Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Casino Royale
****½ Casino Royale. Action/adventure.
Directed by: Martin Campbell.
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench.
This finally got to the AAFES circuit, and we saw it at the Hercules on Ramstein. It was still packed, but a much better theater than the Nightingale, and much less hectic.
There was a huge amount of controversy in fandom surrounding Daniel Craig as the new James Bond, most of it negative, and mostly centered around his appearance. I've mentioned before that I'm really not a visually-oriented person, so maybe that's why such objections never made any sense to me. It's vastly more important to me that the actor is convincing in the role, and Daniel Craig fit this role in this film very well.
Of course, Casino Royale is a different sort of Bond film from the most recent ones, and substituting Daniel Craig's James Bond for Pierce Brosnan's really wouldn't have worked. Nor would Pierce Brosnan's James Bond have worked in Casino Royale.
As for those who complain that Casino Royale is mucking around with the tradition--yes, this is vastly different from Die Another Day. But this is not the first time the franchise has shifted direction. It's happened pretty much every time there's a new Bond, though it seems to have been a more gradual shift from Moore to Dalton to Brosnan. What makes it more acceptable is that Casino Royale takes place at the very beginning of the Bond mythos, so even if one doesn't view the movies as disparate entities, it's believable that when he first became 007, he was rougher around the edges than he was later.
Casino Royale shows the very beginning of James Bond--how he becomes 007. The start of the film was a dizzying blur, partially in black and white, depicting his earning that 00 status (two kills required--the first one's the hardest). It was brutal and stark, and only the distance created by the film techniques kept it from being too graphic.
There's a requisite busy action scene, with a chase scene that was so long and involved such Jackie-Chan-worthy stunts that I started laughing, earning a glare from my older son. Whoops. No, I wasn't loud. I'm not one of those people.
But then we get to the meat of the movie, with Bond against Le Chiffre, a terrorist financier who's also an inveterate gambler. Bond's mission is to join the high-stakes game and win--or rather, keep Le Chiffre from winning, bankrupting him, and forcing him to accept the government's offer. Enter Vesper Lynd, the treasury agent who comes along to ensure that Bond isn't wasting the government's money.
You can tell it's been a long time since I read the books, because I kept hearing her name as "Vespa", which made some of the jokes a little nonsensical.
It's not a spoiler to say that Bond falls in love with her and she eventually betrays him--after all, James Bond cannot have a HEA romantic ending, particularly not at this juncture, because we know from earlier films that he's single. Don't try to sort out the timelines--it'll give you a headache, particularly if you try to reconcile Judi Dench's M with Goldeneye.
All in all, an exciting film. A change in direction for the franchise, to be sure, but one that was necessary, I think, to re-energize the series. I'm looking forward to Bond-22, whatever it is.
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Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, ActionAdventure
Labels: 4.5 stars, action, Movies
Obituary quiz
A Breath of Snow and Ashes
**** A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon. Historical fiction.
Historical fiction? General fiction? It's really not romance anymore. If you ask me, only the first book, Outlander, was romance, but nobody's asking me, darnitall.
And while we're on the subject of things nobody's requesting my opinion on--is this not the plainest, most makeshift cover? I have the hardcover, and it's just really dull. Light gray, plain font. I'm the first to complain about cheesy covers with those shaved-chest cover models (okay, maybe not the first), but surely there's something between embarrassing and something this boring and... well... unprofessional-looking.
On to the book. A Breath of Snow and Ashes is the 6th book in the series that begins with Outlander. I suppose you could read this without having read the rest of the series--but why would you want to? The vast majority of my enjoyment in reading this book came from being invested--for over 15 years--in the saga of Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser and James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser.
If you've somehow managed to avoid hearing about this series, Claire, an English nurse in WWII travels back in time via a stone circle to Scotland, just before the 2nd Jacobite rising. There she meets, falls in love with, and marries Jamie. Now, in the 6th book, they're in America--North Carolina--just before the American Revolution, and once again, Claire knows what's about to happen, but is powerless to change anything in a more than individual way.
I'm not really going to say anything about the plot because at nearly 992 pages, there's not one overarching plot covering the book. I'm guessing that it simply covers a time period, and that the event at the end (no, I'm not going to spoil it, though if you look through the Amazon reviews, you'll find what it is easily enough) was the point Gabaldon wanted to reach by the end of this installment. Unfortunately, most of the action was concentrated at the beginning of the time period covered, and toward the end of the book, weeks and months got skipped over to jump ahead to the prescribed date of the climax.
Pretty much every sort of plot thread you can think of in immediately pre-revolutionary America gets covered--from the fascinating but dangerous dilemma of how and when to change allegiances from the Crown to the Colonies when you know what's going to happen, to a disease epidemic, to the plight of women alone at that time. There's the uneasy melding of different nationalities and religions, the heartbreaking story of the effect of birth defects at that time, the changing relationships with the Indians, and a creepy but strangely sweet 3-way romance.
We catch up with almost all the characters from previous books, find out some of what happened with Young Ian, learn who really fathered Jem, discover more time travelers, and see Roger find himself.
And then there are the inventions. I suppose it's inevitable, and that if I were to travel 200 years into the past, I'd probably be trying to recreate as many modern conveniences and life-saving practices as possible, too, but it got a little old. Claire by herself stuck mostly to the medical and sanitary side of things, but now that Brianna's settled in, she's putting her engineering skills to use and inventing things left and right. Poor Roger's only contribution to modernity is to carve "vrooms" (cars) for the children to play with.
I'd be vastly happier with a 300-page episode every 1 or 2 years that followed a single plot thread from beginning to end than these 1000-page meandering tomes every 5 years or so, but the stage was set from the beginning, so there's no point in changing it now. I'll continue to read the series as long as it lasts, and no doubt I'll edit the books in my head, but I'm not going to complain too much, because I do know what to expect.
