Book and Movies, August to October, 2014
Movies Read & Books Seen, August through October
Movies:
10/31 Ender's Game
10/19 Captain Phillips
10/4 Gravity
10/2 Don Jon
9/23 The World's End
9/7 Percy Jackson/Sea of Monsters
8/26 The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
8/18 Paranoia
8/16 Elysium
8/9 Wolverine
8/2 The Heat
Books:
10/12 Directive 51, John Barnes
10/4 Ender's Game
9/5 Norse Code
9/5 finished Vorkosigan
Read on for detailed commentaryblathering:
Ender's Game: I'm going to give Ender its own post. The book is excellent, the movie less so. Orson Scott Card's politics: reprehensible, at least for me.
Captain Phillips. Certainly another Oscar nomination for Tom Hanks. Based on a true story of a cargo ship captain whose ship was captured by four Somali pirates and ultimately he was taken as a hostage. It's quite a story, and fairly faithful to the actual incident as it was based on a book written by the actual Captain Phillips about the event. The production of the movie is interesting: the production company found out that there is a large Somali ex-pat community in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and put out a casting call there. Four men who are friends all attended the cattle calls, and were subsequently called back two or three times, then they were all flown to LA to meet with the director. They were never directly told that they got the part. Anyway, excellent movie.
Gravity. I initially didn't want to see this movie as it looked like a real downer, though my wife was really eager to see it. But then I started reading about the production of it, and I became eager. We saw it in Las Cruces on opening night, sadly in 3-D because our sucky movie theater chain only shows one or two 2-D showings when they have it in 3-D. And the Dolby 3-D system? Sucks if your area has hot water. Their glasses spot something terrible and they can't use water softener because it screws up their system. Anyway, even ignoring Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Twitter storm of problems of the movie, which can be dismissed with “IT'S A MOVIE, NEIL!”, was pretty good. One of his biggest complaints, and one which I agree with, is that miraculously the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and a Chinese space station are all within line of sight with each other. Anyway, very good movie and it will definitely get nominated for the special effects Oscar.
Don Jon. I laughed my butt off on this one. It's a definite hard R as it's about a New Jersey body builder who is addicted to porn. He may have just slept with a gorgeous woman, but he can't help himself but to slip out of bed, turn on his laptop, watch some porn, and, shall we say, engage in some self-pleasure. It's a personal growth movie, and it's quite interesting watching him change while also watching the people around him not change.
The World's End. It seems to have been time for lots of personal growth movies to come along. In this Simon Pegg movie, Simon wants to get his old school mates together to recreate and complete an epic pub crawl that they attempted right after graduating but failed to complete for various reasons. Everyone else has moved on in their lives over the last 20 years, except for Simon. He's pretty much the exact same guy he was in school, including having the same car. The pub crawl starts well enough, they start noticing the people in their old town are a bit stranger than they remember. Then Simon forces one in to a fight in the gents which results in the other guy's head getting popped off and blue ichor erupting from his body. Turns out that the last pub's name, The World's End, is more than just a pub name. I loved this movie and wish I had had time to see it again in the theaters, it never showed here in NM, so I caught it when we were last in Phoenix. I'll definitely be buying it on DVD when it releases.
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. We didn't see the first PJ movie, though I now have it on DVD and we will get around to seeing it again soon. The movie had some interesting elements to it, and I thought the underlying plot was pretty good. I thought the actors were a little old to be playing teens, they were definitely young adults. I don't know how old they are supposed to be in the books, I haven't read them yet though we have them. So I'll watch the first movie and read the books and probably enjoy them, but I doubt it will ever be a “must see” movie series for me.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. OK, so it was teen paranormal romance. I really liked elements of it, like the girl being able to see things that her friends can't, prior to the big reveal. I thought said reveal was pretty cool and what it did for the rest of the movie. Overall, I think the concept of the series is pretty good and will consider buying it. I think it could make for an awesome RPG series, I'd go with Fate for it as you can go much further afield in such a system.
