Book Review: Railhead

My recent re-engagement with the works of Andre Norton, and something of a re-awakening of an only slightly dormant infatuation with Golden Age Science Fiction couldn’t have come at a better time. My brain was in just the right condition to receive Railhead, the new novel by Philip Reeve. Longtime readers of the blog will know that Reeve is one of my favorite contemporary writers. I first discovered him through his juvenile Jules Verne style romp Larklight, but really came to be a fan with his book Mortal Engines and its follow-ups. With those books, he delved into a lot of the ‘big idea’ Science Fiction spirit I love so much. And he has returned to that with Railhead, a very big idea, Golden Age soaked adventure yarn. A galactic railroad network, threading through stargates, taking humanity from world to world; all under the watchful eyes of ancient AI. Excellent.

What Reeve does that was less common during the era of Asimov, Norton, Heinlein, and others, is populate his wild settings with interesting, nuanced, challenging characters. In Railhead, Zen doesn’t always make great choices. He doesn’t always do the right thing. He’s not a perfect young man. And he’s not alone. Are the villains really villains? Are the heroes heroes? Or are they just people trying to do the best they can with the things they’ve got? Whatever the case, I really like reading about Zen. I love Flex, Gentlemen Take Polaroids, and Nova. I was curious to find out where the Threnody Noon story would go. And the Guardians? The Hive Monks? I want more.

This is the beginning of a longer story; that much is kinda obvious. There are a lot of things introduced, and not all of them are explored to satisfactory degrees. But there is a satisfying story arc to the book. While leaving things in place for events to continue, I like that there is some closure, some resolution. And I’m certainly looking forward to finding out what happens next.

Also, and you’ll know this if you’ve read his other Young Adult novels, Reeve is one of those authors who seems to delight in abusing his characters, and yes, killing them off...especially if they’re one of the ones you really love. This is something that I find thrilling. Knowing that any character, at any time, could get snuffed out makes the reading more intense. And it challenges me, in my own writing, to be more daring; to remember that in life and so in stories, stuff happens. People get hurt, they die, they come into sudden fame or glory or infamy, they fall in love with the wrong person, that make the wrong choice, they find unexpected beauty.

Like Heinlein’s “juvenile” books, and a lot of others from the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Railhead features some young protagonists and there’s no explicit sex. Otherwise, it’s written as though for adults, without condescension or the accepted lowering of writing standards frequently found in young adult fiction. This is a good book. And it happens to be appropriate for teenagers. Sci-fi readers of all ages should check this out. And of course, go back and read Mortal Engines and the other books about the Predator Cities. Great stuff. Hester Shaw, man. One of the great characters.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Book Review: Oliver and the Seawigs

    I’ve reviewed a few Philip Reeve books on here, and regular readers will know he’s a personal favorite.  I discovered him with Larklight, went on to love his epic ultra-far future Predator Cities (formerly Hungry Cities) series, and have read pretty much everything I’ve gotten my hands on since (realized I bought, but never read No Such Thing as Dragons, and have to do something about that one of these days).  So, I snagged his most recent effort, with co-creator Sarah McIntyre in spite of its target demographic.  I don’t have, and am not likely to ever have, children.  So, I may not be the best judge of things related to them.  But this feels like a good book to carry kids over from things like the Magic Treehouse series or Boxcar Children to books like Geronimo Stilton or even Reeve’s other books, like Goblins or Larklight.

    Oliver, the protagonist, is the kind of kid character I responded well to as a wee lad.  He doesn’t get upset or too worried.  He does what needs to be done and he follows life’s path with a jaunty step.  And the other characters in the book are fun and weird.  It looks like Reeve & McIntyre’s next project (Cakes in Space) is unrelated to this, but I’d like to see more adventures of Oliver and friends.  The illustrations are fun and copious, something that I would have loved as a youngster.  I had a devil of a time reading, even though I wanted to do it with all my heart.  Pictures helped me stay focused and keep my mind on the words.  Plus, they helped make the pages go by faster, which made me feel like I was accomplishing something, which in turn made me feel less depressed about my reading issues.  So, kids with reading issues (at least issues similar to the ones I had) might respond to this book, too.  Unlike most of Reeve’s other books, I can’t really recommend this one to adults.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It is a children's book.  And adults with children should enjoy reading it to or along with their spawn.

