I am currently addicted to watching horror movies on NetFlix Watch Instantly. I have been catching up on chores so I figure why not?
Here's today's haul:
Laid to Rest: This one ended up being a pretty decent slasher flick, surprisingly enough. A girl wakes up in a coffin with no idea who she is or where she is. She soon figures out that the guy in the Destro mask is out to kill her, and she must fight her way through this very small town to safety before he kills her. Lena Headley and Johnathan Schaech have small parts. The acting is good in this one. The plot isn't terribly original but the gore is rampant. Not bad for a rainy day.
Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus: You know you want to watch. You know you can't turn away. Nothing beats a movie that stars Debbie Gibson as an oceanographer who discovers the polar ice caps melting have released a giant octopus that devours oils rigs and a giant shark who leaps out of the ocean to snags planes from the air. This movie is epic. Debbie Gibson does science and stuff with test tubes! It even stars Lorenzo Lamas. How can you *not* watch it? I may have to buy this on DVD. It's so bad it's awesome.
Cold Prey: This Norwegian thriller is so very good. A group of friends go snowboarding off the beaten path to avoid the lines and tourists. Of course one of the friends hurts themselves and they ahve to take shelter for the night in a deserted inn. It's very creepy - my favorite setting is the old deserted location (you know, ghost ship, haunted houses, abandoned hospitals, etc.). The hapless, unsuspecting kiddos are sliced and diced but what's best about is you hardly ever see the killer. You see snippets of the boots, the axe, the parka, but it's like Jaws. No shark until the end. Really, this one is worth watching. It's tense, it's bloody, it's scary, it's got eye candy. The worse thing is the over-dubbing on the Watch Instantly version. The voices are bad and a bit cheesy. Definitely worth a watch - must look for the sequel.
Showing posts with label yee-haw. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yee-haw. Show all posts
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Love Is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield
I think I found this book via my QPB membership. It's more than likely. I seem to find the best books there. Love Is a Mix Tape is probably one of the sweetest, saddest books I have read in a long while.
In LIaMT, Rob Sheffield tells the story of how his love of music blossomed and how that love of music brought him to Renee, the woman he loved, married, and watched die in his arms one night after about 5 years of marriage. He tells the story using each chapter to show why a certain mix tape was important, the songs that were on it, and why it was even made.
I wondered how gimmicky that would feel after a few chapters, but it didn't feel gimmicky at all. Instead I found a love letter to music, the act of loving a song enough to give it to someone else, to add it in between other songs in order to change it, make it your own, and a love letter to the person we meet that we know will change our lives for the better, forever. Not only could I tell that Rob Sheffield loves music, but I could tell that he loves Renee, even now. It was and is a beautiful story. Anyone who has ever made a mix tape knows the magic in it, and Rob brings that magic, the joy the two of them shared, making tapes together, to the reader.
I got through reading maybe the first 2 chapters before I went into Steve's office and said, "This book - you have to read it. It's like it was written for you by you." I can appreciate it, but Steve, as a true music lover, will be able to get it in a way I can't.
Rating: 5 Purrs for telling the story of two people, so different and yet so right for each other. For making a very sad story into one of love and living.
In LIaMT, Rob Sheffield tells the story of how his love of music blossomed and how that love of music brought him to Renee, the woman he loved, married, and watched die in his arms one night after about 5 years of marriage. He tells the story using each chapter to show why a certain mix tape was important, the songs that were on it, and why it was even made.
I wondered how gimmicky that would feel after a few chapters, but it didn't feel gimmicky at all. Instead I found a love letter to music, the act of loving a song enough to give it to someone else, to add it in between other songs in order to change it, make it your own, and a love letter to the person we meet that we know will change our lives for the better, forever. Not only could I tell that Rob Sheffield loves music, but I could tell that he loves Renee, even now. It was and is a beautiful story. Anyone who has ever made a mix tape knows the magic in it, and Rob brings that magic, the joy the two of them shared, making tapes together, to the reader.
