Inception (Green)

Calling this movie (Green) isn't enough. I should make a new category for required viewing. If you don't know what (Green) means click here.

It’s hard to write movie reviews for movies that rock. Did you notice that I still hadn’t written one for Toy Story 3 (go see that movie)?

That's because it’s way easier and more fun to point out a movie’s faults then to say what I loved about it.

Inception was my last hope for a good movie. Not just for the summer but for the year. The trailer had me really curious and nervously excited. Could it really live up to the hype?

It could and it did.

I’ve already gone to see it twice. I might even see it one more time in Imax just because this movie would be phenomenal in Imax.

Inception is awesome. A fantastically original story. It’s the kind of sweet story that I wish I had written. It’s the kind of movie people are going to be talking about for years.

It’s about a dream thief named Cobb who goes into peoples dreams to steel their Ideas. That’s called extraction. Inception is the opposite, when you insert an Idea into someone’s mind during their dreams and it’s nearly impossible. You can’t insert a foreign idea into someone’s mind without it’s subconscious turning against you and trying to kill you. But don’t worry when you die in a dream you just wake up…usually.

Confused yet?

Don’t worry. It all works. This movie is loaded with exposition but it is still the most exciting movie of the year. It’s a great example of turning exposition into ammunition.

In fact, the whole first half of the movie is exposition. My brother leaned over to me and whispered, This movie is awesome. It was my second time seeing it and I knew what was coming. They hadn’t even started the job of implanting an idea into someone's mind. I whispered back to him, you haven’t seen anything yet.

By the end there are four different story lines with multiple characters in unique situations, each story is running at a different speed, and what happens in one affects what happens in the others. It’s so complex it’s a miracle that the film makers can pull it off and still make it awesomely entertaining.

My biggest fear when I heard this was a movie about a dream within a dream (it’s no where near to being that simple) I was worried about the ending. If the whole movie turned out to a dream then I was going to be spitting angry.

The ending for this movie is perfect. I won’t spoil it for you but I was surprised that I enjoyed that kind of ending. I would love to story talk it to death but I won’t ruin it for you.

This movie is complicated and it does have a lot of rules to keep track of but it all works. I think anyway. I have a couple questions about the climax but I don't even know what to ask. I'd have to see it one more time to find out if there is a loop hole.

But even if there is the movie is still a must see. And I mean that. You must see this movie. Yesterday I was looking at what movie were coming out in the next little while and I got to next april before I realized there was nothing exciting coming out for a long time. Go see Inception before the movie drought starts.

Plague Ship (Yellow) by Clive Cussler

(Yellow) means this. Only in book form.

There are three different kinds of Clive Cussler books. The Dirk Pitt books, the Kurt Austin books, and the Oregon books. Three series with three different sets of characters (there is some cross over but it’s insignificant).

This is my first Oregon book. I didn’t have any desire to expand into the Clive Cussler world. The Dirk Pitt books and the Kurt Austin books were already so similar that I figured it was just pointless to add another character to the same tired formula.

The formula is this.

Every Clive Cussler book starts out way in the past with some lame ancient mystery. Sometimes more then one mystery. These are always a struggle to read. They are very detailed and their relevance to the rest of the story is very little. For Plague Ship it was almost laughable.

Dirk/Kurt are in a large body of water looking for sunken treasure when they find a someone in distress. The someone changes from book to book but there is always a hot girl involved. They save the hot girl who also happens to be an expert on whatever the villains of that book are cooking up.

The girl helps them through a series of random over detailed usually underwater hardships so that they can get to the villain. The bad guys get more and more far fetched with each book that comes out. Plague Ship is a prime example. I'll get to it later.

The first big event of the book is always the biggest which makes the endings very anticlimactic.

Dirk/Austin are usually beat an inch from their lives by the end of the book. The girl is always there to comfort them and when they end up together she is gone by the next book.

There is always an exposition character who only does exposition. They are the most boring chapters because they just sit around and talk about ocean mysteries. Not as cool as it sounds. Mostly it’s like reading a text book.

That is how to write a Clive Cussler book.

That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy one every now and then. Sometimes I need a mindless action story.

But this Plague Ship book, my goodness. Prepare to suspend your disbelief as I drop a one line synopsis on you.

The bad guys are a group of people who are believe we are breeding ourselves to death so they are going to sterilize half the planet with a virus they found… on Noah’s ark.

I know right.

They don’t get into that stuff heavy until the last third of the book but when they do it slows the book right down. The first 100 pages were a page turner. The last hundred were a struggle to read. Just straight up boring. Mostly because it all revolved around several main characters being in peril and the question was were they going to die or not. I’ve read too many Clive Cussler books to know there was no way he was going to kill a good guy.