Oliver and the Seawigs
Authors: Philip Reeve & Sarah McIntyre
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 978-0-385-38788-0

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (8/31/14-9/6/14)

    I feel like I didn’t get a lot done this week, but I also know I was out and about, and very busy for most of it.  My downtime on Sunday and Wednesday night was just so unproductive…Anyway.

    Seeing two classics on the big screen this week did remind me of a few things.  Movies are simply better on the big screen.  Not only the size of the screen and (hopefully) the immersive sound.  But also the group viewing experience.  You can feel the crowd, sense their reactions.  At Singin’ in the Rain, you could feel the joy, hear the feet tapping with the music, and catch the giggles at various jokes.  At Jaws, you could feel the tension, hear the intakes of breath, and yeah, I heard that little kid nearby announce that she’d spotted the shark.  And having seen both films on the small screen, in the privacy and comfort of my own home, I can say that seeing it in a theater with a bunch of people was better.  Yes, you run the chance of having a bad experience.  Yes, I had that awful child with the jittery legs and the constant sniffing (seriously, two hours of sniff…sniff….sniff…sniff) when I went to see King Kong.  But those are relatively rare.  If you’re just watching movies at home, you’re missing out on the wonderful and strange experience of group viewing.  And living here, in the greater Washington D.C. area, I’m so lucky.  We have theaters all around, and many of them run various older films for special showings.  The Alamo, The AFI Silver, The Angelica, even the Rave at Fairfax Corner all do special showings of classics, 80s nostalgia, and more.  However, I’ve been very frustrated to see how little reaction local film buffs have to this.  I talk to movie fans all the time, and they always have excuses as to why they don’t go out and support this awesome activity.  The excuse usually comes down to ‘it’s too expensive’ or ‘I’m too lazy to be bothered.’  Now, the price, I get.  It’s not cheap to go to the movies.  I’d argue that most people I talk to would go spend that money on something equally frivolous (or more) like drinking at a bar or over-paying for sushi.  But whatever.  The laziness thing actually pisses me off.  ‘It’s too far to drive?’  We live in an area where there are almost as many movie theaters as Starbucks.  The Alamo recently tried to do a Spaghetti Western series, but each showing had less and less people, until they just canceled it.  That pretty much says to me that my hoped for Martial Arts film series won’t happen.  When we go to the AFI to watch some amazing screenings of movies like Sweet Smell of Success or Razorback, the place is mostly empty.  A beautiful, huge, comfortable theater with good popcorn and clean bathrooms, and nobody goes!?  I know not everyone is into movies like I am, or like Brad is.  But we have some amazing opportunities to see great films in the way they were intended (on the big screen, with crowds of other people), and on the whole, we’re squandering it.  We’re voting with our dollars to be stuck in our homes, being schlubs, not socializing or supporting interesting things.  It makes me sad.

    On Sunday, I did manage to finish up reading the newest Philip Reeve (with Sarah McIntyre) book, Oliver and the Seawigs.  It’s a cute, if slight kids book.  Probably best for kids graduating from stuff like the Magic Tree House or Boxcar Children to slightly more advanced books like Geronimo Stilton.  The illustrations are copious and enjoyable.  Reeve always weaves a good yarn, but I can’t help but want something a bit more meaty from him.  His last book, Goblins, was also a lot of fun in that Lloyd Alexander sort of way.  But I’m hoping for something a bit more Mortal Engines.  I just don’t know if he’s all that interested in writing the bigger, more epic, big-idea science fiction.  But I can hope.  He remains one of only two writers (Christa Faust being the other) I’ll buy anything written by, sight unseen.

 Masters of Sex: Season 1:  A good companion show to Mad Men, Masters of Sex actually gets some things right more often.  Like Masters’s family life is actually interesting, and his wife feels like a human character.  The show is cute, awkward, touching, sad, and occasionally uplifting and wonderfully pro-science.  I tip my hat to everyone involved.  The cast is excellent, with not only a good core group, but lots of very good supporting character performances.  There's a lot of good TV being made these days if you take the time to seek it out.  This is on that list, for sure.

Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhass:  Visually rich, this historic drama about a man pushed too far by injustice never quite becomes the movie you keep wanting it to become.  Throughout, it sets the stage for some grim, revenge fueled violence, but time and again fails to deliver.  Medieval Death Wish turns into Medieval Sleep Wish.

Singin’ in the Rain:  Seeing the film for my second time, and my first on the big screen, I feel comfortable calling this one of the best movie musicals of all time, and a wonderful movie all around.  And, like The Artist, which covers the same general subject, this is a movie for lovers of movies.  The silent era fades and the passing fad of sound takes over.  The musical numbers are great, but the story itself is also engaging.

Jaws:  My first viewing of Jaws on the big screen, and I’ve never enjoyed it more.  Jaws is a weird one for me.  On the one hand, I know it’s an excellent movie.  And while I’m watching it, I love it.  But when I’m not watching it, I’m not thinking about it.  It holds little sway over me.  Yet, while I was watching it, I loved it more than ever before.  The camaraderie that develops is beautifully played, with Robert Shaw as the salty old seaman, Richard Dreyfuss as the rich nerd who turns out to be as tough as the old man, and Roy Scheider as the cowardly cop, trying to overcome crushing fear.  An awesome movie all around, and a good reminder of what can be done with practical effects, and how they would not translate to CGI.  Look at this movie, and then imagine what it would look like if made on a substantial budget today.  It wouldn’t look so good, I can tell you that.

Magic in the Moonlight:  I don’t like Woody Allen movies since way back.  And I generally try to avoid them (especially if he appears in ‘em).  But I also find Colin Firth to be infinitely charming, and I do like old timey Europe.  Set in the Jazz age, the movie is about a stage magician/fraud debunker who finds himself believing in the possibilities of the supernatural when he meets a profoundly gifted young spiritualist.  There’s a lot of cute and some funny.  I found the presentation of Firth’s skeptic a bit annoying, as it felt like the condescending way they tend to be portrayed in many mainstream movies and more expectedly in Christian themed film.  Yet that portrayal belied the message of the film.  Which was lacking in what the kids call subtlety.  My other complaint is that it felt too long.  The last 30 or so minutes could probably have been trimmed to 10 minutes and been much, much better.

    On Saturday, Lisa, Brad and I headed up to Baltimore for the Comic Con.  We also met Robert and Emily there.  I believe a good time was had by all, though the first half was a bit rough for me, as I developed a debilitating headache (something I’m generally not prone to) and had a hard time thinking about anything else.  After taking some drugs, eating lunch, drinking a bunch of water, and seeing Thor stride forth from the men’s room in a manner befitting the God of Thunder, I felt better and was more into it.  With nobody I was especially interested in seeing, I looked around Artists Ally and the vendor booths a bit more than usual.  Actually, I feel like I was around the vendor booths WAY more than usual this year, and there were some very good deals.  A lot of trades for deep discounts.  But oddly, there seemed to be a lot of repetition in what was available.  I don’t know if all these folks got their bulk purchases from the same place or what.  But you’d see volume 2 of a slightly obscure series at every booth.  Anyway.  It was weird.  Overall, the show seemed pretty good, there was a lot of good cosplay (can’t believe I just wrote that), and everyone seemed to be having a good time.  One thing though, parents, don’t be dumb.  Keep better track of your children.  I think in all the years previous that I’ve visited this convention, I’ve heard perhaps one or two announcements about lost children/parents.  This year, it seemed to happen every five minutes.  What’s up people?

Photo credit: Brad.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Book Review: Goblins

    Readers of this blog will know there are only two fiction authors I obsessively consume whatever new books they release, Christa Faust and Philip Reeve.  They couldn’t be much different.  Goblins is Reeve’s latest (in the States), and this time he’s taken on classic children’s Fantasy.  From early on, I was reminded of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series.  But as it’s Reeve, he takes your preconceptions and turns them on their head on more than one occasion.

