The Lost Symbol - Coming Soon

For the most part, I have outright refused to touch this book. The Da Vinci Code somehow kept my attention, but I can never get through Angels and Demons. Typically, I stop at the description of the amazingly hot and lustfully lustful female scientist. However, there does seem to be some lulz contained in The Lost Symbol's many, many pages, if I am willing to dig them out. Plus, my library got it in, so it will only cost brain cells and not the ever-infrequent moneys. I will read it! -- or at least I will try.

For now, here is an excerpt from Maureen Johnson's Readers' Guide:

“'Hanging beneath the archway, his massive sex organs bore the tattooed symbols of his destiny.'”
If that is where the lost symbol is, I want my money back."

New Moon Trailer #3

I liked it. I did. It's surprising, but it did come off as enjoyable. Unfortunately, you wouldn't be reading this if it didn't also kind of suck. In some ways. Not all. I liked it... and I hated it. Here we go.

Voice overs. Again, bad, but almost okay for a trailer. My problem is that I feel they didn't really need to explain the Volturi - and especially not with such bad dialogue. If you know me at all, it's likely you know how much I despise Melissa Rosenberg, AKA the screenwriter. Nearly every bit of dialogue we've heard from this movie is disgustingly bad, following, of course, the lead of its preceder. Starting the trailer, Edward isn't so bad. But it gets worse when we go to Bella, and then to hellish depths as we cut to Alice.

Alice. Oh, Alice. I've been thinking, hoping, praying, that this movie would be saved by two people. Those people were Taylor Lautner and Ashley Greene. Alice was wonderful in the first trailer - in this one, it appears she has caught the KStew. Meaning: awful acting, no emotion, and when she seems to try, it has very bad results. "They could kill us all." (ignoring, of course, the fact she can see the future, and therefore see they... don't... die. But, whatever. It's dramatic!) The way this is said, I feel like it should have been accompanied with a hair toss. She does not sound distressed or concerned. She sounds and looks like she couldn't care less and was only worried about how Bella might react. Quite frankly, she sounds like the perfectly stereotyped cheerleader.

By the way. Does anyone think naughty thoughts when seeing Aro twist that man's neck? When they cut to his face?

The logo is shown. Thank God. If it had continued on the path it was going I may have cried. From here, it does get better. Very much so. In the next sequence, we see some awful KStewness, weird RPattzness, and editing that is questionable considering this is a real, professionally made movie.

The effects look much better this time around, but let's face it - they could hardly have gotten worse. I'm loving the effects used for showing Edward's absence, something that nearly everyone was unsure about. Having Bella visually hallucinating definitely works on screen. I know a lot of people don't like Jessica's line, but I think it fits her personality - annoying and vapid. I am a fan. She may be one of the most well-cast characters in the series (which is sad).

The music kicks up, and the trailer switches from decent to good. The cliff seems really short from the angle we are shown, which is kind of pointlessly stupid, considering they CG'd it. But it's not like she's actually trying to commit suicide, so it hardly matters. My inner fangirl definitely kicked up with that awesome clip - Bella's hand brushing Edward's face, causing it to dissipate. I love that so much. I can watch that over and over and over because it's so epicly done.

With Taylor, this is the first shot of him I'm not liking. He plays the nice Jacob perfectly, but like most, I suspected it would be harder for him to do the more hardcore side. I don't think they'll have him be such an... well, asshole in Eclipse because of that. It's good that Bella is basically supposed to be catatonic - it's the only thing Kristen can pull off well. More Alice fail, which makes me cry inside.

The ComicCon clip for Volterra was a blessed gift. All hopes for that scene were killed, because the dialogue is just so very bad. And Kristen is still Kristen and was not recast. I miss the "no Edward don't" from Twilight. It was so much better, so much more powerful. It's amazing how quickly Kristen is able to change octaves in the space of three words.

Victoria falling from the tree. LOLWUT.

Michael Sheen is playing a very strange Aro. I'm not going to decide if I like it yet or not. Laurent is also majorly weird, and the come hither finger waggle is hilarious. The CG for the wolves doesn't seem to be that bad, but the fight with Laurent doesn't look real at all. I love the clip with Bella and Paul, though. That is fantastic, and again, got the fangirl going.

I was in total shock at the Edward-smashing. Srsly, major HOMG. I can't wait to watch it in full, because it looks really good.

And then we hit the second best part of the trailer. "This may hurt just a little." AHHHHHHHH. There are no words. SO. MUCH. WIN. I've been hoping for Dakota since before Rob was even cast for Edward. MAXIMUM EXCELLENCE. Kristen, however, completely kills that high - and the clips accompanying it were useless. I try to pause before it continues to that, because ending with Jane would have been perfect on its own.

