Saturday, May 19, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
It's my time to shine
My next post is gonna be pretty damn big so I may as well get this out of the way first. I'm going to be reviewing Stephen King's The Shining and both of the movies but before I do that I just want to clear up some things here so my reviews won't be comparisons between the book and the films. And I'm sure there's people out there that have seen the movies but have no interest in reading the book but still may be curious about the differences between the two.
There may have been some miscasting issues. First I gotta say that every actor in this movie did a really good job and I suspect that's why they were cast in this movie. Shelley Duvall's character is supposed to be a blonde. Jack Nicolson's character is is supposed to have shaggy sandy colored hair. Danny is just supposed to look like a typical white 5 year old kid which is exactly what is. I'll get to this later in my review but they don't really interact with each other quite like they did in the book either. From the get go the Jack Torrance seems to have nothing but indifference and disdain for his wife and child. This couldn't be more far off from the Jack Torrance in the book who is seen laughing and having fun with his family and there's a lot of love between these three characters, particularly the Jack and Danny characters(Wendy Torrance often feels jealous of the bond they share) and feels a great deal of guilt and shame for breaking his son's arm. There's even a rather tender love scene after Danny gets attack in room 217. The Wendy Torrance in the movie takes a more submissive role towards her husband and this could not be farther from the Wendy Torrance in the novel. In fact she has such a strong presence Jack often feels like he's being nagged. She really isn't the weak willed subordinate character she is in the movie.
In the book Jack Torrance is writing a play, in the movie he's writing a book.
Instead of a hedge maze there are hedge animals.
When Dick Hallorann takes Danny aside to tell him about the shining he does it in his car. His mother watches this and is afraid Hallorann is going to kidnap him.
In the book the room where the ghost strangles Danny is 217, in the movie it's 237.
Everybody is familiar with that scene where Wendy Torrence reads her husband's manuscript and all it says is "No work and all play make Jack a dull boy" over and over again. This never happened in Stephen King's book.
That scene where Shelley Duvall brains Jack Nicholson over the head with a bat on the stairs took place in the hotel bar(while he was strangling her) and he was hit over the head with an empty wine bottle. Danny was in the room with her as well.
Instead of using an axe to break down the doors Jack Torrance uses roque mallets which are supposedly bigger and sturdier than your standard croquet mallet. It may sound silly but I think the reason for this is the axe just looks better on screen and is more scary than a big mallet.
Dick Hallorann survives the end of the book.
In the movie the hotel remains intact by the end. In the book the hotel is completely destroyed when the boiler explodes.
In closing the movie mirrors a lot of the dialogue in the book but these two are separate entities. To put it this way, think of two half siblings that look nothing alike but still have some things in common under the surface.
There may have been some miscasting issues. First I gotta say that every actor in this movie did a really good job and I suspect that's why they were cast in this movie. Shelley Duvall's character is supposed to be a blonde. Jack Nicolson's character is is supposed to have shaggy sandy colored hair. Danny is just supposed to look like a typical white 5 year old kid which is exactly what is. I'll get to this later in my review but they don't really interact with each other quite like they did in the book either. From the get go the Jack Torrance seems to have nothing but indifference and disdain for his wife and child. This couldn't be more far off from the Jack Torrance in the book who is seen laughing and having fun with his family and there's a lot of love between these three characters, particularly the Jack and Danny characters(Wendy Torrance often feels jealous of the bond they share) and feels a great deal of guilt and shame for breaking his son's arm. There's even a rather tender love scene after Danny gets attack in room 217. The Wendy Torrance in the movie takes a more submissive role towards her husband and this could not be farther from the Wendy Torrance in the novel. In fact she has such a strong presence Jack often feels like he's being nagged. She really isn't the weak willed subordinate character she is in the movie.
In the book Jack Torrance is writing a play, in the movie he's writing a book.
Instead of a hedge maze there are hedge animals.
When Dick Hallorann takes Danny aside to tell him about the shining he does it in his car. His mother watches this and is afraid Hallorann is going to kidnap him.
In the book the room where the ghost strangles Danny is 217, in the movie it's 237.
