So I have FINALLY had the chance to watch the Coraline movie, my first 3D movie no less, and what a visual treat the show is. Naturally as movies go, it’s a riff off the original book, with several changes made for length and such, but overall I think it was a stunning 3D interpretation of the text.
Some thoughts, spoilers below:
Peter & Max - A Fables Novel
After 12 Vols and many more chapters of Fables, creator Bill Willingham has released the first Fables novel, and surprisingly, it’s not about some of his more popular Fables characters like Bigby or Flycatcher, but 2 characters that according to Willingham, have only appeared in one panel each in the entire Fables run so far.
The titular Peter and Max turn out to be Peter Piper, who picked a peck of pickled peppers (when did he appear in Fables? I need to do a read through!) and his elder brother Max Piper, who grows up to be the Pied Piper of Hamelin and makes his single panel appearance in 1001 nights of Snowfall, in a story within a story about Frau Totenkinder.
Overall I really enjoyed this story, I could not stop reading once I started, tired as I was after an entire work week! It’s a little bit odd in the beginning, because Fables has always been told through comic format, and to see those familiar scenes rendered in prose form needs some getting used to, but once things get into full swing it’s told in usual Fables format: a little dark, a little funny, sometime violently, but always interestingly.
Spoilers below up to Fables Vol 12 and the entire Peter & Max novel! Gogogogogo read it first before clicking through.
Look what came in the mail!! Of course I’ve already watched the entire S1 twice through by the time this was delivered(once the first time around, the second time to write up my epi reacts), but honestly, I could watch this over and over… Click below for my thoughts on the DVD, spoilers abound for S1 of Leverage!
My first thought? Why is Gina Bellman/Sophie wearing silver tights on the cover?! Oh wait it’s just the lighting effect… and Eliot honey, why are you looking menancingly in the distance while everyone is looking straight ahead?
Ack so much for my comeback…
HP6 was long in coming – it’s been 2 years since the last movie and probably more since my last reading of the books, so I was going in quite ‘fresh’, so to speak, in that I purposely decided against re-reading the books prior to catching the show. So many times, wondrous books are let down by films because of the expectations you have after reading.
But overall, especially considering that I watched the 153min movie from the front row, HBP was an enjoyable show. Rather different from the other shows – like all HP movies, it suffers from having info-compression, a necessary evil to allow the film not to be overly lengthy, but this one did a pretty good job in mood and setting. One might translate that as ‘arthousey’, with lots of silent moments, but the dialogue when it was there was quite funny as well (MICHAEL BAY, TAKE NOTES ON DIALOGUE THX).
More comments below, spoilers abound!
Oh, Transformers 2, I tried so hard to love you, or even just like you. But… oh man.
I LOVED the first Transformers movie. I bought the 2 disc DVD and I watched all the extras, found the easter eggs. and I even listened to Michael Bay on the commentary. So now as I contemplate, post sequel, I’m finding it really hard to say many nice things about the show.
The reviews were scathing and bipolar – either quite good or abysmal half-star ratings, so I was still skeptical about it. Perhaps expectations were high and it just wasn’t as good as the first one! But oh, it wasn’t even just that it wasn’t as good as the first one, this was just… not good.
More below, spoilers galore so keep out if you don’t want to be spoiled! I’d advise against watching it, but I don’t think people would understand my pain if they didn’t, so take your chances.
The 13 Clocks - James Thurber
I first heard of this book from Neil Gaiman’s Blog, where he highly recommended it as one of the best stories he’s read and how he enjoys reading it out loud to his children. Also, he wrote an introduction for it, and really anything endorsed my Neil Gaiman is always something worth checking out in my opinion.
No idea where that original post is though, but you can always view Neil’s blog here.
So I head to Kino and get myself a copy. It’s a hard cover book, no dust cover, and I finish off this quaint tale in my bus ride home. It’s not a long tale, but it’s of a nice length for a relaxing read.
The 13 Clocks is a fairytale of sorts, it tells of a prince in disguise trying to win the hand of a princess from the hands of her evil uncle with the help of an unlikely and scatterbrained benefactor.
It seemed like a modern sort of story, then I check trusty wiki and find out the story was written in 1950?! Wow. I think the hallmark of truly great stories is that they transcend the ages and even reading it now, doesn’t feel dated at all.
I won’t spoil the story by summing it up, but I highly recommend this to anyone who like a light enjoyable read. Now I’m going to read it again and I’ll come back with my favourite quotes soon.
In the final book of Harry Potter, JK Rowling makes reference to a story called ’The Tale of the Three Brothers’, a series of children’s stories written by a Beedle the Bard. It’s is one of several well known wizarding children’s ‘fairy tales’, a story referencing the ‘Deathly Hallows’ that Harry has to search for.
At the end of 2007, JKR handwrote and illustrated just 7 editions, 6 of which she gave to friends and family, 1 of which she put up on auction to raise funds for charity. Luckily for all of us, Amazon.com was the one who won the auction, and they kindly shared pictures and content with the public at large.
However, they decided to raise even more funds and decided to publish it in versions for the masses. There’s the collector’s version, which looks like a beautifully crafted book straight out of a magical chest/old archive. I love HP but I don’t have that kinda fanaticism, so I sprung for the cheaper version (at 25% off at my fav book store Kinokuniya when I bought it , great deal), the Bloomsbury hard cover edition:
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
It’s a pretty small book and a pretty simple one featuring 5 short stories and has an intro by JKR as well as afterwords and footnotes by Dumbledore himself after each story. Overall it was a pretty light and fun read. More below the cut, spoilers!
My first book review! Before i discovered the wonders of TV serials, books were my first love. I discovered the Fables series quite by accident really, I was looking for new material to read (re: obsess over) and I’d been hearing interesting things about ‘Fables’. What piqued me was that it took these well known story figures and turned them into whole different characters by meshing their lives together, and giving them new pasts and presents. I love the ‘other POV’, the story that could have been/actually was and stuff like that.
Fables Volume 11 - War and Pieces
War and Pieces is Volume 11 in the ongoing Fables series, and collects from issue #70 – #75. In Kingdom Come, we see Boy Blue and Rose Red work out their relationship, how Cinderella would kick Bond’s ass and Fabletown finally wages war on the Empire. Massive Spoilers, proceed only after reading.
