It's a Wrap: Scare Me Blogfest

Thanks everyone for participating and making the Scare Me! Blogfest a huge success. 

Before I announce my favorites, we did have some late posts and entries some of you might have missed.  Undy a Hundy posted a little later than most others and Permission Granted didn't even sign up until the last minute. 

I was blown away by the stories, reviews, and real life experiences that people submitted.  We even had artwork submitted.  For that I am awarding everyone a blog Award.  If you participated just copy the image below. 

There were some standouts that required additional recognition.  So for these three, they will get a ebook of The Collected Stories of H.P. Lovecraft volume 1. 

 

For Book or Movie Review-  Me!, no just kidding, Economic Disconnect for his in depth look at the horror of The Exorcist. 

For most frightening experience-  The Warrior Muse and her run in with a psycopath as a child. 



Scariest Story acclaims go to-  Shallee McArthur for the Ghostification of Jonas Cray.

Thanks again to everyone that participated.  I hope everyone got lots of comments, page views, and new followers. 

Scare Me! Blogfest

Today is the Scare Me! Blogfest, where each participant will talk about a scary movie, scary story, scary book, and/or write their own scary story in honor of Halloween.  It isn't too late to join in the fun, just sign up in the linky below. 

For my entry I will talk about a book and a movie. 

Book-  Salem's Lot:  This was the scariest book I have ever read.  Stephen King is at his best in this book painting scenes that scare you to your core.  I had just graduated high school when I read this book.  I was at my grandmothers house and was reading late at night.  I was getting tired, so I put the book down.  The images King created kept running through my head.  I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep and got up and watched comedy central for an hour until I felt I could safely get to sleep.  The movie for this one is okay, but the book is super creepy and has a place on every bookshelf. 

Movie:  Thirteen:  I am pretty sure you will find this one classified under the drama heading, but that just isn't true for anyone with a daughter.  This movie is the type of scary that keeps you up all night trying to come up with ideas to keep you kid from turning out like lead character Tracy.  It hits all the scary notes, drug abuse, delinquentism, sexual activity...  This story is also semi autobiographical, so it actually, somewhat, happened to the person that wrote it.  Knowing kids that went through semilar stuff growing up and this movie starts looking like something that will happen instead of could.  Sent shivers down my spine.  If I were hard pressed for a genred horror movie I would go with Event Horizon or Amityville Horror (1979). 

Hope you enjoyed my entries and I can't wait to read yours.  Please stop by all the other entrants sites and enjoy their scares as well.  Please post the code on your blog with your entry. 

I Saw the Devil-Movie Review

I Saw the Devil is Korean thriller from 2010.  It stars Byung-Hun Lee (Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe) and Min-Sik Choi (Oldboy, Shiri).  It is probably one of Korea's most violent movies.

I watched this with a group of friends as part of a horror movie double feature.  The first movie we watched was Cabin in the Woods and we all loved that one and were wondering how we were going to follow it up.  XBMC (X Box Media Center, great way to organize your media in a visually pleasing manner) had this in the horror genre and had it rated higher than Cabin in the Woods and The Thing from 1982.  While my collection of horror is not the most complete, it has some pretty good movies in it and having this as highest rated was intriging, so we all decided this would be the second movie.  We were not disappointed.

The story is a simple revenge plot.  Kim (Lee) is after the serial killer that killed his wife (Choi).  The story does take some twists and turns along the way.

The acting was excellent.  Korea is very good for comedies as the actors tend to over emote, but there was none of that here.  The acors brought the weight into the performance that it deserved.  We attempted to watch it with English language dubs, but quickly changed our mind.  Watch this one in Korean with subtitles.  The English language dub is horrible. 