Everybody is familiar with that scene where Wendy Torrence reads her husband's manuscript and all it says is "No work and all play make Jack a dull boy" over and over again. This never happened in Stephen King's book.
That scene where Shelley Duvall brains Jack Nicholson over the head with a bat on the stairs took place in the hotel bar(while he was strangling her) and he was hit over the head with an empty wine bottle. Danny was in the room with her as well.
Instead of using an axe to break down the doors Jack Torrance uses roque mallets which are supposedly bigger and sturdier than your standard croquet mallet. It may sound silly but I think the reason for this is the axe just looks better on screen and is more scary than a big mallet.
Dick Hallorann survives the end of the book.
In the movie the hotel remains intact by the end. In the book the hotel is completely destroyed when the boiler explodes.
In closing the movie mirrors a lot of the dialogue in the book but these two are separate entities. To put it this way, think of two half siblings that look nothing alike but still have some things in common under the surface.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Who is Karl Edward Wagner?
I
don’t suppose many people reading this will know who Karl Edward Wagner is and
I can’t say I blame you. For some reason
shortly after his death his works nearly went out of print. Considering that I think it’s safe to say
Karl Edward Wagner is horror and fantasy's best kept secret.
Trying to explain my love for an
author whom most people have never heard of is difficult. The best way I can think of is you’d have to
had read Karl Edward Wagner somewhere before to even have an interest in these
books. You may pick up a Stephen King,
or Clive Barker, or Dean Koontz novel or anthology having never read them
before but Karl Edward Wagner is the kind of cult writer I think you’d have to
be exposed to first to even have a passing interest in anything else he’s done. Just to give you an idea of what I’m trying
to express here this is a picture of all the anthologies I own that contain
Wagner’s short stories.
Sadly Dark Forces lost it's cover a long time ago and the binding of Zombies is just about to fall apart. Wagner stories printed in these books are:
Dark Forces - Where the Summer Ends
Mammoth Book of Terror - The River of Night's Dreaming
Mammoth Book of New Terror - The Fourth Seal
Mammoth Book of Zombies - Sticks
The Best Horror from Fantasy Tales - The Last WolfAll these except The Last Wolf can be found in Volume One.
The first of which being the strange
and erotic novella The River of Night’s Dreaming which I came across in The Mammoth
Book of Terror. I had originally bought
that book when I was a kid because I thought the cover looked cool. It’s funny when I think about it but I couldn’t
have been more than 11 or 12 when I bought that and I seriously doubt most book
store cashiers would let a child buy a book with artwork that has a bunch of tiny monsters popping out of some dude's skin nowadays. While that book sat around for a long enough
time for me to mature enough to read it(and judging by how often I lost books,
carelessly destroyed them, and loaned them out to friends who never returned
them it’s a wonder I still have it and it’s still intact.) I bought a similar
book(The Mammoth Book of Zombies, once again enticed by the cover) that was
edited by the same guy and soon became a fan of his work as well.
A few short years after I bought
these books Wagner died and his work was all but forgotten. During this time I started gaining an
interest in reading all those books I bought way back when and didn’t have the
comprehension or patience to read. I
read The Mammoth Book of Terror cover to cover and the Karl Edward Wagner story
remains one of my favorites. Another one
of the books I had that was just gathering dust was Kirby McCauley’s Dark
Forces which introduced the world to Stephen King’s The Mist but also had a
different Wagner story that I enjoyed. From
then on out I’d pick up Stephen Jones’ anthologies wherever I happened to see
them and for a long time this was the only way I had of gathering a Wagner
collection. I’m not really giving
publishers much credit here by drilling in the point that his work was nearly
forgotten. That’s not entirely
true. In the last 15 years or so several
collections have been printed featuring his short stories and novels
unfortunately they didn’t come to my attention soon enough before they went out
of print and since Karl Edward Wagner is literature’s best kept secret there’s
not a high enough demand to keep his books in circulation(meanwhile you can’t
escape Stephenie Meyer’s presence at any bookstore, sometimes life just ain’t
fair).
