Kristopher McClanahan's Blog, page 4

Film Review - Haywire

HAYWIRE
Directed by Stephen Soderbergh
Starring Gina Carano, Ewan MacGregor, Michael Fassbender 2011, 93mins, [R] Spy Thriller  
Re: A black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.
Outstanding: Sleek, 60's spy vibe going on here, lots of wordless sequences, jazzy soundtrack stings and timeless settings. Very nice. All of the stars are really fun.
  Unacceptable: The odd "Tell the hostage everything" exposition scenes are quite silly. Oh Deer. I wasn't actually a fan of the hand to hand sequences here.
  Summary: It's not going to win any awards, but this is a pretty solid flick. Carano, an MMA fighter is, apart from some amusingly "Girly" running sequences, a good fit for the character. Buff and pretty, but overshadowed by the other actors in the film.
  4/5

TV Review - Hemlock Grove S01E01

HEMLOCK GROVE
Season One, Episode One
"Jellyfish In The Sky" Directed By Eli Roth
Starring Famke Janssen, Lorenza Izzo2013, Netflix, TV-MA  
Re: People in a town in America act shady and angsty with a touch of possible supernatural powers. One of them dies. The others navel gaze.
  Outstanding: I love me some good horror. I also love me some good Weird America Television.
  Unacceptable: This is neither. The actors are alternately boring or annoying and the story plods along being both obvious and inscrutable. The greatest sin is the way the episode feels like it was filmed with 13 different cameras, including a legit film quality one, one borrowed from Days of our lives, one stolen from a hunter's blind, one strapped to an epileptic donkey and one from a 2002 era RAZR phone.
  Summary: American Horror story, as co-written by Eli Roth and Stephanie Meyer, filmed in Twin Peaks. Which could end up being decent. This episode was not. I'll give it a few more.
  1/5

Book Review - Mockingjay

MOCKINGJAYThe Hunger Games Book Three
Suzanne Collins2010, 390 pages, eBook, YA Dystopian

Book three in the Hunger Games Series is better than two, but still seems like it was hashed together off of what the author was told should happen, not what would have happened if the author had planned it from the beginning. I don't know if that makes sense, but MOCKINGJAY felt like it was plotted by a committee that decided certain things had to happen, certain characters had to do specific things and a last minute change in love interest enacted. Bah.
Part of the problem is that the entire book revolved around a manipulated, not very likeable girl being used to inspire a rebellion by a section of the world that never existed until they suddenly needed to be there to move the plot along. The book is told from her point of view, but she never really does anything, so the entire rebellion takes place offscreen while she frets about boys and hides in closets without ever really taking things into her own hands.
Then it ends anticlimactically with a couple of poorly handled deaths, ludicrous booby traps in highly populous areas and the last third of the book functioning as an epilogue that doesn't feel fulfilling.   
If this sounds like I hated the book, I do, kind of. I hated it afterwards, but during the actual reading, I enjoyed myself. Collins is a good author, regardless of the plot and silliness therein. Disappointing finish to an interesting world never really properly explored.  

2/5 

Book Review - Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

CATCHING FIRE
The Hunger Games Book 2Suzanne Collins2009, 400 pages, eBook, YA Dystopian


I'd listened to the first Hunger Games novel on audio book, driving to and from work about a year ago and found it pretty entertaining, though I thought Katniss, the main character was a bit of an insufferable B-Word. The violence was surprising and the plot was fun. Then I forgot about the series by and large.

The other day though, after watching the movie of the novel, I decided I wanted to read the other books in the series.

Catching Fire was.... Not actually very good. The entire book consists of the extended epilogue from book one and a virtual re-hash of the first with some added celebrity/reality TV aspects. There's some moments of greatness - fun characters, nasty scenes, etc... But for the most part, Katniss stays unlikeable and needy, the other characters stay one-note and the end is actually more predictable than I'd expected.

Despite that, I ended up reading it fast and enjoyed it, overall. Collins spends what time isn't dedicated to rehashing scenes from the previous book and teen angst gearing up for a revolution and she writes in an easy to read manner. It just felt like this series could have been condensed into two book handily.

