Must. Have.

“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen’s classic novel to new legions of fans.”

Description from:

http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/main,book-info/store,books/products_id,7847/title,Pride-and-Prejudice-and-Zombies/

Not out until April, but you can preorder it now for only $12.95!  Why yes, yes, I think I will do just that.  Teh awesomest.

MOVIE: Eagle Eye (2008)

This is a TERRIBLE movie.  It’s just TERRIBLE.  There’s not a single moment in this thriller that is even remotely plausible.  Absolutely TERRIBLE.  Utterly and completely TERRIBLE.

TERRIBLE, I TELL YOU!

And yet, despite the fact that THIS MOVIE IS TERRIBLE (!), I confess I was actually kind of enjoying it there for the first hour or so.  It was moving quickly, I didn’t quite understand the inanity of what was going on, and Shia — well, heck.  Handsome!

The movie is about a young man (LeBeouf) and a young woman (Monoghan) who are complete strangers to each other, but who both receive a strange phone call one day from a very calm woman telling them they have been “activated” and must do as they are told or they or a loved one will die.

The woman is seemingly able to manipulate anything controlled by a computer, from cell phones to electronic message boards to transit systems to ATM machines to UPS trucks to, like, EVERYTHING.  And using that power, she is able to track both characters, manipulate them, and ultimately send them colliding right into each other.  Finally getting them together, the woman begins to give them very specific orders that, it soon becomes clear, can’t possibly be for the sake of “national security” as she keeps insisting to them they are.  Unsure what the hell is going on, but terrified of what the woman is clearly able to do to anyone who defies her, the two go along with her instructions until. . .

Well, hell, to be honest, once we got to the “until” part, I was struggling not to doze off.  That’s how totally stupid and boring it was.  Blah blah blah evil computer systems blah blah blah.  Don’t ever create an AI system that has no fail-safe, people.  Have we learned nothing from the movie 2001?  God.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of Shia’s, this might, miiiiiiight, be worth a rental.  He’s cute in it and fun to watch.  Monoghan I have to say has failed to impress me in a single outing since her delightful work in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  No matter what, she always seems really background-y and snoozer-y to me.  And she pretty much is both those made-up descriptors in this as well.  Other than Shia-love, in other words, there’s absolutely no reason to bother with this piece ‘o crapper-y.  Not Michelle-love, not Billy Bob Thornton-love, not thriller flick-love.  IT GOTS NO LOVE, in other words.

Should’ve listened to Ebert.  Will I never learn?

p.s.  Ethan Embry was in this?!  WHERE?  How did I miss him?  When I saw his name in the credits, I was stunned and for a moment, was tempted to watch it again to try to find him.  But, dude, Ethan, my man — I love you a lot, brotha, BUT NOT THAT MUCH.

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Genre:  Thriller
Cast:  Shia LeBeouf, Michelle Monoghan, Rosario Dawson, Billy Bob Thornton, Ethan Embry

At Long Last: New Rainy Day Gardening Post!

I finally wrote something on the Rainy Day Gardening blog that I theoretically co-write with the awesome Janet.  I say “theoretically” because it’s been about 87 years since my last post (you know, give or take).    I’m surprised I didn’t get canned, frankly.

Thanks, Janet!  I promise not to suck so much this year!

Go read the post:  Hits and Misses and Mosses.

BOOK: Going Solo by Roald Dahl.

A friend of mine got me this wonderful book for Christmas, after we’d discussed it a few times and I’d expressed interest in reading it but never seemed to get around to it. See, people? That’s what friends are for! She even got Nancy Pearl to autograph it for me! Sweet!

This is Dahl’s second memoir (his first, Boy, is apparently about his childhood) and it features two sections. The first part details Dahl’s time spent working for Shell in Africa in the late 1930′s/early 1940′s, and this part of the book is full of wonderful detail about the land and its people, as well as an insane number of utterly harrowing stories about his encounters with mamba snakes of all colors (black, green, puce) (okay, I made up puce). Damn, those snakes is nasty! Avoid!