Overall, it was a great movie.  Not sure it was horror unless you consider man as the scariest monster their is.  I do.  It is our twisted minds that created all these monsters in the first place.  The only problem seemed to be the ability of the characters to recover from harm.  20 bashes to the skull with a metal pipe is going to kill anyone on Earth.  Maybe he should have worked the body with most of those strikes.  If you liked Silence of the Lambs and Taken, this one should be great for you.  I have heard it compared to Oldboy, but I still haven't seen Oldboy.  I don't think kids are ready for this one.  It was almost a 19+ in Korea. 

John Carter-Spoiler Free Movie Review

John Carter of Mars was disappointing.  It was...too Disney.  I understand that some changes would be needed in order to make the movie work, but the end result of the movie is almost unrecognizable from the book it was based on.  Some of the changes I liked and some of them I didn't quite care for.  I thought the Red Martians should be more read or at least more different than humans on Earth.  The Tarks and Woolah were entirely too cute to be considered threatening. 

Ashli, who has not yet read Princess of Mars, thought the movie was great.  Maybe I will get her to do an unbiased review.  As I feel that reading the book less than a year before watching the movie, may have ruined things for me. 

If you can't tell from the above picture I am in love with Lynn Collins.  This may be compounded by the fact that I was already in love with Deja Thoris. 

Among Others- Book Review

Among Others, by Jo Walton, is a hard book to describe.  I guess the easiest way is to say that it is the winner of both the Nebula and the Hugo awards.  I don't know if it is deserving of the award as I have not read the other nominees as of this writing.  It is very interesting and it is in a diary type format, but I think the best way to describe it is as a coming of age story...for girls.  It has fairies and boys and father issues; yep, definitely a coming of age story for girls. 

Plot-  We meet young Mor on an adventure with her twin and then we are transported to a future where Mor is alone and her sister is dead.  Mor is leaving the Magical Welsh countryside and is stuck in a very unmagical boarding school.  It is kind of like Harry Potter in reverse.  Along the way we get to hear about all the wonderful science fiction and fantasy books that she is reading, some(most) of which, we still haven't read.

Characters-  I don't know how much to say here as I don't want to ruin anyone elses raw interpretation of the book.  Finish the book and then email me and we can talk about Mor.  Mor is really the only developed character.  Mor sees the other characters as fulfilling roles and they aren't established beyond these roles, this works as the book is a diary. 

Overall-  The book left me conflicted.  It has some action I guess, but that is always secondary.  It is more of an exploration of Mor and her coming of age story.  Thankfully the writing is good and it is very easy to be consumed into Mor's world.  I should have known it wasn't going to be a normal story as the narrator tells someone along the way that he is looking at things as if they were a story and that stuff doesn't happen in real life.  I was not, however, satisfied with the ending. 

I am not sure who to recommend this book to.  I am letting my 11 year old read it, knowing that there are some adult situations in the book and talk of sex, pregnancy, abortion, incest, and homosexuality.  She knows about all these things, but they are presented a bit differently in this book than what she may be used to and that we may discuss afterwards.  it was good, but I don't know if it was great. 

Zone One- A second look

Based on Steve's review of Zone One, I decided to pick it up.  This book isn't really your normal zombie novel.  It doesn't concentrate so much on the gore and is more philisophical.  This effect is magnified as the author writes in a stream of conciousness style.  The main character is suffer from PASD (post apocalypse stress disorder) so this stream of conciousness can jump around quite a bit and not seem to make much sense.  There are many instances where the timeline just shifts without any warning.  It makes the book a much slower read, but it is still a good story and quite enjoyable.  It is actually a litterary zombie story.  I think Steve's assessment of a 4 is fair.  I am not a huge fan of stream of conciousness, but this one was still engaging. 


Here are some things I clipped from this novel:
"Time slowed down in situations like this, to grant dread a bigger stage."
"He stopped hooking up with other people once he realized that the first thing he did was calculate whether or not he could out run them."

Yes the book is dark.  I won't say it is for everyone, but it is good. 

