Saturday, May 24, 2008

Indy 4, LOVED IT. Spoilers...

I saw it and I'm going to take a stand.

I am going to be unpopular right now. I realise it's popular to hate George Lucas. It's popular to go to certain movies super excited, sit there all pessimistic, judgemental with high expectations and expect perfection. It's popular to hate a movie and find fault, then join with everyone in bashing it.

I knew people would hate it. Did the movie suck? Sorry to disappoint you but it didn't. The movie was everything I wanted and more. The audience sucked. They didn't laugh at the funny parts or cheer at the cheering parts. They were all dead fish.

Sorry but I liked it.

High points...

1. Harrison back as Indy. Oh how great to see that again! In the warehouse, when he had to escape from the Russians and that Indy music started playing I realized something. A feeling erupted from my chest and grew out to fill my body. It was the suspense Indy watching feeling that I complete forgot. It's the feeling you get while watching one of his Indiana Jones films. Oh how great that was!

2. Shia as his son. I never would've thought the boy from Evens Stevens could do it but he can. I would love a series of Shia as the adventurer. I loved how he at first judged Indy then later looked at him in awe. I loved how he was scared and showed it but learned to use guts. I think it was very appropriate that at the end he did not take up the hat. It's like he's not ready but someday. I hope we see a couple more to show his learning curve.

3. Marion being back. She was the best leading lady and everything was appropriate for her return. I loved her attitude. She really portrayed the character realizing she missed Indy and loved being in another adventure with him. Everything she did made perfect since.

4. Lucas threw in the line! I cheered when Indy said "I've got a bad feeling about this." Indy did the Han Solo line! Sure, it's been in every Star Wars including the first 3, but it's special when Harrison says it. I loved the fact that now Indy said it, too!

There's just too much to say. Very good film. Sorry to disappoint the many pessimists, but I was OK with Shai's Tarzan bit. I was OK with everything.

It's OK. You pessimists will have plenty of people who over analyze and complain. You can lose one voice.

I liked it, I loved it, and the DVD and sequel cant come soon enough.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Finally! Twilight!

I'm looking forward for this movie.
Regarding the book:Dispite seeing things from Bella's perspective (which sometimes you just want to yell at her), the book really is good.

Plus I need to support a fellow Latter Day Saint vampire author. ;)

Mummy 3 preview, kinda fuzzy



I'm excited. I don't expect much from the film but it should still be enjoyable.

Perfect review of Iron Man from JustSomeRandomGuy

I loved the movie, but this is soooo perfect. Don't forget to wait for the surprise after the credits!


Of sleep overs and Narnians

Each kid in my house had a friend sleep over. It worked very well. Everyone got along.

We took the kids to a movie last night. Neen and I chose Prince Caspian as the annual multi-sleep over movie. Perfect choice.

The movie was very good. As I watched it I got so involved that I forgot how the book ended. That's saying something since I read the book only 2 months ago.

I don't think I ever did post about Ironman. Another great film. So far my favorite of the two (course I'm comparing apples and oranges). I should say more but I don't have a lot of time this morning. I'll just say that when Stan created Ironman back in the 60's, he must've been channeling Robert Downy Jr here in the future. He did THAT good a job.

Back to Narnia 2. I'm sure people who don't know the book might've gotten confused. Already I need to answer my in-law's questions. Course they'd get confused watching Sesame Street.
The movie threw a lot in and didn't waste time explaining things 3 times so people who can't catch plot in small dialogue and body/face actions could miss a thing or two. They altered the story and built more on Peter's messed up frame of mind. That made it easier to translate C.S. Lewis' story.

I liked it. It made me want to continue reading the Narnia books (I've read 1-4). At the moment I'm reading Fablehaven and after that I'll either read the last Twilight book by Meyer or reread HP 6 and 7.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Is traditional publishing in trouble? Nope.‏

Here is some good news from writer/editor Sean McLachlan. This is from his post on the Fantasy Writer group...


There’s a lot of talk on writing newgroups that the traditional print industry is in freefall, soon to be tossed into the scrapheap of history and replaced by ebooks or no books at all. The facts say otherwise.
According to the Association of American Publishers, net sales for 2007 were $25 billion, up 3.2% from 2006. Not a bad showing for a recession year. Not only that, but the New York Times reported that in 2007 there were an astonishing 400,000 books published in the United States alone. Many of these are self-published books that hardly sell any copies, others are reprints of older works, but a great deal of them were new titles by reputable publishers. The development of affordable print-on-demand technology has led to a boom in small presses, and university presses are thriving too.
Ebooks had a net profit of $67 million in 2007, a growth of 24% over the previous year. But as a total of all book sales they constituted less than one third of one percent. There are a lot of smaller epublishers out there that aren’t counted in the statistics, but even if the figures are off by a factor of ten, which they’re not, I don’t think print publishers have anything to worry about.
So it seems that while Americans are reading less, dedicated readers are actually reading more. That’s the only way I can account for these figures. Traditional publishers are doing OK. Long live the traditional print book!
For more of my thoughts on this issue, and links to the data, go to

http://midlistwriter.blogspot.com/2008/05/is-publishing-industry-in-trouble-nope.html

regards,

Sean McLachlan