At the tail end of that section, the war has just begun to come to Africa (that would be WWII, by the way), and Roald decides to enlist with the Royal Air Force and become a pilot. After his training, he’s sent to Greece, where he’s one of only a handful of RAF pilots defending the entire country with a somewhat-decrepit fleet of Hurricanes. And if you thought the snake stories were suspenseful, just wait until you start reading about Dahl’s experiences as a Hurricane pilot! Man, I could barely put this book down once I started it, and will definitely be passing it along to my dad, who was a pilot himself in the Marine Corps and I’m sure will be able to relate to a number of Dahl’s wild tales of flight!

I definitely recommend this book to anybody who loves a good yarn or two, as well as fans in general of Roald Dahl (better known for his authorship of such classics as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Witches), and I’m greatly looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Boy soon.

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BSG 4.5, Patrick Swayze Beasts-Out, and Other Tube of Boobage Stuff.

Oh thank heaven –  the longest 217 days of my life are finally OVER! Tomorrow night at 9pm Battlestar Galactica returns to the Sci-Fi Network with its much-anticipated last call. PLEASE DON’T SUCK, BSG4.5!! I’m begging you!  Man, it could so totally suck.  I really hope it doesn’t so totally suck.  DON’T SUCK!  JUST AGREE NOT TO DO IT!  JUST PLAN RIGHT NOW FOR A TOTAL LACK OF SUCKAGE!  We’ll all be so much the better for it.  Srsly.

In other TV news, I’ll be tuning in to A&E tonight for ex-Boyfriend Patrick Swayze’s new show, The Beast, which is about undercover feebies. What I’ve heard so far is that Swayze is excellent (or at least trying very hard to be excellent, which is close enough), but the show itself is terrible. But, hey, you know what?  Even if it’s the worst thing I’ve seen since the pilot of  Private Practice, I’ll still be watching EVERY SINGLE EPISODE WITHOUT FAIL.

Swayze was recently hospitalized again and, a couple of weeks ago, announced publicly that his doctor says he has fewer than two years to live before his pancreatic cancer takes him down. Press photos and TV ads for his new show are depressing — frankly, he looks just like a guy dying from pancreatic cancer (I speak from experience, unfortunately).  I’m pretty doubtful he’ll make it to one year, let alone two.  So, in the spirit of long-term affection for the man, I’m really hoping his last project doesn’t totally tank, and will be making it my goal to tune in weekly.  It may be the last time any of us ever see Patrick Swayze, and that alone makes it worth sitting down for.  In my humble and saddened opinion.

Coming up next week is Tim Roth (AKA Guildenstern, see photo, stage left) in FOX’s new series, Lie to Me. It debuts next Wednesday at 9pm and is about a guy who is an expert in what I believe is called “kinesics” (if I’m remembering Jeffery Deaver’s Kathryn Dance novels correctly).  Kinesics is the art of human lie detecting. In other words, Roth’s character can tell if you are lying from the way you hold your body or your face, the direction in which you fidget, the number of times you lick your lips and say, “Ummmmm, yeah,” whether or not you rub your nose, and, always the deadest of dead-giveaways, whether or not you attempt to convince him that your name is “Gary Oldman.”

Seriously, don’t even try it. Those two go way back (see photo, stage now-up-and-to-the-left).

Also back (last week — sorry!) are Psych and Monk on USA and Nip/Tuck on FX, which I’m only  watching at this point so I can see just how utterly ridiculous it’ll have to get before it gets canceled (answer: so far, pretty damn ridiculous and no end in sight. Go figure.).

And coming up at the end of the month (Jan 26th) is The Closer (woo hoo!) and another new TNT series, Trust Me, that I’m planning to watch solely because it stars two handsome devils (Eric McCormack and ex-Boyfriend Tom Cavanagh). It’s about. . . uh. . . I forget. An ad agency or something.  I’m sure it’ll be terrible, but am hoping I’ll at least get to see McCormack without his shirt on before I give up on the whole shebang and delete the timer from my DVR.

What did I miss?  Anything?

Chewy the Deformed Ewok

This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen on the web in a looooong time:

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

(Though I don’t for a moment believe that girl has never seen the movies — she knew way too much detail for a total n00b. Still, ridiculously funny.)

MOVIE: Tropic Thunder (2008)

I actually saw this movie about two weeks ago, but I’ve been struggling with what I should say about it in a public forum.  Because here’s the problem with this movie:  it is soooooo very wrong.  SO VERY WRONG.  In sooooo many ways.  SO MANY WAYS.

