Yesterday I cried… a lot…

Yesterday I arrived home, I put on the water-heater in the bathroom, I switched my laptop on, and while it was loading, went to see which book I would read during the evening, since I had just finished reading Patrick Rothfuss’ ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’ for the second time. I knew it had to be good to follow up Rothfuss, so I picked Pratchett and Gaiman’s ‘Good Omens’, which I hadn’t looked at in a while.

My pc had come around by then, and I went to take a quick peek at my email as well as Facebook, before starting my household chores. It was then that I saw it… TERRY PRATCHETT HAD DIED AT 66…

I know, I know, he had Alzheimer, and all Terry-lovers knew we had to loose him someday. But ‘someday’ and ‘dead at 66’ are worlds apart. Not only is 66 not that old by today’s standards… THIS IS TERRY PRATCHETT!! He died while I was working at some boring meeting two hours previously, and I did not know anything about it! The earth did not tremble, the sun did not shatter, my heart did not scream in rage!! I just could not believe it! How could the literary genius of our time be dead, and only a few be so concerned as to even comment on Facebook?

How can the rest of the world not be in a brainless comatose stupor like me??

I cried while I prepared my work-lunch for today. I sobbed while I laid out my work clothes ready for usage at 6am. I shrieked silently and continuously while I showered. I trembled and shook while I wrote my aunt’s birthday card. I keened while I stared disconsolately at my Terry Pratchett books in the living room. I wailed when I looked outside and realized that the spirit of that great writer, my inspiration, the source of all comic and parodic genius, had left the planet. I blubbered as I gazed at the pc screen and realized that for most people this was no big deal. I bawled and hugged myself as I crouched in a fetal position under the bedclothes.

Then, I blew my nose, shut up, and thought a bit. NO he was not dead. His books were still there. Part of him lived and would live forever. There would be no more books. He will never sign anything for me. I will never meet him. That is the truth. But the truth is also that he made his great mark upon the world, he inspired millions of people. Made them laugh. Made them cry. Made them be alive.

Maybe now that he’s dead, he will finally get the recognition he deserves. Most literary geniuses only seem to get it once they are gone anyways, for some weird reason. I guess TV channels will just gobble up the Discworld stories, and I really welcome that. I just hope that they don’t rape them, like the last Indiana Jones movie was raped. I hope they continue having that awesome flavor and fantastic weirdness present in previously rendered films like ‘Hog Father’ and ‘Going Postal’.

We’ll see.

Movie Review – Birdman – SPOILERS

Personal rating – 1 Star

I was really looking forward to watching this movie, not only because it’s the movie which won the bigger number of Oscars this year (4 in all), but because I like Michael Keaton as an actor, and I simply salivate over Edward Norton’s talent -he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the way.

So there I was on a Saturday evening, home-made salami and mushroom pizza in one hand, glass of wine in the other, breathlessly waiting for it to start. Then after a while, waiting for it to actually kick in… then after an hour, waiting for SOMETHING to happen, and then after more than an hour and a half, just waiting for it to end. Which it finally did.

Disappointment as a word, barely describes my feelings.

Basically the film recounts the last week in the life of a sixty-year old something actor who had been famous in the 90s for his ‘Birdman’ role as the Superhero du jour… reference to Batman much? Riggan Thomson (aka Keaton) played Birdman in 3 movies and then after turning down Birdman 4, receded into semi-anonymity and cheesy roles, until finally he tried to break out as a success in the theatre instead of the big screen. Keaton, who, like Riggan, last starred in his last Batman movie in 1992 (he had the role for only 2 of the movies), afterwards DID kind of spiral into more mediocre roles. So, one obviously asks, is Birdman the film a parody of Keaton’s life?

Riggan directs and stars in a play in Broadway, apart from his tired and washed up life, we also meet up with the interlocking stories of his co-actors, their problems, their licentious sexual lives, and their general emotional and psychological confusion. Many of the reviews I read lauded Birdman saying that it gave the audience an insight into actors’ actual struggles… so, basically this film won 5 Oscars for showing non-actors that actors were as fucked up and decadent as everybody else? Wow, big deal!

Norton was kind of okayish – given that the part he had to play was totally pointless and colorless, but still almost every movie I’ve watched him in showcased his talent better than this one.

In the end, fed up of hearing the voice of his past superhero alter-ego berating him for being such a looser (and being right) and asking him to leave the theater and invest in a Birdman remake, Riggan tries to commit suicide… during his play’s premier. He botches it, as he botches everything else, and ends up in hospital. Everyone knows it was a suicide attempt, yet they seem to ignore that, leaving Riggan alone in a vast and unsupervised hospital bedroom in a sky-high building. Needless to be said, Riggan, believing himself to be able to fly as Birdman did, opens his enormous hospital window and jumps off. Riggan’s druggie daughter comes into the room, and not finding him, looks out. We are not shown what she sees, however we see her looking up and smiling.

THE END

So, what? Was Riggan really flying?

Wow, we didn’t see that coming at all did we?

And THIS movie won 5 Oscars, while a gem like The Imitation Game won only one?!

Say it with me – W…T….F !!

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer – Michelle Hodkin – Book Review (SPOILERS)

I am currently of two minds about this book. Having just finished it, I am still oscillating between amused interest and irritated indignation.

Following the Twilight destruction phenomenon, a spate of wanna-be teenage angsty star-crossed lovers ‘novels’ started to come out, all aimed at young people and all of them the same.

Mara Dyer Book 1 started with a very interesting (although not at all original) premise. The reader is unsure whether Mara is suffering from post-traumatic stress psychosis or if there’s something else. We see flashes of the truth, but the narrator is fallible, so we are still not sure what is happening. Everything is exciting, mysterious and a tad uncanny.

And then, everything goes to rot.

Enter Noah – the new Edward. Perfect in every sense, every girl wants him, but for some strange inexplicable reason he only wants quite, introvert Bella.. er I mean Mara. Noah is elusive and special. Rich and adored. And he has special powers! Surprise, surprise!

By the way, have I mentioned Noah’s equally perfect ex who bullies Mara with the help of her friend the blonde-Mr America? Are all the characters so beautiful and picture perfect? Yes! Gods even this is enough to irritate the hell out of me! Where are the fat chicks, the pimpled cowards, the bitchy sluts and the insecure people you REALLY find in every school in existence?!

Anyways, to be fair, there are many differences which tend to try and put Mara Dyer outside the Twilight zone… maybe I have become too adept at perceiving similarities everywhere? Hmm… Maybe it’s just me? Or not?

Anyways, Bella… I mean Mara, feels physical attraction towards Noah, but he keeps back (even though apparently he’s shagged every other thing in skirts), because… well no actual reason is given. He just refuses her advances… sounds familiar? To make matters even more… *cough*cough* cheesy, we realize that Mara too has special powers! Oh these two are so special! Their special powers complement each other so specially, driving the point home that, as Noah said ‘We are made for each other’… honestly, the syrupy sweetness is enough to curdle bacon.

And yet… there could be something there… something more…

Maybe it’s just the awesome book-cover which is still getting to me lol (for some reason it seems familiar too…?)

Yes, I’m going to start reading the second book of the trilogy, ‘The Evolution of Mara Dyer’… maybe it will get better.

I surely hope it won’t be worse.