Movie Review: MirrorMask

My boyfriend hates cats, he will some times admit that they are cute but he insists that they are pure evil and not to be trusted. Until this movie I didn't really get what is problem was, now I am terrified of cats. You don't know true terror until a pack of hungry cats with people faces are circling you. I fully intend to have nightmares about these cats, I have marked it on my calender and everything.

I got this movie because Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors is the screen writer. I am not sure but I have to wonder how much of a pull he had in the art direction because this movie is visually stunning. The story is a simple sort of Alice in Wonderland tale that doen't move very quickly but you don't really notice with all the art work.

I can tell that this is Neil movie knowing his work with Coraline and Sandman. The dialogue rings true to him in every line and I think its a better testament to his skill than the adaption of Stardust. The entire movie has a rustic Circe de Solei kind of feel and the lighting for most of the movie is in shade of grey.

Tell me this is not creepy?

The truly impressive thing about the visuals is that real actors are messed with CGI in a way that comes of blended to the eye. I say this because watching slightly older cgi these days reveals the animation quickly. Don't believe, go watch LORT again and tell me if you can now see all those little times they tweaked a scene with cgi that you never caught back when the movies first came out. The jump in level of animation leaves cgi visible to the naked eye only two or three years later, yet this movie the blending and the art work makes the cgi a part of the world rather than something that stands out.

This is a must watch for anyone that calls themselves a true movie lover. Its whimsical and and daring all at the same time.

Best Day Ever!

So Borders is bankrupt: which is sad.

On a lighter note the store near me is closing and all books are 2.99 or cheaper. I got two books fro 1.60 each. I was not aware they were that cheap. I am going back tomorrow to clear out whatever is left of the romance and fantasy sections.

Yay!

Book Review: Hundred Thousand Kingdoms & The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin

I am reviewing two books at once because they are the same series and I am super lazy.  So yeah first off I accidentally read the second book first, or rather two chapters of the second book before I threw it away in confusion.

The first book is my favorite of the two by a long shot. The first book follows Yeine who is the daughter of the princess of the ruling family and a "barbarian." Shortly after the death of her mother she is called to the capital by her grandfather and soon finds herself in a very bad situation. In this fake world there are Gods and for a long time there were three Gods. Then the sun god got sorta pissed and killed the goddess of twilight and almost destroyed the world, because she was the one that created life. In a response he imprisons his brother, the god of night, and some of his children and came them to the ruling family to use as weapons.

The interesting thing about this story is it was told in an odd way, which I though was going to make me murder the book but really just made me read faster. Major parts of the story are told out of order as if Yeine keeps forgetting things and having to go back to talk about them. The way the story unfolded was wonderful. The gods had that kind of depth and scary that gods in fantays books always have, their moral code has nothing to do with your life or any life. There was a mystery to this book.

The books ends with Yeine becoming the new twilight goddess and restoring the world to its true balance by releasing the night lord and herself from their mortal prisons. They also make the sun god human so that he can wander the earth to learn compassion and humility for what he did to the world.

The second book follows a blind woman named Oree who happens to take care of the sun god in his new human form and is crazy boring. This book takes place fifteen years later than the first book but its boring. I just didn't feel the interesting any more. The story was told in a straight line which sort of ruined the novelty of the first book.

The thing is that I am crazy interested in the mythology of this world in the history of its people and its gods, and the second book doesn't cover any of that. The gods are the real draw for me and they goddlings as well. I have seen that the trisckster goddling will be the main character of the third book so I am cool with that, he was the first goddling.

One other thing is the author is African American and the heroines and even the sun god are all black, which I think is kind of cool. They even mention that the sun god and the twilight goddess made the first people to look like them, and Africa is the cradle of life. It was a fun twist in a fantasy world. I will also state that the ruling family that is super crazy evil are all crazy white to the point of being see through, not sure if that was to be some kind of metaphor because its shown that they were wrong.

Good News

There is a second season of Sekirei, which means more busty pokemon-esch women. I really want to know if the little boy with the power to wither things is useful at all in a fight or a complete let down.

Book Review: The Queen's Bastard by C.E. Murphy

I thought this book was going to be a fun spy novel in the middle ages. I didn't get anything like that at all. At first it seems like the story is taking place in a made of fantasy world and then about a third of the way into the book it becomes clear that the story is about Queen Elizabeth of England and the names of people and country's have just been changed.

The main character is the bastard daughter of fake Elizabeth. She really sucks as a spy in most respects. She just sleeps around which really is not spying at all. The story takes forever and there is very little tension. In fact the story takes a really odd turn when the girl figures out that she can use magic and then starts basically torturing friends with it just to see how fat she can go. It threw off most of the book.

I kept reading because I was waiting for something interesting to happen and it never really did. I was rather bored by the story and everything. This was just not really worth the effort.

Quotes from Dresden Files

Thomas - And I swear to you, by my own stunning good looks and towering ego, that I'm not lying to you.

"I'd hate to find out that the universe really wasn't conspiring against me." 

"When I burst out laughing at you, do you think you'll be offended?"

Just because you aren't paranoid, doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.

I'm sorry I did you just say a cult of porn star sorceresses?

Quote of the day

Archer: I'm not negotiating with a cyborg.
Lana: That's just a voice modulator.
Archer: You don't think cyborgs have that technology!?

Pam: Who taught you to punch, your husband?

Cheryl: Mopeds are fun but you don't want to let your buddies see you riding one.
Pam: I thought he meant I was fuel efficient. I had only had 10 ten beers.
Cheryl: 40s?
Pam: NO.... yes.

Book Review: Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane

The over all premise of this books took a while to come forward and in those first couple of chapters I was confused beyond words. That is normally the trouble with books where the protagonist starts off in the middle of something complicated.

Basically in the 1990s the dead rose of from the earth for a week and attacked the living. After it was over all the previous religions fell and a new religion based on magic and banishing the dead rose to power and took over the government. The main character is Chess Putnam is a witch that works for the Church of Truth. She is also a drug addict. The book opens with her drug dealer telling her there is the possibility that the new business venture he is trying is being haunted by evil ghost, so in order to pay off her debt she needs to get rid of the ghosts.

The mystery is actually very interesting the problem is the main character keeps getting high at important parts. I mean really there was some really interesting parts and I wanted to know but we had to take breaks for the character to get high. It made me want to snap my fingers at her and "hey, hey, hey, pay attention we have murder happening."

Also the entire book takes place in the slums of some city so everyone speaks in horribly broken English except for the main character, which made we want to punch all of them. Even the one guy I kind of liked, whose name was Terrible I kid you not, couldn't manage any kind of proper grammar even when they pointed out that he could read.

I am sorta on the fence with this book and perhaps the series. I really liked Terrible but Chess makes me kind of crazy.