To conclude, I have finally been made excited for the movie. Previously, while eagar, it was easy to wait. November seems much further now.

Apologies for the capslock rape.

The Vampire Diaries - Series Premiere

Written September 10th, 2009

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As much as I complain about people not reading the original source material, there’s no way in hell I’m touching this. To ensure I didn’t miss the Supernatural season premiere, I tuned into the channel early. And this crap, as the commercials promised, was, well, crap. So very, very bad. However, if you like watching shows without a drop of originality and enjoy viewing the same things you’ve already seen hundreds of times but, this time, done especially horribly, than this show is for you!

We start off with the patented voice over, and like most voice overs, it gives away too much too soon and immediately makes you bored and annoyed. Once it ends, we see fog! And a happy couple! There’s no chance in hell they’re going to be attacked!

Once they’re finally dead, we cut to yet another cheap plot device. Aw. The poor girl is sad and Oh So Different. No one Understands. She is Alone. Please proceed to the gagging on the spork. After a family kitchen scene that is no different from any other, and a car scene that is, again, redundant, we cut to the high school. Yes, the entire cast is beautiful and looks much too old. Realism? New approaches? Not with this show! Well, it is about vampires. How much can you expect?

Blondes are stupid! The hallways are oddly quiet! And God forbid a bell rings to break up the hour of chatting! Then, our personality deficient heroine who everyone loves sees Him. “UR HAWT ILY.” Yeah, that’s basically it in a nutshell. For the remaining fifty minutes of the hour.

A teacher is ridiculously mean because teachers are Evil. The star crossed lovers stare intensely at each other, and gleeful text messages are sent. Oh dear lord, is it over yet?

The graveyard. A perfect place to move on with your life as you write weird stuff in a journal. You can’t help loving how freaked out she gets over a crow cawing. That never happens in a graveyard! Or anywhere else for that matter. Crows just don’t caw. And the smoke- sorry, fog. So sudden! In the middle of a sunny day! Yes, girl, run away for no reason whatsoever! I’m scared of bad special effects too, but normally I just close my eyes.

And here we hit what may be the most obvious display of bad continuity in 2009. It’s almost as if a strobe light is playing over the two with the way the lighting alternates. Aw, they’re so awkward and cute. I hate them. Can’t wait for the wedding! But alas, blood! And being a vampire it only took him five minutes to notice the decently strong amount flowing from her leg! Yet… she supposedly smells especially potent to him.

…Whatever you say, show.

Blah, blah, blah, more stuff, it’s really not over yet? I can’t remember what goes here, exactly.

I think this is where we are brought to a party. Teenage angst, nameless characters complaining, ect. Again we are reminded that the BFF is psychic. That certainly helps with awful foreshadowing, considering they’ve done nothing short of hit us over the head with a flaming sledgehammer about it. I think the lovers talk about something. Get deep. That’s what the stereotype requires - they must discuss how different they are, while at the same time how they are not. They understand each other! But the vampire boy has some secrets. Special girl tells him her life story while he broods darkly. Someone is attacked, and in the midst of her dying, a football player notices Stephan leaving. Okay. So, he broods some more, now at home, and is given no chance to wonder what is happening before his Ebil Brother shows up. Brood brood brood, anger explosion, pointless dialogue so the audience doesn’t have to worry about thinking.

And then, I think, they go to the hospital. The episode ends with the attacked girl whispering ‘vampire’. Wow! We heard that at the beginning of the show, too! I’ll definitely be back next week!

If I ever considered reading the books, any chance of that was dumped in gasoline and ignited with a blow torch. This show surpasses even the awfulness that was Twilight. It’s probably not fair to judge the books from the show, considering again how bad Twilight was compared to the book, but there’s absolutely no way I can read spend any more time with these people. I’ll gladly stick with True Blood, thanks. You know. The show that is actually good? Yeah. I was both disgusted and highly amused when the credits started rolling, but then Supernatural came on and all was well. (No review. Loved it.) Don’t watch The Vampire Diaries if you value you sanity, dignity, and intelligence, of which they steal away, destroy, and insult.

Catching Fire

Prelude: This seems like the right time to comment about book reviews. I won't be doing many unless they have seriously chasm-like plot holes, as I simply read way too much. I don't want to rip apart a book just because - authors work very hard, obviously, and every single one of them will make mistakes. It's not fair to pick at all of them. Any bad reviews, unless specifically mentioned, are never directed toward the author. The book is a book, the author is a person, and they are two separate entities.

