This is a filler post

This poor little empty blog ... I'm sorry, Dear Reader[s].  Between the skiing on the weekends, and the fevered re-reading of the Dark Tower series, I've got nothing new for you here.  I will say, however, that I have reached the penultimate volume in the Dark Tower books and this is where it really falls apart, when Stephen King not only has incorporated a major character from Salem's Lot into Roland's ka-tet, indulging himself in a little retconning, but he's about to write HIMSELF in as a character.  As himself, the horror author, who's writing the Dark Tower books.  Things are about to get way too meta and self-indulgent.

I'm also two-thirds of the way through The Strain, co-written by Guillermo del Toro, and I've put up a review of that when I get there.  And I'm nearing the point in S1 of Fringe where I'll start recapping again for here.  So be patient with me, I beg ya.

In the meantime, Oscars are tonight!  I don't know why I care seeing how I haven't seen (I don't think) any of the to-be honored films.  But I've got the DVR set to record the show - which means I can FF through the more tedious bits ... I still like seeing the movie clips and the actors.  Will you be watching?

Movie review: Frozen - in connection with Final Girl Film Club!

This review is part of the Final Girl Film Club over there at the very excellent Final Girl blog.  Please click through and partake of the awesomeness!

I feel I am very well qualified to review Frozen and I'll tell you why.  Frozen is a little horror movie in which three kids - two snowboarders and a skier - get stuck on a chairlift and must fight for their lives; I have been skiing for many, many years now (and will adamantly not admit to just how many, many years).  Frozen is set in New England and gives shout-outs to some local ski mountains, including Okemo and Wachusett; I lived for most of my life in New England.  Frozen was filmed on location at Snowbasin Resort in Utah; not only do I now live in Utah, but I've actually skied at Snowbasin.  Clearly, there is no one better qualified than I!

The story, in a nutshell, is this: Parker, Dan and Joe have taken off from college for a ski day.  Being poor college students, they don't want to pay for tickets and Parker, Dan's girlfriend and perennial thorn in Dan's best buddy Joe's side, flirts with the liftie enough to ride for free.  When they jump on the chair for one last run, none of the lift operators are paying attention and the lift gets shut down with the kids stranded about fifty feet in the air.  They're stuck.  And it's Sunday night, and the little ski resort doesn't open again 'til Friday, so they're screwed.  What are their options?  Jump from the chair, climb the cable to a lift tower or freeze to death.  Oh, and I almost forgot this part: there is a pack of very hungry wolves milling about in the woods below.  I don't want to completely spoil it for you but two of the three options outlined above are explored by the kids, and two of the three characters get eaten by wolves.

I had some nitpicks with Frozen.  There isn't so much foreshadowing as fore-let-me-spell-it-out-for-you when the kids (pre-stranding) discuss what would be the worst ways to die: one thinks jumping from a height would be the worst, while another thinks knowing an animal was coming for you - Jaws is used as an example - would be just horrible.  When Dan insists that Parker wear a helmet because she's a beginner, she whines that "only kids wear helmets" but that is patently not true and, having skied both back east and out west, I would say that probably 80% of skiers/boarders wear helmets these days.  Parker drops a mitten and then spends half the movie holding onto the metal safety bar - I promise you that would never happen: she'd wrap her hand in her hat and stick it inside her parka.  When the chair stops, stranding them, they can still see the lights from the base lodge down the mountain, but when SPOILER Parker finally makes her way to safety, it takes her forever, stumbling through the woods until she comes out onto a road at last - even though the lodge just wasn't that far away.  Pluswhich, I'm not sure it's been confirmed that there are any wolves in New England - and a pack of that size would certainly not go unnoticed.

Picky complaints aside, Frozen is actually a decent little movie.  The focus of the whole film is on these three characters and they acquit themselves pretty well with solid acting and character development.  It's not slashy or gory (although I did shut my eyes when Parker pulled her frozen hand off the metal chair), with all the wolf action taking place off-screen, but the actors' reactions and the sound effects are extremely effective to ratchet up the tension and the fright factor.  I rather liked it (and it's a damn sight better than the last snowboarder horror flick I watched, Shredder - ugh.)

Any skier knows that the scenario in this movie is preposterous, but that doesn't mean that every time the chairlift lurches to a stop, a little voice way back in your head says, "I hope we don't get stuck up here."  And ultimately that's what makes Frozen work.

