pacing. Small children and adults should enjoy this. I highly recommend it.

Movie: 2012

2009-12-03T13:13:00.001-08:00

2012 was a mess, but it wasn’t as bad of a mess as I expected. Normally I would not have seen this movie in the first place, both from the bad reviews I read of it and because of the “Killer Ice” in “The Day After Tomorrow” by the same director. When Ice chases people down corridors it is pretty ridiculous. So obviously I am not unbiased on this. This is actually worse; since I’m not really a fan of the Disaster Genre, or a fan of movies that exist for Special Effects. I mean, what’s the point? Do you want pretty things on screen or explosions? Well sure, I like explosions but its generally the context of the explosions and the story that matters to me. After all an explosion affecting a children’s hospital is a lot different than the evil alien spaceship.

The reason I don’t generally like disaster movies is because to me they’re the same thing as those people who slow down in the opposite lane of traffic to rubber neck at an accident. I HATE those people. How, exactly, does hoards and hoards of people dying constitute something artful and uplifting? Indeed, you could make more of an argument that horror decries the dangers of evil more than a disaster flick. Of course, the trope of a disaster movie is that it tries to show the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity. I admit, I like this, a lot. And in that context, 2012 has some interesting things to say.

As a fit of destruction over and over again, it is utter rubbish. As a profound statement on the greed and disgusting behavior that humanity often exhibits, it is excellent. Thus, while I despise the genre, and the marketed purpose of the movie, it managed to have some winning points in spite of itself.

The basic premise of the movie is that secret Killer Nutrino Particles are heating up the Earth’s core to the point that it moves things around. The director decided to one up himself even more by pretending that science doesn’t even matter (like it ‘kind of did’ in the Day after tomorrow) and just say that India and China can move 2300 miles in one minute…just cause. Lots of people die. The heroes scatter from place to place trying to not die. They go to the secret location of the arcs and get on board. IE, pretty much the plot of Independence Day + Day After Tomorrow. This is their bastard step child.

The thing I like about the movie, however, is that the ‘lottery’ that takes place in Deep Impact is shown as the farce that it is. There is no lottery. There is no ‘best and the brightest’. They sold seats on the Humanity Gets to Survive boat…to rich people. Now, the movie brings up an interesting point. You can’t fund a multi trillion dollar project secretly using public funds. See, there are these things called laws, and you can’t move large amounts of money secretly without people noticing. Private people can. I find it interesting that they get the finance aspect right and the science so totally wrong and ridiculous.

But whatever.

Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsch

2009-11-27T09:52:00.000-08:00

I think that there is a lot in this book that is worthy of attention. Since my own spiritual paradigm has changed a lot in my life, I am always open minded to hearing new perspectives. I think that Mr. Walsch has some very good insights into the nature of god, some of which I agree with, and some of which I do not. Since this is a review blog and not one focused on my own internal philosophy or musings, I shall focus first on the nature of the book itself. The entire thing is essentially a platonic (in the sense of this is a literary device used by Plato betimes in The Republic) conversation between the author and God. As a character Walsch's god is both very human and very kind and wise. He has a different perspective than most, and also have very human traits like humor, whimsy and sarcasm. For the most part, the book does an excellent job of conveying the author's philosophy and the underlying tale. The underlying tale, such as it is, isn't much, in that it is basically that the author is down on his luck and washed up, and lost in life and that he has a voice in his head that calls itself God, with whom he converses on a piece of paper by asking all of the questions that he wanted to know. Walsch's idea of god and realize are spelled out piece by piece and bit by bit in a fashion that is internally logical and intruiging.

The thing that fascinated me most about Mr. Walsch's god is that it (since it claims to be neither masculine nor feminine) is the way it is and that humanity is the one constantly attributing traits to it. This does make sense largely, since a common theme of all the major spiritual texts of humanity is exactly this; God is the way He is, not the way he wants us to be. Like any pervasive spiritual philosophy, some of the hard questions are extremely vague. For example, at one point the text implies that there is no right or wrong or good or evil and that God isn't going to judge us. At the same time, the text implies that if we're really trying to be like God, we judge ourselves and that if we're really trying to be like It, we're going to be good people anyway. The book does do a fairly good job of finding the logical holes in most monotheistic faiths, particularly that, if God is a jerk, is He really worth worshiping and is it really fitting to play games of theological riddles that we have to solve for His convenience. I should note that I do not agree with all of these philosophies, but this is skillfully narrated in the book.

Still, while I do find elements of the philosophy quite interesting, I think this book is best read (from my perspective) as a philosophical tome rather than a spiritual one. Spiritually speaking, it might connect with you, but it will probably cause just as many questions as it will answer. Philosophically, I found its insights into the question of want (ie, if quit wanting for things and instead merely hope and strive for them, a subtle but important difference) and relationships (ie think of them as an opportunity to be your best self rather than a question of what you can get out of said relationship) to be extremely insightful and interesting. I recommend reading it, but I do so suggesting that it be done with a hearty grain of salt.

Movie: The Men Who Stare At Goats

2009-11-12T16:39:00.001-08:00

An interesting movie. Part of it is fact and part of it is fiction. The movie is based on a book by the same name written by a journalist who happened to run into some people who had actually belonged to a cutting edge army psi brigade that actually believed that they had psychic powers. I’ve only heard about the book by reputation, but I can say that the movie does an excellent job of blending the possibility that there might be something there while at the same time making you wonder if they, and all research like it, are filled with fundamental loony tubes. On the whole liked the movie. The plot is a little slow and ponderous at times, but it makes some very meaningful points. I think the moment where they are in the car with the military contractors (ala Black Water) when they cavalierly cut in line at the gas station or open fire on what they think are hostile Iraqis (who turn out to be another US contractor) shows a very good idea in three minutes what it was like for the Iraqi’s to have to live under this crap for eight years. The last twenty minutes are by far the best part of the movie though and the rest of the plot helps put it all into context. I liked it a great deal.

Movie: Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

2009-11-05T17:28:00.000-08:00

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is a good movie that has a lot of good messages with a few flaws. First, even for a children’s movie, it is a little bit too self aware and pretentious. When the narrator in “Winnie the Pooh” says “This is the story of” etc, it works just fine. When the narrator is a character in the movie, that can work as well. When the narrator is aware that they are the narrator and there is one, and makes side comments to the audience, they’d better be Ferris Bueler or they’re probably not going to pull it off.

Dustin Hoffman was well suited to this roll, and actually managed to play it sufficiently low key that I enjoyed the performance. I could easily see him going Jim Carrey/Grinch on this, but he didn’t. Natalie Portman was not at her best, and I like Natalie Portman. Elements of what she did were really good. Her dynamic with Mr. Magorium/Dustin went well. Her dynamic with Mutant (the accountant) went OK. The scenes with pretentious narrator kid…fell flat on their face. Pretentious narrator kid has some good scenes. He did the hat collection scene with Mutant very well. He also did a good job as ‘backbone in the background’ while Mr. Megorium was around. But the whole, “You have to save the store scene” with Natalie Portman was just nauseating. Basically, most of the dynamics in the movie worked well except those between Portman and PNK. It just…didn’t work. So much so that it made the entire movie suffer as a result of it.

The thing that the film did BEST was help a child understand death. Mr. Magorium had a very healthy attitude toward it, understanding that it was a natural part of the cycle of life. Even more impressive was the fact that he didn’t do what I thought he was going to do which was step off into neverneverland or something. Even though it didn’t show much, it quite clearly implied that he actually died, and was actually buried. The FX on the store were very good, though the whole theme was in that “Kids like a vomit of colors as much as possible” way.

On the whole, I liked this movie, despite its flaws and think that it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Once. Don’t see much rewatch value though.

