My book's progress

I see it's been a long time since I updated the status of my book here.
I need to let you know, it's over 650 pages now and 17 chapters
I still have only a working title for it, The Dark Horse, but
I've got 10 people reading it and reviewing it and I'm working on it
every damn day.
It's still fun and exciting.

I'll try to do more updates if nothing else to help copyright this work and
distinguish it as my own original ideas and words.

Thanks to anyone still reading this.  It's not a dead blog yet.

Twilight - the book

Released: 2008
Author: St Meyer
Pages: 544 agonizingly stupid pages
Teenage

The breakdown: The phenomena that is a teenage girl falls in love with an old vampire.

So, the real reason I read this (well, half of it was as far as I got) was to see what made it so popular and how good or bad the writing was.  I did not surprise myself.
Regardless of how many people tell me the book is so much better than the movies, it's not the truth.  This book is just as bad as the movie.
The first time author has her own agenda to keep girls away from having sex before they are married.  She warns of all the bad things that might happen to the female lead if she continues to hang around and/or make out with this vampire.
Later on in the series we find that even after you get married, sex is still dangerous creating a child that almost eats it's way out of the mother, plus abortion is not an option, no matter what the circumstance.
There's too many direct moral messages the author is trying to hit you over the head with, for this to still remain a novel.  She should've just written a non-fiction book on how to raise your teenage daughter.

Anyway, the plot, teenage girl moves from Phoenix to Washington state in a dreary little town named Forks that almost never sees warm temperatures or sunlight.  She's the new girl in a very small town.  She's hit on by several boys at once, but is interested in none of them.  She does like the vampire pretending to be a boy who just smelled something bad and who looks at her as though he wants to eat her, literally, for dinner.

They start a relationship that sets the town ablaze with gossip and makes the vampire a bit of an outcast within his own "family."

The characters are always angry or filled with sarcasm, but beyond that, you don't really get to know them on a deep level.  It's all surface and the author goes on and on about how perfect and gorgeous the boy vampire is.  It's quite annoying and distracting to the reader's enjoyment.

The characters are also not allowed to talk without a lot of different versions of she said, he said surrounding the dialogue, so that's what not to do for writing 101.

I got as far as about 260-something pages before I quit.  The part where he's standing in the sun in a sleeveless button down shirt?  Why would he be wearing this?  But anyway, and he's sparkling, was just too much ridiculous crap for me to continue on.

1 out of 5 for showing me how not to write a novel.

Here's the review from my amazon.com account:

I saw the movie first and hated it. My best friend tried to persuade me that the book was better. I resisted. I am now in the process of writing my own novel and wanted to try to understand why this story, despite it's utter lack of good story line or characters, was so immensely popular. I rented it from the library and could only make it halfway through the book before giving up in disgust.
The female lead is good at hating things, complaining, and being obsessed with a "boy" who's over a hundred years old pretending to be a teenager.
The male lead is good at inappropriate emotional reactions to simple things the whiny girl says, and being moody or strange.
There is no chemistry between them. There is weak writing followed by a boring story line. I gave up at the point where the vampire shows his sparkles to her in the forest wearing a button down sleeveless shirt.
What I learned from reading half of this rubbish is how not to write a love story, which in a way is valuable, but for the understanding why it's popular....I'm still at a loss.
This book and movie was utter crap with no worth or entertainment value.
I would've given it a zero but the lowest I could go was 1.

Fifty Shades of Grey

Released: 2012
Author: E L James
Pages: 528 pages
IF there was a rating system for books this would be: X

Rundown: Ana is a virgin and about to graduate college.  Christian is a role playing Dominate who is also a young CEO of his own company, but he likes sex a lot and he likes to beat women to really get turned on.  Oh and he's so controlling, and creepy.

Well, I had heard a lot of things about this book: that it was for adults only, that it was like Twilight for adults, that it had a lot of sex, NY Times Best Seller, women were going crazy over it.  Well, I suppose if you've never had sex you'd go crazy over it, and if you didn't know what a good book or a good romance novel was supposed to be like, you might go crazy over it as well.

This was the first novel for the author so I will cut her some slack, but the copy editor should have helped her with some grammar problems, and her editor should have helped with some other plot issues, and continuity issues, and lack of character development issues, and issues of repetition, and taken out some of the sex because it's really there a lot of times just for sex's sake.

I'm writing my own romance novel right now so I'm really in tune with what should be working and what isn't.
Unfortunately, this book is full of repetition from how the male lead is described over and over again as hot, sexy, beautiful, etc, to how often the characters have sex for no other reason then to write another sex scene into the book and hope the audience is distracted from the book's other problems.

Yes, the book gets ridiculous from time to time, and the male lead seems to be physically perfect, but is an arrogant controlling, obsessive, aggressive, and dangerous asshole, but since he's beautiful, it's ok with the female lead that he scares her.
This book had actually made me stop reading at one point because I got physically ill with some of the control issues with bondage and such.

