In 2008 I tried listening to 7th Son, as read by J.C. Hutchins for Podiobooks.com, and couldn’t even finish the first episode. This was partially because I was trying, for the first time, to listen to podcasts while working at home  - when working at my last day job, I could listen literally all day without trouble; I found in 2008 that my current work mostly doesn’t allow for it. (I’ve recently been changing my working conditions somewhat, and have listened to a podcast audiobook or two while painting, so maybe I’ll get back to all the podcasts & audiobooks I paused in March, 2008.) It was partially because J.C. Hutchins’ voice is difficult for me to listen to. It was partially because the hook (4-year-old psychopath assassinates the president & uses swears!) didn’t hook me (actually, it was almost silly enough I quit in the first few minutes). It was partially because of the writing quality & tone of the next 25 minutes of the first episode. Anyway, I didn’t finish it and never managed to go back to it.

When Personal Effects: Dark Art was about to come out, in summer 2009, buying into the hype and all the rave reviews from the army of adoring fans that J.C. Hutchins was a good writer, not to mention that I’ve been following ARGs since I was a Cloudmaker from day 1 of The Beast, I pre-ordered a copy of PE:DA. I listened to the episodes of the Personal Effects: Sword of Blood prequel podcast story which were available at the time of PE:DA’s release with my wife, then read PE:DA aloud to her and went through the materials and websites with her, then asked J.C. Hutchins whether he would prefer me to avoid writing a 2-star review, since I didn’t want to hurt the sales of a fellow podcast author (or damage my standing in the very clique-ish podcasting community). Then I didn’t write a review.

Based on my experience with PE:DA, I decided not to pay for 7th Son: Descent until/unless I’d read and/or listened to it. So I requested that my library buy a copy, and I checked it out. And I let it sit on my shelf for a couple of months, renewing it without picking it up until someone else in town placed a request for it & I couldn’t renew it any more. It’s due back tomorrow, so, today I read the whole book. As I read it, I updated my progress on Goodreads. (warning: spoilers) Here are my updates:

• @ page 1/356: Trying to keep my expectations super-low, to avoid nigh-inevitable disappointment & frustration
• @ page 62/356: Time to stop for breakfast.
• (on twitter, probably on page 62): Have I mentioned I don’t like thrillers?
• @ page 106/356: As a fan of Dollhouse, it’s hard to like this, even knowing it came first.
• (on twitter, page 184/356): @rkalajian Note: It is distracting to see names of people I know, like yours, peppering the book.
• @ page 216/356: Lunch break.
• @ page 261/356: I feel like I’ve finally gotten past the prologue & into Act 1. Or into Act 2 of a 5-Act, if you like. Yet almost finished…
• @ page 279/356: Literally *just* got the stakes, ie: so far we didn’t know more than “villain is probably planning something.” This is ridiculous.
• @ page 319/356: Really? A Nazi? Sigh.
• @ page 356/356: Well, that was something. Most of the writing was better than expected & better than PE:DA, but I’m glad I didn’t pay for it.

As I stated, aside from the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 18, the writing of 7th Son: Descent was -overall- better than my entire PE:DA experience.  There were still the annoying italicized asides/thoughts/sounds, the J.C. Hutchins-coined slang, and a couple of characters that just reminded me of the ones that most annoyed me in PE:DA (and of Hutchins’ cloying voice, to boot). Oh, and have I mentioned I don’t particularly like thrillers? So the fact that the 7th Son trilogy is a thriller doesn’t thrill me. Last year, as part of my research before writing Cheating, Death, I ended up reading quite a few thrillers (& other commercial fiction), and I believe that J.C. Hutchins’ writing is on par with writers like Brad Meltzer and Jonathan Maberry, and is a better writer than the “Richard Castle” we were given in print.

Structurally I had some trouble with 7th Son: Descent, but I have a feeling that this is related to the entire trilogy having been intended to be a single story. This book doesn’t have a whole story. The majority of the 7th Son: Descent is setup, background, and exposition. What Maberry has over Hutchins is structure; the climactic showdown battle in 7th Son: Descent would have been early in a Maberry thriller, and would have been followed up by at least a couple of bigger, more thrilling, and higher-stakes situations. Oh, and then Maberry would give a resolution to the story, even if he were intending to follow it up with a sequel/series. 7th Son simply stopped, just as things were beginning to build momentum. Yes, thrillers are very formulaic, and yes, 7th Son: Descent follows the formula… as far as it goes; it just doesn’t make it all the way to the end.

