Definitely Dead

Having just finished Season 1 of True Blood, I'm beginning to move more and more into that fray and farther and farther away from the books, as a lot of people I've talked to are also doing. It's an odd case of the "movie" as it were, being better than the books because ironically the TV show is more descriptive than the books in the areas that matter.
Note to Charlaine Harris: I DON'T CARE WHAT SOOKIE IS WEARING OR HOW OFTEN SHE HAS OR FANTASIZES ABOUT SEX. And now that I've talked to other people, I also know that that is NOT just because I am a guy. The show just does a much better job filling in backstory that Harris should have covered if she wasn't so enamored with clothes and sex.
Now that I've berated her work, I will say that Definitely Dead is the best book thus far in the series, and I keep saying that more and more frequently as I'm reviewing these books, so perhaps it just took her some time to master her craft.
There are no new supernatural beings introduced her, but a whole world is hinted at, as Sookie is revealed to be descended from fairys, and Claudia, her fairy godmother, talks about the infinite classifications of fairies, into brownies, elves, pixies etc. While delving on the fairy groups might get as redundant as the weres at this point in time, it is a new fascinating door opened to a world beyond our own.
The best part of this book is the action though. It really starts from the get go and doesn't let go. There are like 5 or so insidious plots going on at any given time in this book, which is great, because they don't all wrap up at once, but wrap up in an exciting series of "endings" as the book draws to a close. It's also odd this is book 6 of 7 in the set I got as it seems to herald a new beginning for Sookie's life. There was a major split with Bill, Eric's fascination with her can be chalked up to her fairy blood (it's intoxicating to vampires), and she seems to be happy with her new weretiger (but living) boyfriend Quinn. It sets you up well for what's to come, and hopefully this pace of great writing can be kept up by Harris, lest True Blood just totally steal her ideas and repackage them as the "true" Sookie Stackhouse story.

Dead as a Doornail

Moving onto the 5th book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, we get a "build up" book. Does everybody remember Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where the movie was a total kick ass thrill ride, but it didn't move the story at all forward from the end of Goblet of Fire? Yeah, Dead as a Doornail is the same concept. Plotlines from previous books (actually quite a few of them) are being brought together to warm up for something big, instead of actually moving anything significant along.

So how does this book fare in the usual plusses and minuses I find in these books?

Sex: Sookie has sex with no one! Huzzah! I'm have totally resignated myself to the fact that these books cater to a primarily female audience, and are, more or less, romance novels. As such, I am actually beginning to enjoy the show True Blood more and more, as it doesn't have the same issues, and actually I think presents the story as a whole a lot a better.

Fantasy Creatures: No one new. Ever since Charlene Harris introduced shapeshifters (technically introduced in book 1, but outed in book 2), she's been stuck there more or less, just thinking of new animals for the shifters to turn into. Still a lot of werewolves in this book, although there's a heavy focus on the Hotshot Werepanthers community, and the introduction of Quinn, a weretiger.

Mystery: If you never believed me before, then you've got to believe me now. The mysteries in these books are more or less an afterthought. Harris' books have a simplistic formula: present mystery/danger, spend 90% of the book in trivial character interaction, quickly unravel mystery/danger, end book. This is also now the 5th book where we have the whole "Who's really the monster" motif, as for the 5th time (with a bit of complicity from a vampire), the "evildoer" is a human.... well, more or less.

I don't know if I've grown numb to these books or what, but this one was a quick read, and I have no strong feelings either way. With the Harry Potter "buildup" movie, I expressed some discontent to the fact that it didn't advance the plot significantly, but books work differently than movies, and I think this book actually served it's purpose to push me onto the next one, as I certainly couldn't just stop at this point.

Green Lantern: First Flight

I've never been a big fan of DC comics characters. Most of them are so godlike in their powers (Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter) that there is no tension, no drama, no question that at the end of the day the good guys will carry the day and all will be blase. Batman of course is exempt from that list, because he's just a really smart, athletic, rich guy, so he's okay. Green Lantern? Well, I'd probably include him on the "bad" list as he essentially manipulates reality, but I've always liked his costume, and sometimes that's enough to at least peak your interest in a character.

As such, when I heard about the new Green Lantern animated movie, which is supposed to peak our interest for the upcoming Green Lantern film starring Mr. Ryan Reynolds, I was intrigued. Although most recent DC animated films I've seen (except for Batman) have been pretty bad, I had high hopes for this one.

