Awesome! [Drops mike and walks away.]
[Awkward Pause]
[Sticks head out of side of stage left] What?
Fine. So the fiftheenth book in the Dresden Files series is Awesome.
All Dresden files books are awesome and this one is awesomer still.
Imagine your favorite heist movie, like Oceans Eleven or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, now add Harry Dresden, and you get a supernatural thriller that only Jim Butcher could pull off. Because his rules matter, and because by now they are so well explained from the other books, he can have really complicated characters who you know the rules for, but for which he can focus on the intruige and character development instead.
[Spoilers]
Harry, now Winter Knight, now Not Dead, has three dilemas. He has a thing in his head that will kill him if he doesn't get it out, he has a favor that Mab owes to the lunatic demon denarian Nicodemus, and he has to do all this without pissing off the White Council that governs magic. Two out of three aren't bad. Nicodemus wants to steal the Holy Grail....from Hades in the underworld, so a rag tag team including a Yeti, a Summoner, a Pyromaniac and a shapeshifter make for an interesting caper indeed.
Old friends and new appear. Some things that any dresden fan would love who hasn't read this yet.
Butters is back and he's kicking ass and gets a fantasticly interesting upgrade.
Murphy and Harry finally get over it and do something about each other.
You learn a bit more about Molly's situation but not until the very end of the book.
On the whole, I'll give this book a 9.4 out of 10, and rate it my third favorite of the series after Dead Beat (It is impossible to beat a zombie Trex. It wins everything...forever) and Small Favor (Bring me a Jelly Donut!). Read it.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
[TV] Series: Batman: the Brave and the Bold
This show is awesome if you like super heroes. At first I thought it would be stupid since it is an omage to silver age comics, but it actually turned out to be quite awesome. It's 70% silver age with 30% post modern spin and it hits that sweet spot that Henson does about being a product with duality...perfect duality. The delight and moral clarity of camp is there, but at the same time they acknowledge deeper levels that we are now aware of and can't NOT be aware of thanks to the evolution of the zeitgeist and our society.
Which in regular English means that it is both fun and occasionally deep without wallowing in it. The show basically involves Batman pairing with another hero, with an intro teaser at the start before the credits and a second longer story thereafter. It still isn't as good as Batman: The Animated Series that was done in the 90's, but the mark on that was set very high.
And to be honest, I really enjoyed the show. I think they had a lot of stories to tell, told many of them but still had more to tell. It was basically a giant love letter to the wonder of comics and some of the now forgotten characters of the previous generation. If you like comics, this is a show I would watch.
Which in regular English means that it is both fun and occasionally deep without wallowing in it. The show basically involves Batman pairing with another hero, with an intro teaser at the start before the credits and a second longer story thereafter. It still isn't as good as Batman: The Animated Series that was done in the 90's, but the mark on that was set very high.
And to be honest, I really enjoyed the show. I think they had a lot of stories to tell, told many of them but still had more to tell. It was basically a giant love letter to the wonder of comics and some of the now forgotten characters of the previous generation. If you like comics, this is a show I would watch.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
[Opera] The Barber of Seville
I saw this a few weeks ago with the Carlsons at the Cobb Energy Center, performed by the Atlanta Opera company. In short, it was FANTASTIC. The venue was moderately nice as always, but the vocal quality of the performers was exceptional, particularly in the female lead, as was Basilio. All were good of course, and Berta was particularly impressive, but the first two greatly stood out. I wish it was still playing so I could recommend it, but at the least I'd check out other productions by the company.
The basic story is about a rich count who is in love with a beautiful shut in, hid by a psycho guardian who plans to marry her against her will. The count enlists the help of the barber who is the city's dating service. The Count dons various disguises to try and woo her, and chaos ensues. This particular production was only 2 hours long and tightly edited but it worked very well.
It had been at least 20 years since I'd seen an Opera, the performance of "Faust" at BYU, which was quite good but this blew it away. The addition of subtitles in a light box at the top helped quite a bit since I liked to know what they were saying. After all, if a foreign film can have them, why not an Opera?
