Mini-Reviews of a Bunch of Stuff I've Been Reading/Playing/Watching

Some of these I haven't seen/read in a long time, like months ago, but I wanted to get it all out there. I'm leaving out the Battle Royale manga and the Arsene Lupin book, because I think they need full entries.

Books:
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
I'm a big fan of Neil, but not to the point where I think he's a god. (Example: I'm on his blogfeed but can't be bothered to actually read what he posts 99% of the time). I do think he has a wealth of really good ideas for stories, though. So I very much enjoyed a lot of Smoke and Mirrors, because a lot of stuff makes me wish I'd thought of it first. Particular favorites: "Snow, Glass, Apples" (a retelling of Snow White where she's a vampire and the "evil queen" is totally awesome), "Babycakes" (sick parable), "Chivalry" (woman finds Holy Grail in a thrift store), and the one about the fox which I think is called "The White Road", but I'm not sure. Particular not-favorites: "Foreign Parts" (particularly because of Gaiman's WTF explanation on how it's a tale about love and finding yourself or whatever - uh, yeah, guy mysteriously gets an STD despite not having sex for three years that makes sense) and "When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawn Morningside, age 11 1/4" (11 =/= baby talking like a six-year-old).

Watchdogs of Democracy? by Helen Thomas
It wasn't the most fun read. Mostly it was a lot of what I already knew. "Journalists are wimps and don't question the government a lot, blah blah blah". HOWEVER, it was really cool to hear journalist history from a woman who had actually lived it. Her stories of how she interacted with all of the presidents and stories of some of the first women who really broke ground in the field. Mostly will just be of interest TO journalists, though. And probably just left-leaning ones because Thomas indulges in some Bush-bashing.

The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
I'm going through the Anita Blake oveure, doing pretty much the "good parts version" i.e. I'm actually taking everyone's "Stop after Obsidian Butterfly approach". Anyway, I liked this novel a bit better. Hamilton's vampires are rather "Ho-Hum" for me, but I really, really, really like her zombies. And she has a rather disturbing villain who makes some creepy-ass zombies. Thus, I liked this book, even if I think Jean-Claude is a tool.

All the Dave Barry You Could Ever Want by Dave Barry
I don't know what it was, but I think I must have initially read this in a bad mood, because I didn't like a large part of it. I know I didn't like the dating book because I get sick of Barry's "Men like sports! Women want to talk!" shtick. On the other hand, I thought the baby book was really funny. The home repair book really bugged me until the joke about the "Suicide Module" - a device which explodes appliances when they stop working so you don't have to feel bad about not repairing them. (That had both me, and the Indian lady I used to work with at my old job laughing for about a week). I also liked the corporate book, because that was sadly true. So maybe I liked about 60% of it. I guess that's not too bad.

Dave Barry's Guide to Guys
A lot of the shtick I don't like, but I enjoyed it more, for some reason. I think my favorite part was about "Steve", the guy who actually can repair stuff. I don't remember much more of this book ... I read it all in a day.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
I feel ashamed that my father had to tell me about this book. I bet he read it for the homosexual relationship in it, because he is profoundly uninterested in comics. Anyway, he insisted I read it and I was sad I hadn't read it earlier. I'm not much of a Golden Age comics fan. (I'm more into the Silver Age when I want to take a trip to the past.) But this book made me want to find out about the Golden Age and find out more about early comic book history. It was so easy and heart wrenching to feel for the characters in this book and all the troubles they go through. The few gay scenes were quite hot and romantic. The cameos from actual comic book people at the time made me happy. Overall, I really, really loved this book. My one issue with it was the hard vocabulary - otherwise I'd be recommending it to my boyfriend who also loves comics. I hope the movie is at least half as good as the book.
I also want to say that, while I had to give the book back to my Dad, my Dad gave me the three Escapist anthologies for Christmas. I can't tell you how happy it made me to get them, even if I haven't read them yet. :-)

Big Trouble by Dave Barry
Now this was a really good book. What made it so good was, while Barry kept a lot of his observational humor and he made some fun, wacky characters, he also took the story seriously - especially when it came to the bad guys. You had stuff like The Client from Hell and the guy thinking his dog was a demonic Elizabeth Dole, but then you also had villains who were planning on raping a young girl and an abusive husband. Of course, things don't get too dark, but I was amazed at how serious the book could get at times. I really liked it a lot.
And from everything I heard, I'm avoiding the movie like a plague.

