A few reviews and musings.

It has been a bit of a slow summer for me. My schedule has gone like this for the most part:

1 - Wake up
2 - Take a shower
3 - Start writing
4 - Play video games when writing is done
5 - Get bored of playing video games
6 - Think about writing
7 - Watch a movie

Somewhere in there is dinner and lunch. Occasionally, I'll go out for a beer or do something with my lovely wife. Every other week, I get out and play some basketball, though I did jack up my back pretty good last week, which made me even more bored.

So here are some reviews.

Books:
Ship of the Dead by John L. Campbell - Campbell's Omega Day series is awesome. For those of you waiting for the last part of my This Rotten World trilogy, this is a good series to fill the wait. Campbell's series resembles my own series in that it is about a group of survivors that are trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. It takes place in San Francisco.

It's an enjoyable read filled with plenty of gore and depravity. It might be my favorite zombie series. The only real drawbacks I can see are that the timeline is a little wonky. You're never quite sure of how long it's been since the end of the world happened. Sometimes it seems like only yesterday, and others it feels like these characters have been surviving in this world for months.

The other issue is that the characters just don't feel all that great. There's no one I'm really rooting for in the story, and they all seem rather two-dimensional. Campbell loves his characters though, so much that he randomly introduces other, smaller characters so he can kill people off. This leads to moments where Campbell might say something like, "Joe was a tough guy with a ponytail. He used to be a mail carrier." Then that character will die a couple of paragraphs/pages later.

I want to know these characters more, but I get the necessity of it. The end result is that the Omega Days series feels like an action movie with zombies. There's not a lot of depth, but if you love explosions and flesh-eating zombies, it's got all the goods you need. Not a big fan of one moment at the end of Ship of the Dead, but I enjoyed the hell out of the rest of it. 7/10

Finders Keepers by Stephen King - I thoroughly enjoyed Stephen King's first novel in this trilogy. It was a solid effort for sure. Mr. Mercedes was an awesome book. Bill Hodges makes for a great hard-boiled detective, and the ending was a satisfying as anything King has ever written.

The sequel... eh, not so much. I think the problem is that Mr. Mercedes/Brady Hartsfield was such an interesting antagonist. The antagonist in Finders Keepers, well... he's just kind of lame. Morris Bellamy can't hold a candle to Brady Hartsfield.

The good news is that the novels are connected and Bill Hodges is back with his buddy/weirdo Holly helping him out. These two characters are the best part of the novel. Unfortunately, they are such a small part of the novel in the grand scheme of things, that Finders Keepers suffers because of it.

It's still an enjoyable read, but it's not my favorite story from Stephen King. I give it a 6/10. It's worth reading, but only to get to the final novel of the trilogy... which I'm currently reading. I'll review that one when I'm done.

Movies:
Jeepers Creepers 2 - Scream Factory Collector's Edition - I hated this film the first time I saw it. I'm still wondering how it wound up getting a Scream Factory release. I'm glad that it did though. The film has aged well, and Scream Factory, as always, has only managed to augment the film.

The best part of the Blu-Ray is are all the featurettes and commentaries, which are pretty fun. The only problem is you'll have to listen to Victor Salva, and occasionally see him. He's pretty rough to look at, even more so if you know anything about the man. Still, I enjoyed watching all these character die, and the Creeper was awesome.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers - Scream Factory Collector's Edition - What a great movie. This movie is amazing. If you've never seen this iteration of the Body Snatchers film, you don't know what you're missing. Seriously outstanding stuff here.

Lots of great special features, but the film is the highlight. Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum tear it up. If you like sci-fi/horror, you should definitely pick this one up. Don't bother with the film historian commentary. It's brutal to listen to as the dude pretty much just read something he had written for the whole time. The info isn't anything that you wouldn't find on wikipedia. But I guess if you like to nerd out, go for it.

TV:
Stranger Things - I grew up in the '80s. I get this show. But, I have to say, I'm surprised people are all about this damn thing. It's fairly generic and doesn't push any boundaries or do anything all that new. The characters were annoying after a while, and honestly, I kept waiting for something great to happen. It never does.

8 episodes in, I was pretty bored with it and only finished it out of duty. I love the music and the score... but the characters and the story itself are generic and mediocre. Nostalgia alone doesn't make something good. 5/10

11.22.63 - Another bit of Stephen King work here. I liked this better than Stranger Things. It had some great production design, and I felt like I was really back in the '60s. James Franco was awesome, as was the woman that played his love interest.

The story was interesting, and the journey was worthwhile. It's the ending that made it for me though. It left me feeling hollow and melancholy inside. An actual emotional reaction to a TV show? I'll take it. It was a little slow in spots, and should have probably been cut down to 7 episodes, but it worked. 8/10

That's it for now... until later.

Mad Max: Fury Road Movie Review

The best Fury Road poster... still kind of sucks doesn't it?

