Dune

The story of Dune is very hard to adjust to. The writer throws all the characters at you right at the beginning and doesn't even try to fill in any blanks that you are missing. Throughout a good portion of the first third of the book I felt like I was missing aspect of the book. As if I wasn't understanding or comprehending plot. Toward the end of the book everything does try back together and I noticed this is just the writing style. This type of fantasy style does not just deliver you answers on a silver platter, you have to involve yourself to speculate. Like from the beginning when the Reverend Mother tests Paul and thinks that he is going to be the supreme ruler; I knew that Paul would end up being so. I love the reality of Dune's universe; that Melange gives certain groups the power to fold space or to give the Bene Gesserits their power. Even on the concept f the Water of Life and how so many have died trying to drink the water. The universe constructed by Frank Herbert is very stable and well thought out to not be broken like so many universes that explain odd happenings as "its just magic". Every strong force has an opposing negative.

Oh when I originally picked this book I chose it because of my interest in sand dunes. What I find most ironic is that the author was influenced by the Florence Dunes; the same dunes I go ATV riding during the summer with my father. I have lived for several weeks in the dunes that the author was influenced by. I have been stuck alone with a broken-down ATV having to walk over a mile to get help and have experienced firsthand the brutality of the hot desert during the summer. Possibly a biased reason why I enjoyed the book as much as I did. Haha.

Blade Runner

An interesting concept for a movie of it's time. Although the director is Ridley Scott haha. The entire movie questions and keeps bringing forth questions about artificial intelligence and what conscious thought is. They are to bring these machines who turn bad offline but some of them even start to develop emotion. They are forced to evaluate many humans to find the replicants, this is how real the machines are made. This poses many moral questions on us today about making machines with artificial intelligence and just how dangerous of an act that would be. Artificial intelligence scares me on a deep level and this movie kept me in this creepy realm of dystopia where we lose sight of the 'worth' of machines as they integrate with it. What is truly scary is that machines could become so powerful, in intelligence mostly, that they could start to eliminate the human population without us even knowing. Just some things to think about ;)

Serenity

Serenity is an overall enjoyable movie. Although there are times when I found myself confused as if there are parts of the story missing that I am not aware of. It wasn't until a good friend of mine, who watches Firefly, informed me that Serenity was actually a movie adaption to fill in the gaps of Firefly did it all make sense. My personal experience contained a lot of ADD and I didn't really understand all too much what was happening other than them saving the girl. I do believe that I would be most interested in watching the Firefly series and coming back to Serenity at a later point and that everything would then come together.

The Color of Magic

Part one went up and down for me. It started out strong but had my intrest dip toward the ending. Several elements of their reality weren't defined, namely the 'summoned dragon', that raised many questions. The fact that they never even answered this question really bothered me but they ended up recovering for this by not being able to get anywhere with the dragon. The dragon merely provided a means of escape for them. The element of 'summoning' wasn't broken. The concept of the disk-world on top of a giant elephants and a turtle was ingenious. Me and my friend joked about how bored the elephants must be. Just a very humorous concept. Part two really started to answer the questions I had a problem with in part one. Why the Octovo was acting strange, what it did and why the turtle changed direction. This movie is very audience engaging and is definitely going in my movie collection because I most likely missed a lot. Oh but I could not get over thinking of "Samwise Gamgey" every time Twoflower spoke. Haha.

Anansi Boys

I must say that this book has some very odd names for the charactors. I am not sure why the author decided to call the main charactor 'Fat Charlie' or the incarnation of anansi 'spider' as if this wasn't cliche' enough. I got as far through the book as I could which is after Spider's visit to Fat Charlie and his disbeleife in the whole thing. The problems I had with the book are narrowed down to the writing style. I tend to get lost in books that neander from the stroyline for seemingly non-sensical thoughts or observations. It's not that I don't enjoy an good scene setup or anything but I have a problem with over visualization or overanalisis of Fat Charlie's thoughts. It's as if the author went too fast introducing who Fat Charlie is instead of letting the audience decide for themselves who this bloke is.

I felt the premise of a African Spider God to be off the wall. I am a little girl when it comes to spiders. I'll rangle snakes, wrestle bears and even ride a puma but if there is a spider on my desk I will freak out. So the premise of having a spider god and it's incarnations within humans just seemed not interesting to me. Although this factor is most likely my prejudice against spiders and this alone. All-in-all if the writing style was more engaging for me I would have been able to finish more of the book.