Little Children by Tom Perrota
This book was really tough for me to read, because I think Perrota went through at least some of what he describes in this book. A lot of the passages about Sarah and Todd were ... well, they were good. I'll leave it at that. I really liked Sarah, though. She seemed like someone I could become in 10 years. I also appreciated that Perrota tried to get the reader to understand where all of the characters were coming from, even some of the characters who were despicable and unworthy of it, without doing a hand-wringing "pity the poor child molester" thing. Actually, his treatment of the child molester was rather biting. It was like one minute you wanted to feel sorry for him, and in the next he does something heinous or mean and you just can't. The book isn't perfect. I thought May's note was incredibly lame in that it-would-only-happen-in-a-work-of-fiction way, and the ending was a bit rushed. And Mary Ann being rejected by her husband should have been handled differently -- when I read it at first I couldn't tell if she really was being rejected or if she was just overreacting because she's an annoying character in general. But there was a lot in this book that's going to stay with me a good long while.
I think I changed my mind and will see the movie, too.

Comics:
Watchmen
... Naw, fuck it. I can't review Watchmen. Watchmen is too amazing. Go read it yourself. I love Rorschach.

Marvel Knights Spider-Man, Vol. 1
I really was not thrilled with this book. Parts of it I liked and liked very much. I liked the sort of epic feel to the book. The ending was great. Norman's letter and story about killing the woman and interaction with Spider-Man was great. I liked how the Scorpion got to be dangerous again - with a Venom symbiote to boot. I liked the interaction between MJ and Felicia. But ... a lot was not as good. And I kept wondering WHY they put this under a mature imprint when it seemed like a lot of the "adult" stuff was so unnecessary. Like the Electro-is-now-bi thing, which normally would make me a happy slasher, but it just didn't have anything to do with anything. Same with some of the brutality and cursing. Also, Millar writes an okay Spider-Man. It's like he only ALMOST gets it, the real Peter Parker is trying to come out of his prose but doesn't quite make it. But, yeah ... it was overall just okay.

I was also reading Civil War, but in my move I couldn't follow it as closely. Woe is me.

Movies:
Crash
Good movie? Yes. Better than Brokeback Mountain? No. Better than any of the other nominees for best picture? No. I thought it didn't really have the emotional resonance or profoundity of the other four movies that were up for Best Picture last year. However, when I thought the girl got shot I cried. I'm such a sucker.

V for Vendetta
I think this is one of those movies that seems good until you read the source material. I haven't gotten to read all of Alan Moore's graphic novel yet. (My brother bought me the DVD with the sampler, and I read that.) However, what little I did read seemed like this movie was a poor imitation. The odd Bill O'Reilly character was particularly head-scratching, as was anybody thinking that Natalie Portman looked like jailbait in that freakin' Raggedy Ann costume. She just looked like ... well, a totally-not-a-teenager-Natalie-Portman as Raggedy Ann. I did, however, like V quite a bit. And I thought it was a well made movie overall. But I had a sense the whole time that I wasn't getting the real story, and that was hard to ignore.

Inside Deep Throat
I can't believe I watched this with my Mom. Basically I'll go with 1.) I don't really think Linda Lovelace is a good source on anything that happened 2.) I can't believe the people in it got all that flack and pretty much no money 3.) The image of that RealDoll getting a clear dildo shoved in her mouth disturbed me for some reason. I don't know why either. It was a pretty good documentary overall, however.

Infamous
Did you like Capote? You should see this one too, if nothing else for the study of how two films can be so similar but give such a different, but not conflicting perspective. Also, gay kissing! (I'm so easy to please.) It's not as good as Capote, but I felt like I found out a lot more from this film. So ... yeah, double feature it.

Running with Scissors
Original author of the book Augusten Burroughs liked this movie, but I can't imagine why. Where did half of this stuff come from? Why is Agnes now Augusten's surrogate mother? Why is Neil Bookman writing poetry at Deidre's house? What was with that Agnes/Deidre confrontation? WHERE IS THE BOOK I FELL IN LOVE WITH? I mean, the movie wasn't a total waste. I thought Natalie's "He was all I ever wanted and now he doesn't love me anymore!" speech was shockingly powerful. The portrayal of Deidre was amazing -- that character could have so easily been turned into a cartoon, but the actress took her seriously and gave a really amazing performance. I also liked Alec Baldwin as Augusten's father. But ... yeah, a lot of disappointment in this movie.
And I wanted Augusten's brother with Asperger's syndrome to have a cameo. Yeah, I knew it wouldn't happen, but I wanted it to anyway. Instead they gave one of his lines to Neil Bookman. Boo.

The Queen
I saw this on Halloween. Wow. I've never been much for watching the royals, but I thought this was a great movie nevertheless. Helen Mirren is amazing as the queen, and the whole sort of behind-the-scenes look at these people was great. It made me ashamed that I don't know more about British politics. The relationship between the Queen and Tony Blair is fascinating in this film. I also really enjoyed the scenes with the Queen Mum, because she made me laugh. ("They always have a plane ready for when I kick the bucket." "MUM!") I asked a few people who were into British-royals-watching if she had that sort of sense of humor in real life and most of them were like, "Yeah, I think so." Again, great movie. I love the corgis.