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Categories: Books, 4stars, HistoricalFiction,
Labels: 4 stars, books, HistoricalFiction
Monday, February 26, 2007
Double Jeopardy
***** Double Jeopardy. Drama.
Directed by: Bruce Beresford.
Starring: Ashley Judd, Tommy Lee Jones.
I watched this video while exercising of a period of a couple of weeks. It's one of my favorites.
Life is good for Libby Parsons (Ashley Judd)--until she wakes up on a boat, covered in blood and finds herself in prison for the murder of her husband, though his body's never found. She gives custody of their son to her best friend.
Then the friend stops bringing her son to visit, and Libby finally tracks her down on the phone...and hears her son saying "daddy." Of course, nobody will listen to her claims, so she takes the advice of a (literal) jailhouse lawyer who tells her about double jeopardy--the guarantee in the Constitution that you cannot be tried for the same crime twice. Libby does her time, gets out on parole, and sets about looking for the man who set her up. She's thwarted and later abetted by Travis Lehman, her parole officer (Tommy Lee Jones).
I'm dubious about it working this way in real life--that even if someone faked their own death, it wouldn't give a person who'd been convicted of their murder a free license to kill them in cold blood. They couldn't be tried for the same crime twice, but I'm guessing the courts would find some way around it: maybe it wouldn't be considered the same crime--possibly "murder of X on Y date by Z method" as opposed to "murder of X on A date by B method," or maybe they'd just be charged with another offense. I can see some leniency, but not a complete free pass. ETA: Here's the Straight Dope on the subject if you're interested.
Be that as it may, it's an intriguing puzzle, but it really doesn't matter to my enjoyment of the movie. I love the premise, and the revenge story is very sweet. The character of Libby goes from fairly bland, contented wife and mother to a determined woman with a mission, and I enjoyed seeing her find her inner strength. Lehman likewise finds more in himself than he thought he had--he'd been steadily going downhill and was cynical and unsympathetic. Libby's determination inspires him to go from sticking to the black-and-white of his job to taking a stand and risking everything for what he thinks is right.
This is one of those movies where justice prevails in a way we wish it would in real life. Real life's messier, but in movies like this, the bad guy gets his just deserts in an utterly appropriate way.
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Categories: Movies, 5stars, Drama
Labels: 5 stars, drama, Movies
The Book of True Desires
***** The Book of True Desires by Betina Krahn. Historical romance.
Or, maybe more precisely, historical romantic adventure. Think The Mummy or Indiana Jones.
Cordelia O'Keefe is an adventurer. To fund her next expedition, she's forced to turn to her last resort--Samuel P. Blackburn, the wealthy grandfather who'd disowned her father before Cordelia was even born. Samuel P. is a scheming manipulator, and he agrees, but only if she'll find the "Gift of the Jaguar" for him. And she has to take his fussy, sarcastic butler, Hartford Goodnight along to report back to him. He entrusts the funds to Goodnight so she's not tempted to ditch the butler somewhere along the way.
From then on, it's page-turning adventure, with one thrilling situation after another. The quest takes them from Florida to Cuba and then to Mayan ruins in the jungle. They encounter revolutionaries, gun-runners, and natives, some who help them, and some who want to beat them to the treasure and will stop at nothing to get it. They also encounter venomous snakes, quirky donkeys, and a mysterious jaguar, along with an incredible variety of flora.
Goodnight turns out to be much more than Cordelia expected, and their romance grows along with their understanding and respect for each other.
I really cannot recommend this book highly enough--it's just so much fun! The characters and the situations and the settings are so vivid that it's like watching an adventure movie even for someone as non-visually-oriented as I am. In fact, The Book of True Desires would make a fabulous feature film.
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Categories: Books, 5stars, HistoricalRomance
Labels: 5 stars, books, HistoricalRomance
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Academ's Fury
***** Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher. Fantasy. Re-read.
This was a morning read with the boys. There was one point at which I was reading this in the morning, Cursor's Fury had just arrived from Dog Eared Books' virtual signing, so I was reading that, and then critiquing chapters of Captain's Fury... well, it got a little disorienting.
Academ's Fury takes place two years after Furies of Calderon. Tavi is at the Academy (hence the title), still fury-less, training to become a Cursor, and working as the First Lord's page. It's finals time, and as his final exam as a Cursor, he's to catch the Black Cat--a thief who's been plaguing the capital but is inexplicably able to avoid the watch furies. He has other finals as well, which should be enough pressure, but then the First Lord collapses, and Tavi has to get him aid while keeping it a secret to prevent the realm from falling into civil war.
Meanwhile, back on the
And then the Marat arrive, led by Doroga, a small band who've survived a battle with a foe called the Vord. Cross the Borg with zombies, maybe, and throw in some horror movie spiders, and you'll get an idea of what they're up against. Oh, and it seems that one of the three Vord queens is looking for Tavi.
So now Isana has a bigger mission for her trip to the capital--alert the First Lord to send aid to the Calderon Valley, and warn and protect Tavi, while Bernard and the cursor Amara stay back in Calderon to fight the Vord there.
We're introduced to Tavi's new friends, the powerful but tormented Max and the weak but wily Ehren. And we're introduced to the Canim, huge wolf-like creatures.
The story is exciting and fast-moving, and the boys were never happy when we had to stop reading for them to get ready for school. The book, as do the others in the series, alternates between story threads, and Jim has a habit of leaving readers on a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter, which could make one skim through some threads, if they weren't all so exciting.
In addition to the book-long plot of the fight against the Vord, there are also dramatic developments in the ongoing series plot. Tavi's growing both physically and mentally and gaining confidence through his Cursors training, as well as making important friendships and learning to wade through the politics in the capital.
We learn more about the other races on Carna, and through them, more about the Alerans. And some events occur that will have repercussions for years (and books!) to come. It's all just so tightly written that everything has a purpose, even as its telling a thrilling story.