    The basic idea couldn’t be much more typical of the genre.  Henwyn, a restless young boy who wants to be a hero, goes on a journey to rescue a princess from the ruined lair of an evil old wizard.  But of course, that’s only the surface.  Things aren’t nearly as they seem, from the princess to the goblin Skarper, to the boy himself.

    Kids just getting into reading, with a fancy for the fanciful, should find this book very readable and lots of fun.  It also has some good lessons on expectations, the twists life throws us, and the importance of friendships of all sorts.  There’s also a bunch of cheeky potty humor that kids will no doubt find very amusing.  The goblins alone provide plenty of fun goofiness, tainted with some dark danger.

    Though this isn’t my favorite Philip Reeve book, mostly because its classic (generic sounds harsher than I mean it, but kind of sums it up) Fantasy setting is simply something I’m not especially interested in.  Tolkien's Lord of the Rings  and other Medieval European substitute settings, for example.  But I always find his books a pleasure to read.

Goblins
Author: Philip Reeve
Publisher: Scholastic Press
ISBN: 978-0-545-22220-4

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/16/14-3/22/14)

    This week is a bit of a blur.  In the aftermath of filming, I went into a slightly more funky funk, combined with some unrelated stress, and just didn’t have my mind on the Dork Life.  Still, there were bright points, to be sure.

Star Trek Into Darkness:  Upon second viewing, I find this film both better and worse.  On the one hand, I find a lot of things that I really enjoy.  Little bits of dialog, sequences, or production design.  But I’m also more bothered by how much better it not only could have been, but absolutely should have been.  Kirk is made into a horrible, sniveling, weak-willed little child.  Spock is a whiny a-hole.  Uhura has become a shrewish nag.  And the unnecessary villains are bordering on mentally enfeebled when it comes to plans and schemes.  At almost every turn, the writers had chances to make a very interesting movie, that continued to take the new timeline Trek on its own course.  Alas, at every turn, they made silly call-backs, rehashed old characters and plots, and on more than one occasion bent plot and story out of whack, just to do something stupid.  If Harrison wasn’t Khan?  Better film.  If Khan and Kirk teamed up, then went on their separate paths?  Better film.  If it had been a dilemma to solve, not a villain to punch?  Better film.  If Carol Marcus wasn’t involved?  Better film.  If the Klingons weren’t involved?  Better film.  And didn’t they already do the Admiral Robocop storyline in Star Trek VI?  I mean, why rip off both Star Trek II’s plot and Star Trek IV?  Anyway, this ultimately aggravating film has a ton of potential, but drops almost every ball it tries to juggle.  After such a good start to the re-launched series, this stumble feels catastrophic and probably terminal.  My interest in the franchise dropped down to the levels Star Wars has been enjoying for the last fifteen years.  And that ain’t good.

Alice Adams:  Katharine Hepburn plays a somewhat spoiled daughter of a struggling middle class family, who, along with her mother, is a bit obsessed with being perceived as part of the more sophisticated upper class.  What follows is an enjoyable light comedy of manors and misunderstandings.  Nothing too heavy.  One thing I find odd/interesting is the politics of race in the film.  You see racism, and there is certainly a character that seems like a racist archetype when you first see her.  But, it seems like the movie is lampooning racist assumptions and behaviors.  Or is it?  I’m removed enough from the time period that I’m not quite sure.  Was it subversively forward thinking, or am I giving them too much credit?  Overall, I really liked the movie, even though Fred MacMurray was the romantic lead.  Though his boring stiffness may have been to the benefit of the picture.

Dirty Harry:  One of the great pieces of 70s sleaze.  One of the best anti-hero cop films.  Dirty Harry is pretty much a rehash of Bullitt, but 100% more entertaining.  Clint Eastwood grimaces and sneers his way through life, hating the world and every piece of scum in it.  And when a giggling whack-job with a rifle starts picking people off, nothing is gonna stop Harry from getting his hands dirty, with punk blood.  No pointless romance sub-plot.  No great moral victory.  No personal growth.  Just hard, mean, ugly business.  A great score, fantastic footage of San Francisco, and some memorable lines help cement Dirty Harry as a landmark in cynical cinema.

    Because I’ve had a hard time focusing on reading lately, I paid a lot more attention to the music I had on during bus trips this week.  I really got into St. Vincent’s new, self titled CD.  After a few listens, I give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.  Very good.