Paranoia. Very disappointing, I felt that the trailers massively overpromised. Not recommended.
Elysium. Interesting. I like dystopian as a science fiction genre a lot more than post-apocalyptic, it provides for more contrast. If you're serious about analyzing movie plots, this one is kind of shallow. You have a privileged race in orbit in Ringworld with all the pleasures, apparently keeping the people on Earth as slaves for labor. If they can build and maintain freakin' Ringworld, why can't they automate processes and elevate the standard of living for everyone? Doesn't make sense.
Wolverine. Fun escapist entertainment, especially if you like the X-Men series. Wolverine goes to Japan, ninjas, fight with giant robot, etc. The most interesting part was the easter egg at the end foreshadowing the forthcoming X-Men movie due next year.
The Heat. What a hillarious movie! Great chemistry between the two actresses, excellent passage of the Bechdale Test. I really hope they make it a series, it's about time we had a movie series with female leads.
Books.
Directive 51, John Barnes. Directive 51 is the first of a trilogy (thus far, the third book just came out) involving Daybreak, a Green meme that destroys technology. Set about 20 years from now, a computer meme sort of becomes aware and recruits people in to destroying the technology of society. Which, it seems to me, would also destroy it. So over the course of a matter of weeks after nanobot swarms are released, plastics start to turn in to goo. Tires, cell phones, intravenous lines. Then gasoline starts to curdle from a different set of nanobots. Yet another set starts eating gunpowder. I found this a very compelling book and it became a page-turner for me, a much more interesting fall of civilization book than any that I can think of. I have the second book, Daybreak Zero, but haven't had a chance to touch it yet. The third book, The Last President, as I said just recently released.
Ender's Game. I decided to re-read this rather seminal book before the movie released, and I'm glad I did. I still think it's an outstanding book and greatly appreciate Orson Scott Card for writing it. That being said, I am vehemently opposed to Card's political view points and will not buy anything else written by him. I stopped reading the seemingly endless mill of Ender books because, frankly, I thought the writing and plotting was declining. Still, I think Ender's Game is a fantastic book. The movie? Well, I was not impressed. It was good enough, but there was no way to really do the book well without making the movie 5 hours long. I'd like to find some people who haven't read the book to see what their opinion of the movie was.
Norse Code. This is an interesting book by Greg Van Eekhout. I glanced across it at a bookstore and the title caught my eye. Eventually I bought a copy and finished reading it while I was in D.C. in September and it became a page-turner for me. The story revolves around a woman, Mist, who becomes a Valkyrie after she and her sister are gunned-down in a drive-by. She's working for an international company called Norse Code who is doing a world-wide genetic search for men who direct descendents of Odin, who was a rather randy bugger and had frequent dalliances with mortal women on Midgard. The objective? Recruit these descendents to fight with Odin's army in the forthcoming Ragnarok. Unfortunately Mist wants to go to Hel and get her sister back, which kinda forces her to shirk her recruiting duties. Bad things happen, grand battles are fought, etc. I will be re-reading this book occasionally as time goes by.
Finished Vorkosigan. Prior to meeting my wife almost a decade ago, I knew of but very little about Lois McMasters Bujold's Vorkosigan series, and boy am I glad my wife turned me on to it! This is excellent character-based space opera. Sure, you have fleet battles and lots of combat and intrigue, but it's the characters that move the stories along. Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War is also an excellent example of characters transcending technology. While I love David Weber's Honorverse, he's really heavily in to the tech and mathematics of war and deep in to the political motivations of opposing forces. And there's nothing wrong with that, different strokes for different folks and obviously all three (and more) authors are doing well. But if you haven't read the Vorkosigan series, or the Vatta's War series and you like Weber's Honorverse, you might really enjoy them.
Having said all that, it looks like my reading of fiction is going to be severely curtailed for the next few months. Too much education-related and hopefully job-expanding reading to do. Of course, if Weber or Bujold or Doctorow or Sir Pterry come out with a new book, that's all subject to change.