So when I learned of a publisher
releasing two collections of his short stories earlier this year my broke ass
saved every dime I could to be able to buy it.
I wasn’t just about to let this opportunity pass me by again and if I’ve
at least piqued your curiosity I suggest you go to amazon or centipede’s
website and order yourself a copy or two while you still can. Copies of these two volumes are limited to 500. However if you still have no interest in you
could always search the internet for someone else who is better at explaining
why Wagner is such a good author.
These collections are outstanding and feature information about Wagner from friends Stephen Jones and Peter Staub as well as some amazing artwork. If you're not acquainted with Wagner's works I suggest you pick up Volume One as it has some of his most popular and widely read stories. The cover to Volume Two is a concept picture for The River of Night's Dreaming which is actually in Volume One.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Hesher
This movie looks awesome! I don't know how this one flew under the radar for me but its got Metallica playing on the trailer, it was produced by Natalie Portman, and it stars an angry anarchistic slacker with long greasy hair. Yep its almost like they ripped a page right out of my own book.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
The Avengers - 2012
The Avengers - 2012
While I did really enjoy this
movie there were a lot of things I took issue with. While I never read the comics there are a few
things I do know about The Avengers that it looked like they really screwed up.
1. Captain who? - It’s my understanding that Captain America
is the leader of The Avengers and while he is seen giving orders in one scene
he does nothing to bring this iconic group of superheroes together.
This is the US poster for the movie. Notice how Captain America is in the background behind just about every character. Judging by this poster they should have called the movie Iron Man and the Avengers.
Now check out the cover for the straight to dvd animated feature Ultimate Avengers. Notice how Captain America is front and center with everyone else behind him.
2. Hawkeye is a bad guy - As one
of my favorite Avengers it just really pissed me off that he gets brainwashed
by Loki in the first five minutes and stays that way for half the movie. He doesn’t even have a chance to do or even
say much before he betrays everyone. He
redeems himself in the end and his scenes are pretty badass but it doesn’t make
up for all that happened earlier.
Stepping outside myself and my
love for this character for a moment, this is just real shitty character development.
Look at it this way how are most people supposed to establish that Hawkeye is a
hero when he only got one minute of screen time in Thor and the next time we
see him he becomes an easily led puppet?
Oh and by the way the perceived romance he has with Black Widow pissed
me off too.
3.
Banner miscasting - I don’t care that they couldn’t get Ed Norton to
reprise his role as Dr. Bruce Banner but the guy they replaced him with is just
awful.
4. Quagmire - Nick Fury rushes to
the war conclusion too readily. Loki
escapes that compound and the next we hear from Fury there’s a war. When did he come to this conclusion and
why? For all he knows it’s just Loki and
Hawkeye.
5.
BS technology - Whenever I see a
piece of tech that either can’t exist or has no reason to it takes me out of
the movie. I honestly can’t remember the
last time I saw something as ridiculous or unnecessary as the FLYING AIRCRAFT
CARRIER!!! As soon as I saw this coming
onscreen I said to myself, “They’re not going to go there,” and then, “I can’t
fucking believe it”. And that’s when I
slapped my head. First off there is NO FUCKING REASON IT
SHOULD BE FLYING IN THE FIRST PLACE! The
one reason I can imagine it does is so they can get places faster but even that
doesn’t make any sense because most of these super heroes can fly and the ones
who can’t could easily fly out of there in one of the jets WHICH IS EXACTLY
WHAT THEY DO AT THE END OF THE MOVIE!
Not to mention the fact that it does fly poses a major threat to anything
they fly over. Later in the movie
the damned thing gets sabotaged and they
have to fix the problem or plunge to earth and kill themselves and everyone
below them. Second I don’t know jack
shit about propulsion but even I know there’s no turbine in the fucking world
big enough or powerful enough to lift an aircraft carrier. Third, an aircraft carrier is not aerodynamic
that’s why they’re designed for the sea and not the air.
6.
Dues Ex Machina City – At one point Thor is tricked into getting trapped
in Loki’s prison as he escapes. He tries
to force his way out but all he manages to do is put a little crack in the
glass. His imprisonment leads to the
death of a main character but when the cell is jettisoned and plummeting to
earth Thor easily escapes by breaking through the glass.
