Almost a Review: I Am Legend

To those who have read the book it will come as no surprise that the later half of does not seem to fit with the first half. That's where the plot deviates significantly from the general outline of the story I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. I am fairly confident that even people who did not read this 1954 novel will find it unsatisfying due to this change in tone.

My comparison is to a sugar coated pickle. This starts out as a downer survival story, man against hostile world in a fantasy setting (albeit dressed up in good science fiction apparel). Like a pickle this is not a sweet story and if the movie director or writer tries to bring in too much of a sweeter story it does not fit. It did not have to come out wrong; it could have become a bread and butter pickle, sweet and sour, but it requires it be made that way from the start rather than putting syrup over it afterwards.

I have never seen The Omega Man, the 1971 schlock thriller, but the plot outline on wikipedia seems to show this version of I Am Legend is closer to it than than book. Who knows why writers Akiva Goldsman (Batman and Robin/ I, Robot) and Mark Protosevich (The Cell, Poseidon) and director Francis Lawrence (Constantine) remade a fundamentally flawed plot. But they did along with its 90 degree turn towards a hopeful save the world (off screen) ending rather than what seemed to be happening up to that point. The whole point of I Am Legend up to that point and in the original story is "The last man on earth... is not alone."

There is nothing wrong with going in a different direction than a book, this happens in the making of movies and with some stories it is for the best. Some of my favorite stories would be dreadfully un-commercial and movies have to make money. However they should have done so for the whole movie rather than just the second half. It almost makes more sense to have the movie after a certain point be a hallucination or dream before the end.

Still, Will Smith in this role is quite good. He is realistically shell-shocked and the sort of person who could survive. His mistakes are natural ones rather than random stupidity that so many characters in horror films are compelled to make by the lazy writers. And there are lots of utterly horrifying moments in it where I wanted to get of the theater it was so scary. The scenes of a totally empty New York are... incredible. Fantastic work there that is well used/done. The monsters are not 'disbelief breaking' unrealistic, but they are too fast, too strong, and too durable in retrospect.

I recommend this movie to people who like other survival disaster monster movies like 28 Days Later, Aliens, or possibly even Mimic. With the caveat that all of these are probably better films than I Am Legend. It is not bad, it just is not a movie I would have been happy seeing for full price and so I cannot recommend it strongly.

Almost a Review: Penelope

This is not an incredibly great movie that your life will be incomplete if you do not see. It is, however, a good movie. And it seems a shame that it looks like it will come and go without a ripple in the pond of common culture.

Classic fairy tale curse that goes awry when trying to teach a rich bunch of bluebloods a lesson, in this case a pig face on Penelope Wilhern (Christina Ricci). I am not giving anything away here since this is talked about in the setup of the movie. As is common with cleaned up fairy tales that will be appropriate for sheltered children there is a lesson to be learned, though in a way it is not the obvious one I thought they were aiming for. Which is good, a simple, "you gotta be yourself" isn't really that satisfying.

The weird thing is that unlike other fairytale movies this movie is full of beer drinking and other bad behavior (hence the PG rating) and isn't a schmaltzy as something like a Nanny McPhee. The feel of the silly action and weird characters is the same though. This is not a movie for lovers of splendiferous CGI or makeup, it is just solidly effective.

I recommend it more for adults than I would children, unless you don't mind your children seeing beer drinking, dumped servant girls committing suicide, and mild language. It certainly will not appeal to most teens as they will be far too cynical to enjoy it for as the light romantic comedy confection it is.

I would put it in the same category of entertainment as Shrek, but without the excessive and endless pop culture references. If you like oddball comedy like Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, or Into the Woods you might want to give this a chance. It certainly would brighten an afternoon and I found myself laughing quite a bit with it.

Penelope on IMDB (contains spoilers)

Fashion: Holster Bags

A guy I read, The Flee King, posted a link to Skin Graft Holster Bags as something he is interested in for steampunk costuming. I've worn a holster bag somewhat like those and I find it useful, but difficult to find an outfit to wear with it. Not unlike a woman trying to match a handbag to an outfit, but moreso. On the positive side I think either my single side bag or these items are nearly impossible for someone to surreptitiously fish something out of. But this is because the wearer's arms are mostly down over them and this also makes detailing less effective. If I were to buy one for myself I think I would go for a relatively plain one because of this. And there is the cost... women may be used to $120 a bag to carry things when wearing an outfit without suitable pockets, gut I'm not (the one I have was much less expensive). Lastly I would like to wear this item when it is too hot for a coat and the straps can be uncomfortable in such weather.