Dreamgirls
From everything I heard about the original musical (and the original soundtrack tape, which my Dad and I dulled the sound on), it seems like they took bits of the original and then added new stuff and brought out the original connection to the Supremes and hit puree. I felt bad Lorell didn't get her own song, because that song was so much fun and I still think it's better than any of the three new songs (although I did end up buying "Listen" by Beyonce off of iTunes). Still, I liked this movie. I found it a lot more engaging and socially-conscious than Rent, actually. [dodges tomatoes] I had one personal prejudice against Jennifer Hudson (she looks like someone I would rather forget), but that didn't overwhelm the movie for me. It's good.

Children of Men
I liked this one, too. It was filled with a lot more black humor than I expected, but was good as a thriller and kept me engaged and made me believe in the world they created. Not for everyone, but gooooood movie. I heard the book is good but much different, so I'll be reading that soon.

Hard Candy
STOP WHISPERING! Other than that ... you can pretty much substitute a lot of the above review for this one, too. Thrilling, engaging, kinda scary. Great dialogue. Oh ... and Ellen Page is excellent and fucking creepy. Don't see it if you don't know what it's about already, though.

Television (Non-Anime):
The Venture Bros. (Have not seen all)
This show started coming out when I was in college and usually didn't use the television, so it pretty much flew under my radar at the time. But I think I'm in love now - particularly with just about everyone in The Monarch's crew. It's a really great mix of making fun of old TV shows and comic books, with dialogue that I quote for weeks at a time. Fantastic Four fans who can take a bit of a razzing should definitely check out the episode "Ice Station, Impossible!"

Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (Have not seen all)
I really never thought I would like this show because 1.) my old roommate Lex liked it, and I usually hated most of what she liked (particularly Antonio Banderas as an Arabian who is exiled into a retelling of Beowulf - WTF?) and 2.) it seemed like Cartoon Network's line-up for kids was producing a lot of crap for awhile. And the whole production just seemed mediocre to me. Well ... it's not. It's actually pretty clever and really funny. Some of the backstories they've given to their characters are rather surprisingly deep, too. And I love Eduardo and Cheese. ("I like CEREAL!" "And I like po-ta-toes!")

At Last the 1948 Show (Seen all that was available)
This was a sketch comedy from the 1960s done by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman (Young Frankenstein's Igor), Tim Brooke-Taylor and "The Lovely" Ami MacDonald. My brother bought me a DVD of the Swedish compilation episodes (one of the few things that survived when the studio who created this show decided to trash a lot of their stuff. I thought this would be mediocre Python but it was actually really, really, really funny. It has the original "4 Yorkshiremen" sketch, which was later remade by the Pythons for a live show and a version with Eddie Izzard and Alan Rickman also exists somewhere. Also features sketches of people treating the ballet like a sporting event and John Cleese rebelling on a How-to-Teach-English show. If you manage to see it in the store and you like the Pythons even a little bit, BUY IT. It's cheap and it will make you laugh.

Metalocalypse (seen most)
I like this show, although watching it on marathon (like we did New Year's Eve) is a little much. I get tired of the characters being such jerks after awhile. There are some absolutely great lines in the show, though ("Boy, I really hates it." "I need a hundred beers ... exactly one hundred beers."). Plus, my brother is a metalhead and the whole thing kind of reminds me of him, so I enjoy that aspect of it. Favorite characters are Toki and Nathan Explosion. I like William Murderface the least.

Anime
Master of Mosquiton
Girl wants to be young forever, has a super laid-back vampire to help her. Hate the female characters except for Yuki, but I found the show to be pretty entertaining. Or maybe that's because we were all making fun of Rasputin's incredibly-long fingers. What was up with that?

Elfen Lied
I'd heard good and bad about this show. And I did worry that I wouldn't like it, because the last show I watched that liked to straddle genres was Mahoromatic and I eventually had to give up on that. But did I like this show. Yuka should die, but there's a lot of good buried under the whiplash tonal shifts. Some of the scenes are more powerful than you'd expect. I also still love the opening theme, even if they overplayed it to death in the show. My only regret is the manga isn't out on this side of the Pacific, because I feel like there's a lot more to the story.

Kino's Journey
This show got a little muddled in the middle, but I'm always up for a really solid short story, and thus I liked this series. I also like female characters who don't have the fact that they are female as their prime character trait. So ... yeah, this was a good series.

I also watched a little more Hare + Guu last night. I think that series needed to grow on me. I'm liking it a lot more than I did when I first watched it.