It's been thirty years since we saw Max. The last I saw of him, he was some bleeding heart, kid-loving freak with a mullet saving kids after the "poxyclypse". Max was awesome, selfish, and only apt to help people out of a grudging sense of who he used to be. He was a wasteland anti-hero as beloved for his no-nonsense attitude as he was for his ability to kick a little ass. 30 years since Mad Max attempted to become a mainstream icon and failed miserably, alienating fans all over the world with his corny, George Lucas-esque plummet into safety and PG-13 cheese, Max is back in Mad Max: Fury Road. While I personally get a kick out of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, I still find that it is nothing compared to the glorious excess that was The Road Warrior. It can't even begin to compare to the spit and polish aesthetic of the original Mad Max film. So a return to an R-rated Mad Max was more than welcome.

            I found myself literally frothing to get back into Max's world, despite some of the most banal trailers for a big-budget movie I've ever seen. Where were all the freaks in bondage gear and sporting equipment, content to let their butt cheeks hang out in the harsh sun of Post-Apocalyptia? Where is the feeling of desolation and lawlessness? Most of all, where the hell was Max?

            With these questions in mind, I dragged myself out to the theater for the first time in nine months. I believe the last movie I saw was Annabelle, that boring little snooze fest about that stupid doll. Sequels, bad comedies, and generic thrillers don't get my butt in the seat anymore. Take your Avengers and cram it. Only R-rated action movies and horror movies are capable of getting me to choose to waste two hours of my life staring at a screen these days. After reviewing thousands of movies, I just don't have it in me to waste any more of my life sitting on my butt watching mediocrity. But Max has always been good to me, so I felt I owed it to him. After a quick, post-work nap, I headed out into the theater, ready to see what they had done to my beloved Max Rockatansky.

            The short review is this: The movie is pretty badass... with a few caveats, one of which is almost deal-breaking. Piled high with jaw-dropping effects, there are action scenes in Fury Road that will amaze you like the first time you saw someone drop some Mentos into a 2-liter bottle of Coke. Beforehand, I honestly thought the car chases would be the most boring part of the film. After 17 Fast and Furious films, what the hell can you really do with a car chase that hasn't been done before? With Fury Road, we now know the answer; they can do shit that you never even dreamed of.

            Buried under practical effects, cool cars, and some outrageous characters, the action is easily the star of the movie. George Miller's movie can only be described as an onslaught on the senses. Explosions, collisions, a man in pajamas strapped to the front of a vehicle playing a flame-spewing electric guitar, these are the things that action movie dreams are made of. The film is literally an hour and fifty minutes of action... and ten minutes of character development.

            Of course, this brings me to my biggest disappointment. This isn't a Mad Max movie. This is a movie about Furiosa, and it should be entitled Mad Furiosa, which is a pretty dumb name by the way. You think she has a brother named Angrycles somewhere?

            The character of Mad Max, the whole reason I even wanted to see this movie, is the least interesting character in the movie. Mad Max isn't so much mad as he is utterly devoid of personality. I'm starting to rethink my opinion of Tom Hardy, and we all should. Other than a stellar portrayal of inmate Charlie Bronson, Tom Hardy has never really done anything all that great. He looks good, but fails to bring anything substantial to any of his roles. I watched Tom Hardy stumble through this role with gritted teeth, thankful that Charlize Theron and the other members of the cast were there to pick up the pieces. They are great; Tom Hardy is an extra in a leather jacket who happens to get far too much face time. George Miller might want to consider changing his name to Comatose Max if he plans on sticking with Hardy.

            It might not be Tom Hardy's fault completely, as the dialogue in the film is dry and not even interesting in a laughable way. Characters spout out sentences composed of one syllable words that are as forgettable as the last number that was called in a bingo game. Max's lines are particularly bland. Gone is the loser charm of the Max character, buried underneath the confused simplistic countenance of Hardy. The Gibson Mad Max was a skinny underdog, who actually seemed like he was born to lose, and who could hit you with a one-liner when needed. Hardy's Max? Well, he just a muscular guy along for the ride.

            Despite the issue of Max kind of sucking, Fury Road is still a stellar action movie. It will wind up in my collection eventually. When the sequels come out, as there are more movies planned, I will be there, hoping beyond hope that Hardy can get it together and understand what Max is all about. He's ruthless. He's a survivor. He only cares because of a past that he can't reconcile. He's not a bounce around victim of fate. He is the wind of change in a land that has no hope.

            I'll give you one example of where they went wrong with Max in this movie, and this involves some spoilers, but they happen very early on in the film. Max is captured. They take his car, his Interceptor from the original films... and he just let's it go. His one tie to his old life and his past, and he just lets it go. The old Max would have busted everyone in the chops, spit in his captors' faces, and found a way to get that damn car back. Here's to Max being Max again in the near future.

Final Summation: Come for the car chases, but don't expect to see Max. It's a good action film that won't disappoint thrill seekers and most non-discriminating fans of Mad Max. Myself, I've watched those damn movies so much that to see a neutered, ineffectual Max is something I can hardly stand.

Points Lost:  -1 for not being entitled Mad Furiosa, -1 for Tom Hardy's portrayal of Max which is lacking, -1 for some overwrought scenes of emotionality, intruded upon by an at-times invasive score

Bonus Points: +1 for nonstop scenes of action and that guitar dude with the flaming guitar

Lesson Learned: In the future, everyone forgets how to give people regular names that aren't laughable. We had a baby! Let's name him Explosivo!

Burning Question: When you think of the name Mad Max, do you interpret "mad" to mean angry or crazy?

Mad Max: Fury Road

8/10