New Rainy Day Gardening post up

When is a weed not a weed?  When I LIKE it, that’s when.

http://rainydaygardening.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-is-weed-not-weed.html

BOOK: Whiteout by Ken Follett (2007)

I’ve been having a really hard time reading books lately (and an even harder time getting reviews of the ones I have read written, as you’ve probably noticed). I just can’t seem to concentrate on anything I pick up. Possibly because everything I keep picking up keeps on being crappy or unsatisfying. Kinda like this one.

At the very least, I thought this novel would be a pretty safe bet when it came to being entertaining. After all, the description on the back mentioned a variety of subjects I typically am all over: killer viruses, biological terrorism, blizzards that trap people in big spooky houses, devious research facility shenanigans, prodigal sons with chips on their shoulders. . .

Unfortunately, this book ended up being all-too predictable, which in and of itself is not necessarily an unforgivable failing, at least for me. But it was made all the worse here by being badly edited as well. Follett has a terrible habit of putting in tons and tons of stuff that just doesn’t need to BE there. There were entire chapters in this novel that served no real purpose. They felt like filler intended to make the book look more impressively dense, and meanwhile, it becomes harder and harder to engage with either the characters or the situations they’re being thrust into.

The story does finally pick up towards the end, when the blizzard hits, trapping a band of desperate thieves inside the very house they intended to rob, face-to-face not only with the scientists who developed the killer virus they were trying to steal, but with that very virus itself. But man, the entire middle hundred or so pages were a real slog.

This novel isn’t terrible, especially if you give yourself permission to skim through the sloggy parts. But my advice is that you only pick this one up if you are absolutely desperate for anything — ANYTHING! — to read. Otherwise, I think it’s safe to move along.

[THRILLER]

[Buy this book | Browse more book reviews | Search the book reviews]

New Boyfriend Is Up

He’s tall, he’s smart, and he’s got a nose I want to devour like it’s made out of marshmallows.

Go read all about him at http://megwood.com, and then come back here to give me an AMEN.

Another Ex-Boyfriend Diagnosed with Cancer

This time it’s Ethan Zohn, winner of S3 of Survivor, and the cancer is a rare form of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.  Damn.

Hang in there, Ethan — the world needs as many adorable mop-headed soccer players as it can get.

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2009/05/survivors-ethan-zohn-has-cancer.html

MOVIE: Twilight (2008)

Eight minutes, thirty-four seconds.

NEXT!

Genre:  Crap
Cast:  Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and a very, very bad script

MOVIE: My Bloody Valentine (2009)

I fully intended to see this remake in the theater when it first came out, because I’ve never seen a 3-D movie before, and this one seemed like a pretty good place to start.  Reviews of it weren’t too bad, all things considered, and for a 3-D n00b and horror fan, it seemed like it might be fun to get the “comin’ right atcha!” experience by way of flying pick-axes and detached eyeballs and stuff.

Unfortunately, it turned out the only theater in my area playing it in 3-D was a theater I hate.  So, I just never got around to it.  Plus, I couldn’t find anybody who would go with me, and what could be sadder, really, than spending your first 3-D adventure alone?  Surrounded by FLYING EYEBALLS, no less.

In any case, when I saw this one was also available on my hotel’s pay-per-view when I was out of town a couple of weeks ago, I figured, why not?

For the most part, the storyline conforms quite a bit to the original (at least inasmuch as I remember the original, which, I will confess, is kind of inas-notsomuch).  It begins with a deadly cave-in at a mine on Valentine’s Day, eleven years before the “present.”  When rescuers finally get to the five trapped miners, they find only one is still alive — Harry Warden — and he obviously survived by killing his coworkers with a pick-axe, so as to preserve all the air for himself.  He’s in a coma, though, so he gets kind of quietly tucked away in a hospital and pretty much forgotten.

Meanwhile, investigators discover the cause of the cave-in had to do with unvented methane lines that exploded, and miner Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles, AKA Dean from SupeNatch) is promptly blamed for the whole thing.