The Astronaut Farmer:  This is a great family movie, about a family working together to realize dreams.  In a lot of ways, it felt like a film from the earlier 1980s.  Another case of ‘they don’t make movies like this anymore.’  It’s heart warming, gentle, and seriously enjoyable.  It’s got plenty of ‘that guy’ actors and lots of solid character performances.  Heck, even the kid actors are good.  This is the kind of thing I can imagine inspiring little kids to reach for the stars, and we could certainly use more of that.  Matt’s Family Seal of Approval.

The Grapes of Wrath:  The Great Depression shot by John Ford?  Normally, that idea would not thrill me at all.  But this adaptation of the classic novel of one of America’s darkest times is engrossing, entertaining, and ultimately uplifting.  Though the end sugar coats the book’s message, I find its hope filled look off into the distance of time to be satisfying.  The movie looks great, with some excellent faces and the desperate human misery of displaced peoples in stark black & white.  The acting tends toward the theatrical, but as the film takes on an almost mythic cast, that’s not such a bad thing.  Watching it made me want to dip back into HBO’s Carnivalle and follow it up with Sullivan’s Travels.  I’ve got a week off coming up.  We’ll see.

    Thursday night I watched the first disk of The Waltons.  Man, I hated that show when I was a wee lad, but I find it charming and fun now.  It’s wholesome and perhaps a bit saccharine, but it’s also refreshing and pleasant.  I know that over the course of its near decade run (plus several movies) the characters grow and experience snippets of history (from the Depression through WWII), and I find that interesting.  I may be sitting down for a long haul, watching the entire show.

The Call of Cthulhu:  I still find myself enjoying this darned faithful adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic story.  On a limited budget, they attempted to recreate the silent movie era, and for the most part, it works.  Not even close to my favorite Lovecraft tale, it’s still nice to see some of the author’s essential content make it onto the screen, something so rare in previous purported adaptations.  It makes me more and more hungry to see a faithful adaptation of The Shadow Out of Time or of course, At the Mountains of Madness.  Heck, a well made Shadow Over Innsmouth would still make me smile.

Legendary Weapons of China:  An excellent, probably way over-complicated martial arts adventure movie, Legendary Weapons of China is set in the latter days of the Boxer Rebellion (or just after).  It involved conflicted philosophies of martial arts and its place in society…and lots of fighting.  The tone is odd, with a good deal of goofing, but with some serious issues being discussed and fought over.  Yet, unlike some, it manages not to strike any notes too jarring for this viewer.  I enjoy hand to hand martial arts, but my preference is for weapon combat, and as the film’s name implies, this one features weapons.  Lots and lots of weapons.  Excellent.

    Saturday night was the latest meeting of the graphic novel club, where this month we discussed Brian K. Vaughn’s Pride of Bagdad.  The book left me cold upon reading it, but I did gain some appreciation for it, seeing it through some other readers’ eyes.  The art is nice, but it felt the most like when we read Get Jiro a while back; a bunch of potentially interesting ideas that didn’t go anywhere.

    I finally got back to and finished Philip Reeve’s Goblins.  It’s a fun children’s fantasy novel in the spirit of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain cycle (see…or don’t…Disney’s boring adaptation of The Black Cauldron).  The fact that it took so long from the time I started to the time I finished is not a statement about the book’s quality, but my own scatterbrained funk and lack of focus I’ve been suffering for some months.

-Matt

Book Review: I Wonder

    As I don’t have kids, and probably never will, I don’t focus a great deal of my time on kids books (Philip Reeve’s work being the usual exception).  However, I thought this one warranted some attention, because it’s such an uncommon thing.  Annaka Harris has written a book about the joy of realizing you don’t know something.  No, it’s not a book that celebrates ignorance.  It celebrates recognizing the ends of your knowledge and the beginnings of your quest to learn.  It’s a book that lets a child (and adult) know that it’s OK to say, “I don’t know;” to wonder.  Wonder is how it all begins.