My verdict is interesting, but not something I am likely to purchase unless I came into a much, much better job. I also think that such purses suitable for men or women could be better designed. My personal inclination is that the bag might be improved if it was hung about six inches below the belt and secured loosely to the upper leg. This would provide easier access and wouldn't be trapping heat against the torso. Even better from a fashion point of view is that whatever detailing would be visible rather than hidden by the wearer's arms.

My advice to people is that this is an interesting fashion experiment, but only for those who don't mind getting a hairy eyeball or two from people nervous about weapons or punks generally.

Almost a Review: Antique Bakery

This is a manga, but I'm still counting it as a book for the purposes of a count of everything I'm reading in AUC 2762 (CE 2008). Written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga it a light creation about three men working in a bakery. Which, of course, isn't usual since gender roles are very defined and the serving person at a bakery is almost always a female. And they all have an interesting background or past. The chef, who is a gay rake, his apprentice who is a former boxer, and the owner/server, who is a young rich man out to make money. And avoid a job where he has to be clean shaved.

Don't worry about it being too torrid, if Chef Ono were having straight sex the scenes might be rated PG-13, no bits or even clothes off. Out of 191 pages there were two with sex or male-male kissing happening on them. So this wouldn't really be called Yaoi, it is more a compilation of stories about particular social situations found in Japan that happen to intersect in a pastry shop.

I found it interesting to figure out how these three very different men came to be working together and the little side stories that come in for cake and tea. I recommend it to people who like light romance and/or slice of life stories and can stand the right to left page layout of Japanese manga.

Book 5

Almost a Review: Blood Child & Kindred

I read a lot of speculative fiction long after it is fresh. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly does not help me when I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to nominate for the Hugos. Case and point, the titular short story of Octavia E. Butler's collection Blood Child and Other Stories. It is a weirdly gay science fiction story. I don't think I'd ruin it for anyone by saying so as I think it fairly well known given that it won the 1984 Nebula for best Novelette.

On the one hand Octavia says nothing new with these stories. They're all very ordinary science fiction themes. The disease that makes the ordinary amazing. The sort of things that we'll risk for emotional reasons around making our families safe... and to be loved. Genetics and destiny. Yet, there is an extraordinary quality to her writing. I think it would shine through even if I did not know who she was already, very important late 20th century SF writer.

On the other hand her novel Kindred both impressed me with its unromantic view of people, but it was a sort of deadpan magical realism. The fantasy elements are perfectly ordinary and never explained, but not mysterious as it would be in the classic Latin variety of magical realism. I still do not know what to think of them having finished them the day before yesterday and one week ago, respectively. My ability to review falls short of the stories I have read.

But who would I recommend them to? More than anything I think Kindred will appeal to fans of historical novels. A Uncle Tom's Cabin without the stiff language or black and white view of the world. Blood Child and Other Stories might appeal to fans of Bujold's Ethan of Athos or Tiptree's Houston, Houston, Do You Read?. But it is a short collection and I think everyone ought to give it each of the stories a few pages to grab them.

Books 3 & 4

Almost a Review: Sweeney Todd

"Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd
His skin was pale and his eye was odd
He shaved the faces of gentlemen
Who never thereafter were heard of again
He trod a path that few have trod
Did Sweeney Todd
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street."

What a marvelous dark tragedy, this tale of blood soaked revenge, greed, and madness. This is not the sort of movie for those without a macabre sense of humor or the weak of stomach. Indeed it put me a bit off my feed, though a friend reported a perverse desire to have a meat pie after seeing it. I think I'll sleep with one eye open around him. (ha, ha)

I think after listening to the music from the original Sondheim production that the movie would have been improved by some of the big chorus numbers like the one I quote above. Perhaps not all of them, but one to open the movie might have made the opening credits more interesting. But the music was lovely, funny, and the setting marvelously dirty. Like Chicago it takes full advantage of the set and effect tricks unavailable to stage productions rather than just pointing a camera at the same sort of sets that could build on Broadway. Plus everything is marvelously desaturated except the great messy gouts of blood that are both gruesome and almost comical.

Also very easy on the eyes and ears is the new face of young Jamie Campbell Bower as Anthony Hope. He's lovely in a young Irish/English way and I hope that he's good at doing more than just looking soulful and singing as he does marvelously in this film. Johnny Depp is perfectly suited to the titular role and despite not having a huge voice his singing seems just right for his character. All the music and singing is wonderful, though perhaps a touch loud. Not going to replace my cast recording of Lansbury and Cariou, but hearing it again is not at all an unpleasant prospect.