Being John Malkovich

Wow talk about a movie that makes you think. Going in, one of the first thoughts I had was "what would happen if John Malkovich went through his own portal?" and the movie answered just that. Of course the movie itself wasn't surrounding JM but rather the people involved and man's desire to live forever; to see how far mankind will go to be immortal and how far love really drives us. The move really drives the question "What is consciousness" and the questions around it. If we were to join others in living inside someone else and that person joins the next generation of people are we really living forever? Do we slowly lose conscious control over our 'puppet'? In the end JM didn't seem to understand anything about the process of 'living forever' leading the audience to believe that this was truly JM back in his old self again. If this were the case then the process of living forever is flawed and the only true reality is that you get to skip death.

The nature of the movie has a 'warped reality' from the get-go. Starting out with the weird speech impediments, inability to understand others and the 7 1/2 floor. The distorted reality really set up the movie for the odd nature of the movie, giving it a strong foundation and a believable story. There was absolutely no need or desire to figure out inner workings on the mechanics of anything, which makes for a rather well thought out and amusing movie.

Labyrinth 1986

This is a standard 80's movie. There is something about it that just emanates cheesiness. Although this may simply be my generation of CG and special effects that made me take a step back while watching this movie. The movie is about a girl, Sara, who out of anger wishes her brother to the goblin king. She thinks this is only a myth but soon finds it to be true when greeted by the goblin king. The entire story is about her journey to solve puzzles and outwit the obstacles and creatures along the way. I am a big fan of Mortal Combat and other great movies of the time period, with bad special effects and such, but the plot did not captivate me all that much so forgive me if my reflection on the movie is poor. The problem that I found with the movie was the fact that it had to be a "labyrinth" and had to be a puzzle to be solved to gain back her brother. As if the goblin kind would say "Oh you completed my puzzles. Have your brother back". There wasn't any kind of magical entrapment requiring the completion of the maze or any kind of strong plot-line like such.

Time Bandits

A fun movie for the whole family. The story of a group of little people who go around trying to steal great things from around time. I remember noting that the 'great creator' as well as the bandits didn't have a sense of time from where they came because of how the movie is structured. The bandits would take holes from around time to travel around and these holes only exist because the world was made in great haste. Although the holes aren't repaired for seemingly thousands of years until now (someone's job that the bandits strongly hinted to). So it seems there is another unit of time from where the bandits come from. This is just my speculation on the science of this comedy. The entire film ended up being a test from the 'great creator' so that he would have his creations the ability of free will. That evil had to be invented for free will to exist. The only thing I did not like is how the movie ended off, with the kids without his parents. I want to know more about that.

The Hobbit

I remember being young and watching the Hobbit cartoon. Nothing that I remember of the hobbit is similar to what I just read. I simply couldn't put it down. JR Tolken has a smooth way of translating words into a coherent narrative that kept me glued to the book. Through the adventures of Bilbo Bagins, a nobody from an average town, he goes through an adventure throughout middle-earth in search of great adventure. Of course I don't think Bilbo knew what he was looking for or going after but the things he found along there I am sure he wouldn't trade for anything. Its kind of interesting knowing the future of Bilbo through the Lord of the Rings and then reflecting on his world in the Hobbit, which of course happened first. For example, your not supposed to know how powerful the ring is, how it came into existence from Gollum or anything until the first book/movie. Although even from the Hobbit you can see the Rings effects and how its almost like a drug, keeping Gollum barely alive to helps its own existence. ei: a drug would vanish from the earth without anyone to use it. In the story of the Hobbit though Bilbo doesn't seem to develop addictive personality traits to the ring yet and it becomes an in-expendable tool among his journey to conquer the dragon.

Audition

Audition follows traditional J-horror in terms of it's style. The movie starts out slow, you learn about the characters, grow attached to them, and while you forgot your in a horror movie, it hits you all at once leaving you wondering what just happened. This is the fun of J-Horrors. Although I must admit I became quiet squeemish during the movie and had to walk away a few times. The character doesnt get the choice to take his own life like traditional Japanese culture. The character is left to the hands of the antagonist which in this case was the 'girlfriend'. I found Audition had a sense of irony to it also as the main character faked an audition to force himself to meet someone for his own advantage. Something about this seems wrong and somewhat justifies the end means.

Interview with a vampire

The interview with a vampire I feel like falls along the lines of the traditional, now modern, vampire scene. Vampires are not Transylvanian and scour the night for blood but rather romanticize the living dead. Movies today, even movies such as Twilight, are vampire romances that really took vampires a different direction than zombies. It seems zombies got scarier while vampires got romancier, and you will never see a zombie to zombie romance. Through the interview itself you are able to see the through the vampire's eyes. Even at the age of five she never really has a chance to live life. I kept thinking back to the hit TV series "Dexter" and how the boy must grow up in a world learning to fake emotion to get by. In a similar tone vampires grow up not knowing how to love. I watched "Thirst" first and thought about how this movie juxtaposed vampires thirst for love and blood being one and how you cant have one without the other trying to dominate. Vampires do not just thirst for blood but for many things such as information, acceptance, love and inner-peace which they cannot have.

