How To Train Your Dragon (a movie) and How I Paid For College (a book)

I was just going to give my review on the movie "How To Train Your Dragon," and leave it at that. However I just finished reading one of the most hilarious and best books I've read in a very long time and so I have to talk about that too. First the movie and then the book.

I went into watching "How To Train Your Dragon" full of skepticism and distrust. I had been hearing from many people since it was first out in theatres that it was a great movie. That it was super cute and really well done. And naturally due to all the praise I was ready to not like it. Wow was I wrong. I loved it. I really, really loved it. It was funny and cute and sweet and the dragon was super cute! The story was about the odd viking out in a dragon hunting viking tribe. His name is Hiccup. And is father is the leader of the pack and this great dragon hunter and he isn't. He wants to be but he also wants to change the way that dragon hunting is done. So he invents a new toy and catches himself a dragon. And then Hiccup discovers that he is unable to actually kill the dragon. Due to this they form an unlikely bond. The dragon is named Toothless.

Toothless is the cutest dragon I have ever seen. He looks like a cat but acts like a dog. He has this long sleek black body and bumps his head into Hiccup just like a cat, he even purrs like one. He likes to wag his tail and play fetch and do all those cute puppy like things. The more they learn about each other the more their bond grows. It is a very sweet story about friendship, growing up and changing the way people see what's in front of them. It's one of the best movies that has come out this year. I watched it all the way through and then almost watched it all over again. I watch it all the time at work, another cool advantage of working at a video store.

For a cartoon it was very well written and all the voice actors were great. It was full of fun and tenderness. It was funny and sweet. Touching and hardcore all at the same time. I totally recommend it for everyone! I think that it is a great movie for family nights, date nights, sleepovers, and everything in between. If you haven't seen it yet go out and rent it! It's worth it!

Now on to "How I Paid For College." "How I Paid For College," is a satirical novel written by Marc Acito. It takes place in New Jersey in 1983. It's about a group of friends, Edward, Paula, Doug, Kelly, Ziba, and Natie. They have dubbed themselves "Play People" meaning that they are actors and very into their craft. They spend the summer before Edward's senior year drinking, driving recklessly, doing drugs (on federal property), unlocking and entering, and committing embezzlement, fraud, forgery, blackmail and grand theft Buddha. The story goes through their summer vacation and senior year. It is told through the eyes of Edward Zanni a fantastic, well dressed, slightly flamboyant, bisexual who finds himself going through some changes.

Problems arise, situations present themselves and great humor is to be had. I don't know if I have ever read anything that is at the same time so full of great theatre trivia and oh so funny! I laughed aloud the whole book. Some of the content is a little on the more mature side and so this book isn't for the young, the faint of heart or those just generally opposed to the theatre. Other then that I reccommend it to just about anyone. It's a truly well written, funny, and all around fun book. So go forth and read!

Grownups & Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

It has been brought to my attention, by myself, that I haven't yet actually reviewed a whole lot. I said that I wanted to review books and movies and I talked a little bit about a couple of books I read and gushed about Patrick Swayze. And so in an effort to fix that error I am here to review a couple of the new movies from this week.

Working at a video store has it's advantages. One such advantage is being able to take home new movies before they go into public circulation. Basically we get them for free. So last weekend I took home Grownups and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Grownups is a Happy Madison production starring Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Kevin James, and Rob Schneider. It is about these five best friends and their families getting together for the funeral of their childhood basketball coach. They spend the weekend together and have lots of laughs and some very tender, honest moments. The thing I liked most about it is that it isn't your typical Adam Sandler comedy. There are some of those "hahaha that is funny because it is the obvious joke." A lot of the funny moments were more subtle and "grown-up" (no pun inteded.) I didn't think that it was the greatest movie ever made, nor was it the funniest movie. It was good though. And it is a good funny movie. It's good for a few laughs and it has it's tender moments. I think that overall I would give it a 7 out of 10. And watching all of these comedians working together makes the movie worth the watch!

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World stars Michael Cera. It is the story of this guy named Scott Pilgrim who has just gotten dumped by his beautiful and talented girlfriend. He is now dating a high school girl, who is a five years his junior, and focusing on taking his own band to the next level. Then he meets Ramona Flowers and he instantly falls in love. The only problem is that Ramona has seven evil exes that he must beat in combat in order to be with her. The whole film is like one big video game being played by someone else. It's a mix of great comic doings and gapping holes of "what is happening?" This movie is great for die hard fans of Michael Cera or people who really and truly love all things video games. It's a fun movie in the respect that it's a different kind of movie. There aren't all that many movies that make you think of someone playing a video game just for your benefit. 

Anyway those are my reviews for those two movies. Both of them are good. Nothing spectacular or amazing but good. It's been a long time since I've seen anything that is really amazing. That right is reserved for How to Train Your Dragon. Now that was a great movie! And I shall actually review that in my next post!