The boys, unsurprisingly, loved this, and we're now reading Cursor's Fury in the mornings. They didn't even want to consider reading anything else.
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Categories: Books, 5stars, Fantasy
Labels: 5 stars, books, fantasy
Friday, February 23, 2007
Visions in Death
**** Visions in Death by J. D. Robb. Futuristic romantic suspense. Re-read.
This is the 19th in the series, and not really one of my favorites. But hey--it's a long-running series. Some stories are bound to be better than others.
There's yet another serial killer on the loose in mid-21st-century NYC. And yet again, the victims' eyes are removed. Eve & co. are getting nowhere, when a psychic shows up and reluctantly offers her help, saying she'd dreamed about the murders. Eve is just as reluctant to accept that help, preferring solid police work to woo-woo stuff.
Of course there are some wonderful moments in the ongoing series story--including a dinner party given by Charles & Louise and including Eve & Roarke and Peabody & McNab. And those moments are why even though the mystery in this book isn't one of my favorites, it's still a must-read.
It's just that I'd be perfectly happy if I never read another serial killer book again. Ever. I think that's probably why I went from reading lots and lots of romantic suspense to reading hardly any--I overdosed on those darn serial killers. I guess I wouldn't mind if a serial killer were just a little different for a change. But it seems that 99% of them are killing their mothers. I blame Hitchcock.
****spoiler**** The end did redeem the story quite a lot, but for me, it was too little, too late. I was, I hate to say, bored with the story by the time the twist came, so I wasn't as excited by it as I might otherwise have been. Whether the fault is with the story itself or simply with my disenchantment with serial killer tales I have no idea. ****
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Categories: Books, 4stars, RomanticSuspense
Labels: 4 stars, books, RomanticSuspense
Night at the Museum
**** Night at the Museum. Comedy.
Directed by: Shawn Levy.
Starring: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Carla Gugino.
We saw this at the Nightingale theater at Ramstein, finally, after two aborted attempts. And we discovered why we never go to the Nightingale. It's located right on the edge of the housing area and a lot of people walk there--or send their kids there by themselves. And as it's not a very big theater, it gets packed. It's completely full a half hour before the movie. Gah. We won't be going back there until we forget the horror of it.
Anyway, it's about Larry--a down-on-his-luck inventor (Ben Stiller) who needs a steady job so his ex-wife will allow his son to continue visiting him. So he takes a job as a night guard in a museum, only to discover that at night, everything in the museum comes to life.
Once that happens, it's a pretty.... hmm... how to put it. I swear, I need to take a film class so I can learn the vocabulary of how to describe things I notice. It feels denser, somehow, after that point. Before that, the story was thin, and I wasn't all that involved with the stereotypical divorced dad who's a kid himself and the stereotypical divorced mom who's an uptight control freak. And the stereotypical kid, too. Maybe once we got into the museum stories, it felt richer because we'd left the stereotypes behind.
Plus, then we got Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt and Owen Wilson as a teeny tiny cowboy, and they were both wonderfully fun.
Mostly, though, it's that the story didn't really start until Larry got to the museum. Not only is that where all the action happens, but it's also where Larry discovers his self-esteem and determination, and where he loses and regains his son's respect, and where he falls in love (with a history student played by a very convincing Carla Gugino).
The ending had a couple of really cheesy moments that didn't make a whole lot of sense, but that wasn't completely unexpected.
All in all, a fun family movie with enough action and silliness for the kids and enough story for the adults. I just wish they'd condensed the first part by two-thirds and used the time gained to expand the later story lines.
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Categories: Movies, 4stars, Comedy
Labels: 4 stars, comedy, Movies
Once Upon a Pillow
**** Once Upon a Pillow by Christina Dodd and Connie Brockway. Historical romance, contemporary romance.
This one had been sitting in my TBR pile since April 2004 when I saw Dodd & Brockway at the big pre-WRW retreat signing at TTP.
It's very cute, a series of novellas connected by "The Masterson Bed." Laurel Whitney is losing her job as curator of Masterson Manor because the historic manor house has been sold. So on the last tour, she takes a little extra time to tell the tourists about the various couples who've... er... coupled in the massive Masterson bed.
The first story takes place around 1200 AD, when a knight comes home from the Crusades to a wife he doesn't really remember marrying and who's not at all happy about his return. This was a clever, surprising story with monks trying to justify urging the heroine to murder her husband. I'd have liked to read a full-length version of this story, because it's just so unusual. (Or maybe I should be checking out Brockway's other books.)
The second story, set in the 16th century, involves a captive bride--a more common historical romance plot. The hero abducts the heroine, thinking she's her cousin, who he wants to wed for the money to save his estates. Unfortunately, the cousin has led him on and orchestrated the whole thing to be rid of her poor relation. I saw the twist coming almost from the beginning, but it was fun nonetheless.
The third story is a Regency tale, and is a comedy of misunderstandings. The heroine believes that the hero is trying to capture her brother and get him hanged for smuggling. The hero believes that the heroine's odd behavior is the result of her attachment to the suave criminal he's really chasing. Again, it was a little predictable, but fun.
The final story is Laurel's own, and it's been running throughout the book. There's the romance, which was absolutely predictable--it was obvious from the beginning who had purchased the manor and how that was going to turn out--and there's also the mystery of who's been stealing some of the antiques out from under her nose. That part surprised me.
All in all, it was an entertaining read, and a clever concept. I'd still really like to explore that first story in more depth, though.
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Categories: Books, 4stars, ContemporaryRomance, HistoricalRomance
Labels: 4 stars, books, ContemporaryRomance, HistoricalRomance
Thursday, February 22, 2007
BTT #7
Writing in Books, Part 2:
- A couple weeks ago, we asked about how you take care of your books, with one of the questions asking whether you write in your books. Well, what about books that are meant to be written in? Like, say, a journal or diary? Do you keep one? Obviously, if you're answering this, you have a blog--do you just let your blog be your journal? Or do you also keep one for private stuff also?
