Finally got around to seeing Inglourious Basterds.  Tarratino’s alternate WWII history is a great mix of intertwining storylines and superlative acting.  I really enjoyed this quite a bit.  Christoph Waltz as Col. Hans Landa was just brilliant and played the bad guy with much relish. Polished, refined, charming, and able to speak several languages including English, French, and Italian; Landa is very much a coiled snake that lulls his victims so they lower their defenses and then he strikes with lightning, brutal violence.  Brilliant!

1) Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

3) The Twelve by Justin Cronin – partial – finished the last quarter.

My thoughts on the book from 2012:

“Only made it 3/4s of the way through this one before I had to return it to the library. I’ll have to reborrow to finish it but with an upcoming Christmas vacation that likely won’t happen till next year.The shifting timeline that occurred in the first book is back this time to even more annoying affect. At least in the first book it was in chronological order. In the second, it jumps back again with characters whose fates we know and don’t care about. The first book left us with a certain group of characters and then when the second picks up with them it is some time after the first book ended. Rather off putting and a momentum killer. 300 pages plus in and it was only then the book felt like it was gathering steam. On the plus side I really do like Cronin’s way with characters.

Completing the book reinforced my previous points. I found the book’s jumbled timeline a real momentum killer but Cronin’s craft with creating characters I care about is such that I was quite emotional during the final few chapters.

If it wasn’t for that, I would not read the third book. And I fear a long revisit into the past in the third book maybe in order to flesh out Zero. Another annoying trend was Cronin taking the story up to moments of conflict that had been well setup only to jump forward and then tell what happened after the fact. Not a fan of that style of story telling.

This series had the scope and potential to become the next big thing Apocolyptic novel but as of this point in the story, this series will not supplant The Stand for me.

Curious as to what the general reception for The Twelve has been and Cronin’s reaction/book sales have been.

For me, The Twelve is definitely a disappointment.”

Completing the book reinforced my previous points. I found the book’s jumbled timeline a real momentum killer but Cronin’s craft with creating characters I care about is such that I was quite emotional during the final few chapters. 

If it wasn’t for that, I would not read the third book. And I fear a long revisit into the past in the third book maybe in order to flesh out Zero. Another annoying trend was Cronin taking the story up to moments of conflict that had been well setup only to jump forward and then tell what happened after the fact. Not a fan of that style of story telling. 

This series had the scope and potential to become the next big thing Apocolyptic novel but as of this point in the story, this series will not supplant The Stand for me. 

Curious as to what the general reception for The Twelve has been and Cronin’s reaction/book sales have been.

For me, The Twelve is definitely a disappointment.”

pssst!  Between you and me let’s pretend it hasn’t been ages since I last posted here.

Agreed?

….

Thanks!


What to say?  Well, as with most of us no doubt, the last year has seen a lot of change.  Especially for our family.  Because of the job crunch in Ontario, I ended up taking a job out west.  At first it looked like we were heading to Calgary but then the opportunities our consulting firm had lined up there fell through so it was off to Edmonton instead.  For my family the switch made little difference as they had stayed back in Ontario while I spent six months working in Calgary, getting familiar with the area, and going out with a real estate agent to the various sections of town to scout out a location to move to.

All of that planning went up in smoke when I was reassigned to Edmonton.

What’s that saying again?  Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans or some such thing…

So in mid-February of 2012 I was plopped down into a downtown Edmonton hotel scrambling to understand the needs of a new client and find a place for us to move to ASAP as each day I spent in the hotel ate into our moving budget.

All things have worked out rather well.  I found a little town nestled on the north edge of Edmonton, St. Albert, which is a lovely community that you can drive across in 10 minutes.  It is a scenic place with with a lovely variety of elevations ie not all flat plainsland, and a river that meanders through the centre of town. The educational and recreational facilities are fantastic.  The amount of them available per capita is rather stunning.  Most importantly, our son who just turned 13 but was 12 when we moved loves the Junior High School and his marks have improved dramatically as a reflection of that.  He misses his old friends back east but through the wonders of modern technology keeps in touch with them through his X-Box.

It is quieter out here.  You get out of St. Albert and Edmonton proper and the amount of elbow room one can feel out here – if you have been a long time resident of Southern Ontario – is rather stunning.  The local joke here is that Edmonton is 4 hrs from everywhere – Calgary, the Rockies, and Toronto – by plane.

We survived the forecasted world end of December 22, 2012 – Mulder and Mayans be damned – flew back east for Christmas and a week in Jamaica.  The nice thing when we flew back west was this time we were heading home.  The previous time, especially for my wife and son, the feeling of that flight was one of leaving home. This last trip closed the circle for all of us.

