Tag: ride

Blood Rites

Reviews

Another Dresden book down… and another enjoyable ride.  In Blood Rites we find Harry matching wits with two sets of vampires: the Black Court, and Mavre, are out for blood, while the White Court is both employing him and working against him.

Thomas, a member of the White Court, hires Dresden to look in to some not-so-accidental deaths around the production of some adult films.  Someone is using a nasty entropy curse to force bad things to happen to good people around producer/director Arturo Genosa.  And when members of the Black Court make their presence known, Harry decides to take the fight to them and try to hunt down their lair and kill them while they slumber.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Dresden adventure if things went according to plan.  Six books in to the series, and I am still enjoying them very much.  My only concern is that I hope Jim Butcher does have an end in mind for the troubles surrounding Harry.  I’d hate for the books to go on for twenty volumes and become derivative of themselves like other series have done in the past.

Hancock

Reviews

10 out of 13 nots.
for heroes with problems and problems with heroes

If you loved Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk and want to see another super-powered thrill ride, Hancock is not the movie for you.  While previews and commercials may have made this movie seem like a funny action film about an alcoholic superhero, the truth is that this is a more somber tale about a lost superhero being helped find himself and recover from the mistakes he has made.

Closer in tone to Unbreakable than the more recent superhero fare, Peter Berg has crafted an interesting tale of a superhero who feels the need to save people but isn’t sure why and doesn’t take care in how he does it.  The movie has a few twists and turns, some of which can be seen coming if you pay attention, that veer the story away from being just another action flick.  I really enjoyed it, but I can easily see how others would not.  Dramatic and “slow” in places, it still has good action sequences and moments of comedy.  That said, I was never really at the edge of my seat.

So, enter with an open mind and you may enjoy the film like me, but if you go in looking for Iron Man, I think you are going to be let down.

World War Z

Reviews

On my ride in to work this morning, I turned the last page of Max Brooks’ new zombie effort entitled World War Z.

If you are familiar with Max, it means you have read his other book, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. From his simple descriptions of what a zombie is and how to handle them, Max expands outward to create a world where the zombies have already come, and they have already pushed us to the brink of oblivion, and we have recovered. Ten years after the war with the zombies, the author is publishing a collection of interviews gathered while working on the official government report of the war.

Brooks paints a vivid picture through the eyes of his subjects that allows you to see everything from the common man to the army grunt to the war profiteer, in many nationalities. Whenever I have discussed the theoretical of zombie attack, most people scoff at it saying that it just couldn’t happen. Max’s book illustrates exactly how we could manage to lose to an enemy that is slow and uncoordinated.

This book is truly an excellent read, and well worth the money and the time. Two big thumbs up.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man`s Chest

Reviews

Did you like the first one? Yes? Then you should go see this one too.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is just as good as the first one, the blend of action and comedy with a few nostalgic bits thrown in for those of us old enough to have seen the Disney ride before they began to overhaul it, but it does have one minor flaw. If you have seen the Back to the Future trilogy of movies then you are well familiar with this flaw. Since they filmed movies 2 and 3 at the same time, there are elements of the second film that are clearly setup for the third. In fact, from a purely story and plot standpoint, number two is not a satisfying film because while the story moves along nothing is really resolved.

But the swordfighting and ship combat is as good as ever. Seeing this movie will leave you itching for the final chapter… which should be along for Memorial Day 2007.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Reviews

The Disney theme park ride is good…

The new movie starring Jonny Depp and Orlando Bloom is awesome.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw an action/adventure film in the theater and left feeling so utterly satisfied.

Go see it.

2 July 1998

Random Thoughts

Hrmm… I’ve got that rant waiting to go up but I think I’m gonna hold off for now…
I’ve been making alot of progress on my web page… the Pavilion is looking better (graphics still need a little work)… and I’ve been working privately on my North 5 page… but until I can iron out my new work schedule and all that I’m not putting too much into it. But I will.
Short .plan today… this weekend (or next week after work) I’ll rant anew.
I do have a new section that will appear periodically, but will mostly remain empty…
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Theater Review: Armageddon (or as pronounced by a friend of mine, Ar-Mega-Don… he must be fighting Godzilla). This movie kicks some serious ass. If you saw Deep Impact then you know the plot, only without the underground caves to “save humanity”. In DI they had quite a long time before the comet would hit and they trained and stuff. In Armageddon they get 18 days. And I still hold to my original “before viewing” opinion of these 2 movies… DI had better plot and character developement, but Armageddon was a wild ride with better effects and action, and it wasn’t as much of a downer as DI. Armageddon has you cheering at points, but DI never let you get out of the “we’re all doomed” funk until the happy speech at the end. But back to the movie at hand… Armageddon just kicked ass… it was a ride… edge-of-your-seat, eyes-plastered-open film. See it on the big screen in full Dolby Digital Sound… it’s worth it at twice the price.
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Today’s Song: How Soon Is Now by too many people to name. I borrowed some CD’s from people and some of my own and listened to a bunch of different versions of this song, and it’s all good. First there is The Smiths, the original… then I had the Love Spit Love version from the Craft soundtrack… and there is a version by Everclear on compliation CD that I can’t recall the name of at the moment. I know there are more but I just can’t put them all down in my head. Every version of that song is cool.
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Today’s Movie: No movie today… I saw Armageddon last night, what more do you want from me?!?!