The Goblin Tower - L. Spring de Camp

2009-10-29T16:10:00.001-07:00

The Goblin Tower by L. Spring de Camp is a good book. It was written over 40 years ago, in 1968. I found the stylistic changes that have taken place in fantasy over the last 40 years rather interesting. On the one hand, the book could easily compete with modern fantasy. The characters were strong, the narrative was compelling and the setting was rich and detailed. The plot was also rather interesting, and I have to admit I haven’t seen it replicated since. Jorian is a mercenary who is accidentally selected to be the king of Xylar. This might not normally be a problem except for the fact that the king of Xylar is killed every five years. Jorian wisely made a deal with a wizard to get him out of the deal, but in return he was forced to steal a spellbook in a distant land. The thing I found most interesting, however, was the similarity it had with fiction that was written in much earlier times, at the turn of the 20th century. Jorian was a master story teller, and the plot of the book routinely came to a screeching halt as Jorian told tales of his native kingdom, usually to get out of a tight situation. As such, the book had the unusual mix of a modern high fantasy novel meets Arabian nights; complete with the obligatory (but short) nod to the real world when he uses Earth to take a short cut between worlds. I recommend it, though primarily to those who, like me, have fairly eclectic tastes. Those who prefer more mainstream or post modern fantasy may not like it.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

2009-10-27T15:55:00.000-07:00

The book was surprisingly good, though it certainly wasn’t what I thought it was. I don’t know why, perhaps the last major motion picture that was released, but for some reason I thought this book had an element of the supernatural to it. It certainly doesn’t. Its definitely a gothic romance. Thus, when I say surprisingly good, I mean that it surprised me that I liked it. This is clearly the kind of book that they would (and apparently actually did) assign in English class, both for the beautiful prose but the fact that the thing is chock full of all kinds of literary references and techniques. Setting reflects theme. Characters are dynamic and yet comprehensible. The plot moves forward at an interesting yet methodical pace. I could argue that Ms. Bronte’s work could be released today and would actually be competitive on the market. To be sure, certain elements might seem a little stereotypish today, but even then, they’d still be successful. Despite the antiquity of the language, I found it intellectually stimulating and, like all truly great books, it made me think and had a little bit of it linger with me long after I was done reading it. I highly recommend this book.

The Philosophy of Super Heroes

2009-10-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

The Philosophy of super heroes was a very interesting book. It is a collection of articles that explore philosophy and how it affects or is affected by super heroes. I think that the articles that did their homework interested me the most. That is to say, that some of the authors had a cursory knowledge about what they might have seen in movies, but some of the others had done quite a bit of research into the deeper lore of what they were examining. The first third of the book is a lot easier to read than the latter.

The three most interesting articles for me was the exploration of why Spiderman does what he does, why Superman does what he does, and the religious overtones of Daredevil’s Catholocism. The author postulated that the reason Superman acted heroically was as a way of connecting with people. And this makes sense really. He is the last of his race. And, when you think about it, being surrounded by people that look exactly like your people, but who are fundamentally different and also fragile, could make you hesitant to establish any kind of connection with them. By taking a direct hand in the world, by connecting with people by making a positive difference in their lives you can become a part of the whole. The exploration of “With great power comes great responsibility” was a fascinating breakdown of what makes something ethical or not. I can see why Jennifer enjoys Kantian philosophy so much. It took me a while to get around to reading it, but I’m glad that I did. I highly recommend it.

Movie: Zombieland

2009-10-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

It is quite fun. It is also quite gross at parts, but I think that this thing is a great deal of fun. It also shows how good ideas are kind of timely. A year ago, I was challenged to write a novel about Zombies. I realized that at the time there was a large void in the Zombie genre for protagonists that weren't morons. That was why I wrote Grenademan Vs. The Zombies. Before Zombieland, the main movies that did this were Army of Darkness (a classic but nearly 20 years old) and Shawn of the Dead (which was more of a parody.)

It is true that, like Shawn of the Dead, Zombieland has a bit of a comedic element, but despite that, Zombieland retains more of the true roots of the genre in my opinion. At no point do we really consider the scenario that they're in a joke. It certainly has humorous elements, particularly when they decide to spend some time at Bill Murray's mansion.

The heroes are human and flawed. And despite that, they don't behave like morons, which I greatly appreciate. They give an explanation about where the zombies came from, but it is shoved far into the background of the story where, quite frankly, it belongs. This isn't a story about the zombies, but instead the way it changes the people involved. It is a story of coming to terms with loneliness and the value that building societies can bring.

I greatly enjoyed this movie and highly recommend it. Not for small children though.

Dying Lights by Mark Argyle

2009-10-05T23:26:00.001-07:00

I originally posted this review in 2003 on rpg.net I also fixed the spelling.

The basics: Dying Lights is a game that gives you everything that you'd want in a complex space board game like Twilight Imperium, but with half the complex rules and several highly innovative features that help game play rather than enhance it.

The Story: I am a bit odd when it comes to board games, card games and the like. The story in these games is just as important to me as it is in the RPG, which is to say-everything. And the story of Dying Lights does not let me down. The rule book devotes 1/6th of its space to telling the intriguing tale, and helps set the proper mood of the game.

Basically, a bunch of jedi-like psi monks go about mucking with things that they only think they understand in order to create a utopia. As one might expect, this goes horrifically wrong and they end up corrupting the Galaxy's collective unconscious as well as psychically activating all the inhabitants of the galaxy. The practical upshot of which is; the galaxy goes nuts and several cracks in the universe appear, bleeding out all the spiritual energy in the universe.

The inhabitants rapidly come to the conclusion that in order to survive, they have to kill everyone else because the remaining psi power leaves enough for only 1/10 of the people living.

Game play: The thing I like most about the game is the proverbial shot gun tied to the heads of the players. While it has LOADS of flexibility (which I like) it also forces the players to act.

There are three campaign rounds in each turn. At the end of each turn, you loose psi (1 the first, 2 the second, 3 the third etc). Each player starts with five, and while there are ways to get psi in the game (not as easy as it sounds), you can see right away that it forces you to take action.

The game takes place on terrain cards laid out in a somewhat similar fashion to Twilight Imperium, with another set of cards that represent 'Fleet trees' or as the game calls them "Battle Groups". You then move these around on the battle ground and combat ensues.

I won't include all the details of the combat, but it is relatively simple and straight forward, yet also manages to include elements such as tech upgrades, fighters and heavy weapons. An aspect of the game I really like are the 'experience' cards that allow the Admirals of each fleet to gain traits like 'heroic' or 'ruthless' that affect play. The game plays for 2-6 players and the basic set (which I got) seems to support all, although supposedly you can 'customize decks' by manipulating cards, though this is by no means a collectible card game. Everything you need is in the box.

In short, I liked it. It is a game that has a lot of potential and at the same time plays relatively quickly.

Ruled Britania by Harry Turtledove

2009-09-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

A while ago I tried reading a series of books Mr. Turtledove wrote about aliens invading during WWII. It was, quite simply, boring beyond imagination, at least for me. So when a friend handed me a book called "Ruled Britania" by the same author I took it with a bit of trepidation, but I was wrong.

The book is excellent and flows quite well. The first 40-50 pages are somewhat slow, but once the action starts, it keeps up right until the end. The basic plot of the story is a 'what if' (for which Harry Turtledove has become known as the absolute master) in which the Spanish Armada wasn't defeated in 1588, and instead successfully invaded England. A rich english aristocrat, Elizabeth's former spy master, sets about commissioning Shakespeare to write a place called 'Boudicea' to inspire the people of England to revolution. Of course, at the same time, the governor of England commissions him to write a play about King Phillip the II, to commemorate Spain's dying King. Shakespeare has to do both at the same time in an otherwise extremely difficult situation.

The thing I found most fascinating was the fact that many of the minor characters (but not all) were quite real as well. Mr. Turtledove did a very good job of making them seem quite real. For example, the Spanish are somewhat brutal, but they are hardly mustache twirling Snidely Whiplashes. Added to this fact is Turtledove's use of Lope De Vega, a Spanish playwrite (and in this case soldier as well) for the Spanish perspective and you get a rich and deep plot.

I highly recommend it if you like historical fiction.

The Unincorporated Man by Dani Kollin & Eytan Kollin

2009-09-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

I like the book though I don't necessarily agree with its politics. The basic premise of the book is a self made billionaire sees that the system is on the verge of collapse, has terminal lung cancer, so he makes a self contained cryogenic unit and buries it in a mountain where it lies for several centuries. What remains is a perfect libertarian paradise where the government magically works perfectly, there is no tax and the government can provide no service that is not also competed against in the free market. There is no war, little crime and plenty of food. Medicine has removed all sickness and people essentially live forever.