(Huge Spoilers) Towards the end of the movie against Nick
Fury’s orders the unseen syndicate that gives S.H.I.E.L.D its orders sends a
nuclear missile at the city despite the fact that there’s no threat of the
Chitauri army escaping the city. Iron
Man then uses this missile to blow up the Chitauri mothership which disables
all their troops on earth. I didn’t even
know they were robots until this point.
In fact they zoom in on a few of them and they appear to have creature
like faces. Assuming these things are
robots of some kind the movie does nothing to establish this nor do they
explain who they are, where they come from, or why they want to rule the earth,
they just do. The Citauri are the
biggest MacGuffin I’ve seen in a movie
in a long time. Really they only exist
so The Avengers have something to beat up in the final act of the movie. I also find it a little ironic that this is
how they saved the day in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace which also starred
Samuel L. Jackson. When will alien
invaders learn that organic soldiers don’t malfunction when your mothership
gets destroyed?
7. HULK AGAIN!!! The inconsistencies with the Hulk are enough
to transform me into a giant green rage monster. My younger brother often plays devil’s
advocate whenever I point out plot inconsistencies that leave huge gaping holes
in the suspension of disbelief. In the
last act of the movie Bruce Banner transforms into the Hulk again only this
time instead of attacking everything in sight it only focuses on the bad guys
except for a scene where it punches Thor in comic relief. Not even he was willing to defend that.
8.
Not enough heroic sequences – I had the same problem with this that I
did with Iron Man. I’m not saying all
they have to do is run around rescuing cats out of trees but seeing these
superheroes actually saving someone every once in a while would be nice. In The Avengers all they do is fight
things. In the Spiderman movies we see
him saving people all the time. (I realize towards the end they do some pseudo saving
people but they’re not actually saving them they’re just telling them to find
shelter.)
9. Meh – It’s more of a personal
thing but it pissed me off when someone told Captain America Thor was a god and
he said quote, “There’s only one god and he doesn’t dress like that.”
I find it odd that a 72 minute
animated movie establishes its characters and plot better than a live action
movie that’s longer, has a better budget, and an a list cast. I’d hate to say it but Ultimate Avengers is a
far superior movie, but I still liked this one and expect to buy it as soon as
it comes out.
In spite of all the problems I mentioned
I give this movie an 85 +B. It’s got
issues but it’s still a fun and enjoyable movie if you can forgive some of
those issues.
Friday, May 4, 2012
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer 2(AKA Forget Me Not)
I was browsing Youtube videos when I came across a surprisingly bad trailer for a movie I'd never heard of that I'm sure is just as bad if not worse than trailer.
It's painfully clear this is a carbon copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer with some scary ghost effects. There's just so many things to pick apart on this trailer but even more than the unoriginality and bad acting is the forced sex appeal. Hey guys you know you want to see this because it's got chicks in bikinis. What's more is how these people act. I know people are assholes, and I know some people get excited about graduating, but I've never seen anyone hang out the side of a moving car while yelling that at the top of their lungs. It reminds me of the beginning of Cabin Fever where a college girl yells out the side of a pickup to some children, "Fuck college. You should never go to college!"
It's painfully clear this is a carbon copy of I Know What You Did Last Summer with some scary ghost effects. There's just so many things to pick apart on this trailer but even more than the unoriginality and bad acting is the forced sex appeal. Hey guys you know you want to see this because it's got chicks in bikinis. What's more is how these people act. I know people are assholes, and I know some people get excited about graduating, but I've never seen anyone hang out the side of a moving car while yelling that at the top of their lungs. It reminds me of the beginning of Cabin Fever where a college girl yells out the side of a pickup to some children, "Fuck college. You should never go to college!"
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Mission Earth - The Invaders Plan Pt. 3
Mission Earth Pt. 3 When Krak Attacks
“In my room, Heller got my clothes off me and put me
in the bath and when he had the mesh washed away he got me into bed.”
