A little while back, I found the time to read The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. It helps that they’re relatively short and are fast reads. Collins mixes character and action well, and they certainly are page-turners, as we become more deeply invested in the fates of the main and secondary characters she has introduced.
They are also dark–with each book getting progressively darker and more disturbing. There are a lot of things I liked about the books. Here are five: Continue reading »
I recently saw both the Swedish and English language adaptations of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel Let the Right One In, which I’ll admit that haven’t actually read–yet.
I’ll focus primarily on the English language version, which I saw first, but many of my comments apply to both films. Also: be warned, while I don’t give away any specific plot twists or revelations, some of my comments may provide hints that make it easier to guess at those twists–not exactly a spoiler warning, but just a heads up. This isn’t so much a review of the film, as a commentary on the construct of the vampire and the haunting, poignant, and somehow resonant way in which that concept is treated.
This is the first movie I’ve seen, since Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu, that has sought to evoke the idea that the blood-drinking yearnings of the vampire is just a corollary to the true, profoundly existential horror of such a creature, and the isolation that arises out of its fundamental nature. These aren’t hip, sparkle-in-the-sunlight, hang out with their ersatz vampire family type creatures. Continue reading »
A few stolen moments, sitting on a smoothed out piece of driftwood by the lake, reading my kindle and thoroughly enjoying the sunshine--particularly since the device's display isn't competing with it, but is instead clear and easy to read.
Okay, so the title of the post makes it seem like it’s about five years too late. We all know the Kindle has changed all kinds of games and–for now, at least–is keeping up with the game-changing action, in ways that are sometimes more freeing for authors (in relation to gatekeeper/publishers) and in other ways more restrictive and monopolistic (in relation to choice of distribution channels and options for selling).
Such topics have been discussed exhaustively. So instead, I propose to add to the large body of posts about the personal process of acquiring and using an e-reader–and in particular, a Kindle.
Why the Kindle?
As a Canadian, I did feel a little disloyal. The Kobo touch is a pretty slick little device, and was at the vanguard in its particular form factor. But none of my research (including exploring the device itself on a couple of occasions) seemed to reveal a function that would allow me to make annotations and highlights and then export them and use them elsewhere.* For me, this was important, because I wanted to be able to load up my writing on the device and read it on the kind of interface a consumer would experience–but with the added ability to mark it up so that if I found typos, or wanted to delete things or make notes to self about revisions, then I could do that easily and quickly. Kindle could do this, and nothing I could determine about the Kobo allowed for it (nor Sony etc.).
There’s a lot to love about the breath of fresh air that is the BBC’s redux of the Victorian classic. Here is a short list of why I am all over this latest incarnation of the tactless SuperSleuth and his entourage:
5. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman
The two play their respective roles with conviction. Freeman’s Watson is grounded, polite, and tactful–a fantastic foil for Cumberbatch’s abrasive but charismatic Holmes. As an updated version of the pair, they are simultaneously credible, likeable, and intriguing–in a fascinating kind of way. The pair of them also have fantastic chemistry. Which leads nicely into the next the next thing I love about the show…
4. Bromance… or something more?
The running gag of the show is that everyone assumes Watson and Holmes are a couple. On such occasions, Watson feebly asserts that they’re just friends, and yet… there’s clearly something that runs deep, between the two of them, in a way that you don’t really see in the usual run of “buddy” films and shows. It’s an intriguing undercurrent, abetted by the aforementioned chemistry, that keeps everyone guessing about what, precisely the two of them share, even if it is exclusively at the emotional, rather than the physical level.
Sherlock’s emotional distance from the rest of the word makes his swift and deep attachment to Watson–and the early, instantaneous rapport that somehow, believably springs up between two such differing personalities–all the more fascinating. Continue reading »
My husband and I watched the pilot of the television show “Numb3rs” last night. It’s about two brothers: the older one works for the FBI, while the younger one is a math whiz and a youthful prof at an eminent university. The younger one sees the entire world as numbers, and ends up helping out the older brother in solving a serial killer case by analyzing the data according to the application of mathematical principles.
My kind of show. I love geeky premises that involve the application some specialized skills that others don’t have and require the characters to think through the problem before acting upon it. I also love it when a show sets itself the challenge of being bound by certain concepts or principles that have to be obeyed as part of the crime solving process.
Except it rarely works that way. Numb3rs is a case in point. To disclaim: I’m not a math person. Nonetheless, even I had a bit of a problem with the solution to the pilot (warning: spoilers in the next two paragraphs. Skip them if you don’t want to know specifics about the pilot).