Reading list

It's a good thing that I read pretty quickly because my books are stacking up!  I've been re-reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series and am a third of the way through Book 5, Wolves of the Calla.  I'd forgotten how much I love the billy-bumbler character, Oy; for some reason, this imaginary animal that looks like a cross between a badger and a raccoon and can talk, a little, just caught hold of my heart.  Of course, since this is my second time through the series - and because it's a Stephen King book - I know it won't end well for little Oy (even if I can't remember exactly how) and I'm dreading the turn of each page which brings me closer and closer to the inevitable.

I'll have to take a DT break after this one, however, because the library sent me The Strain by GUILLERMO DEL TORO (I don't mean to shout at you but: Guillermo del Toro!!!) and Chuck Hogan (whoever he is), which was recommended to me by Friend of the Blog, Bill P., and also The Passage by Justin Cronin, recommended to me by Bill P., Dian Q. and Spencer R.  Wait, that's weird: P, Q, R ... Anyway, I'm really excited about these two books and will duly report back to y'all.

I've also got Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 bu David Petersen which I treated myself to with some birthday money.  And since we're inching inexorably towards spring, I've got Waterwise Landscaping with Trees, Shrubs & Vines (Rocky Mountain Region) by Jim Knopf to delve into as I'm hoping to make some changes in the front yard so we don't have to water so much.  Too much to read!  What are you guys reading right now?  Anything I should add to my stack?

Mini movie review: Easy A

I wanted to love Easy A, I really did.  I adore Emma Stone - and here she is smart, sweet, kind, funny, adorable and gorgeous, yet completely unafraid to make foolish faces and act like a goofball.  I liked the concept: a retelling of The Scarlet Letter as an outcast high school girl (Stone) courts notoriety to help out those even more outcast than she.  But I just had so many issues with so many of the supporting cast: Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson were too over the top as her coolest-parents-on-the-planet parents (Clarkson was particularly too much); Phoebe from Friends was waaaaaaaaaay annoying as the guidance counselor and loser wife of coolest-teacher-on-the-planet Thomas Hayden Church; Aly Michalka (spelling? who even cares?) was the most annoying best friend a girl could ever have; and Penn Badgely, while working his adorkableness for all it's worth, just in no way looks anything like a high school kid.  And I say this with 16- and 18-year-old girl cousins who look like they're about 30.  Pluswhich, there is absolutely no high school on this planet where a girl as smart, sweet, kind, funny, adorable and gorgeous as Emma Stone would be an outcast with only one spastic bitch friend.

You want a twisted, funny and wicked smart movie about high school kids and sex? Try Saved! with Jena Malone, Eva Amurri, Macaulay Culkin and Mandy Moore.  Even Mr. Mouse liked that one.

Re-Fringeing

I gave up on Fringe in S1: I recapped the first ten or so episodes here, then maybe watched the rest of the season, but didn't pick back up in S2.  And now, in S4 (I think it's S3), everyone [who likes this sort of televisin] says it's one of the best shows going on right now.  Sigh. So now I'm renting it on DVD and rewatching S1 and trying to get caught up.  The good news for this site is that I'll pick the recaps back up.  They may not be as detailed as they once were (my WORD I typed a lot back in those days - my vintage 1997 laptop must have been functioning better back then), but they'll get the gist across.  Fringe on!

Titles Nine - #11 -- Series

Time once again for another riveting installment of the FMS series, "Titles Nine," whereby I go to my many bookshelves and pick out nine volumes to share with you, my faithful reader[s].  Since I'm tearing my way through Stephen King's Dark Tower series for the second time, it occured to me that I must have at least nine book series in my collection, or at least partial series.  Let's see what I found!

• The Dark Tower series by Stephen King (Books I-III at present)
• A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket (1-11)
• The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell (complete set: Justine, Mountolive, Balthazar and Clea)
• Griffin and Sabine, Sabine's Notebook and The Golden Mean by Nick Bantock
• The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (I used to have the full set but can only find 1-4 at present)
• The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (1-11 only)
• The Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (not only do I have all the books but I also have a Little House cookbook!)
• I Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves (does it count as a series if there are only two in the run?)
• A Wrinkle In Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle (I need to reread these/finish the series)

And since the Robert Graves ones scarcely count, I also have nine or ten Bloom County books by Berke Breathed.  I realize that's not actually a series but I do have a lot of them so it must count for something.