And while most of what I don’t like about Hutchins’ books is in the characterizations and trying-too-hard-to-be-hip dialogue, it wasn’t as bad as what I’ve seen in other thrillers. Also, something Hutchins has over writers like Meltzer & Dan Brown (at least in 7th Son: Descent — PE:DA fell into this trap) is an avoidance of having characters (who are presented as smart) who, despite their best efforts, couldn’t solve their way out of a wet sack, only to have them save the day accidentally, by coincidence, and/or by failing altogether to act. So that’s a plus.

My family is making fun of me for writing book reviews over 1k words (I’m already over 1160), so I’m going to try to wrap up some of my other thoughts quickly: I’m not a fan of Kilroy. Period. I think putting a Nazi in the book was like terrible icing on a cake built from layer after layer of preposterous premises. I’m generally pretty ready to suspend disbelief, but that sort of thing makes it difficult. Chapter 1 is the weakest chapter in the entire book, and is a big part of why it took me 2+ years to get into 7th Son. It feels almost as though two totally different writers worked on this; one who wrote PE:DA, PE:SoB, and 7th Son: Descent’s Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 18, and an occasional line of thought/dialogue, and a second writer who wrote the rest of 7th Son: Descent. I found myself semi-frequently groaning at the writing, and (sitting alone in my room) verbally describing the book as “terrible” as I worked through it.

Have I mentioned I don’t like thrillers, or most mainstream commercial fiction? By the standards of thrillers and commercial fiction I’ve read, this book is reasonably-well-written, and represents a good Volume I of a three-volume book. If/when I hear the rest of the book won’t be making it to print, I may someday listen to the whole thing in audio form, but right now the story is not compelling enough and (to my ear) J.C. Hutchins’ voice is grating enough that I do not expect to experience the rest of this story soon. Just my preferences. (To be fair, I get a fair amount of complaints about my voice(s) on my podiobooks, myself. Different people’s ears experience narration differently, just as different people like different genres.) If you like thrillers and/or commercial fiction, and/or if you don’t mind J.C. Hutchins’ voice, you may be in for a treat. A lot of people like it, and you can always try it for free.

If you’re the sort of person who would enjoy a book like Under the Dome, you probably already want to read it (or have already read it). You’re either a fan of Stephen King’s writing, or the premise of reading a thousand-page book detailing the devolution of a small town when it is totally cut off from the outside world by an inexplicable “Dome” sounds like fun. Everyone else need not apply. Seriously. If you have any doubts, stay away.

The main character of Under the Dome (and there are dozens of townspeople to keep track of throughout the book) is Big Jim Rennie, and he is undoubtedly the villain of the piece. (The hero isn’t even present for a good chunk of the story, and some of the most important actions taken in the entire book are at the hands of children; I certainly don’t count anyone as more central to the story than Big Jim.) Big Jim is a character that frustrated and upset me in practically every scene he was in, just as real people who behave in similar ways do in life. I simply cannot wrap my head around these sorts of people; he is willfully ignorant, he is manipulative, he is power-hungry, and he generally works from the position that it isn’t important whether a decision is right or good or rational, only that it is his decision.  Often Big Jim made decisions and put plans into motion, knowing that they would injure and/or kill innocent people, waste scarce resources, and otherwise ignore obvious harm (and better solutions for all), simply because he believed it would lead him to have more control, more power, and more respect from the townspeople. Every time he would do such things, I would find myself both uncomprehending -as though up were brown and black were trout- and recognizing the accuracy and truthfulness of Stephen King’s characterization at the same time, since I’m aware that there really are quite a lot of people who operate in this way I can’t seem to grasp.

The premise of the book, aside from the obvious “town cut off from the world by an inexplicable Dome,” is that Big Jim has put himself in a position of power in the town by surrounding himself with stupid, drug-addled, and easily manipulated people, one of whom is a nominally-in-charge rubber stamp, and that he sees The Dome as his chance to become dictator-in-fact rather than manipulative second fiddle.  The entire plot, besides many gruesome interactions with The Dome on the first day and a heavily-foreshadowed catastrophe that really ought to have killed everyone in the end, revolves around Big Jim’s manipulations to put himself totally in control, regardless of the cost. Military attempts to break through The Dome from the outside and the small, poorly-managed effort to see if maybe there’s something that can be done from inside are minor sub-plots; just distractions, to readers and to Big Jim’s machinations alike.