There is only one fly in the ointment. Anyone who is born automatically has themselves incorporated, with their parents getting 20% and the government getting 5%. Beyond that, almost everyone has to trade between 6-14% to receive an education from a university, which also owns a part of you until you pay it off or buy your stock back. Reaching a majority, and thus controlling your own destiny, is the goal of essentially everyone in this civilization.

Thus when our billionaire wakes up, the corp that finds him wants to lay claim to him and incorporate him. Through a bit of trickery, he manages to get free and thus a massive legal battle ensues wherein he is trying to keep his soul and not become incorporated.

The book does indeed feel Heinleinian, and I like Heinlein, though the background government sure isn't Starship Troopers that's for sure. The best part of the book is the struggle for individuality and the right to be free, despite blatant attempts by the authors to turn the non billionaires who like the idea into cartoon characters.

David Weber does the same thing in the Honor Harrington books, but does so with so much class that you don't mind. That, and the main bad guys AREN'T cartoon characters. Overall its a good read, but given how good this idea is and how ham fisted they were with their politics, I'm betting I won't be as entertained by their next book.

The Aphorisms of Kherishdar by M.C.A. Hogarth

2009-08-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

Let me first of all say that I was given a free copy to review, and that M.C.A. Hogarth is a friend of a friend. Having said that I was reviewing this from a clear perspective, and if I didn't like it, I would simply not write a review on it. I did like it, and a lot of things about it as well.

What's the difference? Well, let me clarify. First, from a pure componented perspective, I liked numerous elements separate of the work as a whole. I like the fact that this story followed the patron model. The author wrote a series of stories, which about 50 paid for because they wanted to see more. Thus, without their interest and input, more would not have been made. I think that in the modern world of the internet, this is the ideal method rather than giving substantial amounts of money to middle men who take a cut and give nothing in return. There are those channels which are good, but there are many who are not. And I favor direct patronage as the highest model.

The second was the fact that this was social science fiction, but it wasn't just that, it was well done. Science fiction is always a method of looking back at ourselves through a prism that is simply not possible in the real world. I learned a lot by watching the Naked Mole rat in the zoo. What the hell? You ask.

Let me clarify. A common criticism in science fiction is that aliens are not sufficiently alien. They should be tentacled horrors rather than humanoid. And yet...did you know that Naked Mole rats have a hive structure? Yes, that's right. They aren't a herb, but have a queen just like certain kinds of insects. Thusly, I have come to find humanoid aliens potentially more plausible than something that would have to evolve an entirely different way of using technology than ourselves. I don't consider the latter impossible, just not as likely as a humanoid. And the aliens Hogarth presents in his story are in many ways like us. There is a distinctly asian feel to their culture, but they are not simply ancient Japan or ancient China with the serial numbers filed off.

No, I argue that the reason the culture feels this way is because it is obviously ancient. Let me give you an example of what I mean. If someone from the 15th century were somehow magically transported to the present day, they would be generally very rude by our standards. They would not do this intentionally, but dozens of elements of etiquette that we take for granted in our society are simply instilled in us by birth. As time progresses society has ways of working things out.

The thing I like so much about the Aphorisms is that it portrays what is obviously on the surface a very static society while at the same time answering any questions I had about how they manage to avoid ossification and thus ultimate destruction. It has a vibrancy beneath the surface that thus legitimizes its longevity.

In other words, Hogarth has created a society I can actually believe in, doing so in the actual format that an alien would write it no less. This feels not a book written by a 21rst century writer set in an alien world, it is written by a distant alien and translated into English.

But the best element of the book is the actual skill of the writing itself. Hogarth knows how to write and does so quite impressively. I highly recommend the book to hard core sci fi readers or those who are interested in philosophical musings in fictional form.

Torchwood - Children of Earth

2009-07-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting combination of miniseries and third season. And I like it. I've becoming convinced after watching limited series like Cowboy Bebop that sometimes a limited series is just the way to tell a story. Its long enough, and complicated enough, that you just can't make a movie out of it, but it doesn't justify 7 26 episode seasons. Some series do work well enough to do that. I think Firefly was killed in its prime, just like Farscape, in large part not due to profitability but to executive stupidity. In fact, in the case of the latter, I pretty much KNOW it involved interoffice politics rather than anything the fans wanted.

But until fans directly fund such projects, they will always be subject to the whims of Hollywood executives so they better get used to it.

But I digress.

-Limited Spoilers-

The basic premise of this show is, aliens are coming and they want a chunk of Earth's children. 10% exactly. The more shocking thing (revealed in episode 4) is that the aliens want the children because humans 'make good chemicals.' I've seen aliens mess with humanity for an awful lot of reasons, but at the absolute least you have to hand it to Russel T. Davis (creator of Torchwood) in coming up with an extremely creative way of making aliens want to interact with humans. We're the losing half of an intergalactic opium war.

The visuals were stunning. Whoever worked with the children managed to make them act very unchildlike and in large numbers. We're not talking about one or two Halley Joel Osmets here, but whole crowds of kids acting in an extremely creepy fashion.

The acting in general was supurb, as was the writing. The only major complaint I had was the absolute lack of freaking out on the part of the children in Episodes 1-3 (out of 5). Look, I understand how you want to highlight how much of a natural disruption it is to show the children playing one minute and then having them standing their droning alien messages the next, but I think a far more powerful visual would have been to show some children playing, but be sure to show little Timmy cowering in the closet because he's afraid that the aliens are going to get him.

A lot of reviews I've read have said Episode 4 is boring. No. Episode 4 is not boring unless you're stupid. Episode 4 is the most important episode out of the 5. Episode 4 is where we see WHAT WOULD REALLY HAPPEN if this took place. We see politicians acting like politicians. We see the absolute disgusting nature of humanity and it is portrayed in a perfectly believable fashion. Unlike the contrived visual with the children, this one is spot on. It doesn't have to highlight the bad guys to make them look bad, because they're just regular leaders making what they believe to be the only choice they have, while at the same time willfully ignoring the alternatives.

And it also shows what only science fiction can show, which is that, in other areas, our leaders often make decisions like this every single day, and yet no one lifts a finger to stop it. Abstract policy to most people just that, abstract policy, with no real feeling for the consequences until it happens to them.

Anyone who loves science fiction or anyone who wants to point out that abstract policies have real world consequences should see Torchwood Children of Earth.

Nation - by Terry Pratchet

2009-07-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have noticed a repeated trend in the British psyche lately trying to recognize the fact that there were an empire for several hundred years. On the one hand, they want to take pride in the fact that they were once a mighty nation, on the other hand, they've grown up and realized that stomping people for economic exploitation is probably not the most morally superior attitude in the world.

Nation is a departure from Pratchet's work in many ways. It is set in the real world, despite hints and shadows at potential supernatural activity that might only be in the minds of the local participants. It answers important questions about culture, nationality, history and the individual. His characters are interesting; the female Daphne and the male Mau. He starts the narrative off with Mau because Mau is the most foreign to most of those who will be reading the book. Mau is a pacific islander (despite a handwavium attempt by the author to pretend that the island and the entire ocean have been made up out of thin air at the end of the book) while Daphne is the unlikely heir to the british empire after a plague killed dozens of other relatives, who ends up shipwrecked on the Island with Mau.

What is fascinating is how the two interact and how the question of the ultimate fate of the island is resolved in the long term. For young adult fiction (or fiction in general) it is quite good and I would highly recommend reading it. Most impressive of all, is that on top of the questions it asks and answers, Pratchet manages to keep his trademark humor throughout.

Movie - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2009-07-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

Some have been disappointed by it, some consider it the best movie of the series. I liked it a great deal, and I don't honestly know if I HAVE a favorite movie of the series. I like them all, though I admit I am not a rabid fan, just a fan. I think for me its really a question of admiration for Rowling's storycraft. I've been told that her writing itself is not the most skillful, and I will readily conceed that her building blocks have been used to death in other medium a million times before.