A year later, Warden wakes up and goes on a killing spree while he makes his way back to the mine.  Coincidentally, at the same time, Tom and his girlfriend, and Tom’s best friend (played by Kerr Smith) and HIS girlfriend, are hanging out in the mine partying.  Because hey, where better to get drunk and act stupid than a mine where cave-ins can and have occurred, I ask you?

Anyway, Warden, or, at least, a guy dressed up like a scary looking miner with a big grudge, ends up attacking all four of them.  Three of them manage to escape, leaving Tom back in the mine along to battle on.  But just as Warden is about to bust a pick-axe in his ass, the cops burst in and shoot him.  Warden is killed.

OR SO WE THINK!

Ten years later, blah blah, killing spree starts again.  From here, you can predict how things will play out, for the most part.   Standard crazy-maniac horror stuff.

Now, I have forgotten how the original movie ended, so I can’t say for sure if the ending of this remake is the same or totally different from the original.  HOWEVER, what I CAN say about the ending of this remake is that I knew the identity of the Previously-Thought-Dead Miner before he actually even entered the scene.  And not because I’m smart, but because this movie makes almost no attempt whatsoever to disguise its twist.  That’s something that can totally make or break a movie for me, and it definitely broke this one.  It’s one thing to make me suspect you are going to end a certain way.  It’s quite another to make your twist blaringly obvious like this and then to insist nevertheless on setting it up in “Big Reveal”-style at the end.

I hate that.

In any case, while this movie isn’t god-awful, it’s not god-awesome, either.  I’m sure seeing it in 3-D would’ve distracted a bit from some of the script issues, and also, I confess, from some of the extremely disappointing acting from Mr. Ackles, who has been utterly fantastic on SupeNatch this season and seemed pretty drab here by comparison.  But ultimately, I think I would probably have had the same reaction to the movie overall regardless of the format.  That reaction being: meh.

MBV is definitely worth a rental for die-hard horror fans (and Jensen Ackles fans, too, of course — like I could stop you . . .).

But all the resta’ y’alls can safely give this one a pass.

(Incidentally, it looks like you can get a 3-D version of this movie on DVD, in addition to the 2-D version.  I didn’t realize you could have 3-D on DVD, so that’s interesting news for me.  Coolies.)

[Netflix me | Buy me]

Genre: Horror
Cast:  Jensen Ackles, Kerr Smith, Jaime King, Tom Atkins

New Rainy Day Gardening blog post

“Sideshow Bob flower”? Really? That’s what you’re going with?

http://rainydaygardening.blogspot.com/2009/05/dramatic-discovery-in-halifax-nova.html

Alex O’Loughlin returning to primetime TV!

Today in good Boyfriend site news: Alex O’Loughlin has landed a role in a new series for the Fall 2009 TV season.  The show will air on CBS and is entitled Three Rivers. It’ll be about the various people involved in organ transplants, from the medical team to the patient to the families of the donors.

Today in bad Boyfriend site news: That’s the same concept behind the 2007 Treat Williams series Heartland (on TNT) which got the boot after only nine episodes.

Look, I worry.  It’s just what I do.

Today in good Boyfriend site news: I’m halfway done with the next Boyfriend of the Week write-up.  You know, the one I said would be up two weeks ago?

Today in bad Boyfriend site news: But I’m about 3 books behind in book reviews, and 2 movies behind in movie reviews.

Ah, Mondays.

MOVIE: Friday the 13th (2009)

This is going to sound weird (particularly to people have made a surprise visit to mi casa and seen what passes for “housework” around here when we don’t know you’re coming) but when I’m out of town for a vacation or a conference, one of my favorite things to do on my first night in the hotel is to get out the ironing board, unpack all my clothes, and then pick out a pay-per-view movie and watch it while I iron everything I brought with me.  It’s the only time EVER that I iron ANYTHING, please note.  I never do this at home.  But I find it quite peaceful in hotels, and it always seems like a good way to kick off a conference or vacation or whatever.