Except for me, it didn’t really work. I don’t like people like Big Jim in life, I didn’t like him on the page, I hated almost everything he did, and he was the book. I hung on throughout the book, but barely, leaping from one rare glimpse at the world beyond Big Jim’s games to the next – I liked things like examinations of what happens to the environment when it gets cut off, what effects extreme outside events had across the barrier, and until the “truth” was revealed, I was really interested in the cause of The Dome. The writing was on-par for Stephen King, sometimes great, sometimes cringe-inducing, and I felt he captured the characters of all the miscreants and evil people (especially Big Jim) far better than I would be able to. If nothing else, it inspired me to want to maybe, someday, be able to write a really good villain. Unfortunately, there was little else.

The environmental effects (ie: pollution building up, temperature going up, et cetera), the civilization-limiting effects (ie: running out of power, running out of fuel, running out of water, food, et cetera), and a meaningful examination of the source, purpose, extent, intentions, et cetera of The Dome – these were all left unfulfilled. The first two because of the much-foreshadowed catastrophe that ends things in a hurry, before the more interesting long-term effects became really relevant, rather than a thought exercise. It almost felt like King had more story to tell, that he would have written on and on, allowing Big Jim to fight for power against the few intelligent people left in town indefinitely, and that his publishers asked him to cut it off somewhere. Like they said “try not to go over 1k pages; that’s the effective maximum length of physical, single-volume books,” and with his opening and his ending already written, he just wrote middle until he hit that length, and stopped. Oh, and if you’re interested at all in the source of The Dome, you’re bound to be disappointed; Stephen King is, as he almost always is, rubbish with explanations. It would have been better, in my opinion, if there had been no explanation at all. “It just is.” –of course, then probably literally everyone dies. Sigh.

So, for me, Under the Dome was a frustrating book, full of frustrating characters, which had a maddening plot and a bad ending.  The ending was both unsatisfying and it was badly written. I’d say the last day’s worth of story’s writing felt unpolished, even rushed, which is unfortunate for such a high-profile release. When I started this review I’d thought I’d give it 3 stars on Goodreads. After writing the review, I think I’ll give it two. I’d maybe consider it two and a half, but they only have whole stars on Goodreads.

As if to start off on the absolute wrong foot, I’m going to review a book that isn’t really a book by an author who isn’t even a real person, a meta-book that isn’t even about what it’s about. Sorry.

Heat Wave – by Richard Castle
ISBN: 9781401323820 (Hardback, 199pp)
Borrowed from the Phoenix Library

If you aren’t aware, there exists a television show called Castle, currently in its second season on ABC. The premise of the show is that a famous and successful author of crime/thriller novels has used his connections and charm to  be allowed to “ride along” with New York City homicide detectives as research for a book with a homicide detective main character. The premise of the book (Heat Wave) is that it is the novel that the fictional novelist wrote, based on his experiences in the first season of the show.

I enjoy watching Castle, largely because the main character of the novelist is played by Nathan Fillion, and because he is given plenty of witty things to say and fun situations to play in. I’m not much of a fan of crime/thriller/procedural dramas that take themselves seriously, but as a comedy it’s alright. It’s certainly worth the 20hrs/year, and my wife and my sister also watch it. When we realized that Heat Wave, heavily featured in the 2nd season of the show, was actually a real book one could get and read, my wife requested it from the library. When it came in, Mandy read it, my sister read it, and now -since it’s coming due and there’s a waiting list (so it can’t be renewed) at the library- I read it.

If you are a fan of the series, it may be worth reading. If I were to give it a rating as an episode of the TV show, I would give it four and a half stars, primarily based on the storyline and the comedy. If I were to give it a rating based on its writing, I would give it two stars. It wasn’t so terrible I couldn’t finish it (see P&P&Z) but it was difficult to read – on a sentence by sentence basis, and as a whole. (More so if I were to pretend it was actually a novel by Richard Castle.) Some of this may be that I don’t read crime novels, I don’t like thrillers, and I’m not used to reading the style of book the (actual) author was aiming for.

I’m not going to give you a synopsis of the story, except to say that -aside from the brief sex scene wedged into the middle of the book- it exactly follows the basic structure of the show, and is like reading an extra episode of the show. The only variation from the formula for an episode of the show was Castle going home & having a conversation with his mother/daughter which suddenly gives him an insight that helps break the case. All the characters from the show have been renamed, but it’s literally like someone did a novelization of a teleplay of an unaired episode, then did a find/replace to change the names.

