Just Finished Reading: The Invisible Man

Many works by H.G. Wells have been turned into films, and The Invisible Man has always been my favorite. The Invisible Man is my fourth favorite film from the classic Universal horror films (following Bride of Frankenstein, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man,) so while reading this I kept hearing Claude Rains' voice whenever the Invisible Man would speak. I knew that I would like this book because I really love the story, and I loved it even more because Una O'Connor wasn't in it... Seriously, why did James Whale insist on putting her both Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man? She was the most annoying actress ever!! Anyways, I think that this was a good choice for my first H.G. Wells book. I also intend on reading War of the Worlds and The Island of Dr. Moreau.

The Snow White Movie I Want To See

Movies often come out in pairs. Theres No Strings Attached and Friends With Benefits, the two Marilyn Monroe movies coming out, and also two Snow White movies coming out. Originally, I thought that the film Snow White and the Huntsman would be the more interesting one, with Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen and Viggo Mortensen as the Huntsman. Now that Kristen Stewart has been cast as Snow White, and Viggo is no longer in the film, I have become much more interesting in the other Snow White film coming out. It is going to be called The Brothers Grimm: Snow White. It was recently announced that the title character is going to be played by Lily Collins.

I am not too familiar with anything that she has been in, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that she will make a better Snow White than that bucket of sunshine Kristen Stewart. What makes this movie even better is that the Evil Queen will be played by the great Julia Roberts.

I don't think I have ever seen her play a villainous character before, so this should be really interesting to see. And in the role of Prince Charming, I think that they did very good casting with having him be played by Armie Hammer from The Social Network. That guy just looks like royalty...

So, of the two Snow White films, this is the one that I plan on seeing. For all I know this one could turn out to be shit, and the other one brilliant, but for now this is the one I am looking forward to.

Character of the Week: Princess Leia Organa

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a young girl named Princess Leia Organa who grew up on the planet Alderaan. She had no idea that she was an adopted child whose biological parents were either dead or a Sith lord, and that she had a twin brother named Luke far away on the planet Tatooine. She was just a young princess trying to deal with galactic civil war against the Empire when she was taken captive on the Death Star. She asked for help from Obi Wan Kenobi, but was instead rescued by her brother Luke Skywalker and the handsome Han Solo. Leia played an integral role in the destruction of the first Death Star, for it was she who put the plans inside of the R2 unit that made its way to Tatooine. Without those plans, they never would have been able to find the weakness to the Death Star, and the Empire would have just kept on destroying entire planets, like Leia's home planet Alderaan. She also forms a romantic relationship with a sexy smuggler named Han Solo. At first she tries to resist his charms, but when the guy is Han Solo, that is just not a possibility.


So, she ends up having to rescue her new love, who has been frozen in carbonite and taken away by Boba Fett. Unfortanately, her plan backfires and she gets enslaved by Jabba the Hutt. While Han and Luke are making their escape, she makes her own by killing Jabba with her chain. So, eventually she finds out that Luke is her brother and she assists in blowing up the second Death Star by helping to deactivate the shield around it, and eventually balance is restored to the galaxy by destroying the Empire.

I love Princess Leia because she is not your typical Princess character. She is smart and tough, and is pretty much the only person who actually shoots a storm trooper when they are escaping the Death Star. Even after the destruction of her home planet, she stays strong and focuses on what is important, destroying the Empire. Also, how many sci fi heroines get corny songs written about them?

Song of the Week: Whatta Man

Spotlight On: Brody Dalle

One of the most kick ass women in rock history, Brody Dalle is just fucking amazing!! She was the lead singers of one of my favorite bands, The Distillers and is now fronting another awesome band called Spinnerette. She just has the best gravelly voice, all of her songs are really rockin, and she is also drop dead gorgeous!!! I just love everything that she has ever done and hope to hear lots more from her. Here are some of my favorite songs of hers.

The Distillers

The Distillers







Sing Sing Death House







Coral Fang









Spinnerette

Ghetto Love EP



Spinnerette

My Review: Sucker Punch

God dammit! After months and months of waiting for this movie to come out, and thinking that it was going to be as awesome as Snyder's previous films, and way over-hyping it up in my mind (and on this blog.) this movie turned out to be a disappointment. The plot was rediculous, the visuals, while amazing at times, were a bit too much, and there was virtually no dialogue. Or good dialogue, I should say. Okay, so the movie is about a young girl named Babydoll who is placed in a mental institution by her stepfather. Her stepfather sets up for her to be lobotomized, but during the procedure we are suddenly taken to a brothel. What?!?!?  This made me so confused. Is it because she got lobotomized that we are suddenly in a whore house? After a while I just ignored this because I didn't really want to think about it anymore. Okay, so at this whorehouse, they make the girls dance and they are going to have Babydoll dance for this High Roller who is going to pay to take her virginity. When Babydoll dances however, she is transported to different worlds where she has to fight samurai, zombie Nazis, dragons, and robots. In her alternate reality (which I guess is an alternative reality inside of an alternative reality?), she is helped by an old guy who tells her that in order to escape she needs a map, fire, a knife, and a key. Four other girls called Sweetpea, Rocket, Blondie, and Amber help her try to find these items, in both the brothel and the fantasy world. I don't understand why Mr. Snyder felt the need to have an alternative reality inside of an alternative reality. Why couldn't they just escape from the mental institution? Or why didn't they just take the whole mental institution part out of it? It really wasn't necessary to the story at all. I also wish that Snyder didn't overuse the slo-mo effects. Yes, it looked cool in 300, it looked cool in Watchmen, but jeez, in this movie it was way overdone. This was most evident in the part where they are fighting the robots. It was nothing but slow motion!!! The one thing that I really with this movie had though, is humor and some character development. There was not a single comedic moment in this film, and all of the characters are one-dimensional. I'm not saying that every action movie needs to have comic relief, but when a movie is as dead as this one, it would be nice. Basically this movie was pretty girls crying, pretty girls in over-stylized fight sequences, then pretty girls crying, then fight sequences, over and over until the blaaaah ending. I was extremely disappointed in this movie. And to make matters worse, the movie projector or whatever stopped for like 2 minutes at the theater I was at in the middle of a scene. So, not only was a watching this not-that-great movie, but I was in a bad mood because I was in a shitty theater. Lose-Lose.... My rating: 3/10 (and that is being generous)

Character of the Week: Alex DeLarge

This week's character of the week is the main character in one of my favorite films, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. It is Alex DeLarge, who is played brilliantly by Malcolm McDowell. He is a very interesting character because although he starts out as a villianous troublemaker and ends up a sort of pathetic victim. The film starts out with him and his three droogs beating up old men, attacking people in their homes, and committing many acts of ultraviolence. The second part of the movie is him trying to get out of prison, and eventually doing so by undergoing a new treatment that conditions him to feel sick around acts of violence, and when he hears Beethoven's 9th. You can see how, even though the treatment works and he is no longer able to commit acts of violence, that he still has not changed on the inside.



This is just a brilliant, amazing, sensational film that everyone should be required to watch in their lifetime. It is definitely Malcolm McDowell's best performance, and in my opinion, Kubrick's greatest film. I have never been able to read through the entire book, though. Even though it is quite short, I cannot understand a word because it is all like Russian slang, and I end up getting frustrated and giving up. I am planning to give it another go, however.