Monsters (2010)

I have been meaning to watch this movie for a while now and finally did.  I had heard a lot of comparisons to District 9.  I think both movies move at the same pace and that both movies are about aliens living on earth, but that is where the similarities end. 

     Monsters is one of those hidden monster movies that doesn't really reveal the full monster until the end.  All you get are little snips or obscured views.  These types of movies usually drive me nuts as I tend to get into the action with the mindset of how am I going to fight this thing.  It is very hard to have that mindset when you don't know what the thing you are fighting actually looks like.  This movie it wasn't so bad as we were seeing things through the eyes of the characters and they hadn't really ever gotten a good view  of a living alien yet either.  The payoff came with the long, steady, two alien scene near the end. 
     The plot is a trying to get back home story.  The main characters are stuck in Mexico and need to get back the USA.  The only way to get back seems to be by crossing through the infected zone.  According to IMDB, the film was shot oppurtunisticly with very little scripting.  The actors pretty much made it up, within the contstraints of the plot, as they went along. 
     The acting was okay.  I am not familiar with either of the main actors.  The guy, when he was talking to his son, did a pretty good job.  While it wasn't noteworth great, nothing jumped out at me and said bad either. 
     Special effects in an Alien movie, you don't say.  This movie cost less than a million dollars to make.  considering how cool the aliens actually were, they must have spent almost every dollar on special effects.  Yeah, less than a million dollars.  compare this movie to War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise (132,000,000)and the bang you get for your buck is enormous.  Not to mention that this was a way better movie than War of the Worlds. 
     Overall, this movie was a pretty entertaining watch.  I have seen some comments about it being boring or slow, but I think I was aware that this wasn't going to be an action/adventure movie from the start.  While the journey does take time, they do a good job of character development in those slow spots.  I think most people will like this movie and should be okay for kids that won't get scared (you know who they are).  Check this one out. 

Hunger Games- Movie Review

Having read all the books, I can say that Hunger Games might be one of the best movie to book adaptations I have seen.  There were only a few things that were different and none of them were game changers. 

Jennifer Lawrence had a powerful performance as Katniss and showed us all that pretty faces can have acting chops.  The reaping scene was especially potent and you could feel the pain she was experiencing.  The three finger salute to district 11 was powerful as well and had all three of the girls that I went with in tears.  Everyone else did good jobs, but Lawrence knocked this out of the park. 

If I had to give the movie a flaw, I would have to say that it was in pacing.  It seemed to slow almost to a crawl in certain places, but maybe that was just from the perspective of the rest of the film.  I think any flaws the movie had were from the director as the screen play and the acting where right on target.  An example would be at the reaping.  It takes Katniss a good 15-20 seconds to get moving.  I think the time would have been better served having her fight through the crowd, knock some peace keepers down, be detained, look into Prim’s eyes, and then volunteer.  Lawrence worked with what she was given though and still made it one of the most powerful moments from the film.

The movie isn’t overly violent.  I mean, especially for a film about gladiatorial combat where 24 enter and 1 leaves.  Most death strikes are not shown, but there is a fair amount of blood shown.  I could tell that they were trying to ride that PG-13 line, but they did it in the best possible way.  I wasn’t as thrilled with the second and third books and will be interested to see if the screen writers make any changes to improve that. 

Optic Nerve 12- NCCW

This graphic novel is made up of two very different stories.  The first is about a man that has created a topiary/staccato line of art work that he calls hortisculpture.  The story follows him as he pursues what he feels is art, but the rest of the world finds ugly.  It is also a tale of being a husband and father.    The second story was my favorite of the two.  It is called Amber Sweet and it is about a college student that finds she is being mistaken for the star of an adult website.  It looks at how this affects her schooling, career, and relationships.  It also has the catharsis of her meeting the actual Amber Sweet. 

A lot of readers don’t give the independents a shot.  So, I am saying go out and pick this one up.  It is good.  While the artwork is in a unique style it isn’t bad, but the characters feel like real people.  Let me know what you think. 