Anyway, while I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia two weeks ago, the first movie I saw when I went through the PPV listing was this one, and I immediately selected it without looking any further.  Unfortunately, this was a terrible choice, not just because this movie sucks, but because in selecting it so quickly, I neglected to notice that Paul Gross’s latest film, Passchendaele, which is not available in the US, was also available.  That first night ended up being the only one where I had time for a full-length (i.e. 2+ hours) film, so I never got a chance to watch it.  And instead, oy, wasted my first night on THIS stinker.  Which I knew was going to be a stinker, but still didn’t believe it could actually be as bad as it ended up being.

Because, obviously, I am delusional.  And also, I never learn.

About twenty minutes into this not-really-a-remake-not-really-a-sequel, I thought to myself, “Wow, this movie is completely tedious.”  Then I wondered if it was completely tedious because I was totally exhausted (Seattle to Halifax = many hours in travel status).  Or because it was, indeed, actually completely tedious.  By the end, I had my answer.  This movie is completely tedious because of it’s complete tediousness.  Need I say more?

I need?  Okay, here goes:  the story opens with a group of kids out camping near Camp Crystal Lake, where they are promptly picked off one by one by Baghead Jason (nice to see Baghead Jason again, I will confess — I always preferred him to Hockey Mask Jason).  One of the victim’s brothers, played by Jared Padalecki (Sam on SupeNatch), goes to the town near CCL to look for his sister.  There, he is told all kinds of ominous things by the locals about how people who disappear around there aren’t so much missing as DEAD.  Mua ha ha ha!  But instead of taking that as a clue he ought to skedaddle, he hooks up with a young lovely, and the two spend the rest of the movie being chased around by Jason (who, alas, finds a hockey mask about 45 minutes in and, after that, ceased to be of any interest to me whatsoever).

Here’s the problem in a nutshell — this movie uses every horror movie cliche ever, and if it was intended to be satirical in that manner, it failed.  You immediately know who is going to buy the farm and who will be the Final Guy/Girl, because some of the characters get naked and smoke weed, and others refuse to have sex with their boyfriend and say no when offered a joint.  Really?  We’re still making slasher movies with morality lessons tucked away in between the machete scenes?

Even worse, way, way too much of this film is spent running and running and chasing and chasing and then running and running some more.  I know that slasher movies are about slashers chasing youngsters around, trying to do them in.  But it can’t ALL be chase scenes — there needs to be SOME character development.

I know at least six people who just burst out laughing at that last sentence, by the way.  Character development?  In a SLASHER movie?  But seriously — I’d argue the original F13 actually pulls that off, and so do a number of its sequels.  If I don’t care about you — if I don’t know anything about you other than that you’re a prude who eschews the inhaling of illicit substances — why am I going to root for you to get out alive?

Answer:  I’m not.  Not even if you are totally cute, like Jared Padalecki.

To put this in terms the kids will understand:  This movie totally blows.

[Netflix me | Buy me, if you are a sucker]

Genre: Horror
Cast:  Jared Padalecki and a bunch of other good-looking kids ripe for killin’

Quick Update on Nathan Fillion’s series Castle

Looks like a second season of Nathan Fillion’s extremely entertaining mystery series Castle may actually happen — it’s a xi niu miracle! (For those of you who weren’t Firefly fans, xi niu means “cow sucking” in Chinese — don’t ask.)

Love the show myself, even though it’s weird how the two main characters are always wearing scarves, and never the same scarf twice.  Who does that?  I could see the rich mystery writer having a scarf for every day of the year, but the police detective?  Funky.  Cold Medina, even.

Read more on this development, plus an interview with Nathan here (and I should be back in a day or two with some movie reviews — still jet lagged and also wicked busy!):

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2009/05/castle-nathan-fillion-discusses-the-finale-season-two-prospects.html