Top 5: Movie Soundtracks

     This seems like a pretty standard top 5 list, but I haven't taken a stab at it on the blog, so I thought I would give it a try.  It combines a couple of passions of mine, watching movies and listening to music.  The right music used at the right moment in a movie can make a poor movie memorable and a mediocre movie great.  I tried to pick soundtracks that had songs that became iconic moments because that's what truly makes a soundtrack special.  Also, I stayed away from movie musicals, it didn't seem fair since the songs were written specifically to create moments, plus top 5 movie musicals could be a whole other list.  So, here are my Top 5 Favorite Movie Soundtracks...

5)  Dirty Dancing
          Yes, you read that right, I love the Dirty Dancing soundtrack (and yes, it took me a while to write that sentence because it's so damn embarrassing).  Or to be more accurate, I loved the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.  I haven't listened to it in years but when I was 12 I wore my tape out.  It's a great mix of old classics (Be My Baby, Stay, In The Still Of The Night) and new hits written specifically for the movie (Hungry Eyes, She's Like The Wind).  This soundtrack had two iconic song moments.  The first was Jen Grey and Patrick Swayze lip-syncing to "Love Is Strange" as they crawl across the dance studio floor.  The second being the huge closing number when Swayze pulls off the lift of Grey during "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life."  As embarrassing as it may to be to admit, this soundtrack holds up to most soundtracks out there.

4)  Saturday Night Fever
          This goes pretty much without explanation.  I was going to keep it off the list because I'm not really a fan of the music, but I'm not sure there are more iconic movie song moments then in this movie, so I split the difference and put it near the middle of my list.  The Bee Gees pretty much defined a moment in American history with this soundtrack.  The opening of the movie, John Travolta walking down the street carrying a bucket of paint to "Staying Alive," is easily one of the coolest scenes in movie history (another top 5 list?).  The other iconic moment is usually forgotten wrong.  When most people dance to "Staying Alive" they recreate the famous Travolta dance move of pointing to the sky and thrusting out one's hip, but that famous dance was done to "Night Fever" in the movie.  The lining dancing scene done to "Night Fever" is probably one of the most spoofed scenes of all time.  There is no doubt that this is one of the best and important soundtracks ever made.

3)  Singles
          This is the only movie that I can't pick out an iconic music moment for.  The movie itself was extremely forgettable, but it did help capture a musical scene that defined a generation.  Singles was set right in the middle of the Seattle grunge explosion and while it wasn't about the music or the bands that made up the scene, the music and the bands set the tone of the movie and helped make the movie as much about setting as it was the characters.  The soundtrack was a who's who of Seattle grunge, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, with many tracks that you could only get on this album.  It was one of the first soundtracks that used the idea of putting new tracks by current artists on the cd to help sell it.  Cameron Crowe has always used great music in his movies, but this soundtrack went beyond creating great movie moments and helped define a music genre.

2)  Swingers
          This soundtrack had both iconic movie music moments and helped create a national music movement.  Swingers took a local Los Angeles retro music scene and made it a national craze as all of a sudden swing music became all the rage once again.  It introduced us to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and opened the door for other swing bands like Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Squirrel Nut Zippers to be national relevant music acts.  Swingers was all about the illusion of cool and nothing helped set that tone more then the amazingly cool songs listed on the soundtrack, "You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You", "King Of The Road", "Groove Me", "Pick Up The Pieces", "Knock Me A Kiss."  The two moments I would list as iconic would be using "Pick Up The Pieces" in a slow-mo group walk scene and John Favreau and Heather Graham swing dancing to "Go Daddy-O."  The "Pick Up The Pieces" scene was a take (or rip off) on a classic scene from my number one soundtrack that made fun of a more iconic moment and yet made it it's own.  The swing scene was the breaking point of the movie as we finally see Favreau's character break threw his issues, yet perfectly encapsulated the new-swing movement at the same time.