Written September 5th, 2009

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I remember with odd clarity, about a year ago, I was searching through the YA shelves for a book that was a standalone and not in a series, because I was broke. I saw The Hunger Games. I read the description and fell in love - there couldn’t be a sequel to that, anyway! I read the book in a day and saw the words: End of Book I. Ah. Well, all right. That’s fine, but there’s no way a sequel could be as interesting.

I was correct. Catching Fire, while good and almost as addicting as the first, left far too many things to be desired. A disappointment, as I had expected, but even worse than that already low standard.

The thing that bugged me the most was hinted at in The Hunger Games. That Katniss and Gale, two best friends, might actually, suddenly, be in love. This has been my biggest pet peeve in literature for over a year, and it infuriated me more than usual in this book. It wasn't pulled off well at all, having them realize their ‘passion’ when they weren’t even around each other. You could claim it’s the threat looming over their heads, but if so, they should be more worried about staying alive than playing I Love You No I Don’t. I am sick to death of a cross-gender friendship not being allowed because boys and girls can only Love. And to make it worse, it only fed into a badly played love triangle, which I’m not even going to comment on beyond that.

The continuity was awful. All throughout The Hunger Games, we hear about how no one speaks ill of the Capitol inside the district fence. And even after the kiss with Gale being discovered, Katniss spews plans of escape and rebellion without a second thought. Annoying, and, as we find out later, completely pointless. Also, something more obscure but still noticeable. There are specific editors that search for words that can be spelled more than one way and make certain it’s spelled the same way consistently throughout the book. Like blond and blonde. This isn’t exactly the same thing, but the writing regularly switches from saying District 1 to District One. Sometimes even in the same sentence. This really doesn’t mean anything, and I don’t exactly care, but it was noticeable as there was no significance in the change.

The book was clearly filler. Had they cut most of it and jumped into the plot of the third, no one would have known. Taking the victors back to the arena might make people think the author simply ran out of ideas (I don't think so in this case, though), and it was no where as interesting as the first time. Besides that, we’re already halfway into the book when this twist comes up. The first half could have been easily cut if planned, and have more time spent on actually having the arena make sense. This, along with so much of the book, was rushed into and quickly over with. Book montages suck almost as much as movie ones. And it happened so much, even with things we should have seen, like the Capitol tour. And the training. And everything else cut for other seemingly pointless things.

For all we hear about Prim, shouldn’t we see… something about her? No? Okay, then.

The ending. Bad cliffhanger. My reaction was a big ‘duh’ to Katniss, because really, how can you not be expecting that? As usual, I am completely confused as to why she hates Haymitch. It makes no sense to me. There’s no reason to it. Something else this book lacked was tension, because you knew Katniss would get out, and probably Peeta, too. With another book left, more love triangle angst is required. Now he’s been captured and… I don’t care. Katniss will get him back, probably perfectly all right, even if he’s missing another limb. Because that doesn’t bother him in the slightest.

Gale will probably die, because he’s my favorite character and they always always ALWAYS die. And it’ll make room for the Peeta/Katniss Epic Romance™. But here, I am assuming, and therefore have no right to go on further.

A few little things: If they were trying to kill Katniss specifically, there would have been no bows and arrows in the arena. None. Not two! None. That, along with a few other things, made the book very fanfictiony. Unlike the first novel, they never really hunted in the arena, there was no noticeable struggle to survive, and no matter how many times the characters got hurt, they were always still able to do what they needed to do to keep the plot going. Never learned what happened to Cinna - and Katniss stopped caring rather quickly, but in her circumstances I can definitely excuse her. The presents, for all their rarity, kept appearing just in time to keep the characters from doing anything useful. The problems were figured out all too quickly. The Cornucopia? Supposedly a bloodbath? No, it’s the perfect place to chat!

I am definitely still looking forward to the next book. Despite all I’ve said, I did love it, and with it being a filler book, the actual content should be in the next one. This one had no real climax, character development, or anything else, really, but with hope that will be corrected, and at the very least us fans got some extra material.

Why I Do What I Do

I am more than sure my friends and fellow forum members are sick of my constant negativity. To make amends, I have given birth to this blog. My rantings can now be viewed by choice instead of being regretfully stumbled across or force fed by gunpoint. Regardless of how much I may love something, I speak only of the bad in it. Why? Really, I'm not an evil, bitter person using the Internet to make fangirls cry. It's simply because whenever I try to express how I like something, I overuse the words 'awesome', 'great', and 'epic' to tumor inducing proportions. It bores me to write it. It kills people to read it. So instead, I feed on what I do best - snarking.

Eat it or go away.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't like to discuss and debate. I would love to. Just don't through a Twilight fangirl-worthy fit if you disagree. I don't want you looking stupid, you see.

Spoilers: Yes. Read at your own risk, because I won't be saying this again.