Rust

Blah blah, apology, blah.

Reviews!

Movies:

Pride & Prejudice - Do you like the ampersand? I think it makes everything much more modern. Anyways. This is such a kick-ass movie. I officially believe that Keira Knightly is a really good actress now, after this and the bounty hunter movie. As Frank can testify, nothing makes me break out in uncontrollable laughter quite as much as a well timed Victorian quip. Seriously, I could not stop laughing all the way through this movie. They are so dry! And yet hilarious. And it was so sweet. I will admit that the majority of the movie I was distracted by how very Bridget Jones it was, until I remembered that I had the exact same problem watching Bridget Jones thinking about how much it was like the novel of Pride and Prejudice. My mind is a scary place. But yeah, total love.

Hustle & Flow - People told me this movie was great. Did I listen to them? No. "It's about a rapping pimp. That's not great." I was such a fool. So good that my Sunday was mostly relegated to wandering through the house going "Man, that movie was so good," like I was in a fugue state. Terrence Howard is ridiculously good, as is DJ Qualls of all people. The actress who played Shug should have totally gotten a Best Supporting Actress nomination, I am totally serious, but entirely unsure of who I would kick out to make room for her. The meeting at the end is amazing for so many different reasons, but man. So effective. Just a perfect movie. You need to see this. In fact, it deserves caps: GO SEE THIS.

Books:

Monkeewrench, P.J Tracy - Do you know how long it's been since I've read just a standard thriller? Way too long. This one is pretty much straight boilerplate at first - A serial killer starts mimicking the staged deaths in a video game in real life. The mystery seems ready to go south very quickly, and the initial language is so horrible that I almost tossed the book away, reminding myself why I stopped reading these sort of books in the first place.

Then, a weird thing happened - the characters got interesting and compelling, the dialogue was just sarcastic enough for my taste, and the story actually picked up. Managed to finish the last 300 pages in just over a day. By the time all three main plots started going full pace, you barely even remember to think about the world around you. The book has too many characters and subplots and the ending doesn't quite pay off enough, but its a very solid read. And apparently it launched a series in the same world, which should be interesting. I will examine and report further.

Something Dangerous, Patrick Redmond - Okay, this book is bold, I will give it that. It concerns a boys boarding school and some unexplained atrocity that occurred in its past. The novel is very well written and realistic, the issues with the younger boys getting hazed by the upper years are all very vivid and the entire book sort of runs with this intense undercurrent of dread that is downright creepy. My only problem with the book (except for all the characters, dear lord, I think there are at least 15 primary players) is that the ending builds and builds and suddenly you hit the ending and it's utterly preposterous. I guess that shouldn't invalidate the rest of the story, but goddamn did it take me out of the moment. Overall well done, but unsatisfying. I really want to read something else by this author, though, and see what he can do.