But the skill with which Rowling uses those blocks is utterly amazing. Its like macaroni art put together by Michangelo. The individual components are simply not that impressive, but the artistry of the work itself is undeniable. The plots are pretty transparent despite a valiant effort to make them novel and interesting, but at the same time Rowling does so with a freshness and daring that makes them truly wonderous. Moreover, Rowlings characters are truly human. They behave in human ways and incorporate a larger spectrum of humanity than is to be found in most literature period, much less the YA genre.

Rowling trusts her readers with darkness. She never hides behind the fact that there are dark things out there, and her dark figures do not act like stereotypes (or rather JUST like stereotypes) but like the real thing. More important, her books are an enjoyable read. The movie is no less so.

Backup by Jim Butcher

2009-07-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

Yeah. I'll be blunt here.

This is a kickass novella in hardback form. But I feel that Butcher is entering Lucas exploitation levels in selling this thing in hardback form. When I sell something with a lot of white space, I don't include those pages in the cost per page count. This is the kind of novella I would be more than happy to buy when mixed up with other things he's written, or in anthologies with other authors. I've obtained numerous short stories he's written in anthologies because he's my favorite author.

But when a $13.60 hardback book ($20 cover price) is sold then I really feel that my good will as a fan is being exploited.

Which is of course why I checked it out from the library. I'm still supporting the author by encouraging the library to buy more of his stuff, but I'm not being an idiot about the price either.

The basic plot is about an associate of Harry Dresden, Thomas, who helps Harry without his knowledge. Occasionally episodes like this appear in television series, and I like them a great deal. It also adds a fascinating new dimension to the conflict in the Dresdenverse, and it makes absolute perfect sense. In a world where belief makes things real, of course there are things best forgotten, which is where the 'obvlivion war' sets in.

The other thing I like a lot about this book is about how it personalizes a character that is forced to make horrible character altering decisions in the Turn Coat book.

Movie: Terminator Salvation

2009-07-14T08:57:00.000-07:00

I had heard mixed things about this, plus given the recent series, I was concerned about the studio I thought that produced it, but it turns out that both opinions were incorrect. The movie is actually a lot better than Terminator 3. It had a few flaws, but using the 'movies are fun' argument that justified Transformers 2: Robot Testacles for earning $200 million, I think we can cut this one some slack.

The movie is basically about how John Conner actually becomes the head of the Revolution. It has a lot of action and an interesting side plot about a man who mysteriously shows up who was in suspended animation and then appears naked out of nowhere who makes a significant difference as to whether the good guys succeed or not.

I liked it, but it had a few problems.

Spoilers ahead.

One of the biggest comments I've heard is how easy it was to sneak into the complex. Yeah, well, apparently a lot of other reviewers are moronic, because it is VERY easy to sneak into the main complex of the bad guy when they want you to.

Now, the 'why pick a guy from 1993 who is going to stick out like a sore thumb to lay your trap' is another criticism I hear a lot about this movie. Actually, the 'its so dumb it just might work' defense seems valid to me. I honestly have to wonder just how much proof you'd have to offer someone if you claimed to be from the future and that you were trying to alter the timeline to prevent a disaster. I'd bet that it wouldn't take much proof and that there would be an awful lot of people that would totally fall for it. Plus, maybe Skynet didn't have a lot of bodies lying around when it first started, so it picked the one with the most data lying around.

Now some things were lame.

Skynet is just stupid. The humans always do the best they can with what they have, sometimes against hopeless odds, but Skynet is aware of all the time paradoxes (hence its desire to kill the guy who is going to be John Conner's father) but it doesn't care about temporal paradox and just goes ahead anyway. It also pulls a 'join me, and together we shall rule the galaxy' with the cyborg guy.

Not yet once has anyone tried to make the paradox work via ignroance. For example, in T3, John Conner is revealed in the future to be killed because he was a moron and trusted a T-800 too much. Why can't he just program the robot with false info and send it back that way to maintain the timeline, and then shoot any @#$@#$@# T-800's that suddenly try to become friends with him?

One can hope that might happen, but I'm not holding my breath.

The good news is that at this point, we're entering new territory with these movies. We don't need to keep wondering if Skynet will send yet another crappy robot back in time, because we KNOW it has to happen to avoid temporal paradox.

Movie: Public Enemy

2009-07-08T09:22:00.001-07:00

The movie in a nutshell is about the tail end of John Dillinger's criminal career in the early thirties. Since its a basic matter of history, I don't think I'm ruining things by saying that in the end, Dillinger does not drive off into the sunset with a bag of money in the back of his car. Its just not that kind of movie.

This movie proved two things to me: I like the acting of Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. Marion Cotillard does an excellent job as Dilligenger's fascination as well. In fact, I would say she has the most compelling part in the movie, because you can see how an ordinary person with nothing worth focusing on in their life could easily get swept up into the chaos of Dilligenger's world.

I liked the movie. It is probably not the most memorable movie for me, despite the fact that I also enjoyed knowing the time line involved. It does do a sufficient job of showing what a bastard J. Edgar Hoover was. The only thing I REALLY wish that they'd shown was how he edged out Melvin Purvis (played by Christian Bale) who was the guy who actually tracked Dillenger down. J. Edgar Hoover spent a good chunk of his life making sure that no publisher or Hollywood studio would print Purvis's story because Hoover wanted control of the FBI's image and to take all of the glory for himself.

Rides a Dread Legion by Raymond E. Feist

2009-07-08T08:38:00.001-07:00

Let me start this by saying that Magician is one of my most reread books. When I think in my mind about how Epic Fantasy should be, this is the first book that appears in my mind. I have recommended this book to more people than I can count. And I still do.

Rides a Dread Legion is the latest in the books set in Mr. Feist's Midkemia setting. Of course, the truth is, that he only helped create the original setting, but since then he has gone on to flesh it out in detailed ways that few other fantasy authors can match. Thus far he has put out more than twenty books in that setting, in a series of trilogies to make it more accessible. He shares this tactic with Terry Brooks, who has written more than a dozen Shanara books (twenty if you include the recent bridge created between the Shanara books and the Knight of the Word series.) From a writer's perspective, this is a really good idea because it makes the setting more accessible to a new comer, and it also gives the writer much greater flexibility in determining plot, which characters to use etc, so it doesn't get stale.

Having said that, the trilogy before the last trilogy, "Talon of the Silver Hawk" felt damn close. It wasn't stale, but it had some elements that Feist has used before. A young boy has a tragic happenstance and then rises to his birthright. The series had a lot that saved it, including the highly unique Count of Monte Cristo element to it which Feist hadn't touched before, as well as the addition of very interesting characters such as the anti hero Count Olasko.

The last series saw the new addition of some fairly forgettable young characters but used PREVIOUS characters in highly interesting ways. The villains were also quite interesting, and the slow, almost glacial metaplot that ties all the series together moved forward as well.

According to Feist, this series is the second to last before the Riftwar saga is done. I presume that is tied to his own retirement, because thus far he has only done one series outside of Midkemia and that is Fairy Tale (which I liked but I can easily see not being popular with some). Then again, he has already written two 'sideways' trilogies which take place in other parts and times in the universe he has already created, and then there is that whole 'Hall of Worlds' stuff, so there is plenty of potential.

This new book starts of a bit slowly with some new Mary Sue elves, but since the Mary Sue elves are the BAD guys in this instance, they're pretty cool. You definitely want to beat the crap out of them, and things sure like they are going to go that way. There is also this whole inevitable demon hoard coming to (yet again) destroy all life in Midkemia. In some ways, Midkemia is the Dragon Ball Z of epic fantasy, with some giant even bigger, nastier thing coming to get you, but Feist has the advantage of having mentioned the bigger, nastier things coming, until in the final series it will be the biggest, nastiest thing of them all. After that, there are no more. And the last proposed title is called Magician: End, which is quite fitting.

Basically, I really liked this book, and I recommend it, but little of it will make sense if you don't at least read the trilogy right before it. It also has just enough ideas to make sense for just two books instead of a full out trilogy.

