Susan Hated Literature

I am totally fed up with a lot of the comments about Mary Harney. I realise that as a politician she is fair game. And as a politician who is in charge of the Health Service at a time when it is scandal after scandal after horrendous error she deserves a hell of a lot of criticism.

But I’m fed up about the cheap shots about her appearance and her weight.^[1]

What fucking difference does that make to anything?

To be honest I’ve no clue as to what is going on in the Health service, other than to know it is fucked up, but I do think that Harney should resign. She is the Minister for Health. She is ultimately responsible.

Course the same could be said of Bertie and his shenanigans. It just isn’t something that Irish politicians seem to do, is it? Shower of tossers.

Nevertheless cheap jibes about her physical appearance are just crap and annoying and pointless. What possible difference does it make to how she does her job? If she were stick-thin and anorexic would that make her handling of it any better?

Is it a form of sexism, cause you don’t really see the same amount of jokes being made about overweight male politicians?

Title from this excellent post

Author: Laurell K. Hamilton
ISBN: 1841494747 DDC: 813.54
#14 in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter verse
Read for the RIP Challenge
See also: LibraryThing ; Voracious Reader ; It’s not the heat, it’s the humanity

It was the middle of November. I was supposed to be out jogging, but instead I was sitting at my breakfast table talking about men, sex, werewolves, vampires, and that thing that most unmarried but sexual active women fear most of all - a missed period.

It all went downhill so quickly in this series. The first few books were good solid entertainment. Plenty of action and fairly decent characters. But now they are all merely vehicles for Anita to have sex with as many people as she can. And to top it all they are badly written as well. Thank god I got this one from the library and didn’t shell out actual cash for it.

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Dir: Tim Story
Writ: Don Payne, Mark Frost, John Turman. Characters created by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby.

1. Ioan Gruffudd … Reed Richards
2. Jessica Alba … Sue Storm
3. Chris Evans … Johnny Storm
4. Michael Chiklis … Ben Grimm
5. Julian McMahon … Victor Von Doom
6. Doug Jones … The Silver Surfer
7. Laurence Fishburne … The Silver Surfer (voice)

This was pants. Complete pants. Not even bad enough to be enjoyed.
Harsh? Maybe, but true. I wasn’t overly fond of the first film but it did the job of light entertainment. This one though was boring. An unforgivable flaw in an action-hero flick. Everything was ultra predictable, and nothing sparkled. Not even McMahon as the ebil Von Doom. And I can’t be the only one who is totally Fishburne’s supposedly gravitas filled delivery of lines. Yes, it worked in the first of the Matrix films, but it seems as though ever since then he has been called upon whenever a “serious voice” is needed. Enough already. Especially when the Silver Surfer was probably the only thing about this film that I liked.

There isn’t really that much more to say about this. I wasn’t impressed. I was bored. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

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Dir: Sam Raimi
Writ: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, & Alvin Sargent. Based on the comic by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

• Tobey Maguire … Spider-Man/Peter Parker
• Kirsten Dunst … Mary Jane Watson
• James Franco … New Goblin/Harry Osborn
• Thomas Haden Church … Sandman/Flint Marko
• Topher Grace … Venom/Eddie Brock
• Bryce Dallas Howard … Gwen Stacy
• James Cromwell … Captain Stacy
• Bruce Campbell … Maître d’

I wasn’t a huge fan of the first two spiderman films; I enjoyed them but didn’t LOVE them. They were good, solid entertainment. Two was probably a little better, though I may feel that way because I recently rewatched it when it was shown on the telly a few weeks ago. This one isn’t so good. It is too long. There are too many characters. And worst of all, unlike the second, it has no heart to it.

It felt stop-start, as though they had too many characters and story-lines and couldn’t figure out to make then all work together properly, nothing seemed to fit.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Spiderman, or of Peter Parker for that matter, and in this film I just couldn’t care less what happened him. James Franco was more interesting as Harry. There was nothing to grip the viewer, and while the special effects were excellent you really need a good story to hang them on. This was all pretty curtains and no foundation.

And the cocky version of Peter Parker? That was just weird and stupid. Yes at first it was a little entertaining to see him strut, but after 2 seconds it became creepyfing, and disturbing. And the dancing! wtf!

There is nothing hideous and terrible about the film. You’ll watch, you’ll be entertained and maybe a little bored, I do recall checking my watch and thinking with a sinking heart that there was still an hour to go, but it picked up a little, so I wasn’t eyeing the exit all the way through. Totally worthy of a meh. Too many storyiideas with not enough development

I also took issue with the amount of time Parker wandered about in his Spidey outfit, only with the mask off. Either he has a secret identity or he doesn’t. Half the city should know who he really is if he has as little care as that.