    The art by John Rowe is gorgeous, and intensely colorful.  It’s somehow impressionist, but with a photographic quality, and is really something to look at.  It features the kind of images I’d have been absolutely lost in as a child.  This is the sort of visually striking thing I always craved, and rarely found.  The stuff that propelled me in to wanting to read more, to learn more, and to create more.  Pictures like these were inspirational when it came to early attempts at writing and at art.

    For parents who want to encourage their children to learn, to quest for knowledge, to admit they don’t know the right answer (and to try to find out what is the right answer), this is a great pick.  And honestly, how many kids books have a recommendation from a physics & astronomy professor on the back?

I Wonder
Author: Annaka Harris
Art: John Rowe
Publisher: Four Elephants Press
ISBN: 978-1-940051-04-8

-Matt

Book Review: Fringe: The Burning Man

    A few months ago, I reviewed the first of Christa Faust’s Fringe tie-in novels, The Zodiac Paradox.  Walter Bishop was my favorite character on the show, and I enjoyed the heck out of all the Walter and William Bell stuff, but was admittedly not engaged in the overall plot about the Zodiac killer.  However, I enjoy Faust’s writing enough to keep me reading and enjoying myself.  I knew going in that this second book focused on Olivia, who I can’t say was ever a character I found especially interesting.  Still.  Faust?  I’m there.

    Early in the book, I was getting a bit nervous.  The nitty-gritty writing was, typical of Faust, quite good.  But the story seemed to be going down a similar path to the first book.  A character from the show, a killer, a psychic bond… Uh oh.  Media tie-in novels are always tough.  There are certain rules you’ve got to stay within while writing, certain ideas of a universe you need to hold onto, and often, an unwillingness on the part of the people with the purse strings to stray too far from what is established.  Was this second book going to follow a formula that would be the basis of all the Fringe novels?  That would be sad.  But thankfully, no.  My faith was restored when the plot took a pretty darned surprising turn about two thirds of the way in, and the focus of the book shifted rather wildly.  Excellent.  I won’t go into details, but the last third or so of the book gets into some very Fringe-worthy world building, and hints at some really nasty stuff.

    If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve heard it before.  I’ll pick up anything Christa Faust writes.  She and Philip Reeve are the two authors I don’t take any time to think about.  I just get it, and read it.  Like listening to James Earl Jones read the phonebook, I don’t so much care what she’s writing about, I just really like the way she does it.  But getting past that, I am impressed by how well she’s able to capture the voices of established characters.  That’s probably the single greatest challenge of making media tie-in novels work for fans, and she’s got it down pat.  Even though most of this book deals with Olivia as a teenager, you can see the Olivia of the TV show in proto-form.  And she makes for a good, smart, tough character, with a much more proactive approach to life and its problems.

    I have to admit, I am darned surprised that I ended up enjoying this Olivia focused book more than the Walter one.  But the plot pivot kicked me in the expectations, and that’s something I intensely enjoy.  If you’re a fan of the show these books are worth checking out.  Or if you just enjoy brisk, compulsively readable books.  And now I’m looking forward to Sins of the Father.  Back to a Bishop.  I don’t know what the future plans for these books are.  Will there be more?  Will Christa Faust still be on them?  I know I’d love to read more about Walter Bishop and his adventures in mad science.  It feels like so much of his life is unexplored.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, go out and get a copy (and while you're out, grab Faust's Money Shot and Choke Hold!).

Fringe: The Burning Man
Author: Christa Faust
Publisher: Titan Books
ISBN: 978-1781163115

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (6/30/13-7/6/13)

    Not an especially grand week, but not a bad one.  Another enjoyable viewing of a classic film on the big screen.  And some other general fun.  To avoid repetition, I will not talk about the weather.

King Eagle:  “You are so kind; but unfortunately we are the evil brothers of Tai Shan, not the benign brothers.”  The opening credits aren’t finished before the second fight starts.  Some petty squabblers wake the dragon and pay the piper.  ’Lone ranger’ King Eagle doesn’t care about you.  He doesn’t care about anyone.  But some people can’t let still waters rest.  They just keep poking until he kills them all.  Assassins and warriors in the know won’t help.  They know what’s up.  Overall, it’s nothing to write home about, but a perfectly adequate Shaw Bros. movie if you’re looking for one to watch.