- I do have a lovely little Reading Notes journal. But it's solely a list of books I intend to buy and book/author recommendations. I don't keep a journal or diary, except for my blog, and that's mostly about my thoughts about what I read.
Labels: BTT
TT #42
By which I mean U.S. military, and Germany. And my own personal experiences. YMMV.
- MLE. "Military Life in Europe." I probably shouldn't include this, since it's not around anymore, but since it was the inspiration for the post, I will. MLE was a comic in the Stars & Stripes about the quirks and absurdities of military life in Europe. It was irreverent, and we could all relate. Until some pin-headed general decided it wasn't good for morale.
- SOFA. Not just living room furniture. It's the Status of Forces Agreement. If you listen to the AFN commercials, it's about when and how local laws apply to servicemembers and their families. But it's also about why you can't get baking potatoes in the commissary and other esoteric things like that.
- COLA. Cost of living allowance. Go ahead. Click on the link and read the page about how it's computed. It's really amusing. Live here long enough and you'll come to the same conclusion I did: COLA = however much money is left in the pot at the end of the month. Seriously. It varies from month to month regardless of how much other factors (like the exchange rate) stays the same. However it's computed, though, it's generous.
- VAT. Value-added tax. Sales tax, essentially. Now that Germany's is 19%, those VAT forms that get us out of paying it come in very handy. They've become much easier to use. Time was when you had to go to a store, get a bill, take it to the VAT office, pay the VAT office for a check that you take to the store, and then you get the item. Now it's a pain for the stores, because they've got to fill out the forms, but it's easier for us.
- USAREUR driver's license. If you're a civilian vacationing in Germany, you can get an international driver's license for $10 or thereabouts, and you can drive. It's just a translation of your stateside license. If you're here with the military, though, you need a US ARmy EURope license. Used to be, the failure rate for the test was 75%. Now you have to take a 4 hour class before taking the test--not that that would help at all if you haven't studied the manual. The link takes you to the manual, by the way. Check it out. The signs test is a pain--not because the signs are hard to understand, but because you have to distinguish between different names for signs that have essentially the same meaning. And the right-of-way questions will make you nuts if you start second-guessing yourself.
- OHA. Overseas housing allowance. Go ahead. Play around with it a bit. It's a mess. Granted, our house sucks. But we're 600 euro under our ceiling. That's about $800 less than the maximum amount they'll give us for rent. They figure the ceilings by surveying what people actually pay. Unsurprisingly, the ceilings go up every year. Ours has gone up 250 euro, or about $340 in the 2.5 years we've been here. I seriously think the system needs a drastic overhaul, and that's only partly sour grapes.
- Stars & Stripes. Our "hometown" paper. Kind of news lite, a cross between a local small town paper and USA Today. It's got a bit of a bias, but sometimes it'll surprise you.
- AAFES. Army and Air Force Exchange Service. Granted, AAFES, as the commercial we see every time we go to the theater, "goes everywhere you go," but overseas, it's your ticket to Americana. It's PXs & BXs (post exchange or base exchange--depends on if it's an army post or an air base), but it's also gas stations, movie theaters, beauty shops, fast food (including Burger King, Popeyes, Taco Bell, & Baskin Robbins), optometry shops (you do not want to pay German prices for glasses!), DVD rental, car dealerships, etc., etc. Contrary to popular civilian opinion, however, AAFES isn't like Wal-Mart. It's not necessarily cheaper. Take movies. I can always get DVDs cheaper online, but it's hard to beat the AAFES theater prices of $3.50 for adults, or $4 for a first-run movie.
- APO. Army/AirForce Post Office. A blessing, and a PIA. It's worlds better than it used to be, back when it was APO, NY. Six weeks was a not unusual amount of time to wait for a package to arrive; letters took around two. So if you were ordering something from a catalog, you had to figure at least two months to give time for mailing the order form to the company and then for the package to arrive. I'm not sure why the name changed to APO, AE (Armed Forces Europe), but it tends to confuse people who aren't familiar with it. The USPS delivers the mail to New York (in the case of AE, anyway), and then the military postal service takes it from there.
Public service announcement: Sending something to an APO address is just like sending it to New York. The only difference is that you'll need one of those little green customs stickers.
- Mailroom. This is where you pick up your U.S. mail. It doesn't go to your house, not even if you live on base.
- Gas Coupons. You can buy gas at the AAFES stations on post, but especially with the decrease in the number of bases in Europe and the increased security at the ones that are left, a lot of times it's just easier to buy gas at a civilian station. You'll want the coupons. AAFES charges a little more than the average stateside price for gas, but in Germany, gas costs over $5/gallon (it's priced in euro/liter, but that's what it works out to). You take the coupons to any Esso station (or a BP or Aral on the Autobahn). Fortunately, these days, it's easier to find one that's open than it used to be.
- AFN. Armed Forces Network. Also, sometimes, AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio and Television Service). I'm not sure what the distinction is. AFN TV has one broadcast station, and a handful of premium stations that you can get if you're willing to shell out upwards of $600 for a satellite dish and decoder. (I wasn't. We got a civilian dish instead so we could get German programming.) The good thing about AFN TV is that they'll show a series straight through, from start to finish, with no reruns or weeks off, and no switching the schedule around in the middle of a season. The bad thing is it's a crap shoot what shows you get, and the best ones, of course, go to the premium stations. There aren't any commercials, and this used to be very cool, because you'd get an extra couple of shows a day squeezed in there. Then some pinhead decided it was too confusing for shows not to start on the hour or half hour, so now we're innundated with PSAs and "Pentagon Channel Updates." AFN radio tries to be everything, so depending on the time of day, it's a country/rock/rap/talk radio station. The good thing about AFN radio is that's where you'll find out if there's a snow day for the kids.