I think this is supposed to be satisfying to fans of the show, since the book delivers more of what the author knows they like, but it made the character of Richard Castle seem like a terrible author. Like he had no imagination and was just writing down whatever he saw and heard with no filter and nothing (but that sex scene) added. Ninety percent of the details in the book seemed to be pulled directly from the screen, and half the dialogue. This led to a lot of awkward sentences and situations, trying to wedge something we’d recognize from the show onto every page and into every conversation. This might have worked better if Castle on the show had been constantly taking notes, but the pseudo-Castle character in the book seemed to take notes more than the Castle character does on TV.

The awkward writing resulted in a reading rate about 50% slower than my average reading rate. I set down last night to read it in one sitting and it actually took over 5 hours to read the 200 pages. There were three short sections of the book that flowed really well and seemed well-polished. One was an action sequence (notable because one of the characters was nude – something they couldn’t have done on network television), which made it seem like the actual author (not the fictional Richard Castle) was more comfortable writing action-packed books than TV comedy/drama. One was the brief sex scene, which -since they gave the page number on an episode of the show- they could expect would be the most-read and most-closely-read few pages of the book, so it just seemed like they’d spent more time re-writing and polishing that scene and made the rest seem even worse. Then there was the end of the book: The resolution to the story also seemed well-written and highly polished; like they were counting on people’s whole impression of the book being based on the last thing they read. I know it’s true for a lot of people, but I wish they’d put as much effort into the rest of the book.

If Richard Castle’s writing was as bad as this, his character loses a lot of his charm and believability. And Beckett (the detective character on the TV show) loses hers, based on her impression of and experience with the book, in the series. They’re both supposed to be intelligent and well-read, but this book … doesn’t fit. Since I’m aware that this is actually just part of a marketing campaign for the show, the throw-away writing pandering to (and ripping off) the show at every turn (rather than being a well-written and imaginative story merely inspired by the fictional events of Castle’s experiences and written with an authorial voice on par with the Castle portrayed on the show), I can accept it. It is what it is. It isn’t what it pretends to be.

Okay. So I’m not very good at reviewing books, yet. I’ll keep reading, hopefully keep reviewing, and perhaps with practice I’ll get better at it. But there you go, some words about Heat Wave.

I watch a lot of movies. I’ve already seen four movies in theatres this weekend, and plan to see one or two more. I spend not less than $60 a month in movie theatres, every month, sometimes more than $100. It is an expensive habit.

And it requires having accurate information about when and where the movies I want to see are playing. Especially considering I watch at least a couple of ‘independent’ and foreign movies a month, which typically play on only one screen at one theatre, if they play at all – knowing which of the dozens of theatres in town to show up at to to see a movie like My Date With Drew or Broken Flowers or Layer Cake, each of which I had to drive to a different theatre to see at the only place it was playing. Moviefone has been very helpful over the years with getting me to the theatre I need at the time I need to see the movie I want to see.

But lately, I’ve noticed more and more problems with the information Moviefone has, not only on the website, but over the phone at well.

Moviefone knew there was a midnight showing of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Cine Capri, but didn’t know it had sold out half a day in advance, and didn’t know about the midnight show at Arizona Mills across town with virtually unlimited seating. When Fantastic Four opened, Moviefone did not list it among the movies playing at my local cineplex, so I went to a movie theatre twenty minutes away. The following day I was watching another movie that WAS listed at my local theatre, and found that Fantastic Four hadbeen playing locally, but that Moviefone didn’t know about it.

I’ve had at least five incidents in the last two months where I myself or someone I was with had looked up showtimes on moviefone.com, sometimes more than once before going to the theatre, and arrived to find we were fifteen or twenty minutes late, sometimes while thinking we were the same amount early. Needless to say, that causes some anxiety and often ruins the afternoon/evening’s plans entirely.

Oh, and then this weekend a few things: Four Brothers is not listed as playing at my local cineplex, but I know it’s the widest-opening movie this weekend, so I called them – they were well aware that moviefone was listing Broken Flowers as playing there at the times they were actually playing Four Brothers, and that the only theatre in town playing Broken Flowers is the Camelview, almost half an hour away, depending on traffic. When I went to see Four Brothers there tonight I stood in line behind two people who had come to see Broken Flowers and had to go home for the evening, since the Camelview showing was starting as they stood there trying to understand the mixup. Another film, Last Days, an ‘independent’ film by Gus Van Sant, I know is playing at the Centerpoint in Tempe, but moviefone doesn’t even acknowledge that there exists a movie called Last Days. I knew it was playing because Harkins emails me the showtimes of all the ‘independent’ and foreign films playing at Harkins theatres every week, and then to be sure, I called the box office at the Centerpoint (yes, I know the direct numbers for the Centerpoint and my local theatre by heart, so what of it?) to verify that it was playing, and at what times. My email was right, and moviefone didn’t have a clue.

