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Books and movies, June & July 2013
7/18 Red 2
7/14 Pacific Rim
7/10 Despicable Me 2
7/7 Lone Ranger
6/30 Monsters University
6/25 Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)
6/19 The Great Gatsby
6/9 Now You See Me
6/8 Epic
6/30 House of Steel, David Weber
6/25 Death's Daughter, Amber Benson
6/10 The Human Division, John Scalzi
Read on for commentary
MOVIES:
Red 2 was lots of fun, and if you liked the first one, you'll like the second one. A lot more to the plot, and Anthony Hopkins was just amazing. Can't wait for it to come out on DVD.
Pacific Rim was also lots of fun. Giant robots beating up giant monsters. This is definitely a popcorn movie, i.e. put your brain on hold. This is, comparatively speaking, a box office failure as it cost an estimated $180 million to make and has yet to recoup that in the USA, but apparently it's going gangbusters in China and probably Japan, so maybe a sequel will emerge.
Despicable Me 2. I spent most of June and part of July in Phoenix, Russet came over the last week and we watched the first DM movie on my 27” iMac then went out and saw DM2 that same night. Very enjoyable summer movie. Great plot twists, and you gotta love the minions. Another one that I'm looking forward to the DVD release.
The Lone Ranger. I think this was officially the first summer bomb, akin to John Carter last year (which I still like). It was a good action romp, but kinda long. The story telling technique used was a little odd, and that probably threw people a bit as most were probably expecting a straight-up Lone Ranger movie, and this was not. Aside from this being a buddy movie, it was also a coming of age movie where the hero doesn't start out that way and has to rise to the occasion. The movie was also controversial in casting Johnny Depp in the role of Tonto. The problem is that the movie was to be Armie Hammer's 'coming out' film, but it couldn't get funded just based on him, they needed a big name star to get funding, and that was Depp. And then they had to dig deep to justify his Native American roots. It's a problem with American cinema, they don't have enough minority stars when they need them, it was a problem here and it was a problem with M. Night's Airbender.
Monster University, another good summer popcorn enjoyable animated movie. This is the prequel to Monsters, Inc., a blockbuster from 2001 that was quite ground-breaking. Here, Sulley and Mike meet at college before they start working at Monsters, Inc. College tropes are made fun of, and lots of fun is had.
Much Ado About Nothing. I'm a sucker for Shakespeare done in interesting ways, and this outing by Joss Whedon was really good. Branaugh's Much Ado is one of my favorite films, but this is an interesting take on the same work. I'll still have to rate Branaugh's as better, IMO, but the dialog in Whedon's is very interesting, and I'm using that word far too much. Whedon and Branaugh start from the same source and follow the story faithfully, but their selections in what dialog is included and cut is telling and worth study. Whedon filmed this mostly at his own house, in black & white, using Red cameras, which I think is phenomenally cool, but it also stood to demonstrate something that I don't like about hi-res digital: too much detail. There is an inherent softness to film that is being lost, and I read today that they're saying that after 2013, there may be no more film when it comes to theatrical releases. I think there's a huge loss there. Still, lots of fun, and definitely on my purchase list. The casting was great, no one was a noteworthy Shakespearean actor and they pulled it off well. Nathan Fillion as Dogberry was brilliant, but it was fantastic seeing SHIELD Agent Coulson as Leonato.
The Great Gatsby. Unlike a lot of people, Gatsby was not required reading when I was in school. I found a copy off Project Gutenberg, either Canada or Australia (I do own hard copies of it), and read it a few months ago before the movie came out. And I liked it. I thought it was an interesting character study about people who had no character, these people pretty much had no redeeming qualities, yet, I felt sad for them. Baz Luhrmann made a heck of a film: great color, amazing sets and cinematography, and how can you go wrong with Spiderman and DiCaprio. I'm not a Leo fan, but I have a lot of respect for how he works. I heard an interview on NPR about the making and music of this film, and they interpreted the music as Fitzgerald using the music of the day, then, so they used a lot of rap motifs, and I think it worked quite well. This is one that I'll definitely consider buying.