Mini movie review: Jeremiah Johnson

Jeremiah Johnson was on AMC the other night and since we're practically Robert Redford's neighbors (not really, but his Sundance Resort is only 40 minutes away and we've hiked all over where JJ was filmed in 1972), we thought we should check it out.  A young and handsome (tho' buried in a hideous red beard) Redford is the title fellow, a former Civil War solder who is looking to live a hermit's life in the Rocky Mountains.  Trouble is, he doesn't really have any mountain man skills and flounders around (he should have died of hypothermia on the first day) until a real mountain man, played by The Waltons' Will Geer, takes him under his wing and teaches him a few tricks.  Then Jeremiah heads into the wilderness, picking up an orphaned boy and a Native American wife along the way.  Then he helps the Army to rescue some stranded settlers and brings the wrath of the local Crow tribe down upon his head.  Then he turns into a kickass Indian fighter.

There's really not much in the way of plot in this movie - it's more of a narrative flow of this happened, then this happened, then this happened.  And Mr. Mouse and I can't decide if Redford ever was a good actor: he's either not in this movie, or he's playing Jeremiah as sort of a lump.  Still, the locations are gorgeous and it was fun to recognize mountains that we've climbed looming up in the background. 

Yet another reason why zombies are awesome

Like The Road Warrior, Zack Snyder's remake of Dawn of the Dead is a very excellent movie to watch whilst trotting on the treadmill at the gym.  I've seen it several times before, plus it's a remake, so it's not like I'm going to miss anything crucial if I look away.  It's action-action-action for the most part, especially the last half hour what with the shootings and chewings and chainsaws and exploding propane containers and exploding trucks and exploding zombies.  And the pretty little Mormon girls with their fake boobs and bleach-blonde hair take one look at what's on the screen and scurry far, far away.  Plus, if you start to get tired, just imagine that the zombies are chasing you, and that's good motivation to keep going.  Personally, I've been running enough so when the Inevitable Zombie Apocalypse happens, I think I'll be okay if the zombies turn out to be classic shamblers.  It's if we get the newfangled sprinters that I'm going to be S.O.L.  (Well, so won't everyone else, I guess.)

Spartacus: Blood and Sand S1E13

Season finale: "Kill Them All" - SPOILER in that the episode title pretty much spells it out for you.  Hope you weren't attached to too many characters!  Also, this recap is kind of disjointed because the show kept bouncing around with flashbacks.  I'll do my best.

Batiatus and Lucretia are having a huge party to celebrate their new patron, the Legatus Glaber [note: I thought it was "Glaba" because of all the English/Aussie/Kiwi accents but according to Wikipedia, it's more Glaber/Glaberus].  All the best people of Capua are there, milling about in the villa, watching the entertainment: a fight to the death between Spartacus and Crixus.

Two Days Ago:  The doctore [wish he had a name but I'm too lazy to look up imdb] appeals to Batiatus to intercede when Glaber's soldiers brutally beat on the gladiators.  Batiatus brushes that concern aside, saying that he is hoping to move beyond the day-to-day management of the ludus soon: he is planning to free the doctore and have him run the ludus instead.  The doctore is stunned and honored; then, bravely, he asks Batiatus about what happened when Barca was "freed."  Batiatus admits that he did have Barca killed but - and here's the lie - it was because Barca went against his dominus's orders and killed that family.  Lucretia wanders in, still wounded from Crixus's rejection, and suggests to her husband that they have a Crixus and Spartacus death-match as the party's centerpiece.  With her heart broken, she wants to ensure Crixus's death.  When Batiatus tells Spartacus about the fight, the Thracian appears pleased.  He even asks for a treat: the slave girl Mira.  When she comes to his cell, he asks her to make sure the gate between the ludus and the villa is open during the fight.  She reluctantly agrees, but her price is sex with Spartacus, right here, right now.

The Big Fight at the Party:  At first, Mira is unable to steal away from Lucretia's side to open the gate.  As they grapple on the sands of the ludus, Spartacus asks Crixus to stand with him and his rebels.  Crixus refuses.