Movies:
10/31 Ender's Game
10/19 Captain Phillips
10/4 Gravity
10/2 Don Jon
9/23 The World's End
9/7 Percy Jackson/Sea of Monsters
8/26 The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
8/18 Paranoia
8/16 Elysium
8/9 Wolverine
8/2 The Heat
Books:
10/12 Directive 51, John Barnes
10/4 Ender's Game
9/5 Norse Code
9/5 finished Vorkosigan
Read on for detailed commentaryblathering:
Ender's Game: I'm going to give Ender its own post. The book is excellent, the movie less so. Orson Scott Card's politics: reprehensible, at least for me.
Captain Phillips. Certainly another Oscar nomination for Tom Hanks. Based on a true story of a cargo ship captain whose ship was captured by four Somali pirates and ultimately he was taken as a hostage. It's quite a story, and fairly faithful to the actual incident as it was based on a book written by the actual Captain Phillips about the event. The production of the movie is interesting: the production company found out that there is a large Somali ex-pat community in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and put out a casting call there. Four men who are friends all attended the cattle calls, and were subsequently called back two or three times, then they were all flown to LA to meet with the director. They were never directly told that they got the part. Anyway, excellent movie.
Gravity. I initially didn't want to see this movie as it looked like a real downer, though my wife was really eager to see it. But then I started reading about the production of it, and I became eager. We saw it in Las Cruces on opening night, sadly in 3-D because our sucky movie theater chain only shows one or two 2-D showings when they have it in 3-D. And the Dolby 3-D system? Sucks if your area has hot water. Their glasses spot something terrible and they can't use water softener because it screws up their system. Anyway, even ignoring Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Twitter storm of problems of the movie, which can be dismissed with “IT'S A MOVIE, NEIL!”, was pretty good. One of his biggest complaints, and one which I agree with, is that miraculously the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, and a Chinese space station are all within line of sight with each other. Anyway, very good movie and it will definitely get nominated for the special effects Oscar.
Don Jon. I laughed my butt off on this one. It's a definite hard R as it's about a New Jersey body builder who is addicted to porn. He may have just slept with a gorgeous woman, but he can't help himself but to slip out of bed, turn on his laptop, watch some porn, and, shall we say, engage in some self-pleasure. It's a personal growth movie, and it's quite interesting watching him change while also watching the people around him not change.
The World's End. It seems to have been time for lots of personal growth movies to come along. In this Simon Pegg movie, Simon wants to get his old school mates together to recreate and complete an epic pub crawl that they attempted right after graduating but failed to complete for various reasons. Everyone else has moved on in their lives over the last 20 years, except for Simon. He's pretty much the exact same guy he was in school, including having the same car. The pub crawl starts well enough, they start noticing the people in their old town are a bit stranger than they remember. Then Simon forces one in to a fight in the gents which results in the other guy's head getting popped off and blue ichor erupting from his body. Turns out that the last pub's name, The World's End, is more than just a pub name. I loved this movie and wish I had had time to see it again in the theaters, it never showed here in NM, so I caught it when we were last in Phoenix. I'll definitely be buying it on DVD when it releases.
Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. We didn't see the first PJ movie, though I now have it on DVD and we will get around to seeing it again soon. The movie had some interesting elements to it, and I thought the underlying plot was pretty good. I thought the actors were a little old to be playing teens, they were definitely young adults. I don't know how old they are supposed to be in the books, I haven't read them yet though we have them. So I'll watch the first movie and read the books and probably enjoy them, but I doubt it will ever be a “must see” movie series for me.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. OK, so it was teen paranormal romance. I really liked elements of it, like the girl being able to see things that her friends can't, prior to the big reveal. I thought said reveal was pretty cool and what it did for the rest of the movie. Overall, I think the concept of the series is pretty good and will consider buying it. I think it could make for an awesome RPG series, I'd go with Fate for it as you can go much further afield in such a system.
