Saturday, December 24, 2011

Review: True Evil


True Evil
True Evil by Greg Iles

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Expectations matter. If Turning Angel and Quiet game hadn't been two of the best books I read this year, I would go easier on this novel.* Oh well. For starters, while the entire setup isn't exactly unplausible, the actual scientific mechanics behind the Sinister Plot are pretty awfully convenient. Without spoiling too much, let's just say that I doubt even someone as supposedly brilliant as the villian could get produce something biological that was anywhere near as precise as it is presented in the novel. Secondly, while the motivations of the main antagostic are pretty thoroughly discussed, the motivations of Thora are treated to about 2 paragraphs or explaination, which is just completely insufficient. And finally the mystery was really too easy to solve, I mean, the villain practically falls into the protagonists laps and all they have to do is realize it (which they do quickly, because Greg Iles main characters are blessed with super human intellect.)**

* I really did enjoy reading this novel. Eldon Traver is a great character. Andrew Ruck is an amazing foil to him and is one of the most delightfully sleazy characters I've had the pleasure of reading about lately. The plot twist about 1/2 way through ratchets up the tension amazingly well, and provides great momentum for the rest of the book, even if it does mostly take the best character out of the action.

** Finally finally, do you really expect me to believe that a brilliant biological scientist would pick an obvious anagram of his name for his cover identity, have mail for that person sent to his primary office, and NOT expect everyone to figure it out immediately?



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Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Movie Review: The Warriors Way

Sometimes I think I like watching trailers better than I do watching movies. Trailers give you a complete story:  the introduction of plot, setting, and characters, the development of same and some kind of climax (although frequently this is a cliffhanger.) all with in the space of two minutes. And when those two minutes are done you are either left with the pleasant sense of anticipation, or the relief in knowing that you just saved your self 2 hours at some point in the future.

Of course, I don't just watch trailer, I also watch movies, which brings us to:


The Warrior's Way

Now, to be fair, there's a lot of good in this movie, and not all of it is on display in the trailer.* On the other hand, without a doubt the best part of this movie is the graphic design and visual presentation, which is shown in abundance in the trailer. 

I keep seeing movies that have fantastic visual design and an absolutely abominable script.** I mean, I nearly stopped watching when Tony Cox shows up and randomly introduces himself as "8-ball" (I'd say, "get it?" here, except that in the film, he has the number 8 painted on his shaved scalp, *sigh*) and proceeds to recite a lame soliloquy about himself which severs no purpose in the film except to make everyone present feel stupid.

On the other hand, the setting looks damn cool. A dilapidated western town, host to a carnival (complete with freaks and clowns galore) that sits at the foot of the skeleton of an unfinished Ferris wheel. It's creepy and cool and works really well.

On the third hand, once you get over the fact that there's so much computer generated imagery that it's difficult to think of this as anything other than an animated film with unusually good motion capture, the action is pretty damn good and lasts a long time (The action starts about 51 minutes in and pretty much lasts the rest of the 1 hour, 40 minute run time.) 

Final verdict 3 out of 5 stars. I liked it, but watching the trailer might have been sufficient.

* In particular, Danny Huston plays his villain with intensity and a gleeful malevolence that was highly entertaining to watch despite the absurdity of the surrounding plot.***
**The most egregious offenders are Rango and Avatar, but there are many others. 
*** This is all the more impressive for the fact that Geoffery Rush is obviously phoning it in completely. Very disappointing; the best actors play these horrible roles with gusto...

Odds and Ends

Actually you can sort of get the idea from this picture. Source wikipedia
Thing 1. The Rock of Ages trailer looks.........terrible.

Source: IMDB

   Thing 2. The Men in Black 3 trailer looks....well....not terrible. Will Smith's mustache on the other hand..........terrible.



Actually, you can kind of get the gist from this picture. Source wikipedia.
Thing 3. I get the sense that they haven't actually recorded the dialogue for Saints and Soldiers yet. Not necessarily a good sign. 

IMDB again.


Thing 4. TV Round up.
Burn Notice, Season 2 is great. (4 out of 5 stars as of 10 episodes in).
Archer Season 1 was amazing. (5 out of 5 stars!)
NCIS Season 2 was interesting, but the ending made no sense. (4 stars, but qualified: they could have done better.)

Thing 5. Very very very much not safe for work (for pervasive profanity, spoken and written), but this video is fabulous. (h/t Pitchfork Media )



Source for video is Youtube (obviously).

Monday, December 5, 2011

Review: Crossroads of Twilight


Crossroads of Twilight
Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Hmmm. Well, the good news is it's not as bad as everyone says it is. The bad news is it's not all that great either.