One Day Ago:  The doctore tells Crixus that when he is freed and in charge of the ludus, he'll bring Navia [Lavia?] back - all Crixus must do is get rid of Spartacus so he doesn't mess things up.  Lucretia is enjoying bossing Ilythia around, making her invite all her wealthy friends to the party, and even writing a little speech for her to give on her absent husband's behalf.  Ilythia is getting extremely cranky about this.  Down in the ludus, Spartacus approaches Crixus to join the rebellion, knowing that the other Gallic gladiators aren't likely to help if Crixus won't.  Crixus refuses but they do make promises to each other: if Crixus dies, Spartacus will find and free Navia; if Spartacus is the one to fall, Crixus will one day murder the hell out of Batiatus.  Asher, however, on Batiatus's orders, has obtained a potion that will weaken Crixus so that Spartacus is guaranteed a victory.

Big Fight:  Spartacus and Crixus are, of course, evenly matched with no sign of Crixus weakening yet.  Mira, however, has stabbed a guard in the neck, killing him.  She takes the guard's keys and opens the gateway between the ludus and the villa.

Morning of the Big Fight:  Batiatus is giddy with anticipation.  Lucreita pays Crixus a visit, telling him that it is his child she is carrying; when that does not sway him, when he continues to profess his love for Navia, she furiously lets him drinks from the cup Asher dosed.  Spartacus tries to make nice with Aurelia, Varro's widow, telling her that the magistrate's son Nimerius forced him to kill her husband. 

Big Fight:  Crixus begins to weaken and Spartacus tosses him around some, but tells him that he doesn't want to win this way.  Crixus pauses, then agrees to join Spartacus's rebellion.  Spartacus runs up and launches himself off Crixus's shield, vaulting up to the balcony.  He strikes at Batiatus but the wily dominus shoves an innocent bystander in front of himself and the guy takes a sword through the head.  The doctore's whip catches the Thracian's arm - until Crixus severs the whip with his own sword.  The guests panic, running screaming into the villa.  Crixus looks at the other gladiators and roars: "KILL THEM ALL!"  And then chaos and awesome violence ensue.  I can't even describe it - it's insane.

After the guards are killed, the gladiators enter the villa through the open gate and start slicing and dicing the unarmed patricians.  This is compounded by the fact that Ilythia takes the Roman soldiers and leaves, ordering the soldiers to seal the villa's doors from the outside, trapping everyone inside.  Nice.  Crixus finds Lucretia and asks her where she sent Navia.  She pleads for the life of their child and he replies that he'd rather see it dead than suckle from her breast - then he pushes his sword into her belly [not a euphemism]. Aurelia leads Nimerius off, ostensibly to safety, then asks him why he ordered her husband dead.  "Varro deserved to die," says the callow boy, and tiny little Aurelia pounces on him, stabbing him to death with a dagger and screaming.

In the main courtyard, the gladiators have Batiatus surrounded.  A badly wounded Lucretai tries to come to her husband but Spartacus bars the way.  There is some talk about how much does a husband want to hold his wife again ... and then Spartacus slices Batiatus's throat, nearly beheading him.  The immediate battle done, Spartacus looks 'round at the assembled gladiators and house slaves and makes a little speech: "...I would not see the passing of a brother for the purpose of sport.  I did this thing because it is just.  Blood demands blood ... It is done.  Your lives are your own.  Go your own path or join with us - and see Rome tremble!"  And the rebel survivors walk out of the ludus courtyard and into their futures.

Seriously: holy shit, nearly everyone is dead now.  This is who is left: Spartacus, Crixus, the doctore, Asher (who slunk off during the melee), Mira, Aurelia, Ilythia, a bunch of unnamed gladiators and - possibly - Lucretia.  This is a silly show, with weak dialogue and less than stellar acting, a focus on gratuitous sex and violence ... and damned if it didn't suck me right in.  Unfortunately, darling Andy Whitfield has had a recurrence of his non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and they've had to recast the role of Spartacus.  We'll see how the new guy does.  In the meantime, there's a prequel out now, set about five years before the beginning of S:BaS S1, showing the rise of Batiatus and Lucretia.  Since John Hannah and Lucy Lawless are quite entertaining scenery-chewers, I'll be picking that up when it hits DVD (as I am too cheap to pay for Starz).  Until then, let's all think positive thoughts for Andy Whitfield because, DAMN, man looks good in a leather loincloth. 

Spartacus: Blood and Sand S1E11 and 12

Episode 11, "Old Wounds" - Poor Spartacus struggles in the wake of Varro's death, unable to focus on his training, seeing spectres of his dead friend (and also Spartacus's dead wife) telling him to "mind the wound."  At first Spartacus thinks these visions mean the slight wound Varro gave him in their exhibition. 