But for how horrible the villains were (and I am a firm believer that the antagonist is more important then the protagonist) there were some cool parts to this book.

As I said, this is my first Oregon book and now I know the Oregon books are the most unique in the NUMA world. The Oregon is a high-tech state of the art boat that looks like a piece of trash so it can sneak around the world and carry out it’s missions.

The crew is mostly mercenaries. Going from one job to the other. I thought this was cool at first but then I realized it didn’t mean anything because everyone on that boat has a heart of gold so money isn’t an issue. They always do the right thing, no matter what. A great quality to have but it makes for lame story telling (cause no one is really like that).

The captain is the most unique character. He is a real one legged pirate. But that’s not what makes him unique. He has some crazy prosthetics with hidden compartments that can hold guns and explosives and what not. It's pretty cool.

But the rest of the crew is just toned down versions of Dirk Pitt over and over. There is more of them so the antagonism gets split up between them so it’s not just one guy taking on the world like in every other Clive Cussler book.

There were some exciting chase scenes at the beginning of this book that kept me trapped in the story but it couldn’t be sustained. Just like in past books the most antagonistic part of the book is at the beginning. I kept waiting for a diabolical twist but instead I got the lame plot of sterilizing half the planet.

For this book the highs were entertainingly high and the lows were laughably low.

It averaged out to a normal Clive Cussler adventure.

Don't say the "V" word

By the end of this post the word vampire will be officially retired from my vocabulary. I wont talk about any vampire movies, I won’t talk about vampire books, and when I see people dressed up as classic vampires at Halloween I will pretend that they are just pale people who are overdressed.

It’s going to be a lot of work never using that word again but I’m dedicated.

Twilight (I’m ashamed that word is on my blog) started the “Let’s make vampires lame” campaign but the guy who forced my hand was none other then Big Willie himself.

If you want to read the article of terror click here. But I’ll sum it up for you anyway.

Will Smith plays Cain in the Biblical story of Cain and Able. No wait. It gets worse. There are vampires in this movie.

It doesn’t make sense to me either.

The article doesn’t even say how the vampires will be involved. Does Cain turn into a vampire after he kills Able? That’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that Cain is the modern day Big Foot. It all seems so random. I saw this as someone’s facebook status and I thought it was a joke. I wish it had been a joke.

It’s gotten to the point where the powers that be think it doesn’t matter what the story if you throw vampires into the mix then whatever you are making will be more profitable.

How else could you come to the decision that adding vampires to a bible story would be a good idea?

Now that Vampires are all over the place, now that they have changed from a cool villain to a sparkly attempt at a cash grab, and now that they are dragging werwolves down with them I feel the need to eliminate them from my life permanently.

I will no longer say the “V” word.

Predators (Red)

Ya it’s (Red) but who didn’t see that coming.

Also, (Red) means don’t watch it but if you do plan on watching it anyway I’m just going to say there are SPOILERS AHEAD!

One of the biggest problems with this movie is its level of antagonism peeks in the first act. There are a bunch of people dumped on a planet who are being hunted by aliens who can turn invisible, have heat vision, and laser guns and what not. At first they have no idea what’s even going on. Then they figure out they are being hunted and that no one ever survives. There is no way out of the situation. Bleak. Very high antagonism.

Then every twist in the movie gives them a little more hope. They find a survivor. Suddenly it’s possible to defeat the unbeatable aliens. Then they find out there is a ship. Now they have a way off the planet. Then they find out the aliens don’t get along. Now they have allies.

Ya, I know. Bad things do happen. This is a one-by-one the “good” guys get killed off but that doesn’t do anything for the story and doesn’t really change the level of antagonism either way because everyone knows who’s going to make it to the end.

In a good movie the level of antagonism is supposed to get bigger and bigger not smaller and smaller. Predators starts out with an impossible situation and then clumsily and illogically allows the protagonist to figure out a way to get out.

Kind of.

The worst part is that the movie doesn’t really end. They kill three or four predators (it's hard to keep track of after a while) and then the movie ends. The thing is there are more predators on the way. Early on in the movie the one guy who was able to outsmart the predators and who has been living in hiding for years tells them that when one of the predators dies they figure out how they were defeated and then come back even more powerful.

So I assume that’s what’s going to happen.

The story didn’t really reach a point where everything was solved. There was no absolute irreversible solution to their problem. It just ends. And we are left thinking, “Well wait a sec. They killed a couple Predators and it’s all over? Aren’t there going to be a bunch more coming right away? Why are the credits rolling? Nothing has happened. They are in the same situation they were in at the beginning of the story except they are now covered in sweat and mud.”