"Atomic Robo: Last Stop" needs your help!- NCCW

This is a pretty cool idea and it has some pretty cool incentives.  Check out the kick start page.  If you haven't read the graphic novels, they are a lot of fun and I would recommend them.  

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

The name is punny.  Get it, because the word for the number nine in Japanese is pronounced “Q.”  It doesn’t really have much to do with Orwell’s 1984 though, so I am not sure why he went with that title.  It may had made more sense to use a different but adjacent year to avoid comparisons.  The title, although punny, is just one example of poor forethought on this book though. 

I generally love Murakami’s books.  Well not including the last three.  Kafka on the shore wasn’t horrible, but it just came off as completely pretentious.  What I Talk About When I Talk About Running was completely pretentious and not very enjoyable at all.  I will summarize that one.  Murakami is better than you and knows more than doctors, when he tries hard he can do anything including running marathons while battling pneumonia and hooked up to a respirator after having both lungs removed (yeah he can even have pneumonia with both lungs removed).  Wait this is a review for 1Q84. 

This book is a hot mess.  Did Murakami edit this himself; maybe the day after he wrote it.  This was supposed to be his opus and I guess no one wanted to tell him that his signature piece was deeply flawed.  Well onto the flaws I guess.

1. The translation sucks.  It is translated by Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel.  The fact that it took two people to translate it says a lot to me.  Gabriel translated Kafka on the Shore, which I also thought had problems.  He seems to do direct translation of puns and idioms.  Rubin has translated my favorite Murakami books, so maybe he wasn’t too involved. 

2. The book was too long.  For fun, I thought I would look for the longest book on my Kindle.  Oh look there is the Count of Monte Cristo that has to be it, right?  Nope, a bit further down beating it by like three dots, was 1Q84.  Not that long books aren’t good.  The Stand is a favorite and I enjoyed the heck out of the Count of Monte Cristo.  But this book has a tendency to repeat the same things over and over.  I get it, Aomame’s face looks scary when she is angry and Fuka Eri talks funny.  Please stop hitting me over the head with it. 

3. There is no climax.  As usual, in a Murakami story, several of the characters do, but the story just never hits a high point.  I think any part that could have been a high point is weighed down with over philosophizing and self actualization.  Tengo and Aomame meeting should have been huge, but it just kind of sputters.  Aomame and the leader should have been great but apparently everyone in Japan talks in riddles and no one asks direct questions.  Either way, What felt like buildup towards a climax, never really climaxes.  We only get halfway up that hill before Murakami decides to take us around the long way. 

4. Unresolved plot threads.  This story develops characters and makes them central to the story, until they aren’t and then it abandon’s them to never be seen or heard from again.  At the end, you hardly no more about anything than you did at the end.  What happens to those two Sakigake guys, the dowager, Fuka Eri, or even the little people. 

5. Pedophilia.  Murakami has danced around this one in the past.  I am looking at you Wind up Bird.  Kafka has a younger man/older woman dynamic that society seems to find more acceptable, but 1Q84 has men sleeping with underage girls all over the place.  It is explained away but comes across as excuses so that Murakami could include these scenes that he obviously has always wanted to write.  But hey Tengo was paralyzed, so that makes it okay.  Not to mention that someone slipped Aomame a mickey, or it at least seemed that way. 

6. Tengo is superman.  Tengo is perfect.  He can cook, he is clean, he is a brilliant mathematician and teacher, he lives frugally, he doesn’t watch TV, he is excellent at Judo, he is a great writer, he is a stud that woo anything female, he is an excellent musician that can learn an instrument in a week and then play complicated pieces of music at a concert the following week to great acclaim.  All this and the whole time you are reading him, he comes off as mildly retarded.  The character is completely unrealistic.  Aomame and Fuka Eri seem to be fantasies of what Murakami thinks the perfect women would be. 