Batiatus is taking his future into his own greedy hands: he kidnaps the magistrate, then promises Spartacus that the magistrate and his "whelp" will pay for the pain they have caused in insisting on Varro's death.  When Spartacus is chosen to fight in the primus in the games against Pompei, he asks that his winnings be given to Varro's widow; Batiatus thinks this is lovely and vows to match the purse.  Then he trots down to the sewers where the magistrate is stashed, planning to gloat.  The magistrate spits at him, saying that Batiatus is a low creature, only tolerated because the Champion of Capua is in his ludus - when Spartacus falls in the ring, Batiatus will also fall from favor.

Spartacus's wound becomes infected and he is confined to the infirmary; Crixus will fight in his place in the primus.  It goes badly at first, but as the rock guitars swell in the soundtrack, Crixus wins his match, ultimately putting the heel of his sandal through his opponent's skull.  Yuck.  Up in the box seats, a messenger tells the assembled patricians that the magistrate has been kidnapped.  Batiatus springs up and offers his men for the search and rescue.  Out in the town, Asher finds Batiatus's nemesis, rival ludus owner Solonius, and tells him that Batiatus kidnapped the magistrate.  He is clearly setting Solonius up: as Solonius rushes to the sewers, he finds the magistrate, throat cut, just as the search party arrives.  Solonius is arrested and dragged away while Batiatus grins.

In the infirmary, Spartacus awakens to find one of Batiatus's henchmen lying on the table beside him.  It's the man who brought the dying Zora to the ludus, claiming to have been beset by ruffians, and sporting a gut wound.  But there is no wound, no scar on this man's belly now.  Spartacus jumps on him, chokes the truth out of him - that Batiatus ordered Zora's death - and then chokes the life out of him.  All of a sudden, he's got clarity and focus again.  And when Batiatus commends him later, as he spars in the practice yard, Spartacus snarls, "I am myself again."

Episode 12, "Revelations" - It's stadium time again.  The dotore becomes suspicious when Spartacus mentions that although he's made many mistakes since becoming champion, he intends to make up for them soon.  When Spartacus is sent into the ring - and Oh. My. God. is Andy Whitfield gorgeous - his match is to be Solonius's execution.  Solonius tells the gladiator that Batiatus is the villain, not him; Spartacus promises him that Batiatus will be joining him shortly.  Solonius is still laughing at that when Spartacus knocks his head right off his body.  That evening, when the slave girl Mira is sent to Spartacus as a reward/diversion, he tells her that he knows that Batiatus had his wife killed.  She pleads with him not to attempt revenge since under Roman law, if a slave kills his master, all the other household slaves will be put to death.  Spartacus doesn't seem to care all that much.

As requested by Lucretia, Ilythia has asked her husband, the Legatus Glaba, to be patron of Batiatus's ludus.  Glaba is not inclined to do so, and makes veiled accusations towards Batiatus because of the recent spate of murders and disappearances in Capua.  Later, Ilythia tells Glaba to play along a little, toy with Batiatus and Lucretia.  Then she jumps his bones.

When Glaba and Ilythia go to the ludus, Glaba insists that the gladiators be brought up to the villa.  He wants a demonstration:  Spartacus, armed only with a practice sword, against one of Glaba's armed soldiers.  When Spartacus defeats the man, two more step up.  When he puts them down, the remaining five come after him.  It takes a while, but he clobbers them all.  Glaba is not happy at this, the worst [former] soldier in his platoon having become the greatest gladiator of Capua.  He says that he'll be Batiatus's patron if Spartacus will kneel before him.  Amazingly (and obviously with his own agenda in mind), the Thracian does so.  Still, Glaba balks and is about to leave when Batiatus plays his ace: he shows Glaba the severed hand of Lykinia, she whom Ilythia murdered in her post-coital rage.  That does it - patronage granted.  But Ilythia gets backhanded across the face and her husband tells her that she will not be returning to Rome with him.

Meanwhile, a bunch of other things happen.  Like, Lucretia finds out about Crixus's illicit love affair with her slave girl (Lavia?) and becomes enraged, beating the girl, cutting off all her hair and sending her away.  Crixus gets whipped for his indiscretions.  Lavia tells the dotore that Batiatus had Barca killed when he tried to purchase his freedom - and the dotore is quite upset about that.  And Spartacus begins to speak of rebellion among the other gladiators.