And this is a small thing but what the heck was with that song for the credits. I don’t know the name of it but it seems like they forgot they needed a song and just picked the first song that came up on their iTunes. I’m going to go against what Larry David has taught me and give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there is an inside story that I don’t know about.

I’ll be honest. The only reason I watched this movie was to see Topher Grace die a horrible death. By the time it actually happened I just wanted everyone to die. There was no logic to the characters. They just did things that were convenient for exposition.

Also, the predators can turn invisible. How is it possible that even the most BA human can defeat them? They can turn invisible and shoot you from far away. You can’t even hide from them cause they have heat vision. With all these advantages how is it possible that they can still get shanked by a death row inmate? That actually happened by the way.

There aren’t enough good things in this movie for me to recommend that you watch it or even rent it.

Knight and Day (Red)

If you're wondering what (red) means, I'm trying to tell you not to watch this movie. If you need a better explantation click here.

When I go to see a summer action movie with Tom Cruise in it I have certain expectations. One of them is action. The other one is not a bunch of jokes.

And yes I did see the trailer before I saw this movie and yes there are a bunch of jokes in the trailer but I expected a good balance of action and comedy. There was no balance. It was a fantastic disappointment.

This is the structure of this movie.

Each scene started out with some witty banter. They would attempt some jokes, they would try and create some chemistry, the bad guys would come and they would find themselves in an impossible situation from which there is no foreseeable escape. Then Cameran Diaz would get drugged and pass out. The screen would go black and next thing you know they are out of peril and on to the next scene.

Repeat this five or six times and you have the entire movie.

There are two kinds of endings in classically told stories. The protagonist gets the object of desire or they don’t. In summer action movies starring Tom Cruise he always gets what he wants by the end. It’s always a happy ending. We don’t go see these kind of movies cause there is a chance he might fail. We go to see it to see how he does it.

That’s the part of the movie that gets skipped over in Knight and Day.

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are surrounded by gunman and there is no possible way for them to escape. Tom randomly druggs Diaz and she passes out. The next scene shows that they some how escaped from the bad guys but we have no idea how. Instead we are left with the thought, “it would have been cool to see how they got out of that impossible situation but I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with these not-as-clever-as-they-think conversations they are having.”

They are being shot at by an enemy aircraft so they have to run along the beach until they get to the hidden helicopter so they can shoot down the bad guys and run away. Except that Cameron Diaz gets drugged before we can see any of the really cool stuff.

It’s too bad one of the few original stories of the summer is so crappy. There is nothing in this movie worth watching.

The Last Airbender (Yellow)

If you're wondering what the (yellow) thing is all about click here.

The Last Airbender is a bad movie but not so bad that you should never watch it. Just wait for it to come out on DVD.

The boring parts are plentiful. The only parts of the movie I enjoyed were the element bending parts but they can be pretty spaced out. And the space between is filled up with characters talking about things we already knew.

This is the perfect movie to go to if you have a small bladder. You can go to the bathroom multiple times without having to pause the movie; I say pause because you should rent this movie not watch it in the theater. The characters are always talking about what they are doing but they never change what they are doing so they are always talking about the same thing. Over and over.

The acting in this movie is no good. I don’t know anything about acting and I can still tell it’s no good. It looked like the actors were struggling to remember their lines and where their marks were.

But it’s not like they had much to work with. There is zero character development. They try to create an arch for the Avatar but it doesn’t work. They try to create a love story in the final act but it doesn’t work.

The only thing that comes close to working is the fire prince's story but even though that was the strongest character and plot of the movie it still doesn’t work.

The only reason to watch this movie is for the cool fight scenes. And that’s just because they look cool. Don’t spend too much time thinking about why they have to break dance to use their bending powers. If you do you will ruin the only good part of the movie.

This movie only got 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. There is no way this is an 8% movie. It is not the worst movie I have seen this year (that goes to A-Team… so far). I think the main reason this movie got such a bum rap is because everybody likes to hate on M. Knight Shyamalan. This movie is way better then his last few attempts at film making. I'd say it's 30% or 40%.

I enjoyed it enough to want them to make the sequels just so I can see the cancer patient learn to bend more things. Ya, I know, I could just watch the TV show but anime scares me. Their eye’s are way so big and hair is long and pointed in weird directions, constantly wind tousled. Terrifying.

Also, I guess the thing the Avatar fly's around on is cool looking. It's like a cross between the luck dragon from The Never Ending Story and a beaver.