Paranoia. Very disappointing, I felt that the trailers massively overpromised. Not recommended.
Elysium. Interesting. I like dystopian as a science fiction genre a lot more than post-apocalyptic, it provides for more contrast. If you're serious about analyzing movie plots, this one is kind of shallow. You have a privileged race in orbit in Ringworld with all the pleasures, apparently keeping the people on Earth as slaves for labor. If they can build and maintain freakin' Ringworld, why can't they automate processes and elevate the standard of living for everyone? Doesn't make sense.
Wolverine. Fun escapist entertainment, especially if you like the X-Men series. Wolverine goes to Japan, ninjas, fight with giant robot, etc. The most interesting part was the easter egg at the end foreshadowing the forthcoming X-Men movie due next year.
The Heat. What a hillarious movie! Great chemistry between the two actresses, excellent passage of the Bechdale Test. I really hope they make it a series, it's about time we had a movie series with female leads.
Books.
Directive 51, John Barnes. Directive 51 is the first of a trilogy (thus far, the third book just came out) involving Daybreak, a Green meme that destroys technology. Set about 20 years from now, a computer meme sort of becomes aware and recruits people in to destroying the technology of society. Which, it seems to me, would also destroy it. So over the course of a matter of weeks after nanobot swarms are released, plastics start to turn in to goo. Tires, cell phones, intravenous lines. Then gasoline starts to curdle from a different set of nanobots. Yet another set starts eating gunpowder. I found this a very compelling book and it became a page-turner for me, a much more interesting fall of civilization book than any that I can think of. I have the second book, Daybreak Zero, but haven't had a chance to touch it yet. The third book, The Last President, as I said just recently released.
Ender's Game. I decided to re-read this rather seminal book before the movie released, and I'm glad I did. I still think it's an outstanding book and greatly appreciate Orson Scott Card for writing it. That being said, I am vehemently opposed to Card's political view points and will not buy anything else written by him. I stopped reading the seemingly endless mill of Ender books because, frankly, I thought the writing and plotting was declining. Still, I think Ender's Game is a fantastic book. The movie? Well, I was not impressed. It was good enough, but there was no way to really do the book well without making the movie 5 hours long. I'd like to find some people who haven't read the book to see what their opinion of the movie was.
Norse Code. This is an interesting book by Greg Van Eekhout. I glanced across it at a bookstore and the title caught my eye. Eventually I bought a copy and finished reading it while I was in D.C. in September and it became a page-turner for me. The story revolves around a woman, Mist, who becomes a Valkyrie after she and her sister are gunned-down in a drive-by. She's working for an international company called Norse Code who is doing a world-wide genetic search for men who direct descendents of Odin, who was a rather randy bugger and had frequent dalliances with mortal women on Midgard. The objective? Recruit these descendents to fight with Odin's army in the forthcoming Ragnarok. Unfortunately Mist wants to go to Hel and get her sister back, which kinda forces her to shirk her recruiting duties. Bad things happen, grand battles are fought, etc. I will be re-reading this book occasionally as time goes by.
Finished Vorkosigan. Prior to meeting my wife almost a decade ago, I knew of but very little about Lois McMasters Bujold's Vorkosigan series, and boy am I glad my wife turned me on to it! This is excellent character-based space opera. Sure, you have fleet battles and lots of combat and intrigue, but it's the characters that move the stories along. Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War is also an excellent example of characters transcending technology. While I love David Weber's Honorverse, he's really heavily in to the tech and mathematics of war and deep in to the political motivations of opposing forces. And there's nothing wrong with that, different strokes for different folks and obviously all three (and more) authors are doing well. But if you haven't read the Vorkosigan series, or the Vatta's War series and you like Weber's Honorverse, you might really enjoy them.
Having said all that, it looks like my reading of fiction is going to be severely curtailed for the next few months. Too much education-related and hopefully job-expanding reading to do. Of course, if Weber or Bujold or Doctorow or Sir Pterry come out with a new book, that's all subject to change.