Thirst

Thirst was a movie that held me in suspense the whole way through. While watching the movie I took note of the director's style of the movie. He enjoyed leaving the audience in the 'final suspence' cliffhanger that many horror movie genres tend to do. Usually at an end of a horror you are left with the protagonist at great loss or met with eternal insanity and as an audience usually left unsatisfied. Several times when watching thirst I felt this way, that the movie were to end but continues to go on in a different light.

Analyzing the movie I want to say that it is split into three sections: The realization, the husband and the rebirth. Throughout these three sections I am completely appalled and grossed out by the true nature of vampirism. It's not so much the blood that makes this movie unpleasant but the way they go about it. (Twilight cant even compare as a vampire series) Seeing vampires drink blood from a cut wrist wound is just disgusting, as well as the many broken petruding bones as well as neck snaps and squirting blood. Cringing only begins to explain the true nature of real-world vampires.

There were several times I found myself rewinding just to figure out what happened. I don't like how the director mixes hallucinations brought on by guilt with many reality elements. I thought that the movie would take a turn at this point and the two wold dwell on the horrible natures they have committed. This moment did soon past and they no longer saw the husband again. Ironically enough I pushed aside the fact that the mother of the family unit was still in fact alive. I combined the movements she was making with the hallucinations of the husband and assumed they were both dead. As an audience we needed more time to process the paralysis of the mother as well as the death of the husband.

Zombie Island

Zombie Island is a story created on a blog. Throughout the reading I keep speculating on how thrilling it would be to keep up with a weekly blog and wait for each section. The true experience of this book format would be to have a story in your life for the next 8 months or so and you would always have something to look forward to. Although I came in much later and was able to read the majority of the book in a week. Even though I am reading old posts I also now have the opportunity to read people's responses and thoughts on each chapter. You can actually see the author taking advice from its readers as the story progresses. A few holes emerged and questions unanswered so the author decided to add 'Easter eggs' in the replies. Not that they are really hidden gems, but I found out from my fellow classmates that not many others read the posts afterwards.

Not all books do this but I'm glad Zombie Island did; creating two simultaneous stories. The undead Gary zombie and the team seeking the AIDS drugs. It's interesting to have two simultaneous stories at one time, you see the destructed world from the opposite point of views. The stories do eventually merge together and when they did I found myself asking 'did the stories merge?' and I was thrilled. I did have a major issue with the book though and this was not having an explanation of how the zombies spread. Zombies eat humans for food, but they don't eat other zombies? If a zombie eats a human how do people EVER get a chance to be a zombie? I also remember reading that zombie-ness wasn't a spreadable disease meaning that zombies were almost like a psychological disorder. I had to block these things out of my mind while reading this book in order to enjoy it. Not that the book defies normal zombie convention, you can make zombies however you want, but there wasn't a cohesive back story tot he zombies and how they really started. A good story but I wouldn't bookshelf it. The fact it spawned from an internet blog though really does surprise me still.

Let the Right One In

The premise of this movie is quiet interesting. It follows a 12 year old boy coming of age when a kid-killer is on the loose. Of course time goes on and people must combat their everyday struggles that face them; for the kid this is courage to stand up for himself. When he meets Eli he is intrigued by her and she tells him to stand up for himself. Only after brutally mutilating the bullies ear does he feel great for what he has done. Eli is proud. Oscar finds out she is a vampire and must kill for blood. She senses that Eli wants to kill too but for revenge, all the wrong reasons. The story concludes when Oscar is confronted by a friend of the bully, possibly brother or relative, and he threatens to pay for what he has done with Oscars life. While he is practically drowning him Eli comes back and helps him win the unwin-able battle.

I feel that I have seen this movie many times before. It seems to follow a standard story-line of the underdog story of a protagonist who can't seem to get with society. My explanation is vague of course but this seems to be the criteria of a underdog story. As for the vampuric aspects, there are two stories going on, the murders from the vampires and the murders that Oscar is following of the kids his age. It is also ironic that the bully he stands up to is related in some way to the murderer of the kids; making him a direct target. I feel this is almost a required storyline for a movie like this, the protagonist must have confrontation with what he is tracking but the way they connected him with the murderer, defending himself from a bully, was quiet fascinating. You can see just how small of a town this place actually is.

