The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

With a title like The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove you know you're going to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the characters and the plot. A sea monster from the depths of the ocean decides to come ashore in a town full of goofy characters. Its feeling of randiness permeates the whole town. Meanwhile, the town psychiatrist had most of the town on antidepressants and decides to substitute placebos for everyone. It's a crazy and fun read, as are all the books by Christopher Moore.

Restraint

Restraint is a psychological thriller where a pair of desperate fugitives take an agoraphobic man hostage in his home. But over the course of the movie the man somewhat befriends the female fugitive and eventually the tables turn giving the the hostage the upper hand. It was a well acted movie with an interesting plot. It's a little light on the action, but the psychological play between the three characters is fun to watch unfold. You should add this one to your rainy day movie queue.

Body of Lies

This was a fabulous movie made for an intelligent audience. I recommend you put this on your must-see list. To read a full review, please go to my other blog http://jandkatthemovies.blogspot.com/

Kill Your Darlings

Kill Your Darlings is a weird dark comedy. The main character is writing a script about suicide (which of course is complete crap), and his day job is taking pictures of hamburgers and other food for print ads. He ends up finding several suicidal people when he road trips to Vegas with a flaky girl named Lola. Meanwhile, a small group of suicidal people are also traveling there for a reality TV show for a famous psychologist. This movie was weird at first, but the more it went on the more I liked it. It had a happy ending that left me with a warm fuzzy. If you're up for an odd indy movie check this one out.



So you're asking yourself if it was so weird why did I rent this movie that no one's ever heard of? The answer is simple: eye candy. I rented this because Alexander Skarsgard is in it; I didn't even read a synopsis before I rented it. But my plan backfired on me a little because his character is a suicidal cross dresser. Whatever.

Practical Demonkeeping

Practical Demonkeeping, Christopher Moore's first novel, is about a man who unwittingly called up a demon from hell 90 years ago and can't get rid of him. Having read a few of his later novels, you can see in this first one the beginnings of his smart alec sense of humor. It's a funny book, but riotously so as the others I've read. It was a fun read full of wacky characters and crazy situations.

Grave Surprise

Grave Surprise is the second book in Charlaine Harris' Harper Connelly mystery series. Harper was struck by lightning as a teen and can now sense corpses and their causes of death. This book starts with her attending a university class about paranormal events as a guest "speaker" which takes place in a cemetery on this day so Harper can demonstrate her talent. The professor's goal is to expose her as a fraud, but she, of course, is not. In the process of (accurately) naming the causes of death for all the bodies in the old cemetery, she comes across a grave with two occupants, the second being the body of a missing girl that Harper was trying to locate a year ago in another city with no success. The plot centers around her attempt to solve the mystery to clear her name in this suspicious set of circumstances.

Grave Sight

Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris is the first book of a mystery series featuring the character Harper Connelly. Harper was struck by lightning as a teenager and has since had the ability to sense corpses nearby and tell how they died; a freaky "gift" to be sure. I like that she's not a typical cute and spunky heroine, and that she has character flaws. Harper needs her step-brother, Tolliver, around her to keep her nerves at bay.

Harper and Tolliver travel to a small town to locate the body a missing teenage girl. They find the body, but various occurrences keep preventing them from leaving town which forces them to solve the mystery of her death themselves. The ending is satisfying because it's nice and messy. I'm looking forward to reading more in this series.

Appaloosa

Me and my movie buddy went to see Appaloosa, mostly because we're both Viggo Mortensen fans but also because Ed Harris, a phenomenal talent, directs and stars in this movie. While the acting in this movie is spectacular, the script could have used a lot of work. It was long, slow, and boring. I know this was more of a character study than an action movie, but they really should have edited out about a half hour to tighten it up. Also, I hate looking at Renee Zellwegger's face. To read more see my other blog http://jandkatthemovies.blogspot.com/.

Lily Bard Book Series

I read a mystery book series by Charlaine Harris. They were OK but I didn't think they warranted separate reviews since they were all sort of the same. The books were Shakespeare's Landlord, Shakespeare's Champion, Shakespeare's Christmas, Shakespeare's Trollop, and Shakespeare's Counselor. These all take place in a small city in the south called Shakespeare (hence all the book titles).