1)  Reservoir Dogs
          I know some people would list Pulp Fiction as both Quentin Tarantino's best movie and his best soundtrack, but for my money nothing will ever beat Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction just built off everything Reservoir Dogs had already established.  This soundtrack was filled with iconic moments and was one of the first soundtracks to include dialogue from the movie.  Nothing could have been greater to 16 year-old me then having the Madonna speech on a cd for me to que up at any moment.  No current movie maker is better at using music in his movies then Tarantino.  He knows exactly the right song to use to lift any given scene in his movies and this soundtrack is the perfect example.  The opening credit scene, the slow-mo group walk scene that Swingers stole with "Little Green Bag" playing over it is hands down the coolest scene in movie history.  It just oozes cool out of every pore.  The use of "Stuck In The Middle With You" during the cop torture scene seemed to add to the horror of the moment.  I've never been able to listen to that song since without thinking of Michael Madsen talking into a severed ear.  "Hooked On A Feeling", "I Gotcha", "Magic Carpet Ride", and "Coconut" are all great 70's songs that perfectly set the tone of the film.  For me, this is the soundtrack that all others should be compared to.  It set the standard for everything a soundtrack should be.

Honorable Mentions: Clerks, Dazed and Confused, Forrest Gump, Last Action Hero

Book Review: If You Were Here (48 in 2012? #10)

     Let's just start this off by making one thing clear, I am not Jen Lancaster's audience.  Nothing she writes is aimed at 30 year-old educated meat eating male sports nuts (male being the key point where I veer away from her audience).  I entered a Goodreads giveaway for my girlfriend and then felt obligated to read and review the book when I ended up winning because that's what they ask from winners and I would like to keep getting free books.  The point being, take whatever I have to say about this book with a grain of salt.  I think that Jen Lancaster has a gift for writing witty sarcastic prose and I can see why she has the fan base that she has, but this book just isn't my cup of tea.
     The book is called a novel, but it reads exactly like the memoirs Lancaster has put out in the past.  From the little bit of have read of her other works, if it didn't say novel on the cover I would have assumed this was just another wacky story from her life.  She claims she wanted to stretch her creative muscles by writing a fiction book but this was the equivalent of someone trying to touch their toes and only making it to their waist.  As funny as some passages are and as much as I would like to connect to Lancaster's Gen X sensibilities, the novel is flat and poorly structured.  All the characters were either caricatures of real people or seemed to speak from the same voice.  As much as I found some of their antics funny, I couldn't have been less sympathetic to the main characters and their upper middle class problems.  Much of the conflict is brought on by their own stupidity.  Much of the draw to Lancaster's other work is the fact that the people she writes about are real and you think, how could someone say that or do that to another person, but with the characters and situations being fictitious, it just didn't have the same appeal.  The plot is super second act heavy with the third act resolution jumping out of nowhere and wrapping everything up in a neat little bow.  We spend two hundred plus pages dealing with the main characters looking for a house to purchase and then trying to fix the money pit they end up with to have all the conflict and problems solved in matter of pages by a character that gets pulled out of nowhere.  It felt much to rushed and forced.
     Lancaster is obviously a talented writer who can tell humorous stories, but if this is the best effort she can muster when it comes to fiction she's better off sticking to the memoirs that made her so popular in the first place. 

How I Met Your Mother: The Broath

     Season seven has lowered the HIMYM bar so low that "The Broath" may be considered a great episode.  For what we can only hope isn't one fleeting episode the HIMYM writers have figured out what made the show fun to watch and strung it all together.  I'm starting to see a trend, this episode, like many of this season's winners were written by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, the shows creators.  It may very well be that they are the only ones on the writing staff that truly understand the show.  Which is a problem unless the two decide to start writing all the episodes.
     "The Broath" is far from the funniest HIMYM episode, but it had all the elements of what I would consider a solid episode.  All the episodes storylines were connected in some way and had purpose; there weren't three or four different random forced storylines that seemed to be in place just so everyone had something to do.  There were call backs to past moments that supported the funny instead of overshadowing or rehashing it.  There were poignant moments that didn't push the comedy aside but worked together to add depth to the stories.  This is the type of entertainment I watched HIMYM for.
     It's been so long since I've watched a HIMYM episode that didn't make me cringe or throw things that I'm willing to ignore a few things that bothered me.  I wasn't crazy about the reveal that Barney and Quin were acting the whole time.  I get how it shows the two characters are perfect for each other and quickly sets up the impending marriage, but it took the stuffing out of the more emotional moments in the episode.  I also didn't find anything laugh out loud funny.  There was some funny stuff, I chuckled more then once, but a lot of the jokes were forgettable.
     I hope this is a sign of things to come for the rest of the season.  A strong run here at the end will go a long way to restore my faith in the show and what it can accomplish.  "The Broath" was the first sign of life the show has had in months.  Let's hope things continue to get better!  5-12-2