I like it and recommend it to people who like weird and dark movies similar to Fargo or Little Shop of Horrors (without the happy ending). If you are such a person, give it a chance. If you're much more of a light musical fan, you probably will want to give it a pass. The gore, filth, and evil will probably put off people who like their musicals more in a light Music Man mode.

Review: The Social Atom

Mercedonius 2 after AUC 2760, Nones

Mark Buchanan has written an interesting book called the The Social Atom. As with most (successful) social science books it presents a very compelling narrative that carries the reader along to its conclusion. In this case that a great deal of Macroeconomic Theory is no different than other postmodernist theories that are intellectual exercises with of no use in the real world. I don't know that I yet buy the rest of his conclusions about computer models telling us a lot about how people self organize or do not as the case may be, but given the widely and wildly diverging views of economists I suspect he is correct about Macroeconomics being bunk.

Beyond the different results depending upon which way you slice the information problem that can turn up in all sciences modern economics seems not to have much in the way of experimental verification. This is not just a problem of not being able to bring the experiment down into the lab, Astronomy has overcome that, but a problem of basic assumptions of what people are like (rational) and political poisoning of scientific discourse.

I think I may want to get a copy of this book. Though not right away. I'd rather get one used inexpensively. But it would be very useful to me in creating realistic social situations in writing because its narrative rings truer to me than many other social theories of why wealth, power, racism, and so on happen.

Book Count: 2

Review: The Astronaut Farmer

This is a movie that everyone's inner libertarian will enjoy. It is too bad for me that I stole my inner libertarian's gun and shot him years ago so that I could join the human race. But I'm going to have a very fun time reviewing this movie.

This movie has the perfect metaphor for a dream, a big rocket ship built in a barn. Well it is a perfect metaphor for the dream that the title character, Charles Farmer, has or the way that Hollywood writers or NBA stars think of reaching for dreams. Unlike an experimental fighter jets rockets cannot have ejection seats, just wouldn't work. Once lit the dream, er, rocket either goes up just fine or something goes wrong and anyone on board or possibly even nearby dies in the tragic accident. And that's exactly the sort of way that Charles Farmer goes for his dream through this whole movie.

It makes sense that Hollywood writers would think this was a good movie. After all they are living the dream. Each one of them is one of the few who made it into the lofty orbit of the movie system while so many of their comrades failed in their attempt to reach the heavens. So naturally they don't think about, "Well what would have happened if I didn't make it?" If Farmer was just a crazy single building a rocket out on his ranch and going bankrupt as a result of his overspending I probably would not react quite as negatively to this movie, but he has a family. And he has put everything at risk for the his dream, offered up all of their lives on the altar of the sacred dreamer, not just his own.

This movie is the epitome of the selfish, irresponsible idiot who believes in platitudes like, "It is important to reach for your dreams." A sane person who was unhappy with his life would not simultaneously try to keep the life he hates and putting it in hock for a joy ride. But he wants his joy ride in space more than anything and he doesn't even try to excuse it, as NASA does, by saying that he's doing science.

Through out the movie he says he never wanted to be a rancher, that was his father's dream. So why the hell is he doing this? Why not sell the ranch and take the money to start a new life working with Burt Rutan? For that matter this movie seems about three years too late. There already has been private space flight, a fact that the movie just ignores in favor of the tired old plot line of the big bad evil government standing in the way of private citizens. And there are a lot of other tired plot devices that are picked up and toyed with for a few minutes before being dropped without being resolved. The overprotective social worker after the children of the big dreamer she doesn't understand. The menacing government agents using whatever law they can to stop the hero. And, of course, the stupid hyperactive 'news' media.

Now for some physics criticisms and spoilers.

First off he tries his rocket and it fails. That isn't so surprising. The fact that he survives is totally surprising since if there really was enough punch to get him to orbit going sideways across the landscape on that thing would have reduced him to a red smear when he crashed to a stop. Secondly, wasn't that barn just a little to close to the house? Wouldn't a real aeronautical engineer have put it far enough away that if the fuel went up it would not reduce his beloved family home to a pile of lumber? For about five minutes after his first rocket failed I thought Farmer was about to grow up, but no his wife becomes as crazy as him and gives him a bag full of money from another plot device to build another rocket in a unrealistically short space of time.

And for that matter it does no better with his injuries and rehabilitation. In classic Hollywood style he ends up with cracked ribs, a broken leg, concussion and so on, but as soon as he's got the cast off and goes through some training/running montages he's right as rain. As with gun shot wounds apparently there are no consequences to crashing a rocket in Hollywood World.

In short I found this movie to be a big ol' pile of steaming clichés and characters I hated. I recommend this movie to no one.