I usually enjoy when the main characters have sex, but halfway through, there was so much of it, I started just glossing over those scenes looking for character development.

Trust me, you're not missing anything by skipping this one.  In fact, I'm not even going to bother reading the next two, even though #1 left me on a cliffhanger.  I really don't care what happens next.  So glad I didn't pay full price for this book!

1 out of 5 for some laughs, intentional and otherwise, and a couple good sex scenes.
SKIP IT!

Day by Day Armageddon Shattered Hourglass

Released: 2012
Horror
Author: J. L. Bourne
Pages: 336
Publisher: Permuted Press

The breakdown:  The third, and possibly last, book in the zombie series by J. L. Bourne.  This book tells of what's left of the government and how they are trying to find a cure for the zombies that have taken over the planet.

It's hard to talk about this book without giving things away, especially if you haven't read the first two.
First, I'll recap by saying the first two were about a single soldier of the U.S. Military that discovered his world turned upside down by a vicious illness that turns people into zombies.  He tries to survive the best he can, and makes friends along the way, making his group of survivors, bigger and bigger.

In this book, the way the stories are told changes.  It's no longer just our lone survivor and his group of friends.  It's also what's left of the government, special ops teams, and a few other groups that's best left out for your enjoyment of the book.

I can say, this was probably my favorite of the three since this was action packed and had lots of good ideas in it.  I'm not sure so many others will like it.
I have read others reviews of it, and they mention how the ending is a bit abrupt, and that's true....It seems the ending was a bit rushed, but if there's another book in the series, perhaps that will smooth out the ending of this book.  It didn't bother me, to tell the truth.
The ending leaves room for another book, of course, and after I read the end, I did need to go back and reread a few other parts.  But overall, I liked the book and the series.  I would easily recommend it to anyone who likes to read, or zombie stories.

4 out of 5 for originality and an enjoyable read.

A Painted House

First Published: 2000
Drama
Pages: 384
Author: John Grisham

The breakdown:  A young boy named Luke is only 7 years old when his whole world changes.  He lives with his family on a small cotton farm and life is difficult.  One summer, his life is full of secrets, some big, and some small, but he carries all of them with him.


So I read this book because I needed something for the plane ride and my dad recommended it to me after he read it and loved it.  I was expecting a lot and was pretty let down.

I really didn't like the ending, but overall, thought it was kinda' boring.  I'll tell you the short version and let you decide.

A small town farming community is plagued with murders involving dangerous strangers in the early 1950's.  One family, the Chandlers, and especially the youngest Chandler, Luke is having a lot of bad news thrown on his shoulders and expected to keep it all to himself.  The family farms cotton and life is hard for them.  They barely have anything, but really just want to break even by farming and selling their crop.  In one house lives, Luke, his parents, and his dad's parents all together.  When picking season comes they need a lot more hands to help out before the winter comes.  They hire what they call the "hill" people who come down from bigger towns up north to make some extra money.  The family they hire are called the Spruills and they make a camp on their front yard for the season.  They also hire the Mexicans.  They live in the Chandler's barn and there are 10 of them.  Within the group of the Mexicans is a dangerous man named Cowboy who carries a switchblade and doesn't talk much.  Luke tries talking to him, but gets some bad vibes off him and stays away.  Within the Spruills, there's a dangerous teenage boy named Hank who never knows when to quit.  He's got a mean spirit and Luke stays as far away from him as possible.  But within the Spruills, is also Tally a teenage girl that Luke is in love with.  She gets him to go on long midnight walks with her when he's not supposed to leave the house, but he'd do anything to spend time with her.  Eventually, in town, on a Saturday night, a fight breaks out with some really nasty brothers.  Pretty soon it's 2 on 1 and Hank steps in to get the town boy free of the 2 mean brothers.  After he slinks off, he fights the 2 brothers, and then a third one joins in.  Problem is Hank never stops fighting even after the brothers are all down and he takes a 2x4 to one of the brothers and kills him.  Luke does not want to talk about this to anyone as Hank lives on his farm and if the police arrest him, he knows the rest of the family will leave and the Chandlers will be very short handed picking cotton.

I won't bother telling you the rest.  It's continually a boring book (to me) where you expect more of the story and it just never appears.  The ending is a bit open where you're not sure what's happened with certain characters and that really bugged me.

2 out of 5 bookmarks for being well written, but the characters and subject matter are just not interesting enough for me.  I say skip it.

Dying to Live Last Rites

Released: 2012
Horror
Author: Kim Paffenroth
Pages: 240

The last in a series of 3 books, this continues on with the lives of two living and two dead people.

This is certainly the strongest story of the three books and one might be better off just reading this one and be done with the series.
The first book was written from one survivor man's experiences.
The second book was written from a human girl's experiences and a male zombies experiences.
This book is written from 4 people's perspectives.  One female and one male living couple, and one female and one male zombie couple.
They start off on a boat and the illness of the living female makes them look for land with living people to help her feel better.
This endangers all of their lives as these people they find living in a new city are not the best circumstances to live with for all of our storytellers.