I was a midge disappointing. First and foremost, this is supposed to be Green Lantern's origin story, but they might as well have caused it the "Sinestro" story. Hal Jordan is such a 2-D character and the writers of this movie are in such a rush to get to the action that his origin is completely ludicrous. When he comes across the dying alien who bequeaths his ring to him, he doesn't even blink. Huh. Dying Alien? I see that stuff every day.

NO YOU DON'T!!!!! In fact the only shock and awe we experience through Jordan's eyes is the alien food they feed him which looks like someone puked on a plate. So, here we have a chance to humanize a fascinating situation, and surprise surprise, DC wastes it.

The second thing that made me laugh was the fact that Sinestro, AS A GOOD GUY, was named Sinestro. What not just name him Captain Evil? I mean seriously, I have no issue with Sinestro as a name, but who would not suspect a guy named Sinestro of eventually betraying the Green Lanterns? They really should have given him a "normal" name and then he could call himself Sinestro upon his rebirth unto evil. Kind of like the Keldor/Skeletor situation over in Masters of the Universe.

After that, the movie becomes a good action movie, although it's incredibly noticeable just how 2-D Jordan is, and how much this story is really about Sinestro. The epic final, inevitable battle between the two is an example of the DC "godlike" issues I talked about earlier, as Jordan actually pulls two moons out of their orbits in order to defeat Sinestro's power source, the Yellow Lantern. It's a fitting climax, but a very real reason why I prefer Marvel comics characters almost any day over DC.

I went ahead and bought this movie for $20 or whatever, and while I don't regret it, nor would I recommend anyone like myself on the fence do the same thing. Ask yourself a question, are you a DC animated movie fan? If not, then pass. If you answered yes, I would still rent this movie first before jumping into an immediate buy, it's simply not of the quality of another animated movie I purchased earlier this year like Hulk vs.

3 out of 5 stars.

Best in Show

I was introduced to this movie (read: heard of) a few years back when my brother raved about it. He's a really big fan of Fred Willard, and I will give him that, as Fred Willard is very funny, and shines especially bright in this movie, which is saying a lot, as his part is rather small, and he's surrounded by a ton of comedians in this movie.

My brother and I however, despite the fact that Netflix says we have a 66% commonality rate, find that it's odd "middle" movies that make us mesh so high. My favorite genres are action and comedy, and he tends to go for the more artistic/classics. As such, he find movies like "Being John Malkovich" funny, and I find them unfunny pieces of crap. And I'm sure he feels the same for a favorite comedy of mine like Ace Ventura or something.... Translation: we never take each other's advice on movies seriously. To prove that point, here I am 9 years later finally taking my brother's advice to see this movie.

It's a mockumentary movie, similar to Spinal Tap about dog showers and their lives. Each of the characters humor comes more from the raging stereotypes they play: The closet lesbian, Beauty and the Geek, the flamboyantly gay guys, the redneck... not to say that any of these aren't funny, but nor does the formula seem to hold weight as the movie progresses. All these people have in common is their love for showdogs. This movie seeks to poke fun at people like this, and I don't know why I feel this way after this viewing, but the people that are laughing need to take a look at themselves.

This isn't a movie like Spinal Tap, where the characters are just ridiculous and are meant to be mocked. Yes these characters are meant to be laughed at, but as far as due to their love of dogs? I don't know. Is it a little weird and insane? Yes, but so isn't playing 20 hours a day on World of Warcraft or Twittering all the time on your cell phone. I have a sense of humor, I realize the oddity in sticking up for these characters that are meant to be mocked, I just think a "look at the freaks!" mentality which pervades this film just can't hold water, at least not in my opinion.

You will laugh when you see this movie. It's mostly subtle in keeping with the mockumentary motif, but Fred Willard is pretty over the top (in his great subtle way), and there are the GAP couple, Meg and Hamilton Swan who have a fairly funny cathartic trek through the movie with their dog.

Basically similar to Ghost in the Shell, I expected a lot more. While my brother's opinions aren't often followed, they do carry weight with my obviously, as I expected a cinematic masterpiece and instead got a passable comedy movie, which is good for a chuckle or two, but is quickly forgotten.

3 out of 5 stars.