Oh, and then today when I was out, my plan had been to watch four movies at three theatres. I had the showtimes and theatres written down, but somewhere after the first movie I lost the list and couldn’t recall how much time I had left to get across town. I tried calling moviefone as I drove in that direction, and … there were problems.

First, it said all the circuits were busy. Then I got through on the other moviefone number (did you know we have two in town?) and it seemed dead at first. After several calls and attempts to gather information about showtimes, it seemed to me that their servers were probably overloaded, crashing, or hacked altogether. There was a multi-second lag between prompts, even between the greeting and the ad and the ad and the menu, and between pressing a button and getting a response, and then there seemed to be no data available. It didn’t recognize ANY theatre express codes, it wouldn’t accept a zip code to search by area, it wouldn’t accept input of letters to search by movie title; nothing beyond basic navigation was working.

I stopped for gas and managed to find my list of movies and showtimes in time to discover that because I hadn’t remembered to be in a hurry to get to the theatre (I had taken surface streets and, obviously, stopped for gas) I had missed the movie. That wasn’t exactly moviefone’s fault, but I was on the phone before I even got to my car, and with even a reasonably-paced automated system to give me the information would have told me what I needed to know before I got out of the parking lot or, or to the first street that connects with a freeway, at the latest, and I might have made it on time.

Many web errors, information missing, incorrect movie names (I remember when House of Wax came out, they were listing the new House of Wax as playing at some theatres and the Vincent Price House of Wax in 3D as playing in others, though they all showed the same film.), incorrect show times, and now a total lack of service over the phone.

I think I’ll start cross-checking all my movie listings against google for a while, see how that works out. I recommend that you do the same, or risk disappointment and frustration.

Okay, so. Awesome movie. I was literally on the edge of my seat nearly the entire time, slack-jawed, eyes unblinking as the spectacle unfolded before me. Once it gets going, it is non-stop. Amazing. And what you think you see in the trailers, what you don’t see, is spectacular. It left me awestruck, just like the main character of the movie though … I would have run faster and further and not stopped in that first moment. I’d read some complaints about undeveloped characters that were hard to care about, but I cared enough about the central tripod of characters (you didn’t think it was a coincidence that there were three of them, supporting each other, did you?) that everything else being secondary was reasonable – I don’t care if what’s her name and her daughter get left behind on the pier, what’s Robbie doing? The emotional stakes in this movie are as high as in any of Spielberg’s best work, and I very nearly cried a couple of times. If you’re one to cry at movies, be warned.

Also, while I don’t want to say too much, I DO have one main complaint. I have no fucking clue how Robbie survived. Whaaa!?!? Seriously, that’s more silly than every other close-call; that was an everyone-dies situation, and he ran face first into it, unarmed against an unstoppable enemy. Seriously. What is this? A TV sitcom where everything in the main characters’ life has to return to normal by the end of the show? Sure, there are billions dead who we never meet, and a handful of characters we do meet almost surely dead or dead right before our eyes, but ALL the main characters survive? What? Is Boston not good enough for a first-strike attack? Mom and Tim aren’t in any danger at all? Ray’s ridiculous story about drinking bad tea with the grandparents really is true?

I guess it makes sense: If Ray is secretly a little bit psychic, that would explain all his otherwise coincidental successes. Either that, or he blew himself up with those grenades and is stuck dreaming forever in the afterlife that his family is whole and safe and the aliens just suddenly died with no explanation, all at once. I think I’ve solved it.

Anyway, if you can forgive H.G. Wells’ method for defeating the aliens and you can forgive the painful reversal that is Robbie’s miraculous survival, there will be nothing to stop you from totally and relentlessly enjoying this movie.

Would you believe I offered to take my brother to it with me, on my dime, and he turned me down? I know he’s out of money, and by the time he has more, Fantastic Four will have bumped War of the Worlds from the biggest screens. Oh well.

You should not do the same – do not miss out on this exciting, engaging movie.

Okay, okay, admittedly, I am not a big fan of any of the “Coke” products, really. Not Classic Coke, not Diet Coke, not even Vanilla Coke. I prefer Pepsi over coke, and I prefer not to drink colas, generally. Which is why pretty much every other review of a soda on Modern Evil is by Iain. He likes colas. He’ll probably review this product soon enough.