Now You See Me was a pretty good caper movie, and we don't see a lot of those. Or at least I don't watch a lot of those, there was a Boston caper movie that struck me as more of a gangster movie and I wasn't interested. Supposedly they were going to do a sequel to The Italian Job, but I guess it's stuck in turnaround hell. This one had an amazing cast with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo. Four B-class magicians band together and start doing truly amazing work, their first major trick being a bank heist in Paris while they're performing in Vegas. Ruffalo, an FBI agent, is investigating. Morgan Freeman is a professional debunker of magicians and is enlisted to help. He explains the first heist, but there are two more yet to come. There's a strong revenge vibe throughout, perhaps better described as a Robin Hood vibe, or the two cross paths throughout. I saw it twice and enjoyed it both times.
Epic was a pleasant surprise. The story had a lot more depth than I was expecting. It's a bonding movie between a scientist who is obsessed with the miniature world of the Fae and his estranged teen daughter who accidentally gets caught up in an apocalyptic turning point for the forces of Fae good and evil. They did an excellent job of skirting the Uncanny Valley and we enjoyed it thoroughly. An excellent film to have on-hand for visiting younglings.
BOOKS
You'll notice an atypically short list of books for these two months, and August will be similarly truncated. I've been re-reading the entire Miles Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMasters Bujold. There are about 19 books, plus some short stories, and I just finished the 16th. After I finish #17, it'll be leaving my Nook and going back to paper. I'll talk about them more in my next update, but for now I'll just say that they're highly recommended. Some of them are military science fiction, but really they're stories about people, and Bujold does a fantastic job of writing people and has won a number of awards for her work. Much less hardware-based than, say, David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga
So, back to my list.
House of Steel. Speaking of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, this is an unusual book that's part of that set. It consists of a very good novella that is the pre-story of Queen Elizabeth: it's her father's story, King Roger, and the build-up of the Peeps. But this isn't a collection of short stories, it's a technical manual for the ships and hardware of the Harrington universe. It's quite good, both for the story and to get a better understanding of how their hardware appears and just how freaking big it is. If you skip this one, you're not losing out on his series, but it is a good read if you're interested in the technical nature of his work. In other Harrington news, another book of short stories has come out and another of the young adult tree cat books has also been released, I hope to get to those in September/October.
Death's Daughter, by Amber Benson. Amber was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for three seasons as Tara, the love interest of Willow. Amber is a very talented woman and has gone in to production and writing. This particular series involves, as you may have guessed, the daughter of Death. It's sort of a family business, only in this case, Calliope (the daughter) would rather be a wage slave to a demanding boss publishing a small magazine in New York City. That is, until her dad disappears, and The Powers That Be tell her that she has three days to either complete three tasks to become the new Death and CEO of Death, Inc., or rescue her dad and sister. I really enjoyed this book, and I bought the next three, but as I said I got side-tracked by wanting to re-read Vorkosigan. It has a bit of a Valley Girl/fashion vibe which I found amusing.
The Human Division is John Scalzi's next Old Man's War book. I re-read three of the four preceding books, the fourth being a revisiting of the third written from the perspective of the protagonist's teen daughter. In the previous book, John Perry broke the information/alien contact blockade of Earth that was formerly controlled by the Colonial Union (CU) who were using Earth as a breeding ground for soldiers and colonists. The CU is now forced to negotiate with Earth to resume getting soldiers, but now they're competing with the rest of the universe, and a lot of that universe would really like to just wipe out the planet and smash the CU. Things get even more complicated when it becomes apparent that an unknown third party is trying to goad the CU and the rest of the aliens in to a war of extinction. Scalzi just finished the promo tour for this book, I hope he gets back to writing and cranks out the next one soon.