Basically, this book looks deeper into living people and how they deal with situations concerning zombies....I mean smart zombies that are somewhat people, not so much flesh eating monsters anymore.

It wasn't bad.

I'll give it 3 and 1/2 out of 5 for finally being a good story and for being the strongest writing in the series.

Dying to Live Life Sentence

Released: 2008
Horror
Author: Kim Paffenroth
Pages: 210

In a series of three books, this is the second one.
The first book was told from one main characters perspective, shortly after the end of his world and the beginning of the zombie era.
A major virus, or infection has caused the entire world, presumably, to fall ill, die, and become zombies.  After he finds a baby and father on a roof top one day he helps them into his community of survivors that helped him.

This book picks up from the grown up baby's point of view.
The baby grows up in the community and only knows a world where the walking dead are always a threat, learns how to shoot and fight to survive and carries a handgun at 12.
Someone else in the group tries to learn more about zombies as he grows up and finds out that a few of them are not like the others.  Some zombies are intelligent and can remember some things from their past life.

The book is now told from two very different points of view, one human, and one zombie.

I didn't think the first book was anything special, it was just ok.
The second book is down right ridiculous with the introduction of the idea that some zombies could somehow think and have memories, to even be friendly towards people and suppress the urges to eat them.

At best, zombies capabilities should end at being able to pick up a rock to use as a primitive weapon to break something.  That's a rational idea for a zombies intelligence and where it should end.  A zombie keeping a journal is something all together hard to swallow.

I realize the author is trying to make up some different stories here, but this is pushing it way too far.
Zombie lore has kinda' been set.  You get ill, or bit, you die.  You get reanimated as a zombie and want to eat people.  You don't think.  You must get shot in the head, or destroy the brain to put down a zombie.  You don't fall in love as a zombie, you don't talk, you don't type on a computer, and you certainly don't write journals.

This book was unintentionally funny at times, but I finished it.  Overall, it was way worse than the first one.

Do not waste your time on this book.
1 out of 5 for outlandish ideas, even by science fiction standards.

Dying to Live

Released: 2007
Horror, Sci-fi
Author: Kim Paffenroth
Pages: 256

The breakdown:  A tale of the end of the world and how the survivors are trying to cope with a new life and survive daily zombie threats.


Well with my love of zombie stories, I figured I'd give this one a try.  First book in a series of three, this one deals with basically one man's story.
He survives a vicious viral attack that turns all humans into zombies once they die or are bitten.  He doesn't know what happened to his family as the virus basically breaks out and takes over in a single day or two.  He wanders the streets looking for food, and shelter, killing zombies as he goes.
He finally finds a bunch of survivors by accident and they take him in.

They've set up a lot in a short amount of time and have rules and policies that he has to learn.
Everyone has to contribute to the group somehow and eventually volunteers go out into the dangerous surroundings for stuff like supplies.

If you want to read the book, I won't ruin it for you, but I discourage it.
Unlike a story like The Walking Dead, or Day by Day Armageddon this one is not a page turner and the story is not meaty enough to get lost in.  You don't ever really invest in the characters and for me, at least, there wasn't enough tension and drama.  In some scenes, it definitely feels as though the author is trying too hard to be gory just for gore's sake, or really stretching trying to bring in new ideas on zombies when you don't have to if you're story is good enough.

2 out of 5 for it being a less than mediocre attempt.

The Walking Dead Compendium One

Released: May 2009
Contains Volumes #1-48
Lots of pages, but none of them numbered, but it's a really quick read since it's a comic book and all.
This comic is not for children: It contains a lot of sex, swearing, and violence.

The breakdown:  The end of the world is here and what's left is filled with zombies and a few survivors.  This is the story of how those survivors get along with each other and deal with killing zombies to stay alive another day.

First off, let me say that I love the television show that this comic book was adapted into.  The story's great, great writing and directing, the characters are fully formed and it's just a great, great project.  So much quality and high drama, it's not just a zombie story it's a human one.  It's so entertaining to watch and fully engages me.  The comic book, not so much, let me explain.

I've never read a comic book before because it never appealed to me.  I love reading, but novels, more than cartoons.  This comic book still has the storyline, but it's so surface with the characters that you never get a chance to know what they're thinking.  You never get the chance to look inside or get more of themselves when it's just a picture throughout with a little thought or word bubble coming out.  There's not enough depth for me for characters and little chance for character development. 

The comic book and the television show differ sometimes, and sometimes greatly, but it's essentially the same story, it's just that I don't enjoy reading the comic book. 

I tried to read this one, but I got to the part where it surpassed where the television show left off at the end of season 2 and I felt like I was ruining the show for myself, so I stopped.  I didn't get bored, but I enjoy the show so much more than the comic that I just couldn't go on.

