Susan Hated Literature

Dir: Philip G. Atwell
Writ: Lee Anthony Smith & Gregory J. Bradley

• Jet Li … Rogue
• Jason Statham … Jack Crawford
• Devon Aoki … Kira
• Luis Guzmán … Benny

Supposedly this is a martial-arts action film about an FBI agent hunting down an assassin because he killed the cop’s partner. But in reality there isn’t enough plot for that. Which is very surprising because there is a LOT of story and very little martial arts. There is a fair amount of action, but it is all things we’ve seen before.

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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: Marcus Nispel
Writ: Laeta Kalogridis based on Veiviseren by Nils Gaup

• Karl Urban … Ghost
• Russell Means … Pathfinder
• Moon Bloodgood … Starfire
• Jay Tavare … Blackwing
• Clancy Brown … Gunnar

Five hundred years before Columbus another European people journeyed to the Americas. These raiders left behind a young boy, who was taken in by The People of the Dawn, and when, many years later, the Vikings return, he is the one to fight back and save his adopted people.

Okay, so you know the way you see a really really bad trailer and think to yourself, well it might be fun in a no brain, mindless entertainment way. Well this didn’t even live up to my low expectations. There is nothing to redeem it. Nothing at all. Well unless you want to spend 99 minutes watching Karl Urban fight. Which may have some attraction I’ll admit. But a bit of sense would be nice. This child was left behind and yet despite how ever many years passed he is still a great fighter. This maybe they can get away with because he kept his sword and we see him practising it. But the horse-riding ability? Yeah, okay! I know, I know, I really shouldn’t be looking for any sort of sense, but come on writer, you need some sort of thread that’ll tie things together. And since I’m being all negative, can I also complain that the fighting scenes were actually crap. I mean they looked cool and atmospheric, but I couldn’t tell what was going on in them at all.

And I really don’t want to get into the historical bit of it, but why on earth were the Native Americans portrayed as totally peaceful? I don’t know a lot about pre-european invasion America, but I’m pretty sure they would’ve raided each other’s tribes. I really did think that this sort of “noble savage” shite had died out. Guess I was wrong. And while I’m well aware that films need good guys and bad guys, and in the case of this sort of action film, very simple definitions of good and bad, can I just say wtf was up with that version of the Vikings? Did someone really want to make an “orcs v the Indians” film but couldn’t sell it?

In conclusion, urgh

IMDb | Official Site | Fasthack | FlickFilosopher | MetaCritic | Slice of SciFi

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Writ & Dir: Joe Carnahan

• Jeremy Piven - Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel
• Ryan Reynolds - Richard Messner
• Ray Liotta - Donald Carruthers
• Ben Affleck - Jack Dupree
• Andy Garcia - Stanley Locke
• Alicia Keys - Georgia Sykes

You know I really wanted to enjoy this film. The trailer promised gunfights and bullets and blood and gore, but all in a flashy, enjoyable way. The film didn’t deliver.

It was far too much of a muddle, and it seemed as though it wasn’t really sure what sort of a film it wanted to be. Was it a serious crime film? A buddy-cop film? A flashy film heaving with comedy and violence? It tried to be all of them, and failed, ending up as a mess of a wannabe stylish flick.

Don’t get me wrong, it had some good scenes, some laughs and some style, it just didn’t work as a whole. If only it had decided whether it wanted to go dark and serious or violence and fun.

The Aces of the title is Buddy ‘Aces’ Israel, who knows a hell of a lot about the workings of a crime family that the FBI would love to put away, so when they hear about a hit on him they go to work in an attempt to protect him and get him to give evidence. But agents Messener and Caruthers aren’t the only ones after Aces. There are the bail bondsmen determined to track him down, and then there is a whole host of assassins out to collect the bounty on his head. We all know this won’t end without a lot of bloodshed.

Blood there is in bucketloads, but very little else.