Video Games
I was going to do this like the other sections, but I really haven't played THAT much and it's not like I even have my own consoles (this is stuff I play at friends' house or brother's DS). Anyway, I've played a little Phoenix Wright and I find that game a lot of fun, even if parts of the story make me go "Bwuh?" Guitar Hero II is lots of fun, alone or multiplayer (Yay I'm William Murderface!). I played the old Gunstar with my friend Jon for three hours and got kind of bored with just SHOOTING. Wii Sports is fun, especially when the crazy Miis are making you laugh.

And the Wii version of WarioWare ... I don't know what masturbatory drug the developers were taking, but they seem to have ingested a lot of it. Playing elimination when you're in multiplayer and you're both dressed in angel costumes is ... disturbing. Also, while they seem to be good at making everything gender appropriate, sometimes they screw up ... like at the end of the jumping game in multiplayer where they make the "female" silhouette by taking the male silhouette and putting a LITTLE PINK BOW on its bald head. And the fact that the Wiimote is the sacred object throughout the game is just ... yeah.

Oh, and I almost forgot. One night three of us played Bomberman 3, which I did very poorly at because I really had no idea how to play (although I did manage to win one round). At my worst, I was blowing myself up for rounds at a time. This exchange followed.

Valerie: "Ha-ha! You went into the skull!"
Me: "The skull is bad?"
Valerie: "Uh, yeah."
Jon: "When is the skull ever good?"
Me: "The good things in this game are bombs and fire! How was I supposed to know the skull was bad?"

And ... I think that's it. Maybe I'll actually go outside now.

34th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

If you are pro-life, this post will not convince you to be pro-choice any more than a post for the inevitable "Blog for Life" day posts will convince me to be pro-life. If I had my way, we would all put aside this issue and work on reducing the amount of abortions through the spread of knowledge and better adoption care, but unfortunately, when it comes to an issue that -- in the immortal words of Jon Stewart -- "Asks one group to defend what some consider to be rape with what others consider to be murder" [paraphrase], it's far too easy to scream at each other.

For me, sometimes, it gets too easy to scream about this issue. It's hard for me to keep a level head when men like Bill Napoli say a woman who suffered "simple rape" should suck it up and have the kid, because she wasn't battered or forced to have sex with multiple men. It's hard for me to keep a level head when Gov. Jeb Bush cries over the inhumanity of abortion while he is tight-fisted with money for children's programs and won't let gay people adopt. It's hard for me when people are willing to kill doctors, prevent pharmacists from giving out needed medicine, and harass poor taxi drivers who have the gall to escort paying women to the abortion clinic as conspirators in a murder.

Of course, these things are not what all pro-life, probably most pro-life, people approve of or want. There are legitimate, well-meaning reasons to be against abortion -- my boyfriend tells me them all the time. If I get pregnant, I have no plans to abort the child. But I am not everyone, and everyone has different reasons for feeling the way they do.

Some say one shouldn't abort because of religion, but not everyone has the same religion. Some say one shouldn't abort because others would want to adopt the baby, but American adoptions are so full of red tape that many don't want to bother even trying to adopt babies in the United States. Some say one shouldn't abort because it's not taking responsibility for your actions, but others may think it's more responsible to not bring another child in this world than to abandon it to the state.

Some people may think this reasoning is flawed, but for many they are not. For many the belief in choice is a close and valuable one. It was one of feminism's largest victories. Some who point out the large number of pro-life women in the world don't understand this, but for women who fear the Bill Napolis and Jeb Bushs of the world, for women who fear the very real and still remaining stigmatization of single mothers, the right to choose is something to hold close and to hold fast.

I am pro-choice. I am pro-choice because women should have a weapon against the sexist attitudes of people like Napoli and the anti-child attitudes of people like Jeb Bush. I am pro-choice because women should not be forced into a life they are not ready to live. I am pro-choice because women who want to abort should not feel like they have to do it in an unsafe, illegal environment.

But, if you have read to the end, I want you all to know I don't think those choice should be taken lightly. I want you to all be aware America has far more unwanted pregnancies than any other industrialized country. I want you to think about how many loving couples want to adopt but can't because they're both the same sex.

I really want us to put aside all this and work to cure these problems with knowledge and not scare tactics. We should have comprehensive sex education, which is proven to work, instead of abstinence-only, which has not held up in any study. We should care more for our children in adoptive and foster care. We should not cut funding for women's centers overseas which help with essential reproductive care beyond abortion.

George W. Bush has not been willing to do this. I can only hope that whomever is president next will be different.

Oh, dear ...

From here.

I could do without the totally creepy background detail of Sakura’s mother getting married at the age of sixteen, but I’m letting it slide for now.

Ooooh ... you're in for quite a few surprises, Karen. @_@