It seems like to me as well, people these days want to know what's going to happen with the show before it airs.  There's all sorts of spoilers out there and people want to talk to me about the comic storyline and tell me stuff that hasn't happened, but I don't WANT to know.  I WANT it to be a surprise and just let the story unfold before me.

I say, if you haven't read any of the comics, but enjoy the show, stick with the show.  I'll read these comics (maybe) after the show goes off the air forever and I need a little fix of The Walking Dead.

4 out of 5 for a good book; I just don't enjoy the format, and prefer the tv show.

American Psycho

Released: 2000
Drama, Horror
Director: Mary Harron
Starring: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Chloe Sevigny
Running Time: 102 minutes
Rated: NC-17

The breakdown:  In the 1980's a young New Yorker likes to pretend he's much more important than what he really is, and kills people for fun in his spare time.

This movie is based on the book with the same name by Bret Easton Ellis.  This movie was good, I actually picked up the book after I finished watching it.
Patrick Bateman is a New Yorker who works at his father's Wall Street company, but he really doesn't do much.  He obsesses over his business cards and the latest musical sensations and does a lot of drugs....oh and he also kills people for no reason.  He's a very disturbed guy, but this movie is so interesting.  It's like watching a puzzle being put back together.  If you can stand extreme sex and violence in movies, you gotta' see it.  This one's really good.

This was one of the few books that ever made me nauseous upon reading certain parts.  The main character likes to torture some victims before killing them and the writing is so graphic, some readers might find it hard to take.  With that said, the book is still very good and the movie sometimes seems a lot more tame than the book itself.  I still, recommend both to you because it is a good story at it's core.



4 and 1/2 out of 5 for the movie version.  It has a great ending, a naked Christian Bale with a perfect physique, and a solid story.

5 out of 5 bookmarks for the book version as the writing was clear, the story was well thought out and the characters are vivid and well fleshed out.

The Road

Released: 2009
Drama, Sci-fi
Director: John Hillcoat
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Charlize Theron
Running Time: 111 minutes
Rated: R

The breakdown: Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name comes to life in this riveting movie.  After something causes the end of the world (it's never discussed) a couple of lone survivors, a father and son, have to battle to stay alive every single day.

In a post-apocalyptic world, a father and son battle to survive what's left of planet Earth and the United States.  They've been in this world for quite a while and have to battle against hunger, bad weather, other people who are out to kill them and steal whatever they have, and anything else that may come up.  The biggest threat is starvation and then after that, groups of bad guys that get together and go hunting for people who cannot protect themselves.
The son who's about 10 has never had a soda and doesn't know what things like tv or radio and music are.
The father is extremely weary from trying to protect and provide for the both of them, but loves his son more than anything and would do everything to keep him alive.
I read the book as well, and was absolutely riveted by the plot.  I finished the book in a week and it was a very good story that was emotional and thought provoking.
The book is almost always better than the movie because they eventually have to leave something out of the book for the time constraints or have to add something else that wasn't in the book to appease a visual audience.
I recommend reading the book over the movie, but the movie wasn't a bad adaptation.

The story is very heavy though, so it's nothing like a feel good movie at any point, nor is there any comedic relief so be prepared for an emotional film.

4 out of 5 for being an elegant adaptation of the book and a rock solid dramatic story.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Released: 2001
Drama, Sci-Fi
Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor
Director: Steven Spielberg
Running Time: 146 minutes
Rated PG 13 for sexual content and violent images

The breakdown:
In the future robots referred to as "mechas" do all sorts of things for people.  Servants, maids, sex robots, and now for the couple who cannot have children, a robot child who always stays young and always loves you.  This movie focuses on one child whose love is very real, but the child is not.  He longs to be a "real" boy so that his mother will return his love.