Being Human

The last, and final of my summer shows, is Being Human, a show on BBC.

Very cool concept... basically, what happens when a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost all try to live together? Wackiness you say? Well, your wrong.

This show, while it has it's comedic moments, I think aspires more to be a drama. For the first few episodes it seemed to amble around to nowheresville, but now that some interesting relationships are being fleshed out (no pun intended) between the roommates and several outside characters it seems to be a little more interesting.

And now my problems with this show.....

Well, arguably the main character is John, the vampire (left). His supporting cast revolves around the vampires who made him way back in World War I, as John tries to, well, be human, and the other vampires would rather just fully embrace their darksides and kill, kill, kill. There's some back and forth tension there, and the most recent episode I watched, seems to have John given up on humanity after he had to turn a young boy into a vampire because of people's ignorance.
My beef with John is that he seems to follow NO vampire rules. What did the vampires say to Blade: "All of our strengths, none of our weaknesses?" John sleeps pretty much whenever he wants... doesn't really need to drink blood anymore (this is okay, it's neo-vampiric canon that older vampires need very little blood), but what really pisses me off is that sunlight is just bright to him. Awwww. Yeah, seriously... his reaction to the sun is your reaction to the sign on a bright day... you squint. Lame.

The second character is George, the Werewolf (middle). This character is pretty true to werewolf mythos, although he can "cage" himself on the full moon by locking himself in a room. Don't you think a wild beast would wanna get out no matter what?
George met a "friend" one episode named Tully, who claims to be a werewolf. He sure knows his stuff, but we never actually see him turn. Anyhoo, him and George eventually become close friends, despite the fact that Tully's a mooching douche, and eventually George sees the light, and Tully is gone. And buh-bye interesting character. This show is classic for this... only showing supporting characters for one episode, which I think is why it's taken so long for them to pique my interest.
George is now dating a girl named Nina, who is recurring, and recently revealed some pretty intense past physical abuse....we'll see if that goes anywhere, especially considering she has no idea George is a werewolf.

Finally, we have Annie, the ghost (right). When the show starts, she has no idea what happened that caused her death, she's just depressed because she's lost her one true love Owen, and no one can see her. While she pines for Owen, at least George and John can see her, so they all become friends.
Annie spends most of the episodes as a very minor character, especially because for a while it seems like she can't even leave the house. Under stress from Tully hitting on her, she finds she can, although she still doesn't do it very much. Her only starring episode in the beginning involved meeting another ghost at a club, Gilbert, who might as well be the ghost of Ian Curtis he reminds me so much of him. Anyhoo, Gilbert gives any a brief insight into the ghostly world and it's rules, which is very interesting being as this "monster" is the least explored of the three, especially as I'm concurrently reading the vampire and werewolf filled Southern Vampire Mysteries. Anyways, Gilbert also tells (and shows) Annie that each ghost is here to fulfill a purpose, and then they can be free to die. While Annie tragically thinks that her purpose is to "love Owen", a "beyond" induced flashback reveals that Owen actually killed her. While she hasn't acted on it yet, in the most recent episode, by finally splitting from Owen and destroying all their memories (in the form of photographs), Annie has gained corporeal form. Vengeance me thinks is nigh?

This shows alright... I don't like some of the liberties they've taken, especially with vampire rules, but it's a nice twist on your 20something drama, and if the supernatural is your thing, it's worth a peek.

Ghost in the Shell

Ghost in the Shell is one of the Anime classics like Akira, that anyone with even a bit of geek cred has at least heard of. And just like Akira, all I could say about Ghost in the Shell was that I'd heard of it. Well, 14 years later now I can say I've seen it.... and my world is unaffected.

One branch of Manga that I've never liked is the very technological branch. This is the same reason why my favorite cartoon growing up was He-Man, and not Transformers or Voltron. As such, Ghost in the Shell was going to lose me rather quickly, being in that end of the spectrum.

Essentially, it's a quasi-luddite story, with a cyborg wondering what it is to be human. In this sort of dystopian future, either people have figured out how to hack the human brain (the titular ghost in the shell being the human soul or independent unique thought) or humans have gotten computers put in their brains... I was never really clear which it was. Anyhoo, besides that we have also created cybernetic technology, whether a person needs a replacement/enhancement here or there or the whole entity, it can be done.