And yet, oh my holy heckfire, was I ever dyin’ all the way through it, laughin’ so hard.  I actually started to get kind of hoarse by the end of the movie because I had been letting loose with so many throaty guffaws the entire way through.   Now that’s laughing, people!  Laughed so hard I done nearly broke my vocal cords!

In case you haven’t heard, this movie is about a group of actors hired to make a Vietnam war flick.  Out in the jungle somewhere (Laos?  Vietnam?  I can’t remember if/where they said they were), the actors are doing an absolutely abysmal job of it.  Only five days into production, they’re already “a month behind schedule” (heh), and everybody is getting frustrated, from the key grip to the studio head, a balding guy with major anger management issues played (in what has to be one of the most brilliant PR moves of all time) by Mr. Tom Cruise.

Yes, you read that right.  And damned if he wasn’t just awesome in this too.

The inspiration for the movie-within-the-movie is a memoir written by a Vietnam vet named Four Leaf (Nolte) who has accompanied the film team on location.  Annoyed with the pussyfooting around, Four Leaf convinces the director that if he wants his actors to get the job done right, he ought to fly them into the middle of nowhere in the jungle and leave them there for a few days, so they can see first-hand what surviving in that place is like.  The director agrees.  And things go rapidly downhill from there.

So very, very downhill.

The cast consists of Jack Black as a bleached-blond junkie primarily known for a series of comedies about flatulence, Ben Stiller as a rapidly-washing-up action movie hero, Robert Downey Jr. as a white actor playing an African American character (totally something I think ONLY RDJ could’ve pulled off successfully, god bless ‘im), Brandon T. Jackson as an actual African American playing an African American (his banter with RDJ is ridiculously funny), and Jay Baruchel as the rookie who also happens to be the only one of the group who showed up for the “boot camp” training before filming started.  In other words, the only one in the group who can read a map.

What happens after the gang is dropped into the trees is just weird and silly and ridiculous and hilarious.  But I still hesitate to express just how much I liked this movie just because it’s also sooooo irreverent in regards to soooooo many things that it almost makes me feel like I must be a horrible person for laughing so hard at it.  I am comforted if I think of it solely as a spoof of war movies.  But I’m pretty sure I’m still going to hell for recommending this movie.  Meh, life — it is such.

Recommended!  And make sure to watch the “previews” at the beginning of the movie — the sad thing is I would TOTALLY rent Scorcher VI.

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Genre: Comedy, War
Cast:  Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte, Tom Cruise, Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchel, Matthew McConaughey

BOOK: Rough Weather by Robert B. Parker

As I’ve said no fewer than 86 gazillion times on this web site, I looooves me some Spenser mysteries. This one, the latest installment in the series, is even more fun, as it combines two of my favorite story elements: Spenser and weather disasters. In this one, Spenser is hired by a wealthy woman to attend her daughter’s wedding way out on an isolated island. He’s not just sure WHY she wants him to attend, since it clearly isn’t for security purposes (she’s got her own security team). But it certainly makes him a bit suspicious when, thirty minutes into the wedding, a group of gunmen barge into the ceremony, led by The Gray Man (a bad guy from one of the earlier books who nearly killed Spenser last time he saw him). The Gray Man walks up to the bride and groom, shoots both the priest and the groom in the head, then grabs the bride and takes off with her. The Gray Man had clearly been planning to whisk her off the island immediately, but that plan is delayed by two factors. The first is the hurricane. The second is Spenser.

How the story unfolds from there is fairly predictable — I’ve never claimed these were brilliantly plotted, after all. And, as with the last several I’ve read, I again left this one feeling like Parker had gotten bored by the end of it and just wanted to wrap it up quickly and be done with it. The ending is sort of sudden and. . . well. . . uninspired, we’ll say. Nevertheless, there’s plenty of witty banter to be had, and I’ll put up with a lot for witty banter. If you’ve never read a Spenser, I’d strongly recommend you start from the beginning (The Godwulf Manuscript is the first one — Rough Weather is the 36th!) — this is definitely a series you should attempt to read in order, as the relationships between the recurring characters (Spenser, Hawk, Susan, Pearl) grow and change from book to book. Recommended! (And by the way — fans of Parker’s Jesse Stone series, and of Tom Selleck, will be pleased to learn there are two more JS/TS movies coming to network television in the next year. Hurrah!)

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