Excuse Me While I Gush

Ok so I have to do at least one post here about the greatness that was Patrick Swayze. I had a school girl crush on him ever since the first time I watched "Dirty Dancing." That movie was every little girl's dream. Mine especially. I fell madly in love with a hunky, sweet, guy who danced like a dream. I was always into dancing. (Note: don't worry mom and dad not the 'dirty dancing' aspect of the dancing. Well not when I was little anyway. ;D)  And any guy who could dance the way Patrick Swayze could dance immediatley got my undying love and admiration, regardless if he was real or not.

Anyway the point is Patrick was my new imaginary love. And so in that vein I started watching whatever was age appropriate for me to watch that involved him. I saw "Ghost," "Tall Tale," "Fatherhood," "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar." To name a few. And after "Dirty Dancing" "To Wong Foo..." became my second favorite. When I got older I started watching other flix of his. Such as "Point Break" and "Road House." "Ghost" again but this time I understood it more. And as I got older I got to pretend that I was Demi Moore in the very famous clay scene in that movie.

I was watching all that I could with him in it. Mainly ones that were kind of in the area that I enjoy the most. So I missed a lot of his heavy action films. But I was always faithful to the others. Especially "Dirty Dancing" and "To Wong Foo..." "To Wong Foo..." was one of my mom's favorite movies as well so that was something we watched over and over together. But "Dirty Dancing" was something that was special to me and my own obsession. Sure my friends and I watched it at every sleep over we had. But I also watched it on the day after the sleep over and by myself on various days. My birthday, holidays, any day that ended in day. So basically I watched it a lot. I recreated the final lift that Baby and Johnny did so many times that my dad had to ban it from our home and every other home that we were ever in ever. Luckily I started getting bigger and gaining weight so I knew practically that I could no longer do it but I still had some amazing dreams.

I felt that Patrick was one of the greatest actors known to the world of acting and that Jennifer Grey was perhaps the luckiest acting girl in all of acting land. I worshipped. Of course as I got older I recognized how silly I was to have hoped for all the things I had hoped for when it came to Patrick. But "Dirty Dancing" still remained my favorite dance movie, and it was still a fantasy that I would one day meet my very own Johnny.

Based on this post I would assume that you could figure out that I kind of like this Patrick guy. And unless you have been living under a rock, which you should probably fix, you have heard that he passed away. I was crushed when I heard. I no longer had that same level of creepy obession nor did I hold on to my school girl crush but it still hurt. I guess it does when the world loses someone that everyone "knows." I spent that day, the day I heard he died, watching my favorite Patrick movie. And I remembered what is was like to see it for the first time. 

Anyway to Patrick who has left this earth I would like to say thank you. You made my childhood a dream and you started my love for all dance related '80's movies.

Stieg Larsson and The Girl Who Did Things

At this point we all know that Steig Larsson wrote about a girl and she had a tattoo and played with some dangerous materials. I am of course talking about the trilogy that has become over the top famous in quite a short time. I will admit that I started reading them after the hype had started and the first movie had come out. (Note: I did not watch the movie and only then begin to read the books.) But the movie coming out, with the news that America is already started production on our version, inreased my curisoity. I was wondering why it was so popular. So I went and bought the first book "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." And I read it in 6 days. Now for someone with two jobs and who likes to try to get some sleep in there somewhere and also for someone who isn't the fastest reader in the world that is pretty fast. The point of the matter is that I loved it. I couldn't put it down. I actually had to force myself to stop reading in order to get sleep and go to work. It was a fantastic mystery. It's hard to even talk about because even the smallest thing could give it all away. That why the book was so good! Because it is so intertwined and mysterious that you can't even talk about how good it is without giving something away! The characters are human. So real. They have flaws and everything. I mean how cool is that?  I was so excited by it that before I was even done I went out and bought the second book.

Book 2 "The Girl Who Played With Fire" started off out slow. But I was not worried because the first book started slow as well. So I had all the faith in the world that this book would be the same. That there was no way the slow part would fool me into putting the book down because the first book had rallied so amazingly. After a few days though something struck me. The book wasn't getting any better. It wasn't getting any more exciting. It was instead turning into a very generic murder mystery. I was just not feeling it. I felt all sorts of disappointed. But I was not willing to give up. I was however skeptical about going out and spending the money on the hardcover book 3. The thing about the second book is that while it is written well and includes all the characters that we love from the first one. But instead of being all twisty and turny and layer upon layer of mystery it was just a "whodunit?" filled with misdirection. I was disappointed. Since I was getting ready to head up to Portland to visit a friend and I was going to be in airports and airplanes I needed something to read. So I went out and bought "The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet's Nest."

