Avatar: A fun film, sort of Pocahontas meets Ferngully meets The Matrix, with a dash of BattleTech thrown in for spice. The story is simplistic and familiar: Jake Sully is a Marine who is paralyzed from the waist down who gets the opportunity to join the Avatar program when his identical twin brother is killed. This program allows a human to mentally occupy a genetically-matched alien body so they can mingle with the native race of the planet Pandora. Pandora contains large deposits of a valuable ore called unobtainium (a name so lame it distracted me), and getting to this means displacing a bunch of natives. So you have the pacifist scientists and the trigger-happy military dudes and the cold-hearted bureaucrats and the innocent natives who have a special connection with all living things. Jake, in his avatar form, befriends the alien chief’s daughter and suddenly finds his loyalties torn. I think you see where this is going.
But you know, it was kind of nice to have such a standard storyline in the face of such intricate special effects. As so many have said, the CG is phenomenal. The aliens move realistically and have stunningly convincing facial expressions. The Pandoran landscape is nearly seamless, and it’s very easy to forget you’re watching a cartoon. Maybe I’m weird, but the effect I noticed most was Jake’s legs when he’s human. Since he’s supposed to be paralyzed, the muscles are completely atrophied. I’m sure this was done in post-production (as opposed to the actor letting his legs whither away in real life), but it was so believable that I still had to wonder.
I saw this film in 3D. It was good 3D – that is, it actually looked 3D rather than like a bunch of 2D planes moving in front of each other – but I’m not sure I needed it. They didn’t pull any of your standard tricks that make the audience flinch like something’s going to hit them in the face, and I think the film would have been just as entertaining without the audience looking like a sea of Max Headrooms (though that was amusing in itself). So in short: fun to watch, not too intellectually taxing, worth seeing in the theaters. I doubt I’d watch it again but my husband looks forward to the behind-the-scenes content on the DVD. Something tells me it won’t be too interesting, considering most of it will involve people sitting at computers, but I could be wrong.
by Philip Pullman: While trying to protect his mother from some mysterious men, Will steps into another world. There he meets Lyra and is swept up into the tale of Dust and witches and daemons. This is the second installment in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and like many seconds-of-three, it’s pretty dark. The violence is both more prevalent and more graphic than in The Golden Compass, and at times I almost cried. But it’s well-written and exciting, and I just love Will. Like the previous book, it ends with a cliffhanger. Looking forward to the conclusion.
by Khaled Hosseini: An incredibly depressing story about two Afghan women living through the numerous regime changes in that country. I will say that this is beautifully written, with compelling characters and rich detail. And I certainly learned a lot about Afghan history and culture. It’s just that the story was a big downer, filled with cruelty and regret. Women are horribly mistreated; people are thoughtlessly mean to each other and then never get a chance to apologize for it; and the “happy” ending feels really contrived. So if you’re looking for a brutally honest look at the lives of women in Afghanistan, this is probably a pretty good start, but don’t go looking for a feel-good story to pass a rainy afternoon. Some of the images will stick with me for a long time.
by Tom Watson: This is not a book I would have read had I not received it for my participation in 
: These ate my brain* for a while during college. Interview with the Vampire (and the associated 
) remains my favorite, perhaps because of an affinity for Louis that Rice herself obviously did not share. (In an intro to the IwtV DVD, Rice referred to Lestat as her “dark lover.” Um.) The books declined in quality as time went on, and eventually I gave up without reading Memnoch the Devil and only bothered with a few of the spin-offs (The Vampire Armand, Violin, and Pandora, if I recall correctly).
: I actually rather enjoyed the book (to which the 
was reasonably true), but it didn’t have a whole lot of Dracula in it. (More detail at my post on the 
: The 
was fairly forgettable, but I really liked the series, to the point where I was perfectly happy watching back-to-back-to-back episodes during much of graduate school.
: 
: Oh god, don’t get me 
: Probably my favorite recurring guest star on 
, but I’m not sure that has anything to do with him being a vampire.
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, and 
. The question is: where to start?
by Dean Koontz: Um, wow. This was really terrible. I have no idea why I finished it. Basically, there’s a bunch of sparkling rain and people start seeing weird stuff in mirrors, and everybody immediately assumes that it signals an alien invasion. They’re right, which saves a bunch of time, but I’m still not sure how they knew. The prose is a solid shade of purple, people suspiciously quote T.S. Eliot, and dolls get possessed. And because this is a Koontz novel, there are magical dogs, questionable science, preachy theology, and a serial killer. I saw the “twist” ending a mile away, but thought “No, that would be too silly, even for Koontz” – and was of course completely wrong. Clearly nothing is too silly for Koontz. I’ve liked several of his other books, but this was simply awful.