The main character, Motoko Kusanagi, is a cyborg who's not really sure where her humanity begins or ends. She's pretty sure she still has a human brain, but also acts oddly for a cyborg, enjoying diving, and just generally questioning life. While on the case of a ghost-hacker known as the Puppet Master, Kusanagi meets, and opts to bond with him creating a whole new life form, which is part cyborg, part human, part information? That's more or less what I gathered.

This movie has some very interesting queries into the nature of life... not quite going for the "us versus them" of Terminator, but nor is the human/machine relation quite all sunshine and lollipops either. The action, when it happens, is pretty cool too, with people using Big Ol' Guns, which cause massive damage to machines, and even more massive damage to the poor hapless humans who get in their way. It seems however that the two just can't quite mix seamlessly.

While I never hoped for an interruption of one for the other (too much action, get introspective or vice versa), I almost felt like I was watching two different movies. Perhaps it was the confusion for a lot of it (just grasping the general plot can take some time) or something else, but this movie is not the "legendary" status I supposed it might have been. Then again, perhaps it never really stood a chance in my eyes to begin with.

3 out of 5 stars. It'll make you think, and the action's decent but at the end of the day, it's just another movie.

Dead to the World

The 4th book in the Southern Vampire mysteries is starting to make me think my penis is a liability.
My common complaint with all the books up until this point has been the fact that they actually seem to be cleverly disguised romance novels. Club Dead and Dead Until Dark have pretty much followed the same formula mystery happens, supernatural beings are introduced, Sookie has a lot of sex with one characters, mystery is solved. Fantasy characters, pretty cool.... constant description of sex... not so much.
Let's face it, guys and girls tend to have a different medium for idealized sex. Guys it's porn, which is just hardcore sex, and girls it's a more romantic version... i.e. romance novels. Charlene Harris as a female author is obviously writing with the intention of having romance a prominent aspect in her novels... which as a guy bores me to tears.
So, I have to skim through that crap, or hope for novels like "Club Dead" where she actually refrains from having sex with someone for the entirety of the novel. The bright part that I've enjoyed about these novels is the fantasy characters, it's been interesting seeing them........... and THAT'S why this novel was so disappointing.

Charlene Harris is obviously all about the Vampires and the Werewolves/Shapeshifters, as this novel is dominated by them. The new fantasy addition is witches, which although they start the novel as a formidable foe fall apart suddenly... kind of like this book. Basically, a witch, cleverly named Hallow, wants to take over the vampire's economic empire in Shreveport, and attracted to Eric, wants him to be her lover (again, the feminine influence). Eric saying no, she erases his memory as a way to deal with him... he escapes although amnesiac, and is rescued by Sookie (who has lots of sex with him... blergh) and the vampires and the weres team up with some Wiccans to take on the witches.

Okay so let's break this down:
1) MORE constant sex this time with Eric. Hell, female readers of this book are starting to go all Twilight on these books, divvying up into Team Bill and Team Eric. Bad.
2) New fantastic creatures in this book are witches... who are shapeshifters and drink vampire blood, so they're not really adding much new to the table, and their spells pretty much suck... a "keep away" spell? A cloud so people can't see and breathe..... when fighting vampires? Amnesia? C'mon, hurl some fire or something.....
3) The other new character is a Fairy. She doesn't look like what you'd think.... she looks more like a supermodel, but little else is said about her besides that vampires LOVE fairy blood. This character seems almost thrown in as an afterthought.
4) Same deal with the end fight. An utter bloodbath, which definitely appeals to me as a guy, but again a lame ending for these witches who seem to never have posed any real threat at all.
5) There is a side story regarding Sookie's brother Jason getting kidnapped and bitten by a werepanther for revenge for stealing his woman.... but again, almost an afterthought.

NOW, there are two ways to interpret this: These books are getting worse, or these books are getting more series oriented, i.e. all the "afterthoughts" are actually just building towards future books in the series. Personally I fell if she'd just stop wasting time with all this relationship crap, which, let's face it, takes up most of the book, she'd have time to explore some of these things in ONE book... of course how would she sell more books?

I guess my real issue is that I'm probably reading the wrong type of book, I should be reading action books, but while I'm reading these books, I feel that Harris needs to be doing a better job keeping me gripped for one book before she tries to sell me on the next one.