The basic story is about a rich count who is in love with a beautiful shut in, hid by a psycho guardian who plans to marry her against her will. The count enlists the help of the barber who is the city's dating service. The Count dons various disguises to try and woo her, and chaos ensues. This particular production was only 2 hours long and tightly edited but it worked very well.
It had been at least 20 years since I'd seen an Opera, the performance of "Faust" at BYU, which was quite good but this blew it away. The addition of subtitles in a light box at the top helped quite a bit since I liked to know what they were saying. After all, if a foreign film can have them, why not an Opera?
[Movie] Charade
This is an old time movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. From a production stand point, you can clearly see that it's set in the 1960's, but thematically and acting wise it feels like a lot of Grant's earlier works. The plot works well. Short version: A bunch of folks are looking for some money from Hepburn's ex husband, and they believe that she is the only one who can get it for them, so they threaten her. Grant normally plays good guys, but in this one it is hard to tell what his role is, and the potential villain suits him very well.
Mainly, seeing the chemistry between these two, despite the age difference, is worth the movie alone. The supporting characters are a bit...well, supporting but these two are titans and easily steal the entire show. And the ending is quite delightful because just when you think they've run out of things to throw around in the plot, they hit you with more huge ones totally out of nowhere.
I highly recommend this movie.
Mainly, seeing the chemistry between these two, despite the age difference, is worth the movie alone. The supporting characters are a bit...well, supporting but these two are titans and easily steal the entire show. And the ending is quite delightful because just when you think they've run out of things to throw around in the plot, they hit you with more huge ones totally out of nowhere.
I highly recommend this movie.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
[Book and Movie] Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
So I have a bit of a history with this book. I knew it was important, and it was on my list of books to read, but I tried three times to read it and was unable to do so. It wasn't because it wasn't well written but I think, ironically it was of the same reasons that other people have reasons with Elizabeth's family, specifically the crazier more flippant members of Elizabeth's family.
I even tried the book on tape. That normally does the trick but in this case I was still unable to get through it. There was an amusing incident in which I complained about the book on Facebook and was quietly assaulted by no less than seven ardent defenders of the book in the most emphatic terms that my negative opinion was balderdash.
And they were right. But the truth was, even after the second and third time I tried to read it...I still couldn't get through the thing. It was too...flippant and pointless.
Sometimes it takes the right perspective though, or rather the right person to help you see the right perspective. Julia, my now wife, explained to me about the laws at the time in which a woman could not own property, and the entail, which forced noble estates to male heirs, often kicking those who had previously owned it out into the street.
And that changed everything. Suddenly this was a struggle of principal vs survival. It was politics and fighting with the only weapon they had in a patently unjust society. The characters do not see themselves in such directly but it added to the gravity of everything. It made Elizabeth's decision to marry only for love gloriously insane but worthy of admiration.
And just like that I fell in love with the book.
Let's start with the characters. For a "Chik Lit" book, they are surprisingly empathetic and in depth. I've read modern novels that don't even approach Jane Austin's approach to things. Also, the fact that many of the tropes she invented, that are tired in other stories, still WORK in hers, even independent of the fact that she invented it is all the more impressive. The dialog is also very interesting and fresh. In fact, the only real criticism is that sometimes it becomes difficult to determine where one character is speaking and another is ending, and that was WITH Julia reading the book out loud to me.
The villain is believable, and not evil for his own sake, even though he is as evil as any selfish person today. People are noble or small and stupid just like they are now. This is a slice of reality in the 18th century that shows us that while some things have changed radically, others have remained radically the same. The descriptions of the lifestyle is also quite intruiging.
Granted, there are some socioeconomic questions here...such as the fact, that I can't ignore that this is largely about the gentry, rather than the common man, but for a good story I can put that in the back of my mind so long as it isn't about something like the glorification or white washing of slavery. And despite the uneven nature of resources (and its not like we don't have that now) they had a gentility and nobility to their system of etiquette between themselves that you can understand its appeal in the modern day where informality and a lack of respect has reached epic and disastrous proportions.