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Last episode of season 2 of Lost was on last night. And can I just say that this has to be the most pointless telly watching I have ever done. I don’t like the characters. Even Charlie is annoying at this stage. I despise Jack with his “leadership issues”. Kate is a moany cow who thinks she is tough but all she ever seems to do is stare out to sea mournfully. Okay, so Sawyer is interesting on the eyes, but, characterwise he aint going anywhere except round in circles.

None of the characters are.

Sure, we have flashback after flashback after flashback telling us backstory and revealing the trials and tribulations they all faced, along with cool, neat^[1] appearances from other characters that they didn’t know back then.

But it is all so annoyingly pointless and irrelevant. There is no development of characters. None of them understand the others any better because while we may see the flashback there is no sense of them sharing their histories with each other. And showing Sun in the background while Jack moans at the airport? I mean it isn’t even really all that much of a coincidence, they were boarding the same plane afterall.

And I totally get that there is this one big arc that will be revealed when the entire show is completed, but you know what’d be nice, do you? Any fucking sort of resolution. To anything. but we never get that. Everything is so openended and open to interpretation that it is pointless to watch what happens, because none of it means anything.

So why am I still watching? Honestly? cause there is nothing else on at the same time. but I don’t think I care enough to tune in next season. I’m bored with their boring adventures. Even that Show Spoilers ▼

Because I just don’t care. Course it does provide me with moan-worthy posts, so maybe that’s all it needs to do?

The problem, I think, is that they are going in circles, and even when shit happens, it takes so long that it feels like nothing has happened. And, despite all the stuff that has happened, it hasn’t had an impact. Nothing has changed. And it is all so boring.

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Dir: Gore Verbinski
Writ: Ted Elliot, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beatti & Jay Wolpert

• Johnny Depp - Jack Sparrow
• Orlando Bloom - Will Turner
• Keira Knightley - Elizabeth Swann
• Jack Davenport - Norrington
• Bill Nighy - Davy Jones

Took me long enough, but I finally managed to catch POTC2, and despite loving the first one I have to say that this just isn’t that great. Yes it has wonderful bits of Jack Sparrow-ness, but overall it is too long and too silly to really entertain.

Of course it does suffer because the story doesn’t end with this film, you’ve got to wait til film three before we have a resolution, but that isn’t the main problem. No, the problem is that there isn’t enough story to fill the 150 minutes of screen time. It is as though they wanted to put in all these “cool pirate bits” and then had to invent reasons to have them. They don’t serve the plot and so aren’t needed, and only make the film drag.

Still, there is plenty to entertain. Obviously Jack Sparrow is as entertaining as ever. And then there is Bill Nighy’s Davy Jones and his ickness. Keira Knightly I could do without however.

All in all, good in places but too long. Although the conversation over the pronunciation of Kraken was simply superb.

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Dir: Justin Lin
Writ: Chris Morgan

• Lucas Black - Sean Boswell
• Nathalie Kelley - Neela
• Bow Wow - Twinkie
• Sung Kang - Han
• Brian Tee - D.K

Car go fast. Car go bang. And look, pretty girls in short skirts.

Come on, that’s all you were expecting right? I mean, yes I enjoyed the first film, way back when. But it was nonsense. I avoided the second because I was afraid of a [tag]Paul Walker[/tag] overdose. But I’ve been a fan of Lucas Black’s since those American Gothic days, and I figured some mindless entertainment might be fun.

And it was.

Although the plot makes no sense, it is all just an excuse for the cars to drift. And yes, drifting is cool, I thought so when I saw it last year on Top Gear and I still think so. But 104 minutes of drifting is slightly too much. Still, cars go fast. And cars go bang. So its all good. Can’t say as I was impressed by the pretty girls though.

And in the end Show Spoilers ▼

There is one bit that deserves praise though. I thought the action sequences were very well shot. All the directing in fact was great. Everything looked just as it should, although Black is too old to be playing a school kid. But Diesel was too old to play his role in first film, so maybe they are just sticking with tradition.

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