In the third installment it was kind of the opposite of the other two. The beginning was interesting and full of "OH MAN WHAT IS HAPPENING?" moments. But then it started getting very complicated and full of information about the Swedish government and history. It took up many, many pages. And I was just not into it. In fact there were times when I actually spaced out whole chunks of what was being said. Something that I really don't understand about the books, why are the last two books connected not only in regards to the characters but in regards to the plot as well? If you were gonna do that why not just keep all three together? And then the end just got tired. I don't know what happened at the end of the writing process but something went off. It just ended "blah." Not really the way you hope something that started off so amazing would end. I was fairly disappointed to say the least.

Now I know that I am going to be in the minority in this. But I do have a problem with Lisbeth Salander. She is "the girl" in the books. And in the first book I kind of enjoyed her quirkiness and her "who gives a shit" attitude about well everything. I didn't like that it kept up for all three books. I didn't like that because she had an affair with Blomkvist, the journalist, in the first book but made it very clear that she didn't really want anything to do with him. Then despite herself she falls in love with him. She doesn't tell him and then sees him with another woman and because he is not psychic she ends up hating him. And continues to hate him. And despite the fact that she gets proof time and time again that she can trust certain people she continues to be her annoying stoic self. Anyway the long and the short of it is that she kind of annoyed me. I really just wanted her to get over herself by the end of it.

The movies are coming out in quick succession. The first two are out and very, very popular. I'm sure that the third is not far behind. I have thus far not seen the movies. I might give them a try now that I have finished all three of the novels. And I know that the Swedish version is most likely going to be a lot better then what our very own Hollywood will produce. But at the same time I am very reluctant to watch the movies. I am scared to see what they did with the plot and the characters etc. I guess we'll see.

All in all I would have to give "The Girl Who Did Things" books a seven out of ten. Good enough to keep me reading but not good enough that I can gush.

First Post

I am starting this blog to review the books and movies that I love, hate and love to hate. Each post will be about a different book or movie or series. This is something that I have wanted to do for quite awhile but have never actually gotten around to doing. But here I am. I have my good friend to thank for inspiring me to finally do it. So here it is. The first post.

I am going to start off by talking about one of the most popular series that is around right now. And that is the Twilight series written by Stephenie Meyer. We all know what it is whether we are willing to admit that or not. Because of it's utterly insane popularity I am not going to spend any time talking about what it is about. I'm just gonna go straight in to the story of how I came across it and how I feel about it. 

I had been hearing about it for sometime before I finally decided to just go out and buy the first book. Mainly I did it to just get everybody off my back but I found that I was intrigued by it. This was way before the movies came out, even before the fourth book came out. So it wasn't just the hype that was pulling me onward. Anyway I admit freely that I enjoyed the books. Then I read them again and still I found that I was interested. And then the movies started coming out and I was ashamed that I enjoyed the books. I read them again. And again. The funny thing of it is the more I read them the more I realized how bad they were. I know enough about good writing to have realized right away that these weren't the most well written books, nor were they the most original story ever. I did enjoy that Stephenie Meyer wrote the vampires in a different way then most of what's out there. I liked that they had powers and are "vegatarians," and I like any writer that lets their vampires out in the day. Also I would like to state here and now that no matter what happens or what people say I love Emmett and Alice. I also enjoy Carlisle and Esme. Other then that all the others can go "suck an elf." 

Anyway the more I read the books, the more I realized just how bad they were. And the movies are just awful. The actors are terrible and the whole production just takes themselves waay too seriously. I guess my point is that these books are just not very good. However I understand the thrill and appeal that they hold for young teenage girls. The dark unattainable bad boy. It's a phase that all people go through. Plus they think that the guys in the films are hot. It's rather unfortuate that this is so but it is the way it is. And I have to say to those out there that "hate this shit" and think it is all super stupid that the more you hate the more the lovers are gonna stand their ground. So just let it all go. This craziness that is Twilight mania will soon be over and done with. Hopefully. 

To those out there who are looking for a different take on vampires check out Christopher Pike's "Last Vampire" series. Just the first 6 books. He's got more coming out but I just don't know about them. Also there is Charline Harris's Sookie Stackhouse novels. Forget "True Blood" focus on the books. Those are good. I'll review them in another entry. But that is a great way to go. Also Mary Janice Davidson's "Undead..." series. The main character is really quite a hoot. They may be filed under the romance section of most bookstores but ignore that and you find a treasure. 

In the movie area of vampires it's hard to find something with a "good" vampire but there are good vampire movies. "The Lost Boys" is a favorite of mine, there is "John Carpenter's Vampires" and of course there is "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Always an amazing film to watch, despite poor Keeanu Reeves. 

Well there it is. My first official post. There will be more to come. Talking about more books and more movies. And more books that have become movies. If you have anything to add or contadict or anything to say on this subject at all please share with me and I am very open to hearing about other books or movies in this area. Any titles in the vampire area that you feel need to get mentioned, go ahead and mention! If you hate me completely on principle because of this post I would just like to ask this. Try me again. Because I promise I do not hate all books that are geared toward the Young Adult crowd. (Note: From now on when speaking of Young Adult Fiction I will simply be saying Y.A.F)