Movie: Charlie Bartlet

2009-07-07T13:42:00.001-07:00

I read somewhere that for a decade and a half there was a vast void in the nineties where there were no teen movies like "Sixteen Candles", whereas in the last four or five years the genre has seen a resurgeance. I'm not sure, since I'm not a film history buff, but I have noticed that a lot of the teen movies in the last few years remind me a lot of the ones I grew up with in the 1980's. Charlie Bartlet is such a movie.

Charlie is not Ferris Beuler, but it is the kind of movie I can see someone growing up and loving with the amount that I love that movie. Charlie is not perfect, but for most of the movie he has a serene zen like confidence mixed with a shadowed insecurity beneath it that allows him to be admired and approachable at the same time. It is a comedy but it has a healthy dose of reality mixed into the whole thing.

It is difficult to give away much of the plot without spoiling it since the salient details are doled out wisely a bit at a time, but one can still learn a lot from the trailer and I'll use that as a template. Basically, the plot of the movie is about a teenager who is expelled from every school he is sent to and finally ends up in public high school. To fit in, he sells the psych meds his on call psychiatrist gives him. But the story really isn't about teen drug dealing. Its about identity, coming of age, and an understanding of how to forge your own role in society. In short, thematically, it is right up my ally.

And I liked it. I must say I'm not super enthusiastic about it. It isn't one of my five star netflix movies, but I still liked it a great deal, and would recommend that anyone see it at least once.

The Post American World by Farid Zacharia

2009-07-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

I do not discuss politics on this blog. I've got another blog for that, the Codex Americana. But I must still talk a bit about geopolitical things when I review this book, because of the nature of its subject.

First of all, let me say that I like this book. And I highly recommend reading it. And as much as I liked "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman, I like this book more, because of the balanced viewpoint it creates. It is impossible to utterly predict the future, but I have long said that one of the great values of science fiction as a genre was because of the ways it could help us experiment with futures and their consequences.

Sure, we haven't met aliens, but we have played out the situations of what they might be like or what we might be like half a dozen times over. Conversely, the trends indicated in the Post American World are not set in stone, but they are practically granite in their pragmatic logic and patient analysis. Mr. Zacharia plays no favorites. He patiently analyizes, in one of the best ways I have yet read, why the West has been dominant in previous centuries, accepting the best of post modern scholars while at the same time dismissing many arguments that have been made for purposes of political correctness as an attempt at academic guilt routed apology.

He analyzes four of the major powers; two existing (Britian/EU, US) and two rising (India and China). He does not focus on Brazil and Russia as much, but the contrasts between India, the US, and China are fascinating. Reading this books helps paint a view of where we are headed in future times, and likely and intelligent strategies that the US can take to deal with it.

I think that the most valuable element he talks about in the book is the term "the rise of the rest" which is that America is not per se in a decline, but as the larger nations with inherent potential increase in GNP, the US's share of global power will shrink. He highlights the actual unique strengths in the US economy, particularly its vibrancy and its acceptance of immigrants as the true hope of its future. Of course, as an immigrant Mr. Zacharia is probably biased in favor of the US retaining skilled immigrants, but the truth is that he's right. More importantly, as someone who was born in India, lives in the US and who was chosen as the single US journalist to interview the president of China, he is someone who brings weight and seriousness to a discussion of great importance without being paranoid about China or India whilst diminishing the US to a rediculous stereotype.

In short, whether or not you agree with him, his viewpoint is a very insightful one and should be read by anyone who wants a greater understanding of where the world is heading in decades to come.

Movie: Drag Me To Hell

2009-06-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

I liked this movie, but there were elements I did not like. As a general rule, I am not a fan of horror. I wrote an essay in college once, for one of my favorite two classes "Fantastic Literature" in which the assignment was to compare and contrast the Horror genre vs the Fantasy genre. As I researched the subject, I came to my own conclusions as to the difference. In Fantasy, there tends, by and large, to be a balance of supernatural forces, even if they seem on the outset to be vastly outnumbered. Whereas in most horror, the darker supernatural elements are the only one that exists, or if the lighter elements exist, they are cold, disappassionate and incredibly weak.

And that is still, beyond doubt, the truth in Drag Me to Hell.

The main reason we saw it was a firm desire to avoid Transformers: The Robot Testacles over the weekend, and because I'm a Sam Raimi fan. The female lead is strong and clever. In fact, generally speaking most of the characters avoided stale stereotypes, despite an easy temptation for the script writers to use them. It followed many tropes of the genre, while still taking things on from a fresh perspective. It also had just enough of "Evil Dead" to bring up nostalgic fun while at the same time incorporating the lessons that Raimi has learned in his film making since that time.

If you like Horror, you'll like Drag Me to Hell. If you like Sam Raimi, you'll like it too. I liked it, but certain elements, particularly the ending, were not enough to get me to change my mind and really like other horror movies.

Movie: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2009-06-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

The basic premise of the movie is that the editor of a high profile french magazine had 'locked in' symdrome from a stroke, causing total paralysis with the inability to move anything but his eyes. After a three week coma, he awoke, lucid and only able to communicate through blinking.

After initially despairing, he decides to use a book contract he had had prior to his stroke to write a book on his condition, explaining that while he was trapped, he could use his imagination and memory to take him to other places. His attitude towards life and all that is within it takes a dramatic U-turn. He reconnects with his children and on the whole becomes a better human being.

The movie is visually stunning. It is all the more stunning in that it is based on a true story, and seems to be remarkably faithful to the original (ie the real world.) The camera work is probably the most innovative thing about it, and you can see why it won an academy award.

Turn Coat by Jim Butcher

2009-06-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

This book was excellent. It is the twelth book in the Harry Dresden series. Without giving away the whole plot, I'll basically say that in the first book, Harry Dresden, Wizard for Hire, had a dark cloud over his head. If he screwed up, the Wizard Police, in the form of the Warden Morgan, would kill him.

Turn Coat begins with Morgan showing up at Harry's door seeking protection from the same Wizard Police. Harry has to solve the murder in a classic whodunit with supernatural elements. There is also a lot of intense action.

One begins to wonder if the plethora of supporting characters that Butcher has slowly been giving Harry are all going to be maimed, mauled, stolen or killed. Good fiction often involves the suffering of the primary character, and hitherto now Harry has suffered a great deal, but he has also steadily advanced in power and had a circle of friends he could rely on. At the same time, many of these allies are becoming tainted or harmed by his mere presence, such that he might not have an allies by the time the 20 book series is done.

Which, as I said, tends to make good fiction as long as it is done properly.

I also think that this book may represent the last of the books that follow the standard formula of "something horrible shows up to Chicago, Harry finds out about it, Harry ties to fix it, Harry gets not just one problem but four or five and somehow manages to come out on top with some consequences that last a few books." The title of the next book is "Changes" and I think that the stage is finally set for the ultimate conflict with The Black Council.

And I'm looking forward to it.

Movie: Persepolis

2009-06-18T11:38:00.000-07:00

I can see why this movie was nominated for an academy award, and quite frankly I think it would have beaten any other animated film I've seen in recent memory except Ratatouille and Wall-E....the first of which Persepolis had the misfortune of going up against in their first year. But just because it didn't win, does not in any way reduce from its excellence. It is still extremely worth watching in its own right.

The movie is basically about Marjane (a real person) and her complex (slightly fictionalized) relationship with her country. The first part of the film shows her as a little girl growing up during the 1979 Iranian revolution. It then shows the haunting conditions that the people lived in during the Iran-Iraq war. She then goes to live in Austria as an exile by her parents who are afraid her outspoken opinions will get her killed. Finally, it shows her returning to Iran after a period of homelessness, reuniting with her family but ultimately still having to leave because of the harsh conditions there.

It is a film about identity, about coming of age, and about larger questions of right and wrong. The film puts a human face on the oppression that the people suffer there, and shows that the Iranians are not by any means a monolithic culture of "Death to America" chanting lunatics.

