My thoughts, let me show you them...
Finally gave in and saw Avatar, and wow, it really exceeds at predictability in terms of script, doesn't it? The actors did well with what they had (Zoe Saldana was awesome and I quite like Sam Worthington, even with his occasional slips back into a rather familar accent) but I had trouble clicking with a story that consisted of so much, "Tell me they're not going to [X]?", only to have them do exactly that. And am I completely missing the point to have some issues with Jake Sully for extreme foolhardiness in encouraging the Na'vi to attack machines and very big automatic weapons with numbers alone? Maybe it panned out for him because movieland is kind, but that was some death-dealing tactical fail there. And let me get this straight, he doesn't care at all about the deaths of -- hundreds? -- of Marines he used to fight beside, who weren't the ones making the crazy evil decisions? I'm not saying there was much choice, but I was squirming a little in that climatic end battle.
The visuals are nice to look at, though. There was less 3D than I thought there would be; I couldn't wear the glasses for long because they were hurting my eyes, but the bulk of it is watchable anyhow.
I managed to finally get around to finishing the Octavian Nothing series, reading the concluding volume, Kingdom on the Waves. Which was awesome. I don't want to give away too much, because even the reveal of basic plot is fairly important to the story, but essentially the series explores the life of Octavian, the son of an African woman brought to Boston as a slave in the eighteenth century. It's a fantastically well done series overall -- a touch bleak, though it could hardly be anything less given its setting -- and is immensely clever in its tweaking of genre conventions, using the structures of fantasy to build a fictional historical biography. Anderson also does some ingenious stuff with narrative and the power that lies in the ownership and telling of stories, be they a person's life story or the stories that build a culture and a sense of identity and belonging. And I haven't studied any American history, so it was kind of fascinating to absorb the setting. I had no idea of the role that slavery played in the American Revolution -- which was an aspect of the author's intention, I think, to view the period from a perspective less recognised by mainstream history.
Also read the latest Adrian Mole book, The Prostrate Years (named as such for Adrian's irritation with a particular common mispronunciation). I've been reading the series since I was in primary school, so in many ways it's a very odd experience to watch Adrian ageing -- at an increased rate, from my POV, given that I started reading fifteen years or so after the first book was published. For a comic series, there are some surprisingly touching elements, and Prostrate Years makes them more prominent than ever as Adrian deals with serious illness. I'm constantly in awe of how Sue Townsend can craft characters who are wonderfully, insanely larger than life and at the same time painfully human. Adrian himself is frequently maddening, taking obliviousness to incredible heights, and yet there's an unexpected kindness in him that makes it really hard to condemn his many and sundry flaws. And of course there's also the political and social satire in Adrian's commentary on current events, which is wonderfully double-edged. But, you know, characters! My main complaint with The Prostrate Years is its rather abrupt finish, but the wistfulness of the open ending has grown on me. Though I do hope Adrian will be chronicling his tortured musings for many years to come.
The visuals are nice to look at, though. There was less 3D than I thought there would be; I couldn't wear the glasses for long because they were hurting my eyes, but the bulk of it is watchable anyhow.
I managed to finally get around to finishing the Octavian Nothing series, reading the concluding volume, Kingdom on the Waves. Which was awesome. I don't want to give away too much, because even the reveal of basic plot is fairly important to the story, but essentially the series explores the life of Octavian, the son of an African woman brought to Boston as a slave in the eighteenth century. It's a fantastically well done series overall -- a touch bleak, though it could hardly be anything less given its setting -- and is immensely clever in its tweaking of genre conventions, using the structures of fantasy to build a fictional historical biography. Anderson also does some ingenious stuff with narrative and the power that lies in the ownership and telling of stories, be they a person's life story or the stories that build a culture and a sense of identity and belonging. And I haven't studied any American history, so it was kind of fascinating to absorb the setting. I had no idea of the role that slavery played in the American Revolution -- which was an aspect of the author's intention, I think, to view the period from a perspective less recognised by mainstream history.
Also read the latest Adrian Mole book, The Prostrate Years (named as such for Adrian's irritation with a particular common mispronunciation). I've been reading the series since I was in primary school, so in many ways it's a very odd experience to watch Adrian ageing -- at an increased rate, from my POV, given that I started reading fifteen years or so after the first book was published. For a comic series, there are some surprisingly touching elements, and Prostrate Years makes them more prominent than ever as Adrian deals with serious illness. I'm constantly in awe of how Sue Townsend can craft characters who are wonderfully, insanely larger than life and at the same time painfully human. Adrian himself is frequently maddening, taking obliviousness to incredible heights, and yet there's an unexpected kindness in him that makes it really hard to condemn his many and sundry flaws. And of course there's also the political and social satire in Adrian's commentary on current events, which is wonderfully double-edged. But, you know, characters! My main complaint with The Prostrate Years is its rather abrupt finish, but the wistfulness of the open ending has grown on me. Though I do hope Adrian will be chronicling his tortured musings for many years to come.