- DoDDS. Oh, okay. It's DODEA (Department of Defense Education Activity, not Department of Defense Dependents Schools). Everybody still calls it DoDDS. It's the schools for servicemembers' kids overseas. We've had pretty good experiences with it. The school budget comes from the defense budget, so it's not quite as strapped for cash as most stateside public school districts, although there are quirks. Ramstein American High School is chronically short of printer paper, frex. And discipline, including serious things like gangs, drugs, and violence, is not much of a problem at all. That's because it's the DoD, and they've got regulations making parents responsible for their kids. They can also attract some darn good teachers who want a working vacation in Europe.
Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
- Ms.George: books
- ChelleY: celebrities
- Raggedy: who's working?
- Wacky Mommy: Wacky Dog
- Friday's Child: wisdom
- Susan Helene Gottfried: the end of TT
- Melody: Booking Through Thursday
- Kristarella: Evangelicalism
- Julia's niece Trish
- JohnH985: conspiracy theories
- Gattina: annoying friends
- Retta: continuing TT
- Nancy: the end of TT
- Sparky Duck: what's in a name
- Annie: stuff to touch
- Caryle: books TBB
- Carmen: Pooh Bear's secrets
- Thomma Lyn: random
- Christine's progress on her goals
- Amy Ruttan's RWA chapter
- pictures of Tink
- Candy Minx: hungry?
- Frances: summer
- Gabriella Hewitt: authors
- SpyScribbler: Jack Bauer jokes
- Doug: Keith Olbermann
- what's on Alyssa Goodnight's mind
- You're next!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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Categories: ThursdayThirteen
Labels: TT
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Die Hard: With a Vengeance
****½ Die Hard: With a Vengeance. Action/adventure.
Directed by: John McTiernan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons
Watched this on video while exercising, over the course of a couple of weeks. (I usually only watch a video while doing my evening stretches, about 5-10 minutes at a time.)
The director from the first Die Hard is back, as is the concept of the bad guys being super-thieves. Both of which, I think, make this one better than Die Hard 2. The presence of Samuel L. Jackson doesn't hurt, either.
Cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) is back in New York, but he's suspended from the NYPD and going downhill along with his marriage, when he's called back because some crazy bomber calling himself Simon (Jeremy Irons) has set bombs all over the city and is threatening to blow them all up unless McClane does exactly what Simon Says.
The first thing he's required to do is wear a racist signboard in downtown Harlem. A store owner named Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson) comes to his aid and ends up getting roped into the game as well.
The games were... mostly... fun, but I had a little trouble believing them--it was an awful lot of effort for the small reward of making McClane run all over the city and keeping the cops focused elsewhere. Seems like the same result could have been achieved by just the bomb in the school.
And speaking of school... I was a little insulted that both McClane and Zeus had trouble with the "St. Ives" riddle--didn't everyone learn that when they were schoolkids? One of them at least should have recognized it.
And of course, there was the requisite CB (aka "crazy bitch"), who's pretty much just there for shock value, but since the CB is so awfully common (well, this was 12 years ago, so maybe it wasn't so common then?), the shock value's pretty diminished.
Other than that, though--and those things are easy enough to ignore--it's action-packed, full of twists and turns, and exciting enough to make you ignore how boring those damn stretches are.
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Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, ActionAdventure
Labels: 4.5 stars, action, Movies
Against All Enemies
**** Against All Enemies by Richard A. Clarke. Non-fiction.
I can't give this book 5 stars--horror really isn't my genre, and I'm not a fan of depressing endings.
Richard A. Clarke was a counterterrorism expert who served under 4 administrations--from Reagan through G. W. Bush. Against All Enemies tells about the war on terror, focusing primarily on what led up to 9/11 and the response to it.
Otto von Bismarck said "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made." (or something like that--I've seen it quoted several ways) and that's certainly true in this case. An even better quote might be the daffynition of Politics, n: Poly "many" + tics "blood-sucking parasites".
It's ugly. Very ugly. Politicians pursuing their own agendas, refusing to listen to advice that doesn't fit, being distracted from or prevented from taking action because of politics, etc., etc.
One last quote:
"It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen." ~George E. MacDonald.True, but does it have to be so far in the other direction?
If I had it to do over again, I'd read this in small doses instead of straight through. It was way too infuriating and depressing to read all at once.
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Categories: Books, 4stars, Nonfiction
Labels: 4 stars, books, nonfiction
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
No Regrets
***** No Regrets by Shannon K. Butcher. Romantic suspense. Re-read.
Noelle is a cryptologist, a genius in a very specialized field. But she may soon be an unemployed genius because she's turned down a grant from the military, refusing to allow her work to be used for violence.
David is an ex-elite special forces military officer who's just trying to get on with his life after a terrorist organization called the Swarm killed his wife. He thought he'd taken them all out, but the Swarm is back, and they're after the codes to nuclear weapons, and David's old boss convinces him to come back for one more mission.
Unfortunately for Noelle, the Swarm doesn't care about her principles and invades her house. David rescues her, and the rest of the story is one page-turning situation after the next.
This is Shannon's debut novel, but you'd never know it. The action is flawlessly interspersed with the developing romance between David and Noelle and with both characters facing and dealing with their personal demons. The characters are clear and well-developed. I enjoyed the balance between military officer David and pacifist Noelle, both of whom were portrayed as reasonable people, even though they held opposite opinions.