In short, the book was fantastic.
Then for Julia's birthday, she convinced me to watch the six hour miniseries with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. It was a fast six hours as the casting was good, the settings were fantastic and the acting excellent. Again, it was an easy watch. I'm not someone who will pull a Peter Griffin at a Chick Flick here, but I like a good story and this really was quite good. I'd also recommend watching it. Though I sincerely recommend reading the book first. You learn things about the book that you might miss on the reading, but the book, as usual does things and explains things that can't be covered easily in the movie.
I even tried the book on tape. That normally does the trick but in this case I was still unable to get through it. There was an amusing incident in which I complained about the book on Facebook and was quietly assaulted by no less than seven ardent defenders of the book in the most emphatic terms that my negative opinion was balderdash.
And they were right. But the truth was, even after the second and third time I tried to read it...I still couldn't get through the thing. It was too...flippant and pointless.
Sometimes it takes the right perspective though, or rather the right person to help you see the right perspective. Julia, my now wife, explained to me about the laws at the time in which a woman could not own property, and the entail, which forced noble estates to male heirs, often kicking those who had previously owned it out into the street.
And that changed everything. Suddenly this was a struggle of principal vs survival. It was politics and fighting with the only weapon they had in a patently unjust society. The characters do not see themselves in such directly but it added to the gravity of everything. It made Elizabeth's decision to marry only for love gloriously insane but worthy of admiration.
And just like that I fell in love with the book.
Let's start with the characters. For a "Chik Lit" book, they are surprisingly empathetic and in depth. I've read modern novels that don't even approach Jane Austin's approach to things. Also, the fact that many of the tropes she invented, that are tired in other stories, still WORK in hers, even independent of the fact that she invented it is all the more impressive. The dialog is also very interesting and fresh. In fact, the only real criticism is that sometimes it becomes difficult to determine where one character is speaking and another is ending, and that was WITH Julia reading the book out loud to me.
The villain is believable, and not evil for his own sake, even though he is as evil as any selfish person today. People are noble or small and stupid just like they are now. This is a slice of reality in the 18th century that shows us that while some things have changed radically, others have remained radically the same. The descriptions of the lifestyle is also quite intruiging.
Granted, there are some socioeconomic questions here...such as the fact, that I can't ignore that this is largely about the gentry, rather than the common man, but for a good story I can put that in the back of my mind so long as it isn't about something like the glorification or white washing of slavery. And despite the uneven nature of resources (and its not like we don't have that now) they had a gentility and nobility to their system of etiquette between themselves that you can understand its appeal in the modern day where informality and a lack of respect has reached epic and disastrous proportions.
In short, the book was fantastic.
Then for Julia's birthday, she convinced me to watch the six hour miniseries with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. It was a fast six hours as the casting was good, the settings were fantastic and the acting excellent. Again, it was an easy watch. I'm not someone who will pull a Peter Griffin at a Chick Flick here, but I like a good story and this really was quite good. I'd also recommend watching it. Though I sincerely recommend reading the book first. You learn things about the book that you might miss on the reading, but the book, as usual does things and explains things that can't be covered easily in the movie.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
[Movie] Metropolis Revived
This movie is AWESOME. It is heralded as the most influential silent film of all time, and I must agree with that sentiment. You sense echos of this film in all of the work that repeats itself over and over again in science fiction works that appear later.
The key for the theme of the movie is, "The Heart Must Be a Mediator Between the Head and the Hands," addressing the growing class gaps that existed in Germany at the time between the intellectual elite and the mass workers in general. Germany at the time was deep in debt with war reparations that had been imposed by Allied leaders at the insistence of their hawkish factions. This film does what many great movies do which is externalize a problem on a 'future society' for a problem that exists contemporaneously in order to make it less controversial and also to make a point.