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or Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia
Dir: Yimou Zhang Writ: Yimou Zhang & Yu Cao

• Yun-Fat Chow - Emperor Ping
• Li Gong - Empress Phoenix
• Jay Chou - Prince Jai
• Ye Liu - Crown Prince Wan
• Junjie Qin - Prince Yu

Set in the Tang dynasty in the 10th Century, this film tells the tale of the Emperor Ping and his cold war with his wife, Empress Phoenix, as well as both of their attempts to influence the three princes. The eldest, Crown Prince Wan’s mother was the Emperor’s first wife, has been raised by Phoenix as well as her two sons. But the emperor is not happy with his wife. As her father is an important neighbouring king he cannot do away with her in the open and instead decides that as she is “sick” she needs to take her medicine. Medicine that he has formulated, and which includes a poison that will slowly cause damage and leave her nothing but a vegetable. Obviously she doesn’t want this to happen and so makes other plans.

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Dir: Robert de Niro
Writ: Eric Roth

• Matt Damon - Edward Bell Wilson
• Angelina Jolie - Clover/Margaret Ann Russell
• Alec Baldwin - Sam Murach
• Tammy Blanchard - Laura

This is the story of Edward Wilson, a man who has believed in the United States of America all his life, who has always done what he thinks is right, a spy, a husband, a father. The story of the emergence of the CIA, of the Cold War, of Castro and Cuba, of relationships and love and loyalty and family. Of secrets and lies, or truth and betrayal.

Surely with all that going on it should have been a good, film?
Not so much. My god! was I ever bored sitting through this. The character of Edward Wilson was not a verbose one, which is fine, if you get across that there is something going on underneath the quiet. Not here. Damon came across as merely dumbstruck. There was never any real indication of his abilities as a spy, just a lot of him standing there, silent.

And at 167 minutes long, you really should have someone that the audience can engage with. Whether to root for, or despise, or just be interested in. I didn’t care about any of what was going on. The only thing that maybe worked, was the sense that in the end it was all worthless. The Cold War, the espionage, which side you were on — it all meant nothing. But that wasn’t pushed enough either. Instead it came across as a boring, boring film. Occasionally while watching I did think to myself, oh that’s a nice shot, but nice shots don’t make a film. And neither do attempts to mean something. Your film has to either entertain, or have meaning. This had neither.

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Writ & Dir: Emilio Estevez

• Harry Belafonte - Nelson
• Nick Cannon - Dwayne
• Emilio Estevez - Tim Fallon
• Laurence Fishburne - Edward Robinson
• Heather Graham - Angela
• Anthony Hopkins - John Casey
• Helen Hunt - Samantha
• Joshua Jackson - Wade
• Ashton Kutcher - Fisher
• William H. Macy - Paul
• Demi Moore - Virginia Fallon
• Freddy Rodríguez - José
• Martin Sheen - Jack
• Christian Slater - Timmons
• Sharon Stone - Miriam
• Jacob Vargas - Miguel
• Elijah Wood - William
• David Krumholtz - Phil

As you can see from that impressive cast list, this is a bit of an ensemble film, which means it runs the risk of the audience not caring about the characters. And I’m afraid it failed. I just didn’t care about any of them.

And the story itself was a whole heap of nothingness. I mean, I’m sure that it may have an impact on people who lived through the time, or for those who are big fans of Bobby Kennedy, but as a film it just didn’t work. It tried far too hard to push through some big message, but ended up coming over as heavy-handed, irrelevant and, to be blunt, crap. The various stories of the different characters are un-engaging. The acting is all fine, but the characters themselves are pointless. Pointless and boring. I kept hoping for it to end.

What did work was the insertion of clips of RFK, but to be honest, while I liked watching them I found it impossible to actually listen to anything that Bobby was saying. Maybe it was because I was so bored with the film, I don’t know.

Maybe it is because I don’t know anything about Bobby Kennedy, but this film did nothing but make me yawn. Then again, the film isn’t really about Bobby, it is about the people of the time and the affect he had on them. Everyone seemed to love him, or at least everyone in the film did, considering the fact that he got assassinated I’m sure someone must have disliked him. The film is a snapshot of one day in these various people’s lives, but that is it, there is nothing to focus on, or think about, or engage with. I just didn’t care about anything that happened.

Sure the ending works, but not because you care about any of the characters, but simply because it is people getting shot and panicking in a realistic manner. And of course because you know that this is all based on the truth.

Final verdict? Don’t bother with it. It’s crap.

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