In fact, as an American familiar with history, the most striking thing about this film was what was entirely absent (at least as I saw it.) There were no stinging barbs against America. There were generic criticisms against "the west" comparing and contrasting its strengths vs. that of her home land (ie for example they don't beat the crap out of you for not wearing a veil.) And if you knew your history, you could still see the shadows of it in the effects of the Shah and the Iran/Iraq war. You could also see it for the positive in the black market music tapes that everyone wanted to have. But it was hidden, and not blatant.

Sometimes, it isn't about you. "You" in this case being about America. This is a film about Marjane, her family and ultimately her relationship with her society and how to deal with it. And it is wonderful.

Dead Beat, by Jim Butcher

2009-06-16T10:26:00.001-07:00

Harry Dresden animates a Tyranosaur to fight six evil Necromancers.

Let me repeat that. Harry Dresden animates a Tyranosaur to fight six evil Necromancers.

The book is Awesome in a Hatbox. And I'm not spoiling anything or giving it away, because they put it on the cover. More of the metaplot is revealed. Harry is given yet ANOTHER complication in his already complicated life, and his relationship with Thomas and his dog also advances. Murphy is absent, but still very present in the stakes involved (since the main challenge Harry faces is a threat to Murphy).

But the most interesting aspect of the whole thing is a) All you ever wanted to know about Bob the Skull and b) The advancement Harry has to the office of Warden, which puts the oppressed, potentially into the role of oppressor.

The Black Hole War, by Leonard Susskind

2009-06-16T08:50:00.000-07:00

The sub title of the book is, "My war with Stephen Hawking to make the universe safe for Quantum Mechanics"...and that's pretty much what it is.

The book shows the 20 year chronicle of a battle of ideas between the Relativsts, or believers in the Theory of Relativity, and those who insisted that elements of their ideas were wrong. Specifically, the book posits the idea of 'information loss in Black Holes', which basically meant that Stephen Hawking in the late seventies posited the idea that once something goes past the event horizon of a black hole, it is 'lost' the universe. Susskind's problem with this is that basically it violated the second law of thermodynamics.

Over the next twenty years, Susskind outlines radical new theories in physics which pretty much prove him correct, including the Holographic Principal and String Theory. Some of the work is theoretical in nature, but some of it relies on rock solid mathematics until Stephen Hawking himself, no more than two years ago, conceeded that information loss in Black Holes was not likely.

The fascinating thing about all of this is that almost all of the work was done entirely by thought experiment. Just the way that Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity in the first place. The book is an excellent way to become familiar with some of the more complicated subjects in Quantum Mechanics and Cosmology. It has very little math, and the narration follows a pretty smooth style.

I liked it and learned a great deal from it.

Movie: The Hangover

2009-06-16T08:46:00.000-07:00

This movie is rated R. In fact, this is so R on the R scale that Jennifer and I debated elements of it afterward that it might need to be NC-17....almost.

But we both liked it. A lot.

But if you don't watch R rated movies, this is definitely not one of those 'gray area' movies that you might see for cinematic or 'artistic' value.

The Hangover is not, for example, by any stretch of the imagination, Shcindler's List.

What it is is great fun. There have been 'wacky hijinks' or 'boys will be boys' comedy style movies for as long as there have been movies, but this movie dials the concept up to 11. Basic plot synopsis is that four friends get drunk in Las Vegas for a bachelor party and wake up in a hotel room that shows the consequences of the previous night. And they remember none of it.

So they spend the entire movie unraveling the clues of what happened in order to get themselves out of a dire situation. It is a comedy, and a good one. I suspect it is one that will stand the test of time, though it is probably not what I would call 'iconic.'

White Witch, Black Curse by Kim Harrison

2009-06-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

This book by Kim Harrison is the seventh in the Hollows series. Basically in the early 1960's, in an alternate world from our own, just when genetic engineering started to take off, a bioengineered tomato created a virus that nearly wiped out humanity. But the supernatural creatures that had been hiding among us for centuries came out of hiding and took a dominant place in society. The result is two conflicting worlds...that of 'inderlanders' who are all the things that go bump in the night, and humans, who have the semi pathetic FCIS to protect them and police humanity.

I liked this book a lot. One of the reasons I like it (aside from the writing) is that Kim Harrison has the courage to follow the natural consequences of such a world. For example, in one scene in the book, she's in a hospital and has to sneak out. Well in the world of the Hollows patients have a lot less rights due to the virus, so the consequences of sneaking out of a hospital are a bit higher than they otherwise might be in our own.

Without spoiling the book, the basic plot follows the main character, Rachel, a witch who is a supernatural bounty hunter, who has to track down a banshee that has caused serious harm to one of her Watsonesque human friends in the FCIS. All the while she has to deal with little side plots that have begun to cling to her life like barnacles from other books. These include; a psychotic demon named Al who occasionally teacher her useful things, an ex-president of the US vampire who wants her to give vampires a soul after they die, and the imminent demise of her best friend's lover (pixies only live 20 years and the time is nearly up for both of them.) Harrison does a good job of keeping things episodal enough so that you feel you get a stand alone adventure in each book, while still advancing the overarching plot to a considerable degree.

I have a minor irritation about how humans are basically the fall guys and made to look lame in order to make all the supernatural critters look cool. There have been a few token attempts to address this early on, but Harrison has gotten better about it over time. Plus, I also realized that without the sixties counter cultural revolution, the more enlightened attitude we have in our time isn't necessarily the norm, and that she is instead dealing with a bunch of humans stuck in the culture of the early 1960's, which makes them less lame. If it was deliberate, that's cool. If it wasn't, she's slowly making humans a bit more than card board cut outs. Plus, she's actually having the witches act in an irrational fashion too in this book, which helps a lot.

I highly recommend the series, though I would also highly recommend tracking down the first one first and reading them in order.

Rich Dad's Increase Your Financial IQ by Robert T. Kiyosaki

2009-06-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

I liked this book. I did not like it as much as the original "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" or "Before You Quit Your Job." The exterior cover mentions his prophesy of doom, which, as anyone reading the news can tell, he got right. However, unlike the advice he gave about looking at a home as a liability and not an asset, time has not confirmed him on Silver. At least not much. At the time the book came out, silver was $14 an ounce, whereas now it is $15.5.

Then again, to be fair, he has never said "do exactly what I say, but follow the broad principals." Apparently that is a common critique of his books, but I agree with him that this critics fail to understand what he is saying. My point is that he just says it better in the other two books.

The primary focus of this book as compared to the others is basically increasing your financial IQ. The idea is that you need to be smart and educated about money, and he lays down five broad princples that one should follow. The broad principles are good, and some of his concrete examples are good, but I, personally, did not get as much out of it as I got out of the other. I am beginning to think that the best way to use these books is to get the core book, and at most one or two of the most applicable focus books beyond it.

Having said that, the most valuable advice I took away from the whole thing was the idea of control of an investment, which makes absolute sense. He'd mentioned this in his other books, but I didn't really understand it as well as when he mentioned it here. The thing about stocks, bonds and mutual funds is that you are paying a sales person. A sales person is often getting a commission on their stock fund, from the very stocks that they're selling. A sales person is good at selling, not necessarily managing their fund. There is also something called 'churning' which is basically when a stock manager moves your money back and forth from fund to fund, taking an 8% fee each time until there is no money left in your fund.

I think investing in the stock market can be worth it, but if you want to make money, and more importantly, if you want that money to be secure, you need to take control of it. It is true, that this is highly risky, because you can easily destroy it if you don't know what you're doing, but our system rewards risk. Conversely, letting your money sit safe and sound in a 401K has caused many people to be reduced to abject poverty.

In other words, I need to start paying attention to the financial sector, various opportunities and ways of making my money work for me, not just throwing it over the fence at a fund manager and hoping they'll honestly make my money for me.

Movie: Ali

2009-06-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

This movie was impressive because it followed the 'sports movie' formula just enough to capture a wide audience, without using but a few of the staple formula elements. Of course, it helps when the subject your movie is the real life core material through which many sports movies are made.

Mohommed Ali is a very colorful character, but the film primarily focuses on the time period in his life between his first aquisition of the world championship, the circumstances that surrounded his loss of it, and his reclaiming of the second. Initially we got the movie thinking it would deal about the tragic experiences later in his life, but that does not happen in the movie. Instead, it deals with the harsh hand that he is dealt, and how he overcomes them.