But I was shopping last night, and my local Fry’s Marketplace had 20oz bottles of Coca-Cola Zero on sale, 2 for $1. I got one. I figured I could afford 50cents, even if it wasn’t to my liking.
So, there are two main reasons I don’t like Coke. First, it is bitter and not sweet. I don’t mind a certain degree of bitterness, if it is balanced by sweetness, and I prefer just straight sweetness, but Coke just tastes bitter to me, not sweet. Second, it generally has WAY too much carbonation. I don’t like much carbonation in the first place, and often will ‘shake out’ much of the carbonation in regular soda, but for most non-coke sodas, I can at least drink the normally carbonated product without choking to death. With Coke products, there is typically enough carbonation that it detracts so much from my drinking ability that I give up.

Coca-Cola Zero has MORE carbonation than ANY Coke product I have ever tried to drink. It’s crazy. Maybe I got a ‘bad’ bottle. Maybe it’s intentional. I don’t know, but I tried several times to just take a sip of the soda, or a normal drink, and 100% of the time, the carbonation caused a choking fit. So I shook it out, until the carbonation was merely a pleasant tingling rather than an overwhelming expansive and choking monster, so that I could taste the drink without dying.

Coca-Cola Zero has a lighter flavour and mouthfeel and, to me, seems less bitter and more sweet than other Coke products. Iain always talks about aftertaste, and I’m sure he’ll have something to say about Coke Zero’s aftertaste, but … I’m not even sure I tasted one. Lighter, sweeter, less bitter, but still recognizably in the Coke family. Not something I’d generally choose to drink, but not bad.

Well, except that if I drank it at full carbonation, I’d probably die before I got through one serving’s worth, let alone 20oz. I will not buy more of this product. But if you like choking to death on carbonation, don’t like calories, and think a lighter, sweeter, less bitter Coke sounds nice, you may like Coke Zero.

Which is not to say the film doesn’t work at all. Some of the things that were going on (especially re: the boat house) were clear and specific and working to drive George Lutz (played amazingly by Ryan Reynolds) mad and get him to murder his family. And Ryan’s performance was outstanding. His transformation from the light-hearted, happy-go-lucky man that Ryan has played perhaps too often in the past into the fierce, angry, determined being that is being driven to acts of increasing menace and violence is well done. Perhaps too quick, to keep the pacing of the movie up to modern audiences’ standards, but otherwise believable and the scariest scenes in the movie feature George when he’s in between sane and that point of being totally under the house’s control. This is the most impressive performance I’ve ever seen Ryan Reynolds give, and it really shows his range as an actor.

The special effects are excellent, the lighting and cinematography are appropriate, the sound is sufficiently well-produced. The other performers do well enough, and the children were all well cast. Especially Jodie (Isabel Conner), a little dead girl, whose performance shines nearly as bright as Ryan’s. Phillip Baker Hall almost seemed to be phoning in his performance as a priest scared of the house; he has done, and could have done here, much better work.

Overall, if you are a fan of horror films, you will probably enjoy this one. I may just not have been in the mood to be scared. If you don’t like horror, or if you are highly critical or remakes and adaptations, stay away.
One more thing:

Ryan Reynolds is … very fit.

Remarkably so. The most memorable visual in the movie may not have been any twisted, bloody, rotting, horrible apparition, but Ryan Reynolds walking around without a shirt on.

Ripped. Ripped is a good word to describe him. I’d seen that he’d put on a lot of muscle for Blade III, but it’s all still there, maybe moreso, for Amityville. His entire upper body looked carved. Broad, muscular shoulders, well-defined pectorals, six-pack abs, huge arms…

If nothing else, watching The Amityville Horror instilled me with a renewed drive to work out. I actually used my Bowflex again this morning, did a full set of upper body exercises on it, was somewhat surprised that my strength seems to have gone up since the last time I used it. Plus I was easily able to do about 360 crunches (about half of them oblique) with 50lbs resistance. I’ve been working on following my diet (the one I’m writing the diet book for right now), and between that, getting back to using the Bowflex, and probably some bicycling, maybe I can get into that kind of shape myself.

I mean, if Carrot Top and Van Wilder can do it, I can. Right?

(Have you see Carrot Top without a shirt? I thought it was a fake chest at first.)

Now, assuming you’ve watched the trailer, you probably already have a good idea about whether or not you’ll like this film, and the basic elements that run through the experience. My review probably won’t sway you one way or the other – you either like offbeat humor, faux documentary style, and can handle (or better yet, appreciate) the humor of the skewed and hypocritical “Christian” characters, or you can’t. If this movie were rated by the MPAA, it would get an R rating for “language” and “suggestive dialogue” alone – so if you’re sensitive to obscenities, you, too, should stay away.