7/14 Pacific Rim
7/10 Despicable Me 2
7/7 Lone Ranger
6/30 Monsters University
6/25 Much Ado About Nothing (Joss Whedon)
6/19 The Great Gatsby
6/9 Now You See Me
6/8 Epic
6/30 House of Steel, David Weber
6/25 Death's Daughter, Amber Benson
6/10 The Human Division, John Scalzi
Read on for commentary
MOVIES:
Red 2 was lots of fun, and if you liked the first one, you'll like the second one. A lot more to the plot, and Anthony Hopkins was just amazing. Can't wait for it to come out on DVD.
Pacific Rim was also lots of fun. Giant robots beating up giant monsters. This is definitely a popcorn movie, i.e. put your brain on hold. This is, comparatively speaking, a box office failure as it cost an estimated $180 million to make and has yet to recoup that in the USA, but apparently it's going gangbusters in China and probably Japan, so maybe a sequel will emerge.
Despicable Me 2. I spent most of June and part of July in Phoenix, Russet came over the last week and we watched the first DM movie on my 27” iMac then went out and saw DM2 that same night. Very enjoyable summer movie. Great plot twists, and you gotta love the minions. Another one that I'm looking forward to the DVD release.
The Lone Ranger. I think this was officially the first summer bomb, akin to John Carter last year (which I still like). It was a good action romp, but kinda long. The story telling technique used was a little odd, and that probably threw people a bit as most were probably expecting a straight-up Lone Ranger movie, and this was not. Aside from this being a buddy movie, it was also a coming of age movie where the hero doesn't start out that way and has to rise to the occasion. The movie was also controversial in casting Johnny Depp in the role of Tonto. The problem is that the movie was to be Armie Hammer's 'coming out' film, but it couldn't get funded just based on him, they needed a big name star to get funding, and that was Depp. And then they had to dig deep to justify his Native American roots. It's a problem with American cinema, they don't have enough minority stars when they need them, it was a problem here and it was a problem with M. Night's Airbender.
Monster University, another good summer popcorn enjoyable animated movie. This is the prequel to Monsters, Inc., a blockbuster from 2001 that was quite ground-breaking. Here, Sulley and Mike meet at college before they start working at Monsters, Inc. College tropes are made fun of, and lots of fun is had.
Much Ado About Nothing. I'm a sucker for Shakespeare done in interesting ways, and this outing by Joss Whedon was really good. Branaugh's Much Ado is one of my favorite films, but this is an interesting take on the same work. I'll still have to rate Branaugh's as better, IMO, but the dialog in Whedon's is very interesting, and I'm using that word far too much. Whedon and Branaugh start from the same source and follow the story faithfully, but their selections in what dialog is included and cut is telling and worth study. Whedon filmed this mostly at his own house, in black & white, using Red cameras, which I think is phenomenally cool, but it also stood to demonstrate something that I don't like about hi-res digital: too much detail. There is an inherent softness to film that is being lost, and I read today that they're saying that after 2013, there may be no more film when it comes to theatrical releases. I think there's a huge loss there. Still, lots of fun, and definitely on my purchase list. The casting was great, no one was a noteworthy Shakespearean actor and they pulled it off well. Nathan Fillion as Dogberry was brilliant, but it was fantastic seeing SHIELD Agent Coulson as Leonato.
The Great Gatsby. Unlike a lot of people, Gatsby was not required reading when I was in school. I found a copy off Project Gutenberg, either Canada or Australia (I do own hard copies of it), and read it a few months ago before the movie came out. And I liked it. I thought it was an interesting character study about people who had no character, these people pretty much had no redeeming qualities, yet, I felt sad for them. Baz Luhrmann made a heck of a film: great color, amazing sets and cinematography, and how can you go wrong with Spiderman and DiCaprio. I'm not a Leo fan, but I have a lot of respect for how he works. I heard an interview on NPR about the making and music of this film, and they interpreted the music as Fitzgerald using the music of the day, then, so they used a lot of rap motifs, and I think it worked quite well. This is one that I'll definitely consider buying.
