Stephen King's Wizard and Glass -- Part 1

Wizard and Glass is pretty exciting. It begins with a highly stressful riddle contest against Blaine the Mono, a psychotic train. It ruins nothing to tell you that the group (Roland's Ka-Tet) wins this contest. Once they beat Blaine, they find themselves, oddly enough, in Kansas; but it's not their Kansas. The Dark Tower series seems to be incorporating many different alternate universes, melded together into one. Everything is still very interesting, and the book really does make you wonder how Roland's world moved on.

Stephen King's The Waste Lands

Stephen King's The Waste Lands is the third book in the famous Dark Tower series, of which a new book just came out (oddly enough, it is a mid-quel, taking place between the fourth and fifth books), and yes, it does take its name from that famous T.S. Elliot poem. Having Roland, Eddie, and the new idea of Odetta, named Susannah, our characters are firmly developed -- or are they? The Waste Lands reintroduces Jake, a character prominently featured in The Gunslinger and who made a small appearance in The Drawing of The Three. It's got much more going on than The Drawing of the Three, though probably not as much as The Gunslinger.
Here, our characters face many challenges that range from jumping from world to world to fending off tribal freaks of nature in a city like New York called Lud. The ending is a very extreme cliffhanger, starring Blaine the Mono, a psychotic train obsessed with riddles and wordplay. It's a more entertaining book than The Drawing of The Three, I think, but with less intellectual content. Go check it out if you've got the time.

Picasso's Guernica

The tortured faces of those in pain make themselves prevalent in the painting, their attention focused on the light overhead, as if looking for some salvation that would not come. It is a colorless mass, dominated by greys, blacks, and whites, with large-open spaces covered by jungles of figures, a claustrophobic nightmarish depression of no-space and dull color. From the dead, few survivors reach up to the light, asking for a moment of peaceful lack of worry, but this is not granted to them. The light shining covers only a small space; the rest is left for the demons.

Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three

The second book in the Dark Tower series, The Drawing of the Three, is thought of by some as "the best" in the series. It, after all, introduces the main characters for the story (besides the gunslinger, Roland Deschain, star of the first book), and does so in an interesting fashion. If nothing else, this second book serves as a good study of human behavior, as it introduces Eddie Dean, a heroin addict, and Odetta/Detta Walker, a handicapped schizophrenic civil rights activist. Nothing in the book is expressively poorly done, but I wish that some of the fluff had been cut down. Entire short chapters in the book can be summed up as "they wandered along the beach trying to find something." While it's well done, there's not much action to be had until the middle of the book -- after the opening chapter, of course, where Roland has a bad encounter with a strange crab creature.
Overall, it's a good book and a good addition to the series. I preferred The Gunslinger, if only because I enjoyed getting to know Roland more than I enjoyed getting to know Eddie and Odetta. Stay tuned for the next book, The Waste Lands, next week.

How to Review a Film, good and proper

A good review will always contain the following three elements:

1. A brief overview of the characters and story, without going to the point of spoiling.
Characters are, usually, the driving force of the film. Without a protagonist or antagonist, it's hard for a story to go much of anywhere. Most of the time in a review can be spent going over the characters.

2. Realistic rating of the actor's ability to act.
No one wants to watch a movie with bad acting, lest they be a masochist. This isn't the black comedy "The Room," so leave the bad acting out of it.

3. A description of the general atmosphere, or mood, of the film.
Is it a melodramatic, slow-paced film -- or a fast-paced, empty-minded action flick? This is important. A movie about a warrior isn't necessarily an action film.


I will now review a film by doing what I just said.

Project X (2012) is not a very well-shot, well made, or interesting film; it is, however, a fairly standard modern comedy. Our film stars three teenagers who are throwing a party, trying to be cool: the main character, a nerdy kid who never really gained any popularity, and who didn't want to throw a party in the first place (coincidentally, it's his birthday), a wannabee-gangsta who's friends with the main character and is throwing the party for him, and the obligatory fat kid. Together, they throw "the party of the century," which ends up as a cesspool of teenage filth, apparently making it good.
The acting isn't bad, but it's not good either. None of the actors in this film are the next Morgan Freeman, or even William Shatner. Frankly, they are college-aged kids acting like college kids. There's not much "acting" to be had! For what it's worth, it's not absolutely horrible acting, but it's just not spectacular.
The film is shot in a shaky "mockumentary" style. It's supposed to be a home movie of the main character's birthday party. In that sense, it's successful, as that's what it feels like. The camera style and the scenes shot give off a very "party-like" feeling, a feeling that I don't care much for. Frankly, it's tiring to watch.
If you enjoy seeing women portrayed purely as sexual objects, films with a lot of shiny things in them and very little character development, loud and obnoxious hip hop music, and generally seeing how far we've fallen as far as culture is concerned, you might like Project X. However, if you enjoy being intellectually challenged at any level, if you enjoy good storytelling, if you like character development -- DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE.

Rating:
Writing: 1/10
Acting: 2/10
Filming: 2/10
Overall: 2.5/10

Stephen King's "The Gunslinger"

The first book in the Dark Tower series. It's obviously one of King's earlier pieces -- the writing is not very professional in style, and he makes a few rookie mistakes. However, The Gunslinger is a very entertaining book. It tells the tale of Roland, the last gunslinger, making his way through what seems to be a post-apocalyptic spaghetti western in an alternate dimension. Of course, that idea sounds pretty dumb, but the execution is very well done. What we end up getting is a solid story which can be described as "Clint Eastwood meets Tolkien," and that's something I enjoy. If you like action stories with adventurous antiheroes as the protagonist, you'll love The Gunslinger.