Godzilla:  Another day, another trip to the Alamo Drafthouse.  This time to see the original Godzilla (no Raymond Burr).  Had a great time.  The movie is an interesting glimpse into the post-War mindset of Japan.  I found little bits especially effecting, like the guy who just didn’t want to evacuate again.  It’s a good flick that takes its subject quite seriously.  Later movies would get pretty crazy, generally moving away from the whole ‘shadow of the bomb’ thing.  But this first one is quite a thing.

The Lone Ranger:  Who would have guessed this film would become one of my favorite of the year.  Yes, I’ve been a Johnny Depp fan for some time, and I’ve liked several of Gor Verbinski’s movies.  But I have never been a Lone Ranger fan and thought the movie looked dreadful.  But it’s all kinds of surreal fun, with a very dark and strange sense of humor and plenty of exciting stunts.  It’s a bit overlong, and does go off the rails (before literally getting back on them) at one point.  The cast does a fine job.  Depp isn’t doing one of his Tim Burton performances.  Yes, it’s weird.  But not annoying and stupid like his work with Burton.  All that crazy stuff with the horse and the rabbits?  Bonkers.  But bonkers funny.  It’s clear America wasn’t looking forward to this film, and I sure as heck wasn’t.  However, it’s pretty danged fun and well worth a watch.  Much better than other summer action fare, like Iron Man 3, White House Down, Man of Steel and some others.

Ghidorah The Three-Headed Monster:  All kinds of crazy is descending on Japan, and the worst of it is Ghidorah, a giant, three headed, golden dragon with erratic space lightening shooting every which way.  He’s so danged powerful, it takes the heroic Mothra, the cantankerous Godzilla, and …Rodan to drive him off.  In the meantime, a pretty young princess is possessed, a plucky reporter is on the job, and a dull cop is ready to save the day.  This is full-on crazy Kaiju action, but like a lot of these movies, it spends a good deal of time building to the action, getting to know a few characters and letting the tension mount.  This is on the better end of the Toho monster movie spectrum, though I do miss Anguirus.  It just doesn’t feel right to fight Ghidorah without him.

     I finished up Scrivener's Moon, the last book in Philip Reeve's new Traction City trilogy.  Good stuff.

Drive Angry:  “I want you to holster that iron god-killer and say ‘thank you.’”  That this movie hasn’t been embraced by the general public is beyond me.  It’s a world of bent genius.  Just amazing.  Boobs, guns, cars, explosions, and cussing like drunken sailors.  Nic Cage looks like he’s having a blast.  Amber Heard is surprisingly fun as the feisty chick he’s traveling with.  But William Fichtner is the real standout as Hell’s accountant.  Just a heck of a lot of fun.  Awesome.

Red:  “Moldova sucks!”  A darned funny, stupid, and action packed movie about a bunch of ex-government sanctioned action heroes being pulled back into the fire.  Everyone seems to be having the time of their lives, gleefully spouting mad-bastard dialog and blazing away with heavy weapons.  Honestly, if nothing else, it’s worth checking out just to see Helen Mirren wearing a classy dress, firing a huge machine gun.  Whatever the case, the movie isn’t going to change the world, but it’s a lot of stupid fun.

Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror:  Trying to drop off Barbara and Ian, the Doctor and companions end up in the past of France, and plenty of trouble.  The French Revolution is not a time period I’m especially interested in, and the story doesn’t have a lot of new to say about it.  Not one of the more interesting Hartnell tales.  The animated sequence is pretty well done, and I hope they do more for the episodes where the video is missing.

    So, for the first time in a good deal of years I decided to read the Bible.  Perhaps one might think it an odd thing for an atheist, but it is an important work of literature if nothing else.  And so far, I would have to say, not much else.  Working my way through Genesis, it’s such a hodge-podge of messy old wives tales that it’s hard to pull out a narrative.  There are some interesting images, but it’s all so vague.  Reminds me of reading Gilgamesh.  The idea that people would think this stuff was anything but the mythology of Bronze Age savages is beyond me, but people believe in homeopathy and crystals.  So who knows?

-Matt