What grabbed me most was Noelle's intelligence. So many times in fiction, super-intelligent characters are portrayed as functional idiots. They're depicted as being "book-smart" but lacking in common sense, the stereotypical "absent-minded professors." Or the story will say they're smart, but you never see any evidence of it at all. Noelle is brilliant, and she acts like it. We see her both in her element (working on the codes) and out of it (fighting for her life), and her brain's always working. She doesn't become some superwoman martial artist or weapons expert (a romantic suspense cliche Shannon avoids here), but neither is she TSTL--there's none of that "proving her independence" by running into the line of fire crap that always makes me wish the so-called heroine would get shot. In short (yeah, too late--I know), she's a realistic smart person. Not only that, the other characters aren't dumbed down to make Noelle look smarter. Just a really nice, all-too-rare characterization.
There's a sequel coming to No Regrets, titled No Control, but unfortunately, it won't be out until next year.
Note: This book is currently being featured on the Cherry Forums BookClub. Go chat about it.
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Categories: Books, 5stars, RomanticSuspense
Labels: 5 stars, books, RomanticSuspense
citizenship test
| You Passed the US Citizenship Test |
 Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct! |
Woo-hoo! Go, me! Suppose it's because I remember back when my husband took it? Nah--that was 19 years ago.
Categories: AboutMe
Labels: quiz
Saturday, February 17, 2007
****½ Heartthrob by Suzanne Brockmann. Contemporary romance.
This is a departure--a Brockmann book that's not about Navy SEALs. (insert mini-rant about fiction believing that the only people in the military--or at least the only interesting ones--are SEALs)
Jericho Beaumont is an actor who's trying to make a comeback after drug and alcohol addiction. Mary Kate O'Laughlin is trying to produce her first feature film, and what makes it even more important for her--she's also the screenwriter.
She doesn't want to hire him because she can't afford the problems he's had in the past--not showing up for work, or showing up drunk. But in the audition, he is by far the best choice, and, what's worse from Mary Kate's perspective, the actors she wants for the other roles agree to take them because they want to work with the famous Jericho Beaumont.
So she agrees, with stipulations: that he submit to daily drug testing and that he have a "babysitter" 24/7. Jericho agrees to the stipulations because it's the role of a lifetime.
Heartthrob is an intensely emotional story. It doesn't whitewash the problems Jericho faces in staying away from alcohol, but neither does it wallow in them. He's humiliated several times in the course of the story, and much of the plot is about how he deals with that. One of his plans is to pay Mary Kate back for the humiliation in kind--by seducing and then rejecting her--but anyone who's ever read a book can figure out how well that tactic will work.
There's a lot about trust, and for once it's not a matter of characters demanding instant, unreasonable trust. It's about the development of trust.
There's also a sweet coming-of-age secondary romance between the young co-stars of the movie that I enjoyed very much. Character development and growth isn't limited to the two protagonists--the secondary characters grow and change as well.
I doubt Brockmann will get back on my must-buy list any time soon, since I burned out pretty thoroughly on the whole Navy-SEAL-romance subgenre, but I'm not going to avoid her books, either.
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Categories: Books, 4.5stars, ContemporaryRomance
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, ContemporaryRomance
Friday, February 16, 2007
BTT #6
I'm a little late this week--again--sorry about that!
Categories: BookingThroughThursday
So, in honor of Valentine's Day . . .
- Love stories? Yes or No?
- If yes, "romances" as a genre? Or just, well, stories that have love stories? (Nobody's going to call "Pride & Prejudice" a "romance," right?)
- Yes.
- Both. I enjoy the romance genre, and I enjoy non-romances with a "love interest". I enjoy non-romances without a love interest, too. What I don't like is tragic "love stories"--Romeo and Juliet, that sort of thing. They fall in love and then they die. How depressing. I much prefer no love story to that kind.
Categories: BookingThroughThursday
Labels: BTT
Thursday, February 15, 2007
TT #41
- Wry, harsh millionnaire
- Horseman jets off.
- Hairball conman!
- stoneware hogging
- bathed furry horse
- Jean's cow drank.
- Glad faeries jam.
- Run, bean varmint!
- Harm bonier ninjas.
- immoral elf drill
- Jean can ambush.
- Infernal picker!
- Try sunglasses.
Answers: (click & drag to see)
- William Henry Harrison (#9)
- Thomas Jefferson (#3)
- Abraham Lincoln (#16)
- George Washington (#1)
- Rutherford B. Hayes (#19)
- Andrew Jackson (#7)
- James A. Garfield (#20)
- Martin Van Buren (#8)
- Benjamin Harrison (#23)
- Millard Fillmore (#13)
- James Buchanan (#15)
- Franklin Pierce (#14)
- Ulysses S. Grant (#18)
Hint: I only got as far as 1893, so I may revisit this topic later. It was fun.
Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
- Julia: romantic songs
- Thomma Lyn: Appalachian folk beliefs
- Caylynn's trip to Switzerland
- Raggedy: lawyers
- Uisce: favorite presidents
- Carmen: Valentine's Day
- Shannon: headlines
- SciFiChick: snow days
- Annie: romantic gestures
- May: the importance of breakfast
- Dragonheart's Swiss slide show
- Amy: holidays
- Alyssa Goodnight: Seinfeld guest stars
- Frances's friend Heart
- the uncommon Cherry Red
- Crystal is TTC
- You're next!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
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Categories: ThursdayThirteen
Labels: TT
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Anger Management
**** Anger Management. Comedy/drama.
Directed by: Peter Segal.
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Adam Sandler.
We watched this one courtesy of Netflix. This is one of those times when the ending absolutely makes the movie. For much of the movie, I was holding myself back a bit. The situations were funny, but they were extreme, and while I don't mind unbelievable situations in movies, I enjoy them more from a distance. When I got to the end, though, it all made sense, and the movie went from a 3-star, average comedy to a 4-star comedy/drama.
Dave (Adam Sandler) is on a plane and people start completely overreacting to his simplest request, accusing him of being belligerent. It escalates, and he finds himself arrested and sentenced to anger therapy with Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson). Again, things escalate, and Buddy ends up moving in with Dave and shadowing him everywhere, even moving in on Dave's girlfriend (Marisa Tomei).