For the rest of you, my review:

nbt – never been thawed – is shot in a faux documentary style; a documentary about a group of people who collect frozen TV dinners. Or “Frozen Entree Enthusiasts” as they prefer to be called. The “documentary” covers a brief, intense period for the Mesa Frozen Food Enthusiasts Club which comes to a peak with a Frozen Food Enthusiasts Convention. Does it sound ridiculous? It should. But by the time the movie actually arrives at the convention, Frozen Entree Enthusiasm has been put into perspective against the lives of the members of the club and seems quite reasonable by comparison.

You see, each of the members of the club we get to know during the course of the film has a day job or other hobbies that make collecting frozen dinners seem reasonable. The ‘leader’ and most dedicated to collecting frozen entrees is Shawn, the frontman for a hardcore punk band which changed its lyrics – and little else – to become a “Christian” band, The Christers, because he thought he could make more money by doing so. Some of the funniest moments in the movie, however, come from his day job – he works part time as a dental hygenist, and the way he does his job is just … funnier than whatever it is he was saying during those scenes. His band is managed by Milo, a man who founded the “No Choice Cafe” chain of restaurants, which are all located next to abortion clinics, so the patrons can protest on full stomachs – and so he could cash in on the huge crowds that always seemed to gather around the clinics. One of his regular patrons, Shelly, became a frozen entree enthusiast after seeing Shawn’s band perform. She works as a counselor at an abstinence center, where she takes calls all day on an “intercourse prevention hotline.” Seriously.

And it goes on and on, with quirkier and quirkier characters, until – when you know them all and are just watching them go through the everyday struggles of their lives – it’s their other features that seem to stand out, and frozen entree collecting seems pretty normal. It is in taking this central theme and transforming it under the surface into something almost acceptable, almost reasonable, that nbt most strongly succeeds conceptually. Of course, the fact that the movie is pretty continuously laugh-out-loud funny is pretty nice, too.

There are several levels of humor working in the film, ranging from low-level urine and testicle-related joked to the post-modern meta-humor of the very concept of the “mockumentary”, with plenty in between, much of it in the lives of the characters, as mentioned above. Something I appreciated about the humor was that rather than making fun of Christianity itself, the characters and situations represented a parody of the people who claim to be Christian for personal financial gain rather than any level of personal spirituality, belief, or faith – it was clear (to me) that Milo and The Christers were not meant to be seen as “real” Christians, just as people trying to make money from the market that real Christians represent. Some Christians will probably be offended or upset by the way that the attendees of The Christers’ concerts actually appreciate the non-Christian behaviour of the band, and some will be upset by a lot more than that in this movie, but I think the way the subject matter is handled is well-aimed and clearly not an attack on Christianity.

The cinematography did not take my notice, which says a lot – many amateur and first-time film makers make mistakes in lighting and shooting that detract from their films in a serious way, but nbt did not noticeably suffer from inexperience. In fact, there were several shots where I really noticed and appreciated the lighting, framing, or visual characterization of the mood of the scene. There is one scene where it is difficult to determine whether a too-bright spotlight shining on a white door in the background is intentional and symbolic or a lighting miscalculation, but overall the work is good, especially considering that it appears to have been shot entirely on video.

The cast of first-time actors is effective and compelling. The production design is well thought out and pervasive. The music is appropriate, clever, and funny. The special effects are generally well-done, and would probably go unnoticed by most; they are effectively integrated. The overall sound quality is good and far superior to some other locally produced independent films I’ve seen, though still noticably “noisy” in some places.

And did I mention that the frozen dinners have never been thawed?

(Okay, that’s not true. I understand that due to the heat constraints of filming in GMPhoenix in the summer, some shots of frozen entrees were merely of empty boxes because the dinners kept melting.)

Still, I highly recommend this movie. Oh, and if you go this weekend (4/15/05 and 4/16/05) to the 7PM or 9PM showings, you can meet the people who made the film! Check out their website for more details.

Yet when I saw the first trailer for this movie version of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s play, I became very interested in watching it. So tonight, the first night it has been publicly available to watch, I went to see it on the biggest screen in Arizona (outside of an IMAX) with the best sound system, the Cine Capri, with my two sisters.