Now You See Me was a pretty good caper movie, and we don't see a lot of those. Or at least I don't watch a lot of those, there was a Boston caper movie that struck me as more of a gangster movie and I wasn't interested. Supposedly they were going to do a sequel to The Italian Job, but I guess it's stuck in turnaround hell. This one had an amazing cast with Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Mark Ruffalo. Four B-class magicians band together and start doing truly amazing work, their first major trick being a bank heist in Paris while they're performing in Vegas. Ruffalo, an FBI agent, is investigating. Morgan Freeman is a professional debunker of magicians and is enlisted to help. He explains the first heist, but there are two more yet to come. There's a strong revenge vibe throughout, perhaps better described as a Robin Hood vibe, or the two cross paths throughout. I saw it twice and enjoyed it both times.
Epic was a pleasant surprise. The story had a lot more depth than I was expecting. It's a bonding movie between a scientist who is obsessed with the miniature world of the Fae and his estranged teen daughter who accidentally gets caught up in an apocalyptic turning point for the forces of Fae good and evil. They did an excellent job of skirting the Uncanny Valley and we enjoyed it thoroughly. An excellent film to have on-hand for visiting younglings.
BOOKS
You'll notice an atypically short list of books for these two months, and August will be similarly truncated. I've been re-reading the entire Miles Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMasters Bujold. There are about 19 books, plus some short stories, and I just finished the 16th. After I finish #17, it'll be leaving my Nook and going back to paper. I'll talk about them more in my next update, but for now I'll just say that they're highly recommended. Some of them are military science fiction, but really they're stories about people, and Bujold does a fantastic job of writing people and has won a number of awards for her work. Much less hardware-based than, say, David Weber's Honor Harrington series.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorkosigan_Saga
So, back to my list.
House of Steel. Speaking of David Weber's Honor Harrington series, this is an unusual book that's part of that set. It consists of a very good novella that is the pre-story of Queen Elizabeth: it's her father's story, King Roger, and the build-up of the Peeps. But this isn't a collection of short stories, it's a technical manual for the ships and hardware of the Harrington universe. It's quite good, both for the story and to get a better understanding of how their hardware appears and just how freaking big it is. If you skip this one, you're not losing out on his series, but it is a good read if you're interested in the technical nature of his work. In other Harrington news, another book of short stories has come out and another of the young adult tree cat books has also been released, I hope to get to those in September/October.
Death's Daughter, by Amber Benson. Amber was on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for three seasons as Tara, the love interest of Willow. Amber is a very talented woman and has gone in to production and writing. This particular series involves, as you may have guessed, the daughter of Death. It's sort of a family business, only in this case, Calliope (the daughter) would rather be a wage slave to a demanding boss publishing a small magazine in New York City. That is, until her dad disappears, and The Powers That Be tell her that she has three days to either complete three tasks to become the new Death and CEO of Death, Inc., or rescue her dad and sister. I really enjoyed this book, and I bought the next three, but as I said I got side-tracked by wanting to re-read Vorkosigan. It has a bit of a Valley Girl/fashion vibe which I found amusing.
The Human Division is John Scalzi's next Old Man's War book. I re-read three of the four preceding books, the fourth being a revisiting of the third written from the perspective of the protagonist's teen daughter. In the previous book, John Perry broke the information/alien contact blockade of Earth that was formerly controlled by the Colonial Union (CU) who were using Earth as a breeding ground for soldiers and colonists. The CU is now forced to negotiate with Earth to resume getting soldiers, but now they're competing with the rest of the universe, and a lot of that universe would really like to just wipe out the planet and smash the CU. Things get even more complicated when it becomes apparent that an unknown third party is trying to goad the CU and the rest of the aliens in to a war of extinction. Scalzi just finished the promo tour for this book, I hope he gets back to writing and cranks out the next one soon.