I started out the movie being angry on Dave's behalf, then gradually became irritated with him for allowing all these things to continue happening to him--in retrospect, it was a very effective bit of filmmaking, because that's exactly what I believe the audience was intended to feel.
Adam Sandler was believable as the mild-mannered, put-upon young businessman. Jack Nicholson, however, seemed way over the top, until, as I said, the end, at which point he seemed perfect.
Much fun, and better than I expected. It was a good way to spend a family evening, and even engendered serious conversations about the management of anger.
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Categories: Movies, 4stars, Comedy
Labels: 4 stars, comedy, Movies
The Forever Kiss
****½ The Forever Kiss by Angela Knight. Contemporary paranormal romance.
Valerie Chase is an orphan. Her parents were brutally murdered by vampires when she was 12, and she barely escaped with her baby sister. Therapy's helped her put it behind her, as has the presence of "Cowboy" in her dreams. Initially a reassuring presence, now that she's an adult, he's taken on a more sensual role.
Her one goal in life is to take care of her sister, but she's lost her job as a reporter, so the offer to ghostwrite for an eccentric businessman is a godsend. Unfortunately, that businessman is the vampire who killed her parents and who now wants her.
"Cowboy" is Cade McKinnon, a former Texas Ranger turned vampire by the same master vampire who's after Valerie. Against all odds, he protected her when her family was killed, and now he's trying to do it again. The problem is that he's no match for the 800-year-old master, but he's willing to die as long as he takes the master with him.
The Forever Kiss is full of tense action and wrenching emotion. The master is a wonderfully amoral schemer--realistic characterization for someone who's been more powerful than everyone he's met for 800 years. Valerie has to come to terms with her protector being a vampire--the very thing from her nightmares--and even worse, falling in love with him. And Cade is just heartbreaking, unable to see a future for the two of them.
Of course, as it's an Angela Knight story, the sex scenes are very sensual, and an integral part of the story.
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Categories: Books, 4.5stars, ParanormalRomance
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, ParanormalRomance
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
**** Stuart Little by E. B. White. Juvenile.
I'd never read this book, so when I found it among the kids' books, I decided to give it a shot. And yes, I feel guilty for not having read it to my kids when they were small. Not to worry--I read to them a lot, just not this one, possibly because I wasn't familiar with it myself.
I'm sure everyone already knows the plot--my ignorance notwithstanding, it is a classic children's story. It's not the same as the movie, by the way--which I haven't seen, but I've heard about.
The Littles' second child turns out to be a mouse. The story tells about his struggles living as a mouse in a human household, and then about his adventures when he leaves home to find his bird friend.
It's very much a product of its times--written in 1945, it's a completely different style from most current children's books. The language isn't dumbed down for children, nor does the story have a sugary-sweet ending that seems a requirement nowadays. At the same time, it's not a story for adults. Stuart is obviously meant to be identified with by young children, and his adventures involve situations and emotions that will be familiar to them.
I do wish I'd read it to my kids when they were small. Maybe I'll hang on to it for eventual grandchildren.
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Categories: Books, 4stars, Juvenile
Labels: 4 stars, books, JuvenileFiction
Soul Quiz
| What Your Soul Really Looks Like |
 You are a wanderer. You constantly long for a new adventure, challenge, or even a completely different life. You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. Your feet may be on the ground, but your head is in the clouds. You see yourself with pretty objective eyes. How you view yourself is almost exactly how other people view you. Your near future is a lot like the present, and as far as you're concerned, that's a very good thing. For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust. |
Good grief! How did they get this from those wacky questions? It does describe me pretty well, but I'm still skeptical.
Categories: AboutMe
Labels: quiz
Shadows Linger
****½ Shadows Linger by Glen Cook. Fantasy.
I'd read the first book in this series, The Black Company, several years ago. I wasn't blown away by it, largely due to expectations: it had been recommended as a vampire tale, and I spent much of the book slightly disengaged, trying to figure out where the vampires were. Still, I liked it enough to get the second book, which had been hiding in my TBR pile until now.
All of which is to say that I didn't remember a thing about the first book when I read this, except for that vague impression. Even once I'd finished, I still didn't remember the first book. I enjoyed Shadows Linger nonetheless.
The story starts with weak, greedy inkeeper Marron Shed and his mysterious tenant, Raven, who was rather protective over the deaf and dumb barmaid Darling. If I'd remembered the first book, I'd have recognized Raven and Darling immediately, and it would have been a much different beginning to the story. I think I prefer not having known--I enjoyed the mystery and the slow revelation of who and what Raven and Darling were.
Marron is perpetually in debt, and when he asks Raven for help, he gets drawn into a frightening scheme of selling dead bodies to a mysterious black castle that's growing.
The chapters about Raven alternate with first-person chapters from the POV of Croaker, the historian for the Black Company. The Lady's husband, the Dominator, is attempting a return, and the Black Company is tasked with preventing it. However, they're caught between their oaths to the Lady and the Company and the realization that Darling is the White Rose, and working for the Lady puts them on opposite sides with what they feel is right.
Despite the names: Black Company, White Rose, nothing is black and white in this story. Characters do bad things for good reasons, and good things for bad reasons, and all sorts of things in the name of expedience. There's a lot here about finding one's inner strength, and making difficult choices.
I'll be reading the next book in the series--hopefully I'll remember the story once I get to it this time.
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Categories: Books, 4.5stars, Fantasy
Labels: 4.5 stars, books, fantasy
Monday, February 12, 2007
Secrets Volumes 9 and 10
Secrets, Volumes 9 & 10. Erotic romance.
Secrets, Volume 9.
- *** "Wild for You" by Kathryn Anne Dubois.
College intern Georgie gets lost in the Congo and is rescued by a modern-day Tarzan (Mark) who's never seen a woman before. Despite that, he's a pro at foreplay. She helps him remember how to talk; he teaches her about sex.