And there are several points to be made here. The biggest is the folly of the masses turning against the machines from which they sustain life. We need machines, or we will die. There might be some folks who argue to the contrary...I'm not arguing with them because I don't see the point. The second theme/point shown is in the danger of dehumanization. When the workers do it, they endanger the lives of their children. When the elite does it, he endangers the life of his own son. Another theme is a bit of femininity in the value of the woman seen and who is a human and a peace maker vs the value of a machine who isn't even recognized by most for being a monster. The more interesting aspect of all this to me is the passion play element that interjects death, the seven deadly sins and the whore of Babylon into what is otherwise 'hard' science fiction, but that's kind of the point. This is more social science fiction along the lines of Philip K. Dick or Ray Bradbury than Asimov.
The fact that it manages to do all that and have a complex plot with many complex characters and be a SILENT MOVIE is just stunning. The production values would be comparable to something one might see at Sundance today, and the pioneering work on the robot/machine man can compare to all but the highest budget block buster picture today. The impressive set work and models made this futuristic city come to life. The costumes, the acting (non verbal) and even the sign cues were just extremely impressive.
Having said that, the story would have made a lot less sense without the found footage that the early censors had foolishly cut. The whole story made much more sense this way, and I remember being impressed with it the first time around that I saw it. It is definitely the most impressive silent film I've ever seen, passing even the works of Chaplin or Nosfaratu. I enjoyed it, and I think any modern audience really would if you are of an artistic mind set.
I cannot recommend seeing this enough. Even if you don't like it, its worth the effort to see one of the greatest cinematic works all time, and if you do like it, you'll be glad you saw it!
The key for the theme of the movie is, "The Heart Must Be a Mediator Between the Head and the Hands," addressing the growing class gaps that existed in Germany at the time between the intellectual elite and the mass workers in general. Germany at the time was deep in debt with war reparations that had been imposed by Allied leaders at the insistence of their hawkish factions. This film does what many great movies do which is externalize a problem on a 'future society' for a problem that exists contemporaneously in order to make it less controversial and also to make a point.
And there are several points to be made here. The biggest is the folly of the masses turning against the machines from which they sustain life. We need machines, or we will die. There might be some folks who argue to the contrary...I'm not arguing with them because I don't see the point. The second theme/point shown is in the danger of dehumanization. When the workers do it, they endanger the lives of their children. When the elite does it, he endangers the life of his own son. Another theme is a bit of femininity in the value of the woman seen and who is a human and a peace maker vs the value of a machine who isn't even recognized by most for being a monster. The more interesting aspect of all this to me is the passion play element that interjects death, the seven deadly sins and the whore of Babylon into what is otherwise 'hard' science fiction, but that's kind of the point. This is more social science fiction along the lines of Philip K. Dick or Ray Bradbury than Asimov.
The fact that it manages to do all that and have a complex plot with many complex characters and be a SILENT MOVIE is just stunning. The production values would be comparable to something one might see at Sundance today, and the pioneering work on the robot/machine man can compare to all but the highest budget block buster picture today. The impressive set work and models made this futuristic city come to life. The costumes, the acting (non verbal) and even the sign cues were just extremely impressive.
Having said that, the story would have made a lot less sense without the found footage that the early censors had foolishly cut. The whole story made much more sense this way, and I remember being impressed with it the first time around that I saw it. It is definitely the most impressive silent film I've ever seen, passing even the works of Chaplin or Nosfaratu. I enjoyed it, and I think any modern audience really would if you are of an artistic mind set.
I cannot recommend seeing this enough. Even if you don't like it, its worth the effort to see one of the greatest cinematic works all time, and if you do like it, you'll be glad you saw it!
Monday, March 3, 2014
[Movie] The Lego Movie
Everything is Awesome! Especially this movie!
This delightful tale is about Emmit, a regular construction worker who lives in the world of legos; who finds the piece of resistance, and must decide what to make of his destiny. This light hearted, but surprisingly deep animated feature is a must see for the whole family. It features an excellent voice cast, fantastic animation, and a theme that is worthy for any to view. Julia and I enjoyed it immensely.