The Walking Dead: Beside The Dying Fire

     "Beside The Dying Fire" was everything you could want from a season finale.  It started with tons of action and tons of gore, it moved on to resetting of everything that had occurred this season and then ended with a foreshadow of what is to come next season.  After a horrible fight with a gigantic flock of walking dead that functioned to force our main characters out of their secure surroundings and to kill off a few superfluous characters that we never really knew, we find everyone out in the new wilderness with no fuel, very little supplies, and no security but the guns they carry.  The reset button has been pushed and the survivors find themselves having to start all over again from scratch.
     For those of us comic geeks, this episode delivered in spades.  Though not an exact replica, the first image of Michonne welding her katana and dragging two zombies behind her on chains brought back thoughts of her first appearance in the comic and the cover of issue #19.  It was probably my favorite moment of the episode and made me more than a little giddy.  I still wonder how long the writers are going to spend getting her and Andrea back to the main group, but excited for what she is going to bring to season three. 
     The second tip to the comic geeks was that final image of the season, the jail yard up on the hill.  Not only did it function as a nod to the fanboys and gals, but set up the start of season three.  I'm not sure what the writers have in store for the jail, but you know it will play an important role.  Either it will be the next camp site for the group, like in the comics, or maybe it will be the home of the Governor, who we know has to be somewhere on the horizon.
     All in all, season two delivered everything you could want from a zombie show.  Some may argue that the first half played out to slow, but it had to.  It had to lay down the ground work for the gigantic pay off of the last three episodes.  The world of a zombie apocalypse can't be all wall to wall action or you're left with a tale as preposterous as 24.  As much as I didn't like the death of Dale, the writers have recovered well and as desperate a situation as we find the group in, there is a small hope of a new beginning.  Rick as the bad ass, guiding his people to safety, is filled with new hope and the possibility of new tragedy.  Things look bright for season three.

The Walking Dead: Better Angels

     "Better Angels" was the episode that we've been heading towards for a season now.  As surprising as the ending may have been, unlike last weeks twist, this one fit the tale the writers have been telling.  This haven't been going well the Shane and the group since the hunt for Sophia began and, as a mentioned a few reviews ago, had gone far beyond what seemed reasonable for Rick and the group to put up with.  Shane had to go and the question left was will the writers kill him off like the comics or will they have him just break off from the group, left to cause trouble another day.
     My question is, why have Carl kill Zombie Shane (and why did Shane change so much faster then Dale or anyone else)?  I'm not sure what was trying to be said.  They have been trying to paint Carl as heading down a dark road, but isn't killing zombies just a reality of life now, not a sign of dark or deviant behavior?  Carl isn't some sick serial killer in the making because he shot Zombie Shane, he's a survivor.  We'll ignore the fact it would have been impossible for him to shot Shane with Rick standing between them and Carl being a foot or two shorter then Rick and just focus on the fact that he did.  I think it would have been much more powerful to have him actually shoot Shane dead like he did in the comic.  In fact, with the relationship the show has built between the two and the way they have been painting Carl of late, I think it would have been more powerful then the comic.  I find it an interesting choice to have him just shoot the zombie and in all honesty think they sold the moment emotionally short.
     The rest of the episode tried to deal with much of my criticism of the last episode.  The survivors will try to use the loss of their comrade to re-purpose their lives and you could feel them trying to regain the humanity he stood for.  You could sense that the torch may be passed to Glenn and we will have to see if his guilt with his own actions will lead him to become more vocal in the group like Dale was.  I still don't buy Andrea's sudden shift back to normal, which this episode seemed to move even more towards.  And what was with the group attack on the zombie that started off the episode.  It looked like an homage to Office Space and their attack of the copier, it felt shot for shot the same, except Office Space was funny and The Walking Dead is the opposite of funny.  I didn't know how to react to that.
      I not exactly sure what to expect from the season finale now.  I'm guessing we will finally meet the governor, but is that going to be enough to fill a season finale?  What other surprises and emotional tolls do the writers have in store for us?