I could talk forever about how much I love this movie and how much it means to me.
I am rarely ever so passionate about a movie, especially a movie that centers around a child, but this is one of my top 5 movies of all time.
First off I should say this movie is loosely based on a short story by Brian Aldiss called "Supertoys Last All Summer Long".  The short story actually starts a small series of 3 short stories about the same character and it doesn't go the same way the movie does, but I like both on their own. 
In the movie a robot prototype called David (Osment) is being developed to be sold to couples. (What is implied is that couples cannot have anymore children then are allowed - most likely one to a couple.  In the book there is a strict population control.) Once a couple is ready they give David a certain specific series of words and once that happens the child bonds to the "parent."
I should mention here that robots are not just robots.  They are referred to as mechas because they are a bit more than just robots.  They are capable of emulating thoughts and emotions and are humanoid in form. 
A couple, Henry & Monica Swinton, have one birth child, Martin, but he is in a cryo state and they're not sure he'll ever be cured of a life threatening disease.  Henry, who is an employee of the company developing David, decides to bring home to his wife Monica, a David as a test for his company.  She tries him out for a couple weeks and likes him so she decides to bond with it through the password process.  David immediately changes after the process and calls Monica mommy and tells her he loves her.
Monica and David get along well enough.  She warms up to him though the process is slow for her.  She plays with him and reads him bedtime stories, and one really sticks with him....The Adventures of Pinocchio.  David also has a "super toy" called teddy.  He's the most adorable teddy bear I've ever seen and I sooooo want one!  Teddy walks and talks and is pretty smart for just a little stuffed animal.
As fate would have it, Martin is cured of his disease and comes home.  There is a struggle from the children for the mothers attention but Monica truly only loves Martin and eventually a series of events makes David look unstable.  Martin really doesn't like David.  Martin tricks David into thinking it's a good idea to take a lock of Monica's hair.  So when Monica awakes to see David with huge shears near her head she thinks he's dangerous.  There is also an incident where David's self protection mechanism is turned off at a pool party and David clings to Martin for protection.  They fall into the pool together and since David is so heavy, he sinks to the bottom with Martin.  From the outside it looks like David is trying to kill Martin, but that is not true.  Henry convinces Monica to return David to the company that made him to be destroyed, but she can't.  Instead, on the way to driving him back to the factory, she drives him into the middle of the forest and releases him, but he doesn't understand what she's doing.  She abandons him telling him to go in only one direction or else "they" will catch him.  She drives off and that's the last we see of her.
David is confused, and roams the forest alone with only Teddy for company.
He eventually is caught in a huge net with a lot of other broken mechas and hauled off to a Flesh Fair.  This is where humans take out their aggressions of robots out on robots by destroying them.  A little girl notices David and the owner of the fair thinks he's a real boy and lets him out.  (At this point, the world has never seen a child mecha.)  The crowd reacts to the almost murder of what they think is a human child and revolt.  There's pandemonium and a lot of the robots escape. 
David meets Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), a male sex mecha, and they stay together for quite a bit of the movie.  Joe has been framed for murder and is on the run from the authorities.  Joe educates David on why humans hate them so much.  David wants to know why his mother didn't keep him or love him and Joe cannot answer these questions.  He suggests they go to something that has all the answers.....Dr. Know because there's nothing he doesn't (know).  Dr. Know is voiced by Robin Williams and is a memorable part of the movie.  David asks about the blue fairy in Pinocchio making him a real boy and where to find her so he can become real too.  This specific question triggers a poem to be read that David's creator has programed into Dr. Know should David show up there looking for answers.  It tells him to go to New York (not outright, but cryptically and Joe figures it out).  At this point in time, the polar ice caps have melted and drowned the coasts of the United States.  To get to New York, they need a helicopter, in the movie it's a mix of helicopter and amphibian vehicle that's referred to as an amphibicopter.  Joe and David steal one and Joe takes them there.  They end up at the top of Rockafeller Center in Manhattan, though all you can see now is a ruined flooded city where only the tops of the highest skyscrapers are visible.  This amount of flooding has also greatly reduced the human population, most likely another reason machines have been built to take the place of humans in some situations.
David finds his creator, played by William Hurt, and is told that he was a test.  His creator goes on to explain that many of him are in production as well as a female version.  He is shown that he is a robot and that thousands of Davids are in boxes ready to be sold.  This angers David that he is not unique, and he gets violent, running out of the creators office.  He sits depressed, on the edge of the skyscraper and tries to kill himself by falling off the edge into the water.  Joe sees this and takes the amphibicopter into the ocean to save him.  David sees what he believes to be the blue fairy under water, but it's really just a statue of the character from a long drowned Coney Island.  When Joe retrieves David, he tells Joe he must go back under the water, but then the authorities find Joe and pull him away with a gigantic magnet.  David is left alone with Teddy in the amphibicopter to go into the ocean.  They sink to the sea bottom floor and stare at the statue for a long long time.  Teddy and David are then trapped when a huge ferris wheel falls onto the amphibicopter.  David continues to ask the blue fairy for his wish to come true to become a real boy until the ocean freezes over and his battery dies.
This is the point where if you haven't seen this movie and you even slightly want to (which I highly recommend you see it) you cannot read anymore of this post.  The spoiler is coming up and I cannot finish this post without finishing the movie so if you don't want to know the end, STOP READING NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, I see you've seen the movie, well, ok then.........
This next description is debatable.  I know the first time I saw the movie in theaters, I thought the characters were aliens, but with research I've realized that they are actually highly evolved mechas and that the human race has somehow become extinct.
Ok, so the end,
2,000 years after David's battery dies, you see the Earth is covered in solid ice.  A large metal cube is racing above the terrain of Earth.  These highly advanced mechas (though they look like our current perceptions of aliens) discover David and Teddy in the amphibicopter at the bottom of their icy dig site.  They revive them and David immediately goes to the statue of the Blue Fairy to touch it, but it crumbles as it was frozen and extremely fragile.  The advanced mechas download all of David's memories and realize he is the only one that knows of humans.  He is special, one of the "originals" they call him.
The mechas recreate the Swinton home and explain to David, using an interactive image of the Blue Fairy, that they cannot make him human.  They can however, bring a human back to life, but only for one day and only with a sample of their DNA.  Teddy just happens to have the lock of Monica's hair that David cut off so very long ago, and David insists that they bring her back. 
And suddenly it is morning, the mechas tell David Monica is just now waking up, but that her memory will be blurry and not to upset her by telling her the truth.  David spends the entire day with her and her alone, and is the happiest he has ever been in all of his existence.  When it's time for bed, Monica says what David has longed for for so very long.  She tells David she loves him and that she has always loved him.  She closes her eyes never to wake up again, and David lays next to her.  He closes his eyes as well and goes "to that place where dreams are born."  To me this means, David dies since robots/mechas do not sleep, and do not need rest.