Our heroine in these books, Lily Bard, is much more interesting than Aurora Teagarden from one of Harris' other mystery series. She has a more interesting background and, due to that, she doesn't react to situations in a way you would expect of a typical spunky heroine. These books were easy and somewhat interesting, but they're definitely not classified as "must read."

Library Books SUCK!

So this past weekend I decided to get a library card and start checking out books for free instead of single handedly keeping my local Barnes & Noble afloat. (They know me by name - I'm in there way too much.) While I enjoy the free reading, I'm grossed out at the books themselves.

Let's start with the fact that about every third page of all the books I've read so far are dog eared. How rude is that?! These aren't your books so why would you purposely damage them? I guess because the general population at large is too lazy to find a scrap piece of paper. I mean, it would be way too difficult to use the receipt you get every time you check out a book as your bookmark. Better to just bend the corners of the pages at will.

While the bent page corners make me angry, the weird and mysterious stains on about a third of each book makes me sick to my stomach. Some stains are identifiable. There was mustard on about 15 consecutive pages of a book I read yesterday (I wish I was joking). There are also the Cheeto/Dorito thumbprints on very large number of pages of many books. I guess wiping your hands, much less washing your hands, is way too inconvenient, especially for the people who can't use a bookmark.

But the absolute worst are those disgusting brownish booger-looking stains that were in every single book I've read so far, and in some books more than once. WTF?! That just gives me the heebie-jeebies. What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is wrong with people?! I'm thoroughly disgusted. Every time I get up from reading I wash my hands. God knows what kind of cooties you can catch from the crap is on the covers and pages. Did I say crap? Uh-oh. One more reason to get totally grossed out.

Seriously, some scientists should study the contaminates on library books. I'd bet a million dollars their findings would be astonishing. Then again, if I had a million dollars I'd just go to Barnes & Noble and buy all my books.

Last Scene Alive / Poppy Done To Death

The last two books in Charlaine Harris' Aurora Teagarden mystery series are Last Scene Alive and Poppy Done to Death. These two were like all the others in the series. I think this is why she stopped writing this series. The character of Aurora Teagarden just isn't that interesting to keep going with this series. While murders and mystery seem to surround her, she's a boring little librarian in a boring little town. The books themselves were OK. I'm glad I finished the series but I would never pick these up to read again.

A Fool and His Honey

A Fool and His Honey is the sixth book of Charlaine Harris' Aurora Teagarden mystery series. The book starts with the unexpected visit from Aurora's husband's niece and her two week old baby (surprise! no one even knew she was pregnant). The niece goes missing and the niece's husband ends up dead on Aurora's property. Now she and her husband Martin are left with a baby to care for, a murder to solve, and some screwed up family issues of Martin's to deal with.

Overall, these Aurora Teagarden mysteries are quaint, quick little reads (no heavy lifting required). I classify this as an airplane/beach read. I stopped buying these from the bookstore and checked this one out from the library. They're light, fun reads but I don't want to keep the books once I'm done reading them.

You Suck: A Love Story

Christopher Moore is one of the funniest writers ever! I picked up You Suck: A Love Story from the library on a whim and ended up laughing so hard I was crying. This is the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends, which the library did not have so I'll have to backtrack on that one sometime.

As you can tell from the book cover this one is about vampires. This outrageously funny book is about a (good) vampire couple and the crazy situations in which they find themselves. Along the way they pick a minion, a 16 year Goth/Emo chick who calls herself Abbey Normal (a tip of the hat to Young Frankenstein, I'm sure) though her name is really Allison Green. The chapter where I broke down into tears of laughter from which it took me quite a while to recover is told from her perspective as she wrote it in her diary. I won't ruin the moment for you but I started my hysterics when she compared her best friend to Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird, followed by a description of how traumatized she was from seeing a naked old man.

You have to read it for yourself. I guarantee this book will make you laugh. You owe it to yourself to add it to your book list. Christopher Moore is too great a smart ass to not read his stuff.