Book Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (48 in 2012? #9)

     As much as I have enjoyed Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander novels they have been far from perfect.  The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest takes that imperfection and turns it up to ten.  The driving events are so preposterous it's hard to take the final novel of the series as seriously as its predecessors.  At the same time, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest is hard to put down.  Larsson has created characters that one is willing to spend time with no matter if the story they are involved with works or not, which in itself is a great achievement.
     The book chronicles Mikael Blomkvist's attempts to prove Lisbeth Salander innocent of the events that occurred in the previous novel and thwart the plans of a clandestine government agency trying to quiet everyone who can out them.  There are many problems with how the plot plays out, but my biggest hang up is the members of the agency themselves.  The reader is supposed to believe that the members of this secret group, who have been functioning for over 30 years, who are having people killed, phones tapped, residences bugged, can't pick up on the fact that people are doing the same stuff to them.  Blomkvist can figure out that the police have a tail on him, but highly trained members of the secret governmental agency have no clue.  I found that hard to believe and once you lose that the plot falls to pieces.
     Even if the story felt ridiculous, I kept reading because, if anything else, this novel does a good job of wrapping up the time we've spent with the characters over two other books.  Larsson's greatest accomplishment is creating a group of characters that are endlessly interesting and entertaining.  Many times over the three novels I found myself ravenously reading pages upon pages of mundane detail and I can't credit that to anything but the depth of the characters.  I shouldn't care how many frozen pizzas Salander picks up at a convenience store but I do.  Larsson makes all the time and emotion put into the characters pay off.  We're given resolution without tying everything up with a pretty bow.  The characters have problems that may never be solved but that's what makes them so enduring in the first place.
     The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest has more problems then I'd wish to get into here.  It is far from the great or perfect novel people make it out to be.  But in the end, character rises above everything else.  It's a good read, not a great one, and even though, plot wise, it's a poor ending to the saga, it works as an endcap to our time with the characters.

Movie Review: Wanderlust

          What is it about comedy that makes it a young man’s game?  Is it a closeness to the average person?  Is it a fresher take on life?  Is it a lack of creative pressure?  Whatever it is, it has become quite obvious that the older and more successful a comedian becomes the less funny he gets.  This is best seen in the movies, where comedians and comedy writers hit the scene with new fresh hilarious material that slowly becomes more watered down and mainstream the older they get.  Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow, Eddie Murphy, these are guys who made names for themselves with edgy ground breaking comedy, they started out in movies that would show up on almost everyone’s top 10 lists, but now they crank out nothing but rom-com slop.

            It looks like you can now add David Wain and Ken Marino to the list.  The one time members of the influential sketch comedy troupe The State and makers of comedy classics like Wet Hot American Summer have just released Wanderlust.  Wanderlust was a movie I wanted to love but only found typical watered down romantic mainstream crap.  This seems to be the type of movie one makes when success has been reached.  Wain finally reached some level of mainstream success with 2008’s Role Models and now gives us something that only hints at his wonderful sense of humor.  Maybe it is studio pressure that causes the humor to be watered down.  I understand that the more money the studios put in the less control you get and the more pressure there is to appeal to a wider audience, but it pains my heart to see great comedic names to be attached to something so bland.

            I am being a little harsh.  Wanderlust isn’t without its funny moments.  There were scenes where I found myself laughing out loud.  Alan Alda is great and steals every scene he's in.  Michaela Watkins is amazing as Ken Mario's drugged up southern house wife.  Her subtle yet intense approach to being married to the world's worst human is hilarious.  And, of course, Paul Rudd has his moments, the funniest being when he tries to psychic himself up to have extra-marital sex with Malin Akerman.

          You can see Wain’s and his other State friend’s sense of humor sprinkled throughout the movie, but at its heart Wanderlust is a mainstream romantic comedy and that’s what shines through.  I hope this movie is an aberration, that the next David Wain movie will have all the off beat absurdest humor we’ve grown to love, but if history is any sign, don’t hold your breath.

Top 5: Sketch Comedy Teams

     I'm a huge fan of sketch comedy.  If one can have a favorite form of comedy, sketch comedy would probably be my number one.  That's not saying I don't love a good sitcom or that I don't spend way to much time searching out great stand-up, but if given a choice of only one type of comedy for the rest of my life, I would pick sketch.  A great sketch can be absurd, poignant and satirical all at the same time.  The only problem is as great as sketch comedy can be, when done wrong it is painful to watch.  Just like any other form of comedy, there is an art to a well written, well acted sketch and not everybody is fit to create good art.  What I love most about sketch comedy is that it's usually a group effort, a collection of different comedic voices coming together to make a masterpiece.  In my opinion these groups are the masters of the art.  I'm only listing sketch shows that were teams (no Dave Chapelle).  When ranking I tried to figure in how much they made me laugh and what legacy team or show left and what the team members have gone on to accomplish...