This movie gets my best rating - 5 out 5 because it couldn't be any more perfect.

I can easily say I have never been more emotional at the end of any film before or since seeing this movie.  I put my head into my hands and cried uncontrollably.  The person I was with was oblivious to my reaction and wanted to leave, but I honestly couldn't even stand at that point.  I know that a lot of people were either confused or disappointed with this ending.  I can say, I think it's perfect and no other movie has ever made me feel like I got a punch to the stomach like this.  I suppose my strong reaction is because for my whole life as well, I have wanted nothing else but to be loved in return just like David's character.  I felt very close to David and as baffled as he was at the lack of his mothers true love, I have been baffled by lack of love in my own life.  For him to finally get it at the end, is very satisfying to me, and very emotional.  Love is such a simple and hard thing to get really.  If you ever find true love in your life that lasts, you are extremely lucky.  I've only seen it once in my own life and it was very fleeting and slipped away from me, devastating me in the process.  It was 10 years ago and something I have not even begun to accept or recover from. 

I am Legend

Released: 2007
Horror Sci-Fi
Starring: Will Smith, Alice Braga, Salli Richardson
Director: Francis Lawrence
Running Time: 101 minutes
Rated PG 13 for some scary images

The breakdown:
Yet another version of the novel by Richard Matheson.  This one is a bit different from the book of course.  In this version the main character played by Smith is a smart scientist trying to find a cure for the virus that has either killed most of humanity or turned them into a zombie/vampire.  (They look dead, not super smart, they can't speak, they try to suck your blood or eat you, and they can't stand the daylight.  It's really a mix of both to me.)

WARNING!  Talk about the ending in this movie as well as the novel that inspired it, so if you don't want to ruin it for yourself don't read this one.......

In this version, Emma Thompson plays a scientist/researcher who's come up with a "cure" for cancer with a vaccine.  Of course, everyone gets the shot, but something goes terribly wrong.  Almost everyone turns into a vampire/zombie from the injection.  For some reason either by a natural immunity to it, or by luck and they haven't gotten bit or killed, a few survivors are left in the country.  Will Smith plays a military scientist whose family didn't make it to safety in time.  He's the only one, or seems to be, in New York City.  He plays a radio broadcast every day from the top of a building to see if he can get any one left to come to him, and for years he has no response.  He's working in his lab for a cure and sometimes gets live specimens to test on.  He travels for food by day with his dog and hides in his home at night to survive.  It's been years since the plague hit and eventually he finds an uninfected woman and child for company.  He has to take care of them as well, but at first he likes the company.  He loses his dog to a zombie bite and eventually captures the wrong live zombie (possibly the girlfriend/wife of a ferocious male zombie).  He has some close calls and sooner or later the zombies find out his hiding spot and get past all his protections. 
He's just found a cure when the zombies break in, and sends the woman and child off into the country to find a safe zone where most survivors seem to be gathering.  He hopes with the serum he gives them, humanity can be restored.  He stays behind as bait to a ton of zombies that have a big beef with him.  He pulls the pin on his trusty grenade and kills himself along with a ton of zombies. 

Ah now, with this movie version, since I know the original book and have seen other film versions of the story, this one doesn't rate so high with me.  I give it only 3 out of 5 ticket stubs because it did have some scary scenes, and the special effects were good, but it dumbed down the zombies a bit too much from the original book.  It could've been more dynamic had they made the zombies smarter.

This movie version, like all of them, of course, completely differs from the short novel.
Let me say how important this story was to pop culture and movies first.
It was written in 1954 and has had 3 different versions released in movie form.  None of them stay true to the original story though.  The Last Man on Earth in 1964 (even had the screenplay written by Matheson but by the end it differed so much he didn't want his real name on the project), The Omega Man in 1971, and I am Legend in 2007.  It was the inspiration for the Night of the Living Dead movies by George Romero.  It influenced Stephen King, and is a fantastic story to read if you've never had the chance.  Though Richard Matheson refers to the beings in his story as vampires, they had a very strong effect for the idea of zombies to get popular.  For the book review anytime I say vampire or zombie alone I really mean both because they resemble both.  I will try to keep references limited to vampire/zombie though.