(beginning of
chapter 4, when I read that I was sure I was reading gay erotica)
Every
time I felt like reading something my hand would pass over this book and it
started to tremble a little. Needless to
say every time I felt like reading I played video games or goofed off on the
internet for a little while instead.
That’s how bad the last part of this book was. With that said I was shocked when I found out
how easy this 100 pages was to read.
There’s a lot of reasons why I
struggled so much with the first 100 pages, poorly conceived characters,
bull(bleep) technology, juvenile writing, bad narration, but the biggest reason
I had so much trouble was that nothing was happening. That’s changed quite a bit now. When I picked up the book again I was
expecting the same ole (bleep) but instead Hubbard chose to focus more on the
characters this time and while they’re still poorly conceived(all of them,
there are no exceptions) it grabbed my attention enough to actually enjoy what
I was reading for a while.
Once again Jettero Heller is more
immaculate than Jesus himself as he fraternizes with guards, flirts with
inmates, impossibly maps the prison, and wins a fixed game of
dice(another Hubbard invented Voltarian game).
I feel that this statement might contradict itself, but Jettero Heller’s
flawlessness makes him a very flawed character.
It’s just very aggravating and tiring and gets worse the more I
read. No character I’ve ever read in any
other book fails to make mistakes, always says or does the right things, or
never comes into conflict with anyone.
Is this what Hubbard meant when he said satire? There’s a reason I’ve never read a book or
story with a character like Heller, anyone reading it would become uninterested
and stop reading. I feel like a broken record
here but every time Heller is presented with a challenge or problem I know he’s
going to glide through it without so much as a bump in the road.
As we start with this part Jettero
has charmed the platoon commandant, Snelz, and they’re chatting and eating
sweet buns and drinking sparkle water(I figure it champagne in this world). Next it’s off to Countess
Krak(god I feel like giggling every time I have to write that name) supposedly
to learn earth languages and how to be a better spy. Countess Krak was briefly introduced last time
but gets elaborated on more now. While
Countess Krak was a school teacher she trained children to be assassin
thieves. Countess Krak possesses an
uncanny ability to train people. Kind of
a lame super power but if I was to create a superhero(or villian) named
Countess Crack her superpower would be every time she saw someone with low
riding underwear or visible cracks she could mysteriously give them a wedgie.
Instead of take the elevator(or
tubes) Heller insists they walk all the way to Krak’s training room. Using the soles of his clunky boots and his
watch he’s able to map out the entire complex that goes from the depths of the
earth to the clouds in the sky. Now
let’s focus on why he does this. I HAVE
NO (BLEEPING) CLUE!!! Trust me after I
read this I pondered this for a while and every scenario I came up with didn’t
make any logical sense. I figured it
might be foreshadowing an escape but it turns out this scene was just written
to display Hubbard’s love for Jettero Heller.
He even tells Soltan he knew when the temperature dropped half a degree
and I’m sure not even the most hypersensitive animal can feel that.
Inside Krak’s training room(that
sounds like an all-male bathhouse) she’s yelling and whipping apparatus agents
as they flee for their lives from both her and a large angry catlike
animal. This is a really bad and
confusing transition. Just to get idea
of what I’m talking about one minute we’re outside with Heller and Gris talking
about how he mapped the entire prison using just his boots, watch, and a
hypersensitivity to temperature change, and the next we’re inside Krak’s
training room where all hell is breaking loose.
I haven’t read a transition this bad since The Dresden Files Blood Rites
where the book starts off with him running from flying poop throwing monkeys
with no explanation of what he’s doing or why he’s there. I guess Hubbard was trying to establish
Countess Krak as a strong, independent, woman before he turned her into a
stupid, drooling, love struck, slut by the time she meets Heller.
Countess Krak runs a circus and
freak show for the apparatus and Lombar Hiist sent her lepertige that’s been
declawed. She explains that is more
difficult to train injured animals and tells them to tell their boss if he
sends her another damaged animal she’ll train it to kill him. Countess Krak is described as a beautiful but
deadly and extremely temperamental woman and yet Jettero Heller manages to
charm without the slightest of difficulty, big surprise. I don’t know why he’s so attracted to her
after all his first impression of her she’s yelling, tossing guys around, and
threatening people not to mention she’s in prison for training young children
how to kill for her. Does that sound
like someone you’d want to take home to meet your mom? This romance seems even more plotted and
ludicrous when you consider Heller is a marine and hero. That’s like Captain America shacking up with
the Black Widow. Once again is this the
satire Hubbard was talking about? If so
it’s not very clever.