The movie is a recent film, in 2008, and has a completely different take on vampires than I've seen so far. Today's vampires arn't Pennsylvanian nor bat-like, but more of everyday people that live among us. Eli shares this quality of living among average people but she, and her father, live in fear of the curse that they have. That they will hurt the people around them. I think this movie was reflecting on the fear of humans living among cursed or demon-like people, that anyone can live among them that can bring them down into a personal hell. The fear of murderers, on any sense, is large among my age groups so this is understandable why the director chose vampires as the conscious entity to live among society. Otherwise Eli and her father would be not accepted by the audience if they were just murderers that liked to drink blood! Haha

Night of the Living Dead

The ending came as a shock to me. Even after all the turmoil and torchure of seeing everyone die around him he finds a way to live. Surviving the night wasn't enough. How can you tell a savior that you are not a zombie? This was the ultimate downfall of man, he is in haste. I am proud of the producer though that he never once had the word "zombie" appear in the script of the movie. This movie is the original zombie movie, people don't have an idea of what zombies are in this time which built up a lot of suspense for the cast as well as the audience. I can imagine seeing this movie in theaters for the first time and imagining 'what the heck is going on?!' and was able to appreciate the vision of the director. With that said zombie movies today are different. The cast tends to know what zombies are from the culture they live in; it's as if you or me were to be attacked by zombies, we would figure it out pretty darn fast. This does take away from certain zombie movies and the director must find new ways to keep me entertained.

I want to comment on a few things I noticed in the movie, one of which being an incorrect discrepancy. The movie takes place in america, at night. The young lady even mentions "its 10 till three" giving us an exact frame of time reference. Although when they watch the television set the government officials, the same one that shoots the protagonist at the end, is in broad daylight. He even comments about 'working for the rest of the day and well into the night' giving us an even stronger hint that he is somewhere where it is daytime. This clearly doesn't match up.

I did notice however that many movies in today pay homage to George Romero by remaking certain shots in their adaption of their zombie movie. The turning of a protagonist against it's own, a survivor being ripped apart in the sea of zombies and even seeking shelter in the cellar of a building are all take-by-take remakes in today's films. Romero came up with the original idea that was so well thought out that you can see the fan-boys of today using these clips from what I speculate as 'reliving the fear as they once did'.

Frankenstein

Growing up watching TV and hearing other people talk about Frankenstein during halloween has given me a false impression. I always thought that Frankenstein was the monster and that the entirety of the story of Frankenstein was of creating him and bringing him to life. I was too young to understand that the story of the monster is a long one and that bringing him to life is really just the beginning.

The story itself is a sad tale of a soul who is born without any identity, forced to roam the world alone in search of human companion. The monster sees how humans interact with each other and attempts to interact with them himself, but every time is rejected by mankind. These initial acts of humans has already begun to form his identity. He grows fearful of humans through his own physical appearance. Which in turn forced himself to hide from society. While reading that he was able to go into hiding for a year you would think that he would develop more of a healthy identity for himself while he learns the language and how people interact. Although this was not the case; He was at no fault for trying to fit in but society wouldn't let him. I honestly felt sorry for the monster and did take his side from here on out in the story. Even though he kills Frankenstein's son and frames his wife it was Frankenstein alone who was in the fault for abandoning a 'child'.

Frankenstein's monster is essentially a kid that lost his way, a kid that couldn't make peace with trying to fit in and find a different calling in life (animals, art, nature, ect) because of the hole in his life; love. Unconditional love from his parent would have made the difference of everything in the monster's life. Perhaps even Frankenstein could have introduced him into society slowly through the proxy of an understanding human. The only issue with that was that Frankenstein was not understanding and fled from his own creation. Frankenstein's monster was a monster created out of neglect not test tubes.

Little Frankenstein

There are several elements in a movie that make up the horror genre. Many different elements at play. These things really just set the scene for a horror movie. Things such as:

• stormy nights
• odd music
• escalating music preceding important events
• yelling
• flashes of light
• digital (or in the case of film) tearing and glitching (mistakes on film real)
• blood or body parts
• still things coming to life (jumping out)
• torchure
• slight comic relief
• perfect family
• revenge
• dead still being alive / coming alive
• unnatural communication with dead
• mind control
• voodoo
• weird unknown magic (compared to normal magic? lol)
• a creepy guy that is a part of the main case that is suspicious
  
• youthful people
• weird haircuts
• eccentric personalities

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

• her mother died within a couple days of giving birth
• Prego five times, almost miscarried in her fifth pregnancy.
• Raised in a literary household
• She's 18, 19 years old and hormonally all off the wall. This summer there is a weird volcano eruption that covered the sun and rained endlessly the entire time. It is in this time that she decides to right these kinds of gothic stories. This is how the novel "Frankenstein" is born.