We are home.

1. Flashback by Dan Simmons: 

A sobering look at the near future.  Ostensibly a murder/mystery, Simmons uses it as a story engine to postulate a very frightening, potentially real future especially given the recent economic and political climates around the world. 

The Creative Powers That Be behind the latest cinematic comic book incarnation of the X-Men must be hard pressed not to be doing a fair bit of gloating.  Ever since news of this prequel project started to tingle the web threads of the internet; derision and cynicism by all, had been the overwhelming reaction.

Including yours truly.

Especially for a prequel.  Which by their very nature are limited in what can be done story wise. That, and the less than enthusiastic reception the third X-Men movie received, made the odds of X-Men: First Class(XMFC) being a creative and financial failure very high.

But XMFC bucked the odds and surprised many of us. Joyfully surprised us.

XMFC shares many characteristics of Batman: The Dark Knight in that not only is it a great comic book movie, it is a great movie period.

Brian Singer’s signature fingerprints are all over this project.  The themes of being an outsider, a freak, an object of fear and prejudice; echo many of the same themes from the other X-Men movies.  Even though XMFC is treading over previously covered ground it feels fresh because of the time era and the character mixes.

For we see characters who are sworn enemies in the previous movies as friends here.  Most notably Professor Xavier and Magneto.  We are also shown that Xavier and Mystique grew up much like a brother and sister. Mystique harbors deeper feelings for Xavier which he somewhat, in a more youthful callous way than Patrick Stewart’s more mature version would not, dismisses out of hand.

The core of the movie revolves around Xavier and Magneto.  These two are near brothers and equal in almost all aspects.  Their coming together and breaking apart is niftily shown to us in dramatic form during those scary Cold War days between the US and Russia culminating in a climatic battle during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

One of the ongoing problems with the X-Men franchise is a surplus of characters and allotting sufficient screen time to each of them so that they become more than scene dressing.   XMFC does the best job of giving each character more than just one scene or line.  This is more true for the characters that Xavier gathers together than those that follow Kevin Bacon’s – ageless, energy absorbing Nazi scientist, Sebastian Shaw. Bacon brings a lot of energy and evil menace of a delicious kind to the character whose past is intertwined with that of Magneto/Erik Lehnsherr’s tragic World War II Concentration Camp days.

The movie looks fantastic and that 60’s vibe; which comes off as Futuristic Retro here; looks very sharp, very cool, and very sexy from the buildings to the cars to the bars to the women’s fashions and those crazy cool narrow ties.  It  really does feel like one of early James Bond movie as noted by many others. XMFC also has done a near perfect job of casting.  Not only the big parts but the cameos, expected and unexpected too.  Any picture that can shoehorn in Michael Ironside and Ray Wise – a deliciously wry piece of casting as the Secretary of State giving the go-ahead to escalate hostilities with the Soviet Union – gets automatic bonus points from me.

Of special note casting wise was Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy aka The Beast.  Perfect.  Hoult brought a sense of humility, sensitivity, intelligence and warmth to the character in addition to physically looking the part.  Jennifer Lawrence as Raven Darkholme/Mystique, fresh off the buzz of her performance in the indie picture – Winter’s Bone and the future Katniss Everdeen of the upcoming Hunger Games movie trilogy, seemed a little flat to me.  The most problematic piece of casting scrutiny will no doubt fall on January Jone’s stiff portrayal of Emma Frost.  XMFC really makes these characters feel a part of the world around them rather than apart from it.  The movie avoids the pitfalls of comic book characters by having them inhabit the world like everyone else.  They are in civilian clothes for almost the entire movie.

Much of the film’s success lies with James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Xavier and Magneto respectively.  Both excel but Fassbender’s tortured portrayal is a showcase performance.  Magneto is a richly drawn character that provides Fassbender with a star making opportunity.  One he takes full advantage of.  Fassbender feels like a cross of Sean Connery mixed with Louis Jourdan.  There is a sulky smoothness over a raging interior that radiates off the screen.

It is a true mark of a great film that the characters and their stories linger the most after the screen fades to black.  Their individual powers are extensions of the characters.  The characters are not there as placeholders for special effects shots.  The powers get their showcase special effects moments but the strength of the movie is they are there supporting the characters.  Not dominating them.  They are subordinate.

I saw XMFC and Thor in the same day. Kind of a SuperHero Saturday DoubleHeader if you will.   XMFC is the better movie and Thor was a solid experience as well.  With the Green Lantern and Captain America just around the corner; it augers well for a great summer of movies.

XMFC is one of the far too infrequent movie experiences where one’s preconceptions are happily proven wrong.  It is these kind of moments that make one excited for movies all over again.