Overall-This book was in serious need of an editor and took over a month and a half for me to read. It would often put me to sleep and at one point I just started scanning past paragraphs of inner dialogue at a time.  There are at least two points when the perspective of the novel changes mid chapter, which pulled me right out of the book.  Is there an interesting book in here, maybe, but you would have to go after what we were presented with an axe to find it.  Any of the flaws I found in of themselves wouldn’t completely ruin a book, but put them together and I find it impossible to recommend this book.  It felt like a waste of the large amount of time that I spent reading it.  Don’t read this book.  Read Wind Up Bird Chronicles thrice or Norwegian Wood four to five times instead.  This one sucked. 

Hanna-2011

What is a Hanna movie review doing on a science fiction blog, you might ask.  The rude answer would be that I can put up a review of whatever I want, but the better answer is that there is a science fiction element to this movie.  I won’t give away what that is, but I am sure most people can figure it out pretty early in the movie. 

The plot-  Think Bourne Identity but with a 14 year old girl.  While the concept wasn’t completely original, I am looking at you Cassandra Cain: Batgirl, it was a deviation from your normal Bourne thriller.  It is more of a surface type movie as if you stop and think about any one part too much it will start to break down.  For example, the father hides the truth from her.  While it creates tension between the characters and sets Hanna up for the hero’s journey, it just doesn’t make sense for him to do that.  His goal for her would better be achieved if Hanna knew the whole truth.  But the movie moves along at a fast enough pace that you don’t really think about things like that while you are watching it. 

The Acting-  Saorise and the incredible Hulk due a pretty good job in this one.  The little British girl made me want to jump in the screen and throttle her, so I guess she was playing her part dead on.  The actors were all pretty good and well directed. 

The Action-  Some of the best fight choreography I have seen in a movie.  They tried to make the fight scenes as realistic as possible it seems and they succeeded for the most part. 

Overall it was a fun movie.  I watched with the wife and oldest daughter.  It is rated PG-13 for violence and it seemed fine for my oldest.  I would say 10+.  Give this a watch if you enjoyed Bourne, Soldier, or Cassandra Cain Batgirl.  My 10 year old gets bonus points for calling the last line of the movie.  I saw it coming too, but she called it out loud. 

Lady MechaniKa- NCCW

Steampunk is going strong in the cosplay world, but, in my opinion, there haven't been any very good fictitious representations of a steam punk world.  I have read a few novels set in the genre and a few comics as well, and haven't been impressed by either.  Don't get me wrong the genre is visually stunning, but there hasn't been any good writing to go along with it.  That is until I picked up issue zero of Lady Mechanika.  Lady Mechanika is also very visually stunning, both the comic and its namesake.  The world building is also good.  All steam punk takes place in a Victorian or  Neo Victorian setting where dirigibles and steam power coexist with amazing scientific breakthroughs and sometimes a touch of magic.  The worlds are more fantasy than science fiction.  Lady Mechanika seems to fit pretty squarely into the genre.  It sits there with somewhat of a fresh feeling to it.

The dialogue does not seem forced and the story seems layered and sets up a mystery and implied history right from the get go.  The character is an Enigma, even to herself.  I have read three issues and not very much has been revealed about her, but it works because the writer (also the artist, Joe Benitez) is fleshing out the world around her and giving the character and side characters texture.  Most comics will give you the origin story in the first issue, but Benitez is holding back and strengthening that mystery.
 It is a really good book and I would suggest picking it up.  It is an Aspen Comics title, so you may need to special order this through your comic shop, but most good shops should have an issue on hand.  I liked it and passed it on to my 10 year old to read and she also liked it.  Being with Aspen will give this comic some freedom to breath, but it might not get the distribution it would get with some other companies.  Hopefully people pick it up and a good buzz starts forming around the title. 

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Hail Caesar!

Planet of the Apes used to be good old cheesy fun.  Do you remember those days.  That was back before Marky Mark put his… mark on the role.  Walberg kept the cheese but instead of fun, we got a weird remake.  So where does “Rise” fall into this spectrum?  It doesn’t.  It was actually a good movie minus the cheese. 