The Saga of Seven Suns, Book 1: Hidden Empire (Yellow) by Kevin J. Anderson

If you are wondering about what that (Yellow) means then click here. I haven't used it for a book review yet but the traffic light system can be applied to anything. My breakfast of Honeycombs this morning was (Green)

So the only reason I bought this book is because it is the first book in a series of seven and it’s spine is bright orange. I saw half a row of bright orange books and decided to stop and check them out. Turns out it was a science fiction series written by Kevin J. Anderson.

Before this book I hadn’t read a Kevin J. Anderson book since I was a kid. It was the Jedi Academy Trilogy and the only thing I remember about it is that I thought it was awesome. I decided I could trust him enough to read the first book in the series. Plus, I was intrigued by the plot description on the back.

Turns out the book was a huge disappointment.

There are some cool things about this book but there are way more bad things.

First bad thing: way too many characters.

For a story like this a lot of characters is necessary. You have humans and these alien allies called Ildiran’s so naturally you will need some characters from each group. But then the humans get even broken down into even smaller groups. The members of the Hansa organization who are kind of bad guys but only to certain people, the Roamers who are a group of space MacGivers who can survive any environment, and the people of Theron who have very interesting skills involving trees. I’ll get more into these people later.

Each of these groups are represented by multiple characters and it seems like none of the characters are more important then the next. In other words, there is no protagonist.

It also makes it hard to even follow the characters, especially the alien ones. Some crazy thing will happen to the alien leader but then you won’t hear from him for a whole bunch of chapters so that by the time you do get back to him you’ve forgotten his whole story line and he becomes less important.

The structure of the book is way off. Too many characters spread out too far. Because there are so many characters it takes forever to get their individual reaction to these awesome event s that are happening. Example:

The book is about an alien race’s reaction to accidental genocide. The aliens are called the hydrogues and they live inside gas giants all over the galaxy. The Hansa accidently destroy a bunch of hydrogues in an experiment to turn a gas giant into a new sun (in the Hansa’s defense no one knew the hydrogues existed).

The accidental genocide happens about twenty or so pages into the book. The hydrogues don’t start attacking people for another 150 pages. That’s a 150 pages of being introduced to a dozen or so new characters.

It doesn’t work.

I’m fine with soft science fiction but there were some things here that even I couldn’t look over. There were people breathing the “air” while mining hydrogen. There is no breathable air in gas giants.

There are other things like this that take away the readers ability to surrender disbelief. I could go into more detail but I don’t want to ruin things for you incase you do decide to read this.

But as lame as some things are in this book there are somethings that I thought were cool.

The space MacGivers, the Roamers, were interesting. Just the way they were able to build something out of nothing was interesting. Too bad the Roamer characters that are featured are way boring and make predictable choices.

The human’s on the planet Theron are also cool. Certain groups on this planet have the unique ability to talk to The World Forrest. They can actually talk to trees. It makes their skin turn green. Not only can they talk to trees but as they spread the trees to other worlds they, who call themselves Green Priest, can talk to each other and relay messages. It a cool idea that adds some uniqueness to this universe.

The last cool thing is these weird insect like robots that are all over the place. There are thousands of them all over but no one knows where they came from. The alien race who built them is long gone. As early humans started exploring the universe they found these robots on random planets. They are mysterious and some people don’t trust them. Their story is interesting and to be honest it’s the only reason I started reading the next book.

Extreem caution when reading this book. It’s not as good as you think but there are good lessons here for you to learn from if you are looking to write your own science fiction book someday.

For starters, Orbit will publish crappy science fiction.

Mystery Beard

I didn’t work for a whole week. I knew I had to take advantage of the situation and get to the bottom of a mystery that has been troubling me for a while now. Is my beard coming in grey?

The trouble is I can’t have facial hair at work. I work in an oil refinery where I need to be able to put on a respirator in case a deadly cloud of noxious gas wants to kill me. The respirator won’t be able to seal to my face if there’s hair in the way. You can’t even get into the refinery if you have facial hair (kind of… but that’s another story).

At most I’ve been able to go three or fourish days before I need to shave. One day on one of these forth days I noticed something disturbing. My hair was an abnormal color. It had been so long since I had grown out my facial hair that I couldn’t remember if it had always been this blond or if I was starting to go grey in the beard. I desperately needed to find out the truth.

A week off from work would provide me with facial hair long enough to get the answer I needed. These are the results.

I wasn’t able to ask a lot of people but my parents say it’s blond. I couldn’t tell if my mom was horrified or excited at the possibility that it was grey. My uncle Jay Dee says it’s blond.

What do you guys think?