In the novel, the main character, Robert Neville is just an office worker with a wife.  He lives a normal life in L.A. but pretty soon changes come across the country and people start to get sick with some new illness.  You either get sick and become a zombie without dying first, or the dead (unburied bodies) get infected and become zombies. The man loses his wife and all of his friends and co-workers through death or him having to kill them himself, except for one.  His co-worker becomes the lead zombie in town and is hellbent on killing the main character.  He's been able to evade Neville and is a strong nemesis.  Neville is depressed and turns to alcohol for a while to help him deal.  Neville goes out during the day, when it's safe, carrying garlic with him as repellent and collects what he can to survive.  He also kills as many enemies as possible.  At night, he hears them wandering the streets and they know where to find him, but they can't enter his well protected home.  They are not dumb like a lot of zombie characters we know of today.  They speak and travel together.  It's interesting how his co-worker was his friend in life and they used to carpool together for work, but since his co-worker got infected, he's really hated Robert and just wants him dead.
He begins getting books from the library and researching medicine/research/science to learn what might have caused this illness to happen.  He discovers through his own long and slow medical research that the illness started with a bacteria that could infect living and dead tissue.  He is immune, but would like to cure what is making what's left of humanity sick. 
He meets a woman named Ruth in a field and thinks she is a zombie/vampire at first, but she's out during the day so she must be human.  These things usually hide during the day.  He captures her and enjoys her company slowly trusting her.  He has been alone for three years before meeting Ruth.  He becomes suspicious of her when she flinches at talk of killing zombie/vampires, but if she was a true survivor she wouldn't mind killing them as you have to survive yourself, especially travelling alone like she was.  He has taken Ruth home but is upset when he wakes one night finding her getting ready to leave.  He questions her as to why she's leaving, but since he's been alone so long and he starts telling her about his past they console one another and she stays.  He wants a blood sample from her, and she gives it to him, but just when he sees the results (she is indeed infected) she hits him over the head and knocks him unconscious.  When he wakes up he sees a note Ruth left for him.  Seems that the infected are getting to the point where they can tolerate small amounts of sunlight (like she could) and want to rebuild a society.  She's part of the group that wants to restart the world the way that they are without being "cured".  Most of them hate and fear Neville because he has killed so many of them (including the true vampire/zombies that were infected only after they died) and they hate him because of his desire to eradicate them for his former way of humanity (non-infected).  Kind of like a strange genocide or racism if you ask me.  Anyway, Ruth warns Robert that her people are coming to get him and kill him.  She doesn't hate or fear him, but she's not trying to stop her people either.  She tells him to get out of his house and escape somewhere, but he doesn't believe they will be able to capture him.
They are better than he thought they were, they capture him and he wakes up in prison.  Ruth visits him and tells him she is a high ranking member of the new society.  She says she's been working with these new society members from before the time she met him and was basically trying to get to know him to learn best how to capture him.  She believes that he needs to be executed like all the other members, but she gives him pills (I believe are strong enough to kill him before the painful execution) saying that it will make things easier for him.  Neville has been badly injured and accepts that he is indeed going to die, there is no escape at this point.  He asks Ruth not to let this new society become terrible and heartless.  She kisses him goodbye and leaves his cell.
He goes to the window overlooking all the infected waiting for him to be publicly executed.  Their reaction to seeing him is strong and they are excited to see him die, some of them probably didn't believe he was real or really captured.  Somehow he understands what the new society believes and how they feel.  He recognizes that vampires used to be legend in his society, just a story with no proof.  He realizes that a new form of human or "race" has been created due to this illness and that people are just adapting to it.  He is a threat to what they believe since he is trying to kill all of them so that more "normal" pre-infection society can survive and continue to dominate the country/world.  He says to himself out loud after he swallows the pills, "[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever.  I am legend." 

I give the book (though it's really short) a 5 out of 5 for it being incredibly original at the time it was written.  It's influence continues to permeate today and it's really interesting to read.  The main character never found another living human being the whole time of the story that wasn't infected.  He was truly (possibly) the last human being on Earth.  Robert Neville was a very intriguing character.     

Weird, Scary & Unusual

Ah, so I just finished this little gem this week.  I purchased it cheap at 1/2 price books.  If you haven't gone to 1/2 price books, you're missing out.  They buy old books, cds, dvds, as well as games and even records and resell them.  It's a great way to make a little extra dough instead of throwing such items away.

So the book is a little bit of everything.  It includes things like presidential ghosts in the white house, UFO sightings, strange animal facts, mob stories, murders, haunted houses, boats that have disappeared, the Bermuda triangle, etc. 

I learned some really interesting things and seriously doubted other stories being true.  The good thing is, it's broken up into tiny little sections so you can read a couple pages at a time and then put it down and do something else.  It took me about 3 months to read everything this way, but I also started it on vacation while driving across country.