Heller woos her with the oldest
line in the world(the book even says this as he asks why a beautiful thing like
her is doing in a place like this. I
don’t know women at all but has that seriously ever worked?!) and actually
succeeds as she breaks down crying for no reason. From this point on Countess Krak will make up
any flimsy excuse to see Heller.
The next time we see her she’s
cleaning up her dingy training room so she can impress Heller. When Sultan Gris sits on a chair she’s
assigned for Heller she freaks and jerks him out of the chair. We also see a personality shift in Countess
Krak, rather than beat and berate her servants she’s patient, understanding,
and polite.
So in the small amount of time
since she’s met Jettero Heller she’s gone from an antisocial, psychotic,
dominatrix to a blubbering, diplomatic, matron.
I’ve never seen a character take such a dramatic change so quickly. This must be another example of Hubbard’s
misplaced idea of satire but at least she’s a fun character and her presence throughout
this part makes the pages fly by a little faster.
At this point it should be obvious
that Countess Krak and Jettero Heller start an artificial and forced
romance. Because she’s still a prisoner
she has to smuggle herself in boxes up to Gris’ room. The book isn’t clear about this but I believe
they’re having sex because they ask Gris to excuse himself. Sultan Gris takes this time to dig up dirt on
Heller and finds that not only is he rich but has a weakness for gambling and
yep you guessed it he never loses.
In an effort to financially break
Heller Gris acquires some fixed dice and the help of Snelz. It’s believed by Soltan Gris if Heller has no
money to bride guards to bring up Krak every night he’ll be more likely to
immerse himself in mission earth. As
soon as this plan was hatched I knew it was going to fail and here’s why: it’s
Sultan Gris’ idea and even though he’s got a surefire way to win it was
destined to fail simply because he’s Soltan Gris, it’s a plan from an entirely
flawed character against a godlike one of course it’s going to fail, this book
has become painfully predictable.
I’m not one of those smug
jackasses who always says they saw the plot twist or ending coming but this
book has become more see thru than a ziplock bag. Snelz agrees to help(but only because Gris
threatens to kill him) and Soltan advances a year’s pay of 5,000 credits. Gris is unable to watch as he is summoned by
the geneticist Lombar Hisst ordered them to go to so they could breath, move, and look more like humans. Soltan Gris has been avoiding him because for
some reason every time he’s around him he gets violently ill. Professor Crobe threatens to tell Hisst about
Gris avoiding him unless he bribes him 200 credits.
When Gris gets back somehow Snelz has lost every bit of his money. Heller offers to let Snelz have it back but he refuses. The next time we see Gris he’s on a mountain contemplating suicide when Snelz shows up, now he’s contemplating a murder/suicide. I can’t say I blame him either Snelz shows up like nothing’s wrong is chatty, pleasant, and jovial. If someone lost $5,000 of my own money and came over to me like nothing happen I’d toss their dumbass right over that (bleeping) cliff.
Snelz
explains to Gris the reason the dice failed was because the gel inside them
melted every time they threw the dice so the ball bearings wouldn’t stay in
place. He offers Gris 10 credits he had
someone snatch from someone else and that give Gris just enough money to bribe
Crobe. Thus ends part 4.
I know I’m being generous here but
I score this 80 –B. I was and still am
surprised how quickly this 100 pages went by.
That’s not to say it’s still bad.
The writing is still very poor and clichéd at times, nothing interesting
happens to the uninteresting characters, and no matter what everything always
goes Jettero Heller’s way. Because of
all these things, but in particular the last one, this book is still bland,
boring, and predictable. Also I was hoping
by the time I got this far in the book they might already be on earth. At this pace I doubt they’re going to get
there by the end of this book.
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