Reservior Dogs

I finally watched Reservoir Dogs by Quentin Tarantino, just one of many movies in my queue that I should have already seen (but haven't). What an amazing movie. It's not just the story and plot, it's how he chooses to deliver the story to us. It starts in a warehouse after a botched jewelry heist. The details of the characters and certain parts of their get-aways are told in flashbacks, while the main story continues in the warehouse where they try to figure out who set them up.

And what a killer cast (pun intended)! Harvey Keitel as Mr. White, Tim Roth as Mr. Orange, Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde, Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink, Quentin himself as Mr. Brown, as well as Chris Penn and Lawrence Tierney. Mix these first class actors with Quentin's highly skilled story telling ability and the result is movie making at its absolute finest. This was made in 1992 and I can't believe I didn't take the time to watch this before now. If you haven't seen this yet, add this to the top of your queue. This is a must see movie.

Untamed

Untamed by P.C. and Kristen Cast is the latest installment in their House of Night series. I have to say that I'm hooked on this series. The writing is good and the story is a grand epic of good vs evil in the world of vampyres (right up my alley).

Zoey Redbird is a young woman who has been marked by the vampyre goddess Nyx as being exceptionally special. Her aim is true and her heart is good. Her nemesis turns out to be the powerful high priestess of Zoey's school, Neferet, who has turned away from Nyx and chosen a path of evil. Only a small handful of Zoey's closest friends know the truth and it's up to them to stop Neferet in her quest for dominance.

If this sounds at all intriguing to you, pick up the first book in this series called Chosen. If you decide you like it then there are three more books waiting for you.

Bite and Powers of Detection

I just finished reading Bite and Powers of Detection, both collections of short stories by various authors. The former focuses on vampire stories and latter on supernatural murder mysteries. I bought them because Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series on which the HBO series True Blood is based, wrote stories for both of these collections.

Bite has the short story that goes after Dead to the World and before Dead as a Doornail. It's only about 20 pages long, but we're introduced to new characters and there's an occurrence that turns out to be the catalyst for events in subsequent books. You don't need to buy this book, but you'll definitely want to at least check it out from the library so you won't feel lost.

Powers of Detection has a Sookie short story but it's not "required" reading to keep up the novels. This one focuses on Claudine and Claude, fairies that occasionally help Sookie out of trouble. The book was OK. I finished reading all the stories but I wouldn't recommend it.

Righteous Kill

Righteous Kill is one of the top 10 worst movies ever made. It begs the question: Why did Pacino and DeNiro choose this movie, of all the movies in the world, to star in together? Do not waste your time on this horrible movie. It's two hours of your life you'll never get back. If you want to read more about how bad this movie sucked, check out my other blog: http://jandkatthemovies.blogspot.com/

Shadow of the Vampire

I just watched Shadow of the Vampire, which is a fictional movie about the making of Nosferatu. The fabulously gruesome part of this movie is that it posits that Max Schreck, the guy who played the vampire, actually IS a vampire! The vampire is brilliantly played by Willem Dafoe for which he earned an Oscar nomination. His performance in this movie is absolutely worth your time to watch this. It also stars John Malkovich who plays the director Murnau. The scenes they have alone together are quite dynamic.

It was fun to watch this movie right after watching the actual 1922 film Nosferatu. I liked watching them "film" the scenes from the movie, and I think they used a couple shots from the original film. If you have the inclination I suggest you watch the original followed by this film. But if you can't tolerate silent films you really should watch this anyway - I guarantee you'll like it even if you haven't seen the movie it's based on.

Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone - 10th Anniversary Edition

Being a total Harry Potter geek I ran right out on Tuesday to pick up the 10th anniversary edition of Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone, primarily because there were rumors of additional content. I was a little disappointed on the "additional content" which turned out to be a drawing of Severus Snape as JK Rowing had always seen him in her head. It was cool to see, though, and if you're a fan I recommend perusing the front of the book at a bookstore so you can see it for yourself. Other than that, I don't think there's a reason to purchase this book if you already have one.

In reading it, though, it was fun to notice that they made corrections to the text from the original printing of the book. For example, in the original version, when they're at the start of term feast at Hogwarts Nearly Headless Nick tells Harry that he hasn't eaten in nearly 400 years. This conflicts with the next book which takes place a year later where Nick has his 500th death day party. So in this new edition it's corrected to say that Nick hasn't eaten in nearly 500 years. Yes, I'm a total geek - haven't you figured that out yet?!