In short, it explains how he became the icon that he is and why. It is a story of overcoming absolutely overwhelming odds, that also happens to be true. Finally, it does so in a way that does not have a sappy artificially sachrine nature to it. That's just not the nature of Ali and as such it is not the nature of the movie. Will Smith proves (yet again) that he is an actor beyond par in this, nailing Ali's mannerisms in ways that are quite impressive.

You also get a whole new respect for Howard Cosell besides a voice that is difficult to forget. Very good movie.

Movie: Up, by Pixar

2009-06-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

There has long been a big deal about what art actually is, but my personal view is that the greatest art is acclaimed by both the critics and the common man. Art can still be good when it is recognized by one or the other, but my measure is such that it requires both. Pixar hits it out of the ball park each time, more and more lately.

Up is, in a nutshell, about a man who as a boy meets his childhood sweetheart on a common love of adventure. They share a bond that lasts through their lives, with a promise of adventure that goes unfulfilled. Finally, desperation forces the man to act on that adventure and attempt to make their dream a reality.

The primary cast of characters includes a small wilderness scout, the old man, a 'talking' dog, and a bird that is part chicken, part ostritch and part peacock. An interesting ensemble, but Pixar makes it work. There are lots of lessons in the movie, but they are very subtle. The lesson I liked the most was that you are never too old to start a new adventure. The lesson I liked the second most was that too much material possessions will tie you down.

The thing is, it appears that they started with a simple idea, "wouldn't it be cool to make a movie about a flying house?" and then expanded it from there. There are no loose ends in the story. In fact, I must admire them as story crafters, in particular the way they used the 'virtually silent beginning' of the movie in which his wife becomes the unseen character who is there through out the rest of the film because she does the talking when they are children and he does not.

I highly recommend this movie.

Before you Quit Your Job, Robert T. Kiyosaki

2009-05-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Mr. Kiyosaki is the author of the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series, and while I got a lot out of the first book, I've avoided the sequels in his series simply because I felt that many of them might just be milking the first, very solid ideas of the core book. I also often got the same feeling from the sequels to "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Steven Covey. However, because I've been conisdering starting a business lately, I decided to give this book another look.

There are 10 lessons in the book, each of which is in 10 chapters. The basic formula of each chapter consists of a personal anecdote, a series of lessons or principles based on the main lesson, a summary, and then a 'distilation' by his partner Sharon Lechter. I found the lessons in the book useful, and as someone who is going to start a business (well another one since technically the Gaming stuff was a business, even if it was an abominable failure) I found their advice helpful.

Some criticism I've heard on the book is that he's light on specifics and heavy on slogans. While there is some of that, the point the book makes is an excellent one. Which is to say, enteprenurship is a skill, just like learning to ride a bike or use a computer. And you have to fail a lot, which means you have to be WILLING to fail a lot, and the way you look at the world can't be the same as it was while you are drawing a steady paycheck from your job.

As someone who is about to enter this world, I feel that these lessons are invaluable. There is nothing malicious in them, indeed there is a genuine benevolent desire to educate as many people as possible in this way of thinking. Of course, I can already tell there are some things I'm not going to agree with Mr. Kiyosaki on in his other books, such as his belief in the Gold Standard (I read it on another one of his books that I got from the library) but of the two books I've read, I think they are very very useful.

Essentially, his mission in creating the Rich Dad books is to make the world a better place. He also talks about the importance of a mission. On the surface, that might seem like meaningless corpspeak. I can certain identify someone who has been in sales by the 'corporaty' quality of their voice almost all of the time. And while there is a bit of that in Mr. Kiyosaki's narrative, there is also a stark resonance of truth. He helps you ask yourself tough questions that you need to be prepared to answer before you leap off of a cliff and take that step forward, while at the same time ENCOURAGING you to leap forward and take that risk.

I found the book to be extremely helpful, but it is primarily useful to those who truly want to start a business in my opinion. It is most useful to those who have no experience being an entrepenur, but have already made that leap in their minds that that is what they want to do and need a bit of help with specifics. It is not a how to guide on how to start a business, but rather a how to guide on how to change your world paragidm to think like people that make serious money at business, while at the same time not become a money troll who lives for nothing else.

Death Masks by Jim Butcher

2009-05-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

The fifth book in the Dresden series has Harry fighting the powers of Hell, in not only a battle for the fate of Chicago, his own hide (as usual), the fate of everyone he cares about (a bit new this time) but also the foreshadowings of one of the more interesting internal conflicts that he has to deal with. One of the characters of the book, as a price for their aid, forces Harry to ask himself WHY it is that he does what he does, and while he has to think about it, it is the ultimate answer that helps define the character.

The larger question of the book, what do we do with power when we have it, doesn't seem that prominent compared to the usual amounts of massive action, wanton destruction and extrmely clever lines of dialog. However beneat that, there are larger themes going on, some of which become more appearant reading the books for a second time. Thus, in addition to being Urban Fantasy, the Dresden books manage to be Noir as well; shades of gray with the implication that there also still things that are all black and all white. Grey means a bit more when it really can be gray and it is known that there are extremes.

In some ways, Death Masks feels like a transition between the first few books and the later books, though of course that's a bit like saying link 5 instead of link 6 in a chain is a major transition point. Still, I liked it a great deal.

Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

2009-05-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

The fourth series in the Dresden Books details a bit more about the nature of Fairies in the Dresdenverse. It also ups the ante in the perils that he faces, from simple cases that will ruin his life, to the potential long term health of the world. In short, it is a logical step from the last book, in which Harry took a step into a much larger world. We also learn a bit more about the politics of the world and the city at large.

I generally liked the book, though I admit I liked Grave Peril slightly more. I think it was because, as much as I liked this book, Grave Peril was a quantum leap forward, and actually involved loss and sacrifice for the main character. I like it when actions have conseuqnces. I consider it the hall mark of a good story. Its one of the reasons I like Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams. Not only is it hard for me to predict what's going to happen, but when you look back at their work, its clear that they've got a plan in mind, which means that they have a set of rules, and they stick by them.

Movie: Elizabeth the Golden Age

2009-05-26T09:24:00.000-07:00

Its a two hour movie, that appearantly had a lot of cuts to it. I liked it, but it lacked a certain...something...that its predecesor lacked.

The main focus of this movie was the relationship between Elizabeth and Sir Walter Reighleigh. I loved the acting...and the sets were awesome, I just think the script in this case needed a lot more work. As a viewer, I cared about Elizabeth the most, which is good because the movie was about her, but the villains in the story in this case were...almost cartoonish. Now, historically speaking some people act cartoonish, but it just didn't grok so well in this case.

I think the real problem was that the movie was just historically accurate to be mostly historically accurate, while not actually going far enough in completely hacking apart history to rearrange and arrange things to make the story better. Sometimes when making a dramatized occurance of history, you need to be willing to distort things a little bit more. I know that's supposed to be bad, but since we're telling a story, I personally think anything is fair game as long as you stay true to the original spirit of what happened.

I think the movie Asoka (A boliwood film on Jennifer's queue) does a far better job of this, while at the same time retaining an astonishing amount of the actual history on a figure that we know historically a lot less about.

Movie: Angels and Demons

2009-05-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Right. The interesting thing about this movie and the Da Vinci code is that the first book was Angels and Demons and the second book was the Da Vinci Code. Conversely, the first movie was the Da Vinci Code and the second movie was Angels and Demons.

This works well in some ways and not so well in others. In the books, the truly fantastic things of the Da Vinci code draw in the main character because he is specifically sought out as a result of the actions in Angels and Demons. In the movie (I haven't read the Angels and Demons book) it seems far more plausible to me that the Vatican is going to call this ONE GUY from out of nowhere to deal with this problem given the semi accidental happenings in Da Vinci code.

Of course, the real problem I have is that, given the magnitude of the revelation/main reveal at the end of the Da Vinci Code, you'd think that the world would be substantially changed in Angels and Demons..at leasts superficially. But it isn't. It is true that in the book and the movie, the implication is that it will eventually be a chance to come to light, but that it would be a slow quiet one...and yet....we are led to believe that the mere existance of this threat to the Catholic church is so dire that they would risk sending an assasin to kill prominent french leaders if it got out.