It gets a little more far-fetched when they get "rescued," with a strange interlude with a native tribe, and then when Mark is reintroduced to civilization.
It's a cute story, but required too much suspension of disbelief for me.
- ***½ "Wanted" by Kimberly Dean.
Dani is wanted for stealing computer codes, and Reno is the FBI agent on her trail. Think The Fugitive. She's innocent, but is on the run until she can prove it. She and Reno have been emailing each other during their chase and have formed a connection.
It's a fun, exciting story, but again, there were some things I just couldn't buy. And the scene where Dani ****spoiler**** gives Reno a lap-dance when she's working as a stripper to get some quick cash and neither of them recognized the other **** just seemed gratuitous and hard to believe.
- ***½ "Secluded" by Lisa Marie Rice.
Quick giggle: this story starts with the sentence "I want your daughter." We just watched The Blues Brothers, and I flashed on the scene with John Belushi in the restaurant.
Nicholas is no longer a gangster, but he's got a very dangerous enemy, so he's come to terms with the fact that he can never have a long-term relationship because anyone he might be close to would become a target. So he has a series of short affairs.
Isabelle is different--Nicholas actually feels something for her. He tries to stay away, but when she's mugged, he rescues her, stays with her until she's healed, then takes her to his secluded hideout, fully expecting to give her up after 2 weeks.
It's a very sweet story, but I really questioned the premise. There didn't seem to be any danger when he was staying at her house, and then at the end, when ****spoiler**** the bad guy was killed, it made no sense that they'd have to go into hiding at that point****.
- **** "Flights of Fantasy" by Bonnie Hamre.
Journalist Chloe has been "invited" on a cruise on a yacht, the Fantasy. Her boss essentially told her to go or lose her job, but she has no idea why, as the yacht's mysterious owner "doesn't do interviews." The plot thickens when she discovers two ex-lovers on the cruise, with orders not to talk to her about why they're there.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story--figuring out what was going on, and just who was supposed to be the hero. I'm a big sucker for intrigue. And there was some pretty steamy sex.
But the hero was a pretty major stalker, which spoiled some of my enjoyment of the story. If he'd even talked to her before, I'd have been fine with it.
- ** "Private Eyes" by Dominique Sinclair.
*blinks* Well. That surprised me. My least favorite story of all 8 in this omnibus, and most of the Amazon reviewers cited this as the best story. How very odd.
I guess the story itself is pretty entertaining--private eye Nikki specializes in catching cheating husbands, and between that and her mother's past, she has a low opinion of men and of relationships. But a mysterious man keeps running into her, and there is a pretty clever misunderstanding-type plot between them.
However. I absolutely could not get past the writing. I wanted to take the author's (or the editor's--I'm not picky) thesaurus away and bury it. Seriously purple prose, and some misused words that set my teeth on edge (the heroine thinking that "her body was scintillating after a night of vivid dreams"? I don't think so.)
- **** "The Ruination of Lady Jane" by Bonnie Hamre.
This was a sexy Regency romance. Lady Jane's guardian has arranged a marriage for her with and old, thrice-widowed man, and she, quite sensibly, IMO, has run off. The guardian asks his younger brother Havyn, who remembers Jane as a teenager with spots (zits, for those of you unacquainted with Regency lingo), to go find her.
He does find her, and she's definitely improved with age. What's more, she begs him to "ruin" her so she won't have to marry the old man.
It's a nice story, particularly if you enjoy the Regency period--it's just a little predictable, also particularly if you enjoy the Regency period. The sex scenes were quite sensual, even though I found the Kama Sutra references to be a little self-conscious.
- ***** "Code Name: Kiss" by Jeanie Cesarini.
Wow. This novella pushed every one of my buttons: spies, and friends turning into lovers, plus a hefty emotional punch. It was well-written, and I was on pins and needles through the entire story.
And of course, the Amazon reviewers hated it. I'm seeing a trend.
Lily is a spy, and her mission is to infiltrate a terrorist camp as a sex slave, make contact with a double agent, and through him get close enough to the leader to plant a tracking device on his skin.
Seth is the agent in control of the mission, which he's leading via video feeds back at headquarters. Both Seth and Lily have a thing for each other, but due to their positions, neither has acted on it.
The story alternates chapters between Seth and Lily, keeping track of the mission time, which adds tension. Lily's chapters are in first person and are very deep POV, which is very affecting. Even though Seth's chapters are in third person, his emotional turmoil as he's forced to watch from a distance as the woman he's realized he's in love with has sex with another man is vividly clear.
"Code Name: Kiss" is emotionally wrenching, and better yet, the sex is an integral part of the story.
I was surprised to see in the "about the author" that Jeanie Cesarini = Jeanie London. I guess I'm going to take those recommendations for Jeanie London's books seriously now.
- ***½ "The Sacrifice" by Kathryn Anne Dubois.
Anastasia is about to become a nun, but she has definite ideas about those vows. She believes that for the vows to truly be meaningful, she has to know what she's giving up. For example, she was raised in a wealthy family, so taking a vow of poverty has meaning. However, she has no knowledge of carnal pleasures, so taking a vow of chastity is, to her mind, meaningless. So she sets out to change that by going to the castle of the notorious debaucher Count Maxwell. It's a bit of a goofy premise, but I do rather like her reasoning about the meaning of sacrifice.
The first half of the story is sensual and sexy, but then it turns into something else. ****spoiler**** a secret baby story **** I found myself irritated that the oddly principled, determined young woman of the first half of the story turned into such a coward in the second half. It ended well, but I didn't quite get over that.
Categories: Books, 5stars, 4stars, 3.5stars, 3stars, 2stars, EroticRomance
Labels: 2 stars, 3 stars, 3.5 stars, 4 stars, 5 stars, books, EroticRomance
