Thursday, January 28, 2010

"Paradise Lost": Angels n Demons n nudies, oh my!

"Paradise Lost" is an epic poem written by John Milton a million years ago, or at least, so it sounds. It was actually written sometime in the 1660s, I believe.
If you have ever been to a church or synagogue even once in your life, then chances are you know the plot of PL. Basically, it's about Satan. When God announces that He's gonna make a species of people called humans, and give them free will over their entire lives (as well as their own personal paradise on earth), Satan gets pissed. Green with envy, he starts a rebellion of angels, but gets his ass kicked and then is subsequently banished to hell. So he hatches an elaborate plot to mess with the humans. If you know the story of Adam & Eve, then you'll know that he succeeds, thus boning the human race forever.
Since everybody pretty much knows this story, there's not much in the book to shock or surprise. Even if M. Night Shyamalan had written this, he'd be hard pressed to find a way to add any kind of twist at all. But Milton told the story in a very cool way. I bet if this were a movie, the visuals would be fantastic. Since this book is actually one ginormous poem, I'd reccomend reading it out loud for maximum enjoyment.
"Paradise Lost" gets a 79% in my Good Books.

;)

"Avatar": Blue People F***ing

Because of its huge hype and apparently inevitable position at the top of the list of the most profitable movies ever, there's not much to say about Jimmy C's newest epic wonderfest that hasn't already been said somewhere else, by a more articulate speaker than me.
But opinion-wise, I enjoyed it lots & lots. The Sigourney Weaver/mech suit "Alien" callbacks were very cool. The Na'vi looked awesome. Quaritch was a great villain. Pandora was a well-imagined and admirably detailed world. The story was simple yet entertaining. This movie felt like it had already been a 20-year-old classic from the moment it was released.
Cameron says he has two sequels planned, so I'm really looking forward to "Avatars" and "Avatar3", and then, inevitably, some new director will take over and bring us "Avatar Ressurection", which will be poorly-received by audiences worldwide, placing the whole Avatar franchise into limbo until, 20 years later, somebody decides to revivie it by making "Avatar vs. Cloverfield". But that only makes things worse.
I grant upon Avatar all the love of Ewah, as well as an 86%.

;)

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

"The Third Policeman": It's NOT About A Bicycle

The Third Policeman is a book by Flann O'Connor, who is so obviously Irish it's not even funny.
The book, on the other hand, is VERY funny. It's more of an absurdist humor, though. In layman's terms, that means WACKY. i.e., if you have trouble understanding things that make very little sense (such as an infinite number of increasingly smaller treasure chests inside one another) then chances are you won't find this book very funny at all.
But I enjoyed the craziness of it all, and the twist at the end was "neat" as they said in the 1970s. The bicycles becoming human (and vice versa) was an astounding bit of creativity on the author's part. A lot of de Selby philosophy bogged it down a bit, though, and I'm still not 100% sure id the guy was real or not. If not, then O'Connor went to some great freaking lengths just to write down all of ideas and beliefs.
All in all, an enjoyable read. Short & sweet, but a bit lacking in palces for inexplicable reasons. I give it 73% on the Cycle-o-Meter.
;)