3.5 out of 5 bookmarks because some of the stories in here are just plain not true, and purely speculation.

Book to Movie Review

Out of all the books I read last year, I only read one twice and then saw the movie. 





I very much enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.
Published 2004
546 pages

It's a fresh romance novel that has humor, tragedy, and flows in a way that makes you want to learn more about the characters.
Henry is a Chicago librarian that has had a problem with time travel his whole life.  Without much control he literally disappears from his current time and slips either into the past or future constantly running into himself.
Clare is a sculptor who uses paper and wires to express her feelings.  She is always waiting on Henry to come to her or come back to her depending on how old she is.
The first time they meet as seen from Clare's point of view is when Clare is 6 and Henry is in his 40's.
The first time they meet as seen from Henry's point of view is when Clare is 20 and Henry is 28.
The book changes its point of view between the 2 characters making some story lines meet in the middle.  This is definitely not a linear book.  It might make you flip back and forth from the beginning to the point you are currently reading, but this didn't bother me much.  I did it out of my own curiosity to make a few connections and clarifications.
It's a powerful love story that shows how much one person is willing to sacrifice to wait for their true love to return. 
Henry is always trying to solve short term problems like finding clothes (since whenever he jumps times he arrives naked) and Clare has one long term problem (will Henry come back this time, when will he be here again).
It certainly hit the mark with me and moved me to tears more than once.  The couple has some very challenging problems develop over time and sometimes there are no good solutions.
It's definitely a good read.  I give it 4 out of 5 bookmarks only because I would've liked to read a bit more steamy love scenes.

AND NOW - the movie version.






Release date: 2009
Run time: 107 minutes
Starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams
Directed by Robert Schwentke


How disappointing that you can love a book so much, completely fall in love with the characters, and all of their problems and then have it all fall apart onscreen.
That's what I'm afraid I have to tell you about this movie.  I was so looking forward to seeing it once I read the book.  The story line was rich with character development and completely sucked you into Clare and Henry's world that you simply couldn't put the book down.  The movie was such a let down.

For some reason unknown to me, the movie has really changed up some of the scenes, some of the very important beginning and ending scenes.  Henry and his mom at the beginning of the story is different in the movie from the book.  And to me, this is a pivotal point in Henry's young life.

The movie changed the ending.  Something that solidifies one characters struggle throughout is now missing.
Huge oversight.

In the book, one character ASKS for something from the other and gets it - in the movie - the same character doesn't ask for it, they MANIPULATE the other character to get it.  Not only does this change the original story for the person who sees the movie alone - it makes the perception of the independent people within the couple, and their values skewed.  Tricking your partner into giving you something you want is a huge deception (given what the thing is in the story).  The movie goer sees this person now as someone who's willing to do anything, even disregard the other's thoughts and feelings about this issue to get it.  Completely changes the dynamic of the partnership.  I can't believe the author allowed this particular change because to me, it affects the entire story and the morals of the character who does the manipulation.
In the book, the person who has been asked for something decides to give it of their own free will because they realize how important it is to the other's happiness.  That's what love is supposed to be - thinking of your partners needs in addition to your own wants and desires.

In a separate problem of the movie, there's a large section of the book that deals with someones accident that limits a lot of things they used to be able to do.  I feel the movie gleans over this and it's almost an afterthought to put it in.  In the movie, you really don't feel the misery and pain that this character experiences in the book and it's a very VERY big deal to them.  I don't feel it was handled right at all in the movie.  I mean, it's not like the movie is running too long at this point -it's full running time is 1 hour and 47 minutes; I think a few more minutes devoted to montage scenes, without dialogue, could have effectively shown what the audience needed to understand about the loss for the character.

The museum scene towards the end of the book is emotional, but in the movie it's shorter and omits another very emotional scene.  Very disappointing to see this left out as personally, I remember reading this scene vividly and feeling a true sense of urgency in the characters.  So rich with emotion, such a shame it wasn't there in the movie for the audience, what a missed opportunity!

The acting was good.  Clare's played by McAdams and Henry by Bana.  I think the individual performances were strong but they lacked some necessary chemistry to provide on screen fire.  Whether the director or screenwriter are to blame for the changes I'll never know but whoever did it should be ashamed of themselves.

Reading/viewing a story like this you have to put yourself in the plot and ask some questions.
 
Do you want to know your future? 
Do you have any control over your life really, or is it destiny? 
Knowing that certain things happen in the future, can they be changed?

For example - Henry and Clare are looking for a new house.  Henry knows from his time travelling that it looks a certain way in the back yard.  Clare looks at every house fresh and with an open mind.  Henry meanwhile walks in, looks out the back window and within seconds says it's not the right one.
Does Clare have any choice really if Henry already says we live in a house that looks like this in the future?

I give the movie 2 out of 5 ticket stubs because so many big scenes were altered or omitted it changed the whole story, plus the lack of onscreen chemistry for Bana and McAdams.