[Spoilers]
Be warned that this movie is highly metafictional. The first 80% of the movie starts out following Emmit as he learns about the terrible things President/Lord Business has done to the world; making it samelike without allowing the creative variance of the master builders. Emmit is recognized as not ordinary in any way, but his ideas are so 'dumb' that the other Master Builders (creatives who can make anything that they need out of the legos around them) that President Business cannot seem to cope with them.
The "Everything is Awesome" song at the beginning is a pernicious little thing that will stick in your head for days at a time and can't help but remind me of Captain Awesome. In fact, when I just checked that link to make sure it was working, Julia groaned because it had been stuck in her head for days. Having said that, it's also a joyful tune that is put to very good use plot wise in the movie.
The standard theme might appear to be, like most Children's movies "Spend more time with your children" which of course applies but it has more than that. It also speaks of the need to put things above solely profit, to tolerate differences, to embrace creativity, but also not to let that creativity overshadow practical necessity to get the job done when you have to. The metafictional elements when Emmit...goes elsewhere are among the most interesting of the story and a lot of the plot makes sense at that point. Let us merely say that the Man Upstairs Jr. is one creative kid! (I promised spoilers but I'm only doing some)
The characters are delight in this. Emmit is the perfect everyman, whereas Wyldstyle is a strong postmodern female lead who holds her own. There is much wizard confusion in this, but that is a good thing. Metalbeard the pirate is "awesome" but also hilarious. However, to me the show stealer was Batman. This is not your "Dark Night Returns" Batman but a surly sarcastic caricature of himself as might be thought up by someone who watched 4-5 videos of him and decided that was the way he'd always been. Will Ferral as the villain(s) is also quite well done as is Liam Nielson's voice of Good Cop/Bad Cop.
I can't recommend this movie enough.
This delightful tale is about Emmit, a regular construction worker who lives in the world of legos; who finds the piece of resistance, and must decide what to make of his destiny. This light hearted, but surprisingly deep animated feature is a must see for the whole family. It features an excellent voice cast, fantastic animation, and a theme that is worthy for any to view. Julia and I enjoyed it immensely.
[Spoilers]
Be warned that this movie is highly metafictional. The first 80% of the movie starts out following Emmit as he learns about the terrible things President/Lord Business has done to the world; making it samelike without allowing the creative variance of the master builders. Emmit is recognized as not ordinary in any way, but his ideas are so 'dumb' that the other Master Builders (creatives who can make anything that they need out of the legos around them) that President Business cannot seem to cope with them.
The "Everything is Awesome" song at the beginning is a pernicious little thing that will stick in your head for days at a time and can't help but remind me of Captain Awesome. In fact, when I just checked that link to make sure it was working, Julia groaned because it had been stuck in her head for days. Having said that, it's also a joyful tune that is put to very good use plot wise in the movie.
The standard theme might appear to be, like most Children's movies "Spend more time with your children" which of course applies but it has more than that. It also speaks of the need to put things above solely profit, to tolerate differences, to embrace creativity, but also not to let that creativity overshadow practical necessity to get the job done when you have to. The metafictional elements when Emmit...goes elsewhere are among the most interesting of the story and a lot of the plot makes sense at that point. Let us merely say that the Man Upstairs Jr. is one creative kid! (I promised spoilers but I'm only doing some)
The characters are delight in this. Emmit is the perfect everyman, whereas Wyldstyle is a strong postmodern female lead who holds her own. There is much wizard confusion in this, but that is a good thing. Metalbeard the pirate is "awesome" but also hilarious. However, to me the show stealer was Batman. This is not your "Dark Night Returns" Batman but a surly sarcastic caricature of himself as might be thought up by someone who watched 4-5 videos of him and decided that was the way he'd always been. Will Ferral as the villain(s) is also quite well done as is Liam Nielson's voice of Good Cop/Bad Cop.
I can't recommend this movie enough.
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