*** Alastair Reynolds – Revelation Space. Interesting and carefully thought-out universe. Some great and compelling characters, though several of the elements driving the story never really convinced me. I’d like to read more of his writing.
** Tim Powers – The Anubis Gates. Utter cheese, but entertaining. I doubt I’ll read more of his books unless I’m desperate though.
Author: mike
Movies, July 2011
*** Intelligence. It’s been called “The Canadian Wire” because, like the Wire, it involves criminals and police and surveillance and it’s set (and made) in Canada. It’s not the Wire, but it’s pretty good. Some really good characters and good story arcs over the course of its 26 episodes. I got into that obsessive must-watch-next-episode mode, which can be so disastrous when watching something on Netflix streaming. I first heard of this series on Slate.
Books, June 2011
*** Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games
** Suzanne Collins – Catching Fire
** Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay
** George MacDonald Fraser – McAuslan. Entertaining for a while but not particularly gripping. A bunch of amusing anecdotes about being in the army shortly after the end of WWII.
*** John Scalzi – Old Man’s War. Great. An interesting reversal of the typical “raw recruits sent out into the great big universe” type of story, with the recruits bing able to benefit from age and wisdom. Also, kind of a nice wish fulfillment for anyone who’s getting older and feeling it.
*** John Scalzi – Ghost Brigades. Pretty good. Sequel to Old Man’s War, but not as novel. More interesting exploration of the same universe.
The first book of the Hunger Games trilogy was great, immediately engrossing, good characters, interesting and strong female lead. The other two were letdowns (though I have to admit I blazed through all of them). The plot becomes tangled and repetitive, the ending is unsatisfying and uncreative, and most importantly Katniss’s failure to ever really become her own person and be a leader is an abject failure of the series.
Movies, June 2011
*** Source Code was gripping and compelling, but pretty much falls apart as soon as you think about it too carefully. It mostly works while you’re caught up in it though.
**** Easy A. Awesome. If you liked Heathers or Mean Girls (I need to see that again and see if it holds up after all this time), you will like this. It’s very smart and well-written and funny, and Emma Stone is great.
** Teknolust. I like Tilda Swinton, a lot. I wasn’t expecting much out of Teknolust beyond the pleasure of watching Tilda Swinton, and I wasn’t surprised — it was really bad. But even so, I sat through the whole thing. I’m not sure who I’d recommend it to; fans of Tilda Swinton and/or those with a high tolerance for cheese and nonsense.
*** X-Men: First Class was a good time. Not much else to say about it.
*** Kick Ass was a lot of fun. I especially liked the homages to various superhero and action movies and characters (particularly the Matrix lobby scene), though it walked the line between homage and derivative. It’s uh… really violent, with the vast majority of the gore perpetrated by a sweet-faced, sailor-mouthed 14-ish-year-old. This is funny, but also somewhat disturbing. I wonder if the sequel will be any good.
Movies, May 2011
*** The Adjustment Bureau. Entertaining, fun to think about, nice hats.
*** Cranford. Disappointing, actually. We watch a lot of period miniseries around here, and this has a terrific cast etc etc, but it ended up being only pretty good. A lot of it was episodic, without getting us that interested in the characters.
*** Modern Family. Funny, well-written. Completely throwaway but enjoyable.
** Glee. There are some great moments, but overall it’s kind of dumb.
*** Rashomon. Classic, but far from my favorite Kurosawa.
Books, May 2011
*** P.G. Wodehouse – The Works of P.G. Wodehouse
Seriously, all I did from late April until early June, books-wise, was plow through this gigantic Wodehouse tome (thank god I didn’t have to carry it around on actual paper). I spent a solid 5-6 weeks on it and am still only 30% finished, and I read fairly quickly. I gave it up not because I didn’t like it but because dear lord that’s a lot of Wodehouse. So, recommended. Now, everyone knows that the jewel in Wodehouse’s crown is Jeeves and Wooster, and this is mostly stuff that isn’t quite that good. On the other hand there are some real gems hidden in this collection. For all their good qualities, the Jeeves books are fundamentally static comedies. Like a sitcom, whatever situation is set up at the beginning in order for hilarity to ensue must be resolved by the end with everything basically back to how it was when it all started. In other words, neither Jeeves nor Bertie ever grows or changes as a character. There is essentially no character development, no growth or change; and so there’s a limit to how compelling these people can be in the long run. Now, I think every piece of Wodehouse I’ve ever read has been of the light comedy type, but there were several in here that involved actual character complexity and development that I really enjoyed. I’ll be returning to this later.
Movies, April 2011
** The Fifth Element
*** The Bourne Identity
People love this movie but I still have no real idea why. Gary Oldman being crazy and trying to make some kind of deal with a giant expanding ball of evil is amusing, but the whole movie is so sort of formulaic and cheezy and Chris Tucker is actively annoying (and let’s not even get into the skin-crawling horror that is that blue cheezy eurotrance/opera singer). I think some people believe the movie is intended to be cheezy and campy and that’s why it’s so good, but eff those people. It still alternates between formulaically entertaining and annoying, which isn’t good enough for me
The Bourne Identity was a nice thriller-type thing, held up okay on second viewing.
Kitchen whirlwind
In the last 24 hours: pickled cabbage, pickled green beans, vietnamese grilled pork, homemade banh mi, grilled chicken wings, chicken stock. Was going to make rice paper too, but maybe tomorrow.
Books, April 2011
*** Arturo Perez-Reverte – The Flanders Panel
** Arturo Perez-Reverte – The Sun over Breda
*** Philip K. Dick – 11 Science Fiction Stories by Philip K. Dick
*** David Foster Wallace – Oblivion
I actually saw the horrible movie version of The Flanders Panel. It was horrible, though you do get to see Kate Beckinsale’s boobs. The book was significantly better, in that it was entertaining though immediately forgettable. Breda is another of Perez-Reverte’s “Captain Alatriste” books. I liked the first one a lot; this one less so. There’s a lot of “war is miserable” stuff in it, which I usually don’t particularly mind, but this book just didn’t connect for me. I’ll probably keep reading Perez-Reverte and Alatriste if I’m in the mood for entertaining adventure books; he’s generally pretty good.
Hey, old short stories by Philip K. Dick. They were entertaining at the time, though mostly not particularly memorable. I often find “golden age” science fiction a little strange to read because it’s so distinctly of its time in some ways; for example, no one writes about Martians or Moon men any more.
Oblivion alternated between fantastically annoying and thought-provoking. This was my second read; the first time I found it fantastically annoying, evidence I thought that DFW was out of ideas and had crawled up his own meta asshole. I started a review that I never finished. Same thing this time, except a couple of the later stories were good enough to deflate my need to rant about how annoying it was, and I didn’t finish the review. Some day, I will manage to properly review this book. Oh DFW, you wily bastard.
Movies, March 2011
*** Little Dorrit
*** Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
*** Nicholas Nickleby
LIttle Dorrit was good, yet another Matthew-Macfadyen-in-period-dress miniseries. Matthew Macfadyen: your sign of quality! There were some really irritating characters that made it annoying to watch, but I’m not sure if that’s Dickens’s fault or the producers’. NIcholas Nickleby did not have Matthew Macfadyen, but it did have Romola Garai, your other sign of quality period entertainment. It was also good. Scott Pilgrim was entertaining too.