I got through reading maybe the first 2 chapters before I went into Steve's office and said, "This book - you have to read it. It's like it was written for you by you." I can appreciate it, but Steve, as a true music lover, will be able to get it in a way I can't.
Rating: 5 Purrs for telling the story of two people, so different and yet so right for each other. For making a very sad story into one of love and living.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
I picked up Lonesome Dove because a friend told me that it was his favorite book. I don't meet many people who love to read, so when someone tells me that a book is his favorite, and he is able to defend it when I respond, "Seriously? A Cowboy book?", I figure I really should give it a shot. I stand corrected. Lonesome Dove is much more than just a cowboy book.
Lonesome Dove is about a cattle drive and the people who participate in it or are affected in some way by it. You have my favorite character, Augustus McCrae, former Texas Ranger and current easy-going drunkard, who follows Woodrow Call, his former Captian and best friend, on the drive up to Montana. Jake Spoon shows up in Lonesome Dove, TX one day and tells his former Texas Ranger pals that the real paradise is Montana. The undiscovered, ungrazed country, so to speak. Call decides it's an opportunity not to be missed, and hires a bunch of local boys to drive a huge herd of cattle up to Montana to start one of the first cattle ranches before the wilderness is lost. He misses the urgency, the spectacle, the danger of his former days in the Texas Rangers. (Many times Gus & Call discuss the comfort of the area they have helped civilize, with Gus wondering why anyone would need to leave it.) Jake, however, has his own problems, and never really intends on joining the boys on the drive. Jake is a man of appetities, of luxuries, gambling, and using up women. When he meets Lorena, he thinks he's got it made, until she holds him to his promise to get her out of Lonesome Dove. (Lorena is another one of my favorite characters. I didn't like her much at first, but her character really grew on me. You start off thinking she will just be the hooker with the heart of gold type character, but instead she ends up being so much more complex.) Lorena joins them on the drive, along with lovesick Dish, the top hand, Newt, the youngest of the crew, and others. They face the difficult, long drive to Montana, driving the cattle across rivers, on the look out for Indians, protecting their horses and their own skin, and battling the weather.
What I liked most about this book was from the moment I started reading, I knew I was in Texas. You could almost feel the swagger, the hitching of belt buckles, the chewing of tobacco. Gus is a wonderful character, on the one hand so easy-going, and on the other, so cruel and exacting when rescuing Lorena. Lorena's whole storyline tore me up. Her grief was almost too close to home. I could see it in my head so vividly. But what I loved the most was despite the epic scale of the cattle drive, the growth of the characters, even the interplay of all of the characters, McMurtry never says this is epic. This is historic. This is significant. In fact, he leads you to question whether the whole thing is simply folly, an old man catering to his needs of danger, heroism, and valor, and whether the cost of it is too great. It's mythic and tragic all in one. You are left to question whether any of it really made any difference, even at the cost of so many and so much.
When you think of Lonesome Dove, don't think cowboy book. Yes, it is a Western. You can't deny that. But it can be so much more if you look beyond the cover.
Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs
What I liked most about this book was from the moment I started reading, I knew I was in Texas. You could almost feel the swagger, the hitching of belt buckles, the chewing of tobacco. Gus is a wonderful character, on the one hand so easy-going, and on the other, so cruel and exacting when rescuing Lorena. Lorena's whole storyline tore me up. Her grief was almost too close to home. I could see it in my head so vividly. But what I loved the most was despite the epic scale of the cattle drive, the growth of the characters, even the interplay of all of the characters, McMurtry never says this is epic. This is historic. This is significant. In fact, he leads you to question whether the whole thing is simply folly, an old man catering to his needs of danger, heroism, and valor, and whether the cost of it is too great. It's mythic and tragic all in one. You are left to question whether any of it really made any difference, even at the cost of so many and so much.
When you think of Lonesome Dove, don't think cowboy book. Yes, it is a Western. You can't deny that. But it can be so much more if you look beyond the cover.
Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