The plot- I know this is technically a remake and a remake of a sequel, but it does not stop this movie from coming across as completely fresh.  It hit all the right notes.  A scientist looking to cure his father, breaking the rules out of compassion, the pet that becomes something so much more.  The movie could have given us the chimp attack, but by building a history between Caesar and the man that no one was sorry to see get attacked was excellent.  The plot is not rushed and it allows the characters to become developed and mean something to the audience.

The Characters-  Who knew that Gollum would be so good as Caesar.  It was amazing to watch as he grows and gets smarter and the anger starts to build.  I would say he deserves an Oscar nod for that role.  Malfoy is born to be bad it seems as he comes across as mean for the pure pleasure in being mean.  Freida Pinto is hot, I was too distracted by her hotness to notice if she could act (she holds her own).  Green Goblin was pretty good, probably one of his better roles, but he has been hitting them out of the park recently.  I am looking at you 127 hrs. 

Overall it was a great movie.  I enjoyed it, the kids enjoyed it.  The wife even liked it.  Ashli said that the original girl from the original movie was prettier that Frieda Pinto though.  While her manner of dress was more appealing, I am not sure which is more attractive.  It might be a bit scary for younger kids but I think it is okay for 7 and up.  If you liked the original Apes movies, you will most likely get a kick out of this one.  If you are unfamiliar with the originals, this movie falls chronologically first, so give it a shot.

  

X-Men Schism

It isn’t every Wednesday that I can tell you that you should be reading an X-men comic.  This one is pretty good and if you haven’t picked up an issue of X-Men in a few years, it is a great place to catch up.  These are professor x-less X-men.  I think ole chuck is off on his honeymoon/retirement in the Shi’ar or something, but he hasn’t been running the show for a while.  Running the show would be Emma(white queen) via Scott(Cyclops).  Scott thinks he is in charge though. 

With around 200 mutants left on Earth, Scott sees Mutants on the verge of extinction and feels the need to protect mutant interest.  This sets the framework for Schism.  Wolverine starts getting all mentory on new girl and doesn’t like how Scott is running things.  When the new girl is very nonchalant about taking a life at 14 years old, Wolverine snaps and decides that kids should be allowed to be kids. 

I have always liked Logan and mostly always hated Scott.  I think I am in the majority with that sentiment.  Scott is just too type A for me, and for a guy that uncontrollably shoots a force beam out of his eyes, the writers and Scott himself seem to think of Scott as all powerful and God’s gift to mutantdom.  Wolverine, who they have pretty much made all powerful, is a lot more grounded.  Must be the age difference. 

Anyway, Schism was a pretty good story and had really good artwork.  As much as I love to hate Emma, I love to see her drawn well.  It was fairly well paced and the story had real implications and touched on philosophical ideals.  In other words it wasn’t just mindless battle scenes and Scott and Logan didn’t just shake and make up at the end.  This is the title that ended the Uncanny run(Uncanny was the longest running monthly title until that point, a distinction it held for exactly one month). Not to worry I am sure all the Marvel and DC numbering will revert back in due time. 

If you have been away from the x-books for a while, you should probably pick up Schism and check out what is going on.   

Super 8-movie review

So this movie had huge hype over the summer.  I was afraid to watch it because of that.  But I dutifully tuned in so that I may inform the Scifi Media viewing community. 

Plot-  Think district 9 but with only one really cool alien.  It is also set in the 80’s and the feel of the movie is totally Goonies.  This is good, great in fact.  Goonies might be one of the greatest movies with a predominantly adolescent cast.  The fact that this movie hit that note is excellent.  Not only did it remind me of Goonies, but it also reminded me of growing up and the way kids were. 

