Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West , Gregory Macguire

I rather like this book. While the storyline and some of the details are a bit dark, I am finding the deeper vocabulary and serious approach to human issues quite refreshing; in some ways, it makes my other sci-fi/fantasy reading seem like puff and poof. *grin*

Because there is more attention spent on the characters (and not so much on things like the magic system or how people fight with each other), I feel more pulled into the story. We all know what happens to the "wicked witch of the west", but this perceptive glimpse into the past is extremely intriguing, filled with gall and guile, humility and learning.

Iron Man, 2008

I was hugely disappointed with several of the other Marvel-to-movies (eg, Fantastic Four), but the trailers looked good. And I was, finally, not disappointed. Although it gets a little old seeing Stan show up so many times. =)

I thought Robert Downey Jr. made a great Tony Stark. Maybe a little too self-absorbed, but definitely efficacious in playing the part of a hi-tech, toy-crazy, ambitious geek inventor. I am a sucker for "high technology"; I love playing as the Protoss in Starcraft, even though they suck in the early game.

What largely makes this movie work is that it walks the line of tenuous, suspended disbelief quite well. With the huge exception of Obadiah (aka, "Iron Monger"), which I will get to shortly. We have a guy who has been playing with technological advances, and continuously improves upon his own design. After being shell-shocked by being on the receiving end of his own weapons (and this misuse), he appropriately experiences a paradigm shift. The powered exoskeleton is full of wonderful little details, and the CG actually starts to look good for this. Usually. I am not exactly crazy about some of the "learning to fly" scenes, but the little flaps and pieces that move autonomously are wonderful examples of attention at the micro level.

Some other details were flagrantly either ignored or looked over. Some simple matters of physics; I do not care how strong your armor is, you cannot simply hold out your arm and expect to stop a rain of bullets without the resulting momentum driving your arm back. And how did he end up with bullet holes in his first suit, but no bullets? I can forgive all that.

I cannot forgive the Iron Monger. Sheesh. Where to start.... there is this pivotal, critical scene where Obadiah berates a scientist for being unable to minaturize the Arc Generator; the classic response "We are not Tony Stark". So how the heck does he end up with this RoboTech mechnoid? How is it that it just happens to accept an Arc Generator Tony designed for his own suit? How is that Obadiah can apparently master his monster creation faster than Tony, who has the help of "Travis". Puh-lease!

Another annoyance was Tony's house/lab. It is gorgeous, true, but apparently easy to break into. And the helper bots were poorly animated (by some dweeb holding a little joystick?). If they were meant to be comic relief, they failed; more like comic torture.

I felt kinda bad for Gwyneth Paltrow. She just does not have the sci-fi persona. She makes an awesome "administrative assistant", but I had time seeing her having a romantic attachment to Downey's character.

Overall, great flick. Glad I saw it on the big screen.
But the time is quickly approaching when the big screen will be obsoleted, especially if they cannot make the presentation more spectacular, comfortable and user-friendly.

Polgara, David and Leigh Eddings

In the beginning I was looking forward to a retelling of a familiar story from a new perspective. But that did not last long. I think the book could stand well on its own, but when you read all the Belgarath books, you start feeling like the same things are happening over and over again, in a bad way. I mean, even the parenthetical escapes, which I enjoyed before, get old real fast.

I like the way they write as a team. But it is starting to get a bit fluffy. I have another of their books from a different series, so it will be interesting to see how much carries over.

Sneakers, 1992

Given that this was filmed in the early 90's, I was impressed by the quality of the gadgets and special effects. The plot was interesting, although the film was a bit too slow at times. Sometimes when you see an action movie about illegal activities and high politics and stuff, the background character development just ain't worth it.

The intrigue kept me going for a while. As in some other movies, it is kinda dumb that you have a piece of technology that is developed and instantly coveted by the major powers that be, and for some reason the technology is completely uncopiable.

I liked the cast, except Aykroyd's character did not fit the mold at all. Perhaps I am just not one of his fans.

The computer simulations were interesting, but no where near amazing or realistic in any sense. I know they have braille interpreters (and even better, audio screen readers), but there is no way anyone is going to pull a Matrix and interpret a screen full of machine code. And just as impossible, you don't decrypt a screen full of said characters into a realtime display of graphics. But the concept of having an ultimate code-breaker is expectedly unrealistic, so I was simply entertained by that one. *grin*

Solider, 1998

I was on a search for a good sci-fi flick, and I spotted "Soldier" sitting on a friends shelf. It was not a good sci-fi flick. Interesting premise, but a bit too masochistic, too robotic, too predictable. Altogether forgettable. The little sliver of "space" was too cheesy, and the whole thing was just blah.