In quickly scanning the last 10 or so reviews of this book, the complaints pretty much boil down to "it moves slowly" and "nothing happens."

I rather disagree with the latter.* The former, unfortunately, is pretty spot on. The actual problem with this book, as I see it, is not that nothing happens (see A Path of Daggers, which was great) or that it moves slowly (See The Fires of Heaven, which was really great), it's that a couple of small problems dominate the attention of the reader and obfuscate the actual value of the story.

Here's what I mean. Throughout the Wheel Of Time there are a couple of things that happen fairly consistently in each of the books: 1) The prologue visits a few minor or semi-major characters and gives updates on their stories, and usually there's at least one major event that takes place here, which gives momentum to the rest of the book. 2) The book is composed of vignettes that further the viewpoints of a few co-located characters, and these vignettes have a beginning, and middle, and an end (usually a cliffhanger, of course.) 3) There is a major, dramatic, world-changing ending (that usually takes about 80-100 pages).

Here's what happens in this book. 1) The prologue covers 7 characters, and a whole bunch of the characters covered are either showing up for the first time, or have been very rarely featured. After the absolutely breathless conclusion to Winter's Heart, I don't want to know what @#$%ing Rodel Ituralde is doing in $%^&ing Tarabon, I want to know whether Saidin is actually cleansed! So this deals an immediate blow to the momentum of the book.

Then, as indicated in 2) we continue with the mini-novels advancing the story lines or Perrin & Faile, Mat, Elayne, Egwene, and Rand. And most of these aren't bad. Perrin's story moves briskly along, he figures out where the Shaido are and he galvanizes as a leader. Moreover, the fantastic So Harbor sequence shows that Robert Jordan still has some surprises up his sleeve. Mat's story line is equally compelling,** mostly because of his blossoming relationship with Tuon (which is handled much more interestingly and delicately than Nynaeve and Lan's: "oh, by the way, we're in love, too bad we're doomed" from book, uh, 1? 2?) Rand's section is great as always, no worries there. And even Elayne's political wrangling, although short on actual outcomes does a reasonably effective job of discussing pregnancy, leadership, politics, and how the three interact.

The real problem here is Egwene and her storyline. For starters, it's a bad sign when the first thing that happens in your storyline is that someone (in this case Gareth Bryne) says "If you act now, which you have the capability to do all your problems will be solved." and you (in this case Egwene) responds "No, that wouldn't be in character. Let's dither for 200 pages." Now, to be fair, I respect Robert Jordan for this. It certainly is true to Egwene's chracter, and I've even complained (what was I thinking!) about some of the rapid fire decisions made by the characters (well, Rand) leading up to the finales. (Books 5 *AND* 7 both end with what amounts to "suddenly, Rand decided to challenge one of the forsaken...".) But the way it's presented, right at the beginning of the Egwene's storyline, really kills the momentum of the book***, so much so that I left off on page 500 for something like 4 weeks.

And finally, remember how I mentioned 3)? The great endings that change the world and leave the reader breathless and wanting more? Well, that's here all right. And it even comes from Egwene's storyline. The problem is, the part of it that's worthy to be called a finale is two paragraphs long. On page 818 of the paperback (out of 822) I still had no idea what was going on, or why I should care. Seriously unsatisfying, especially compared to....any of the other books.

I repeat, there is still a lot of good in here. And there are some remarkable things about this book. For example, both Elayne and Egwene's story lines feature almost no male characters whatsoever. Robert Jordan has blown the Bechdel test out of the water. Moreover, by slowing down the pace of the story, the challenges facing the characters seem more difficult, and thus their struggles feel more epic. I like all this very much. I genuinely think that if the prologue had featured a little more action, if Egwene's storylines had been structured in the novel a little differently, and if the finale were better constructed, that this would have been much more comparable to any of the last, each of which I enjoyed more than this.

* I stand by this statement, however, having started book 11, I was forced to comment: "More happens in the first 39 pages of Knife of Dreams than happens in the entirety of Crossroads of Twilight."


** Except for one minor detail. Remember how in Fires of Heaven, Elayne and Nynaeve join the circus and it's freaking maddening becauwe Nynaeve can't stop thinking about her scandalous low cut dress and Elayne's too tight trousers? Well, guess what, Mat joins a circus too. THE SAME @#$%ing CIRCUS. I would hold this more against Robert Jordan if I wasn't convinced that this was an intentional self parody...

*** Which is too bad, because there's again a lot of good in Egwene's storyline. There are murder mysteries and Age of Legends-esque discoveries! There is intrigue and subterfuge! And the relationship between Egwene and Halima is the creepiest thing in the entire series so far.



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