I find the plot of Angels and Demons a lot more plausible. However, I like the 'mystic symbols/side show discovery channel' aspect of the Da Vinci code a lot more. Granted, there might be more of that in Angels and Demons the book, but then again the Da Vinci code became a run away best seller and Angels and Demons did not. There certainly isn't ANY of the scholarly interesting stuff in Angels and Demons that I found that interesting. Of course, it is true that they mention things like 'this church or that' but it was a lot harder to believe that it wasn't just something the author made up out of thin air....hard to say why.

Grave Peril by Jim Butcher

2009-05-26T09:13:00.001-07:00

The main plot of this book is that something is disrupting the boundaries between the spirit world (The 'nevernever') and the real world, letting all kinds of dead things come through. As usual, there is a hell of a lot going on, but as usual Butcher manages to coordinate it all very well. The thing I really like about these books is that because he uses very understandable laws of magic, the mystery element of things works very well. The ultimate 'who dun it' in both cases follows a logical pattern.

And yet the thing that I really like about this series is that while there is a formula, by the end of the book Butcher takes that formula, crumples it up in a tiny tin foil ball and tosses it out the fiftieth story window to make a nice impact on the concrete below. Harry's actions have consequences, and I LIKE consequences because consequences are what happens when a character matters.

Its why I stopped reading comics except in graphic novel form, because no one stays dead, and another writer can completely undo anything that the previous writer has done. Now, it is true that in the real world change always happens and nothing ever lasts, but then again, in the real world, people stay dead. In fact, in all of the books I've read so far by Butcher, dead people have stayed dead, which given a world in which time travel is theoretically possible (its one of the laws of Magic not to muck around with time) in either the Dresden books or the Codex Alera books I have yet to see him bring someone back to life....it might happen, but it certainly won't be the revolving door it is in a lot of series.

(Note: Obviously vampires and ghosts are back from the dead, but they stay that way.)

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

2009-05-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

Writing Urban Fantasy isn't easy these days. The formula has become rather predictable. In fact, that's the main reason I've avoided the genre entirely myself as an author hithertonow. It pays well, and books that do well in this field can be quite successful, but I mean, how many different ways can you write about vampires, fairies, mages and werewolves?

Well, in this book, Jim Butcher found a way. Basically, he takes a random grab bag of about six different kinds of werewolves and half a dozen types of vampires, weaving the different types of cinemea and mythology into a believable mix. When an author makes up a setting, they can sometimes fall into the trap of "the Seven Stones of Power" or the like, in the sense that it seems more like a role playing game setting designed to make as many character selection options as possible available in chargen. On the other hand, sometimes a world can seem awfully...empty. The real world has hundreds of different cultures, religions and languages that all conflict with each other, which is why the real world often comes up with ideas that an author couldn't conceive of in their wildest dreams, despite being able to ignore things like the laws of physics.

Butcher's setting really sings. It fits quite nicely between the semi-formulaic intro book, and the 'all hell breaks loose' of the following book. He gets a few allies, advances a few relationships, and sets the foundations for his own destruction at a later date. In short, I suspect that Butcher didn't even know how good of a foundation he was laying for his later books when he wrote it.

The book is basically about a series of murders Harry has to solve for his Police contact, which happen to involve obviously canine involvement. He has to navigate through several different suspects and figure out which is which. That, on top of everything else, makes it particularly interesting, since it has an actual mystery that follows its own rules quite well.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

2009-05-18T11:20:00.001-07:00

This book is the first of the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher.

This is the second time I've read them, and they're quite good. I've started reading the books from scratch again in anticpation of the new one, Turn Coat, that has already come out. The basic book is about a private Wizard for Hire, Harry Dresden that does private supernatural consulting for the police to pay the bills, and private cases in his spare time. These two lines of work collide, as a crazed magician begins using forces beyond their control to wreak havok on Harry and everyone else in his life. He has to confront the Mafia, Vampires and even his own side in the form of a vengful 'Gaston' like character called Morgan.

The books are an astoningly fast read, especially given the sophistication of the setting and the plot. Inside of the action packed pace he manages to cram significant character development and introspective drama. The pacing is almost perfect, and you can see why it became as successful as it is.

Having seen that, you can also see Butcher's progression as a writer as the plot is a slight bit formulaic (albiet only for about four books) and Harry is a touch bit more charismatic with the ladies than one might expect. But that all quickly gets flushed out and rectified in the later books. I highly recommend it, but then again I would if I was bothering to read it a second time.

X-Men Origens Wolverine - Mediocre at best

2009-05-18T11:10:00.001-07:00

I saw the original X-men with very low expectations. I was pleasantly suprised and it turned out to be a fairly good movie. Not the best, but a good, solid super hero movie. Two was excellent and three was just sad, a shadow of what it could have been.

Four is a place holder movie. Four is the movie that they could have made if they'd had a decent script, descent effects budget, added in another 40-50 minutes of film and decided to have some real guts. It has things that geeks that know the continuity well like I do will pick up on, including the Striker subplot and highly obscure stuff like Emma Frost having diamond skin, but all of these things are not significant parts of the story. The script itself is....bleh. In some ways it is a solid character development, showing the growing rivalry between Logan and his psychotic brother Victor, but none of the characters are really fleshed out (except MAYBE Striker). They set things up for a Deadpool movie, but the things that are cool about Deadpool the character are woefully lacking in the Deadpool of this film. He is kind of smart alek but....still.

Basically, it is obvious to me that this is the Movie Fox made so that they could keep the rights to the x-men. They set things up in such a way that if they truly wanted to make it a trilogy, they could, with a new team/Generation Next aspect of things, but they didn't really set that well up either. So it was neither an homage to geeks (ala Watchmen) nor was it a cult movie (ala Buckaroo Banzai or Evil Dead or Ghost Rider) nor a Summer Blockbuster/Tentpole Movie (ala Iron Man, Spiderman or the like), but sort of a middling attempt to do something between all three on the minimum budget they could justify and not get sued for Marvel for just trying to hold the copyright.

And Hugh Jackman does a darn good job with the material he's given....which isn't good.

The Inn at Crystal Cove in Winthrop, MA

2009-05-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

In Ireland we enjoyed the bed and breakfast experience far more than corporate hotels we stayed in. The Inn at Crystal Cove is about 10 minutes out of the way because you have to take back streets to get there, but the view is utterly fantastic and it feels like a European Bed and Breakfast place (of course, it has a kitchen instead of providing breakfast) but it is still an amazing experience.

The almost complete lack of corporate logos everywhere in Winthrop was also extremely refreshing.

If you're going to Boston, and you want something besides the typical corporate hotel, I could not recommend it more.

First Review - Robin Hood Season 3

2009-05-12T06:12:00.000-07:00

So according to the Wikipedia article, Series 3 of the BBC "Robin Hood Series" has a replacement for Maid Marion called "Lara Pulver, as Guy of Gisborne's sister Isabella."

Really? Really? BBC, you think that's a good idea?

Taking a thousand year old myth, or even a THOUSANDS year old story and shaking it up a bit can be creatively brilliant. If you'd killed Maid Marion off, it would have been tragic, but creatively bold. Bringing in...ANOTHER CHARACTER in a formula that is as old as the story itself....not so much. In fact, it is quite frankly television at its worst (OK, not quite true, most reality television is worse but still.)

I learned to be wary of this kind of crap after the end of the second season of Ballykissangel, in which one of the characters we most liked dies, and changes the entire dynamic...oh who am I kidding, they do the same stupid thing. We lost interest, but at least I could UNDERSTAND it. Television shows have been doing this kind of thing for a long time, and while it is a classic sign that they have Jumped the Shark, its not always the case. Sometimes a death can do a lot to improve a show. Sometimes it is only a temporary distraction. It depends on the show.

Robin Hood is not a show where you want to kill of Maid Marion. Not unless you're incorporating magic or its a comedy. I have absolutely no interest in seeing Series 3, and I am gleefully removing it from my Netflix queue.