I realized that I hadn't re-read the series since the last book came out. It's fun to read the beginning of the series knowing now how it ends, and also realizing the significance of many, many things in this first book. I never would have guessed that the way Harry caught his first snitch at his first Quidditch game would play a key part in the denouement of Deathly Hallows. Or that Dumbldore's put-outer that he used on Privet Drive in the very first chapter of the series would even show up again at all, much less in a very significant way. These are just two examples that highlight how technically well-crafted these books were from before she even wrote a word.

Anyway, I loved reading this again. It's like putting on a warm pair of fuzzy slippers and wrapping up in a cozy blanket on a cold winter day. There's nothing like a good book, no matter how many times you've read it.

Nosferatu

So, as you can probably tell from my recent posts, I'm on a bit of a vampire kick right now. So I decided to rent the old 1922 silent film Nosferatu, which is a German rip-off of Dracula. (Bram Stoker's estate sued and lost, FYI. Apparently, changing the names of the characters was good enough to prove that you had an original story back then.) They must have thought movie goers were idiots and slow readers back then. The text they throw up on the screen to explain and/or advance the story is up there for about 10x the amount of time it actually takes to read. They also show certain things repeatedly like we're all too dumb to remember what we saw five minutes ago. And, overall, it was really slow-moving compared to what we're used to watching now.

Having said all that, it was sort of fun to watch. I was impressed at the creativeness of the special effects - yes, that's right, special effects! Pretty amazing considering there wasn't Industrial Light & Magic to turn to for help. And the guy who plays the vampire, Max Schreck, is really creepy looking even by today's standards.

If you have any interest I recommend watching this when you're in the right mood for this type of film. Be prepared to hate the supposed "hero" of the movie. He's a total idiot and you'll probably end up rooting for the vampire to get him like I did. However, his wife actually has the ability to use her brain and she ends up saving humanity from the evil vampire. Which goes to prove that if you want something done right send a woman to do it! (But she can't be too smart or else she never would have married that tool in the first place.) Anyway, enjoy.

My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding

I just finished reading another book of short stories by various authors called My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding, which, obviously, centers around supernatural weddings. I enjoyed reading it but it's not something that I would strongly recommend to anyone. I picked it up because there is a story in there by Charlaine Harris who wrote the Southern Vampire Series (featuring Sookie Stackhouse) on which the HBO series True Blood is based. Her story doesn't feature the characters from that series, but it does take place in that "universe" with vampires and werewolves. If you're interested, maybe check it out of the library instead of purchasing it.

Burn After Reading

The Cohen brothers hit a home run with Burn After Reading. I was laughing out loud throughout this whole movie. This dark comedy is more intelligent than the usual stupid comedy that everyone puts out these days (such as every Will Ferrell movie ever made). These A+ actors were so much fun to watch in the horrible mess of a plot that only the Cohen brothers could conceive and bring to life. You should definitely make it a point to watch this.

Mission Impossible III

I caught Mission Impossible III on cable this weekend. I'm glad I waited to see this movie. When it was released in the theaters it was around the time when Tom Cruise was all over the place being weird and I was really sick of him. I was able to watch this movie more objectively than I would have before. Philip Seymour Hoffman is exceptional, as he always is. Everyone else is OK. It was a decent movie, but maybe a little too long. It's not great but worth the time if you haven't seen it yet and you have a couple hours to kill.

Many Bloody Returns

I finished another book of short stories by various authors called Many Bloody Returns: Tales of Birthdays with Bite. The requirement to write a story for this compilation was that is had to be about birthdays and vampires. I thought it was amazing that all the authors could write such different stories about the same topic, ranging from grim to funny and everything in between. Of course, the reason I bought this book was that Charlaine Harris wrote the first (and funniest) narrative, which is a little side story for Sookie Stackhouse and Eric Northman of her Southern Vampire series (which is also the basis for the new HBO series True Blood). I enjoyed all but one story in this book. If you're willing to gamble on liking the writing styles of various authors, I suggest you pick this one up sometime.

http://thebellesblog.blogspot.com