Characters-  Abrams made these kids shine.  In between lens flares you see these kids being kids.  It doesn’t seem like acting.  Elle Fanning showed her chops early by doing the play within a play at the beginning and totally selling it.  While the plot has been somewhat done before the acting in this movie teamed with scripting and directing makes you connect to these kids.  It made me think of growing up and my friends from that time. 

SFX-  Awesome, no draw back here.  They are well integrated and do not stick out like a sore thumb, well except for the constant lens flares. 

Family fun-  It is violent and a little scary at times, but I watched it with my oldest and she enjoyed it quite a bit.  There was a lot of language in it, but there is some language in Goonies as well, though not nearly as much.

Overall-It was a great movie, maybe the best of the summer.  I would say that 12 and up are good ages for this movie or around the ages of the kids in the movie.  Highly recommended. 

Are you there Hollywood, It is me, Budd.

If Gina Carano shows any talent for acting what so ever in her new movie Haywire, please make her Wonder Woman.  There is no other person I could think of that could fill the role with the presence it deserves.  Thanks for listening, Hollywood.  Now enjoy this picture of Ms. Carano. 

Cowboys and Aliens- Movie Review

I don’t know, I just didn’t feel cowboys and aliens.  It was cool until they started going after the aliens and then it just seems like it fell apart and lost me.  It was like they said, let’s do this original concept and then make it 100% cliché. 

Acting-  The acting was fine,  the characters did well enough in portraying their characters and giving off emotion or not depending on who they were. 

The plot-  other than taking place in the wild west, clichéd alien invasion story.  This movie was sold to me as James Bond and Han Solo fight ET in True Grit directed by the guy behind iron man.  It wasn’t really that.  That would have been way cooler. 

I am not going to recommend this movie.  If you think that you might want to see this movie, go check out Enemy Mine.  It will be a more constructive use of your time, in my opinion.  It was an okay movie to have on in the background, but other than the tropes, there was something missing about it that just kept it from drawing me in. 

Frankenstein, or How I Suck at Blogging

Wow, I don’t think I blogged much in December (goes to look, wow 4 times with the last being the 7th).  I think I was just giving time for my Thor review to sink in.  Yeah, everyone needs time off from time to time. 

I finally got around to reading Frankenstein in that detour.  Frankenstein is considered by many to be the very first science fiction novel.  I don’t really know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t as blown away as I thought I would be.  Well in the sense that the book is nothing like what you know of Frankenstein from TV and movies, yes I was blown away. 

I found that the book was pretty slow at points, but these same points are the really creative parts of the story.  Shelley explored the philosophical side of the monster, but man does she hit us over the head with it.  Victor is a horrible, horrible character.  Kids today think they invented Emo, but they didn’t.  That distinction belongs to the Leisure class of the 17^th century.  Victor is an absolute bore and his actions seemed nonsensical.  Luckily there was a monster in the book to make things interesting.  Oh crap, it is a monster that is just as emo.

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the classic I expected either.  Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for it or my preconceived notions of the Frankenstein monster singing Putting on the Ritz were just too much to overcome.  I really enjoyed parts of it, but the rest were only meh.  Even though I would only give this one about 3 stars, I would recommend it for its historical relevance.  It is fairly short and can be read fairly quickly. 

Thor- Movie Review NCCW

Thor was pretty good.  I say pretty good and not great for a reason.  It just didn't leave much of an impression.  I watched it a few weeks ago and almost immediately forgot it.  While watching it I enjoyed it though.  I am not a huge Thor historian, so I am not sure how close it is to the comic.  I am pretty sure that Thor is a God and not  just mistaken for a God, but actually a super advanced alien race.

Natalie Portman was in this movie along with Kat Dennings.  That was nice.  The guy that plays Thor does a pretty good job and confirmed my opinion that Norse gods would have British accents.

Overall it was a pretty good movie that just didn't have much impact.  Consider it a prequel for the Avengers movie.  While pretty safe for all ages, my girls, 10 &7 lost interest.