3/5

Book Review - The Amber Room by Steve Berry

THE AMBER ROOMBy Steve Berry2007, 449 pages, paperback, Thriller/Adventure
 
Re: A lawyer and his ex-wife judge gets caught up in history's mysteries involving rich murderous collectors and the Amber Room.
  Outstanding: Nice brainless thriller.
  Unacceptable: The main characters seem almost pointless to the story and frankly, there's no way they would have escaped unscathed from the book if the villains hadn't been so incompetent half of the time.
  Summary: Despite the actions of the characters and the goofy plotline, I enjoyed the book. I sometimes crave adventures where I can turn my brain off and enjoy the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. The Amber Room is perfect for that.  3/5

MetaPost - Changes

Just a quick note - I've decided to play with the format of our reviews a bit. We love the ROUS format, but it limits our abilities to post on other sites, and frankly, I'm often too lazy to think in a format when I'm writing a review. So.... We're pretty much going to review things in whatever format we feel like. So there. There will probably still be some sort of 4 out of five rating at the end though.


And they'll still be unusually sized. I promise.

Comic Review - Wolverine V5 #1

WOLVERINE #1
(Volume 5) Written by Paul Cornell
Art By Alan Davis & Mark Farmer2013, 24 pages, Superhero Comic  
Re: Wolverine finds himself in the midst of a deadly hostage situation that may be more than meets the eye.
  Outstanding: Absolutely beautiful artwork. Davis draws Wolverine in a way that's both idealized and totally human, with more expression and nuance in pose that most artists are capable of. The story moves quickly and takes some interesting turns. A great "no previous knowledge needed" first issue. (Provided you know who Wolverine is, anyway)
  Unacceptable: The story seems a bit brief, maybe. But that may have just been me wanting more. 
  Summary: Full disclosure time - Wolverine has always been my favorite character and Alan Davis' run on Excalibur was the thing that made me truly fall in love with comics, so there's no way I could not adore this comic book. Even so, it's a wonderful read with humor and action and awesome art. Check it out!
  5/5

Book Review - Tribute by Nora Roberts

  TRIBUTEby Nora Roberts2008, 451 pages, paperback, romantic suspense  
Re: Cilla McGowan is a former child star and current house renovator that returns to her family's old home to renovate it and live there, in an attempt to escape her family's celeb past, including her grandmother, who killed herself in the house. Now, as she flirts with hunky graphic novelist Ford, the past comes back to haunt her. And bust up her house.
  Outstanding: Some fun characters. Almost everyone here has an interesting story to tell and Ford, though a little over the top and idealized, is fun to read.
  Unacceptable: Interminably long, with 90% of the novel filled with day to day drama and internal feelings monologues, peppered with home improvement details and every once in a while.. actual story progression.
  Summary: This was my first Roberts novel and I know I'm not the target audience for this kind of book. The story itself was pretty intriguing and I was anxious to learn the whole thing, but slogging through hundreds of pages of the silly-named Cilla's turmoil over whether to sleep with Ford because she was too attracted to him got old. I'll probably read more Roberts, because she does know how to write great people, I just wish there was more meat on the bones.
  3/5

Book Review - Three To Get Deadly by Janet Evanovich

THREE TO GET DEADLYby Janet Evanovich1997, 344 pages, paperback, humorous mystery  
Re: Plum goes after a well-loved local store owner that may have a shady past that's caught up with him.
  Outstanding: Much better. Though Plum continues to blunder her way through things, the underlying story is a lot stronger and forces her to derail her constant self-obsession to a positive effect.
  Unacceptable: I can't stand her large and obnoxious friend Lula that Plum starts dragging around with her, despite it causing her more trouble. There a few too many characters thrown in here for zaniness' sake.
  Summary: A better book, I'd just about given up on Evanovich before this one, but I always read at least three books by an author that I feel like I should have read and this book was a lot more fun than the previous two. Evanovich finds her stride and has Plum progress a bit while still keeping the main plotline flowing.
  4/5

Now Reading - Title 

Book Review - Two For The Dough by Janet Evanovich

 TWO FOR THE DOUGHby Janet Evanovich1996, 346 pages, paperback, humorous mystery  
Re: Stephaine Plum tries to beat her cop friend/rival/ex-lover to a slip - Kenny Mancuso, a small time wiseguy that may have more on the table than Plum can handle.
  Outstanding: Though a clear Hawk knockoff, fellow bounty hunter Ranger is pretty awesome. 
  Unacceptable: Honestly, I don't even remember much about this book, and I read it a week ago. Stephanie spends  huge portion of the book agonizing over love life details and getting herself into dumb situations. She's a terrible bounty hunter. Really.
  Summary: All I could think, the entire time I was reading this book, is that it would be more entertaining if it was told from either of the other character's points of view, because all Plum thinks about is having sex with Morelli, her cop friend and how she shouldn't. And gets into ludicrous situations.
  2/5


Now Reading - THE PARTNER by John Grisham