I think age and experience and … where one is in one’s life can greatly impact what one sees in a work of such complexities. And this viewing of it was significantly different to me today than it was on stage years ago; there are elements of the story I understand differently, characters I see in new lights, the whole plot and the various motivations seem especially interesting to me. It was a whole new experience.

Which had little to do with its transition to film; had I seen it again on the stage at this stage in my life, I would very likely have seen the same things unfold before me. Which DOES say a lot about the film; it is, as far as I could tell – from my memory and the sounds of an audience that was clearly largely fanatics – a good adaptation of the stage play. There are some dramatic elements, the chandelier especially, that are completely different in the theatre than they are on the screen, but there was also a lot more visible on the faces of the performers than I can see from the audience of a stage performance – well, at least with the seats I can afford.

So… would I recommend this film? Probably. Know it is a musical, a period piece, a complex, dramatic story, and that at times several characters will sing totally different lyrics over each other, preventing any from being heard clearly. Actually, I had a heck of a time with a lot of the lyrics, but I think that has to do with my own hearing loss and tinitis more than a failure of the film. Frankly, a deaf person could follow this movie pretty easily; it is extensively visual. The visuals are stunning. With the exception of a few moments of bad lip syncing here and there, the performances were outstanding.

If you already like Phantom, I think you’ll like this version. If you like dramatic, decadent musicals, I think you’ll like this film. If you like period pieces with complex interwoven dramas and unreconcilable love, I think you’ll like Phantom. If all that I’ve said gives you the idea you wouldn’t like Phantom, don’t go watch it.

And there you go. I should be in bed.

It was sort of interesting, but it didn’t say anything new. Not by far.

There was a sequence, the last one, where everyone in the film is killed and the town is burned to the ground, that was somewhat satisfying after suffering through the first 2hrs 45mins to get to it. Still, by the end I did not feel that it was worth even the time it took to watch it, let alone the value it stole from my Netflix membership.

I cannot in good faith recommend Dogville.

Excellent characters and character interactions and interesting inter-relationships and plot devices and good emotional hooks and …

And I would generally recommend this film.

It is essentially a version of a love triangle, though that may be giving away too much to people who have not seen the trailers for this film. Quadrangle may be a more appropriate shape, though, if you consider the character whose end I liked the least.

And I’ll stop rambling now. It’s good. I like the style of it in several ways.

The most important thing I have to say about it is to make it clear that the dominant story thread in this movie, the defining element of the entire piece is the central romantic/love story. It is not (strictly speaking) a “thriller”, though it does have some quite shocking moments here and there. I’ve seen it twice so far, and for me most of the shocks were only intense because of the emotional hooks built up by the dramatic core of the movie – not because the wicked witch jumped out from behind whatever, but because I was genuinely engaged in the trials the characters were facing.

Trying to pick apart this movie, trying to figure out its twists and turns before they are revealed is like trying to use forensics to determine why a flower is beautiful. Also, importantly, figuring out through forensics that the flower is, in the end, a flower, does not tell you anything of its beauty.

I recommend that you go into this movie expecting only a finely crafted dramatic piece with amazing settings, skilled actors, beautiful cinematography, careful writing and powerful direction.

If you go in looking for a shocking twist that must be figured out, for a thriller with aliens or ghosts around every corner and central players’ roles dramatically changed by the man behind the curtain in the final scenes, you are very likely to be disappointed. Assuming you go to the movies to enjoy them, AND that you do not enjoy being disappointed, this is not a good route to take.

For those of you who have not already heard, the real star of The Village is a relative unknown, Bryce Dallas Howard. She lights up this film in a way few expected, and adds depth and character to the slowest, quietest, least visually interesting scenes with the subtleties of her performance. Some actors in this piece could have been replaced without harming the overall picture, but were Bryce removed from the cast, The Village would have fallen flat. I can recommend this film on her performance and presence alone.

The rest of the cast is very powerful and does an amazing job. William Hurt’s performance is limited in a careful way by the director, but it only works to force him to find his character through the limitation. I didn’t notice it the first time through, but then read so many people point it out that I watched for it the second time – you never see a closeup on his face, and only rarely see his face beyond profile, then only at a distance. Considering he plays the “leader” of the entire village – inasmuch as they have a single leader – this is an interesting and complex choice.

There are too many excellent players in this piece to list them all and all their shining points – watch it for yourself and enjoy.

The music, particularly the violin pieces that are the cornerstone of the aural-emotionscape of the film, give real power to a lot of scenes. You will feel it.

I will do a discussion soon in my blog about the deeper meanings and potential deeper meanings in The Village soon. Right now I just suggest you go watch it with an open mind.