5)  The Ben Stiller Show
          This comedy group looks like it will be forgotten by history even though it was highly acclaimed when it was on air and has spawned HUGE comedy careers.  Some of the biggest names in mainstream comedy were part of this troupe, Ben Stiller, Judd Apatow, Andy Dick, Janeane Gaarofalo, Bob Odenkirk, David Cross.  With out this show there is no Mr. Show (not ranked because I never watched it even though I am aware how beloved it is in comedy circles) and maybe no 40 Year Old Virgin.  Most of the sketches were making fun of popular culture, stuff like "Counting With Bruce Sprinsteen" and "Die Hard 12: Die Hungry."  My favorite was probably the Lassie spoof they did with Charles Manson playing the role of Lassie.  The show didn't last long, one season on MTV and 13 episodes on Fox, which is why it is forgotten, but that doesn't make it any less funny or important.

4)  SCTV
          I feel this show doesn't get the recognition it deserves either.  I'm guessing because it was a Canadian show it never carried the weight of Saturday Night Live, but many of the cast members would go on to SNL bringing the characters they created for SCTV with them.  The cast list is a Who's Who of comedy, John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Dave Thomas.  They revolutionized the art of the sketch comedy television show and paved the way for the glut of sketch shows in the 90's.  I really don't think I need to list the legacy these comedians have left behind because they are all that big.  Without a doubt, my favorite SCTV skits are the "Great White North" sketches.  The McKenzie brothers are one of my favorite comedic creations, with Strange Brew being one of my favorite all-time comedy movies. 

3)  Saturday Night Live '90-'94
          Since this was more a list of comedy teams then comedy shows, I didn't think it was right for the list to just say Saturday Night Live so I picked a cast that I felt was the best.  I know I could take a lot of heat for not picking the original cast.  If you're talking just legacy it's hard to argue against them.  Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murry, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtain, Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris are like the Rolling Stones of sketch comedy.  But my favorite cast will always be from the early 90's.  I'm sure a lot of that has to do with nostalgia, I was in my teens when this cast was going strong, but I also feel strongly that this group was just as big and influential as the original.  Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Kevin Nealon, Chris Farley, Tim Meadows, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, David Spade... are there any bigger names in comedy today?  These were the people who shaped my young comedy mind and I couldn't imagine my teenage years without them.  This group went on to make some of the best comedy movies of the era as well, Wayne's World, Bill Madison, Tommy Boy.  I will always argue this was SNL's best cast.

2)  The State
          This MTV sketch show is starting to become forgotten even though many of the cast members play huge roles in today's best comedy.  I loved this show as a teenager and have followed the members on to there new project with crazy devotion.  Kevin Allison, Michael Ian Black, Robert Ben Garant, Kerri Kenney, Thomas Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, Michael Showalter, David Wain all made up the shows cast.  If you don't recognize the names you don't pay attention to comedy.  They've had numerous Comedy Central shows (Stella, Reno 911, Viva Variety), written movie blockbusters (Night At The Museum, The Pacifier), starred in comedy classics (Wet Hot American Summer).  Their humor hits on all levels, it can be mainstream, it can be absurd, it can be sentimental.  The best of The State includes sketches like "Doug", "Monkey Torture" and "$240 of Pudding."

1)  Monty Python
          This one is a no brainer.  Sketch comedy as it is today would not exist without Monty Python.  Sketch comedy existed before, but wasn't as smart.  It has existed after but has only been a pale imitation.  The biggest problem with sketch comedy is how to end a skit.  You have a premise, you have some jokes but how to you wrap it all up in three minutes, how do you end things while maintaining the funny?  Monty Python was the troupe that solved the problem by not ending the sketch, but instead just moving on.  When the jokes ran out they didn't keep going just to wrap things up, they didn't try to come up with a punch line to go out on, they just found an absurd way to move on to the next thing.  If the original SNL cast is the Rolling Stones of comedy, Monty Python is the Beatles.  In my mind, all of today's comedy comes from Monty Python and they are by far the greatest sketch comedy team of all time.

Honorable Mentions:  Kids In The Hall, Human Giant, Upright Citizen's Brigade

Book Review: Zone One (48 in 2012? #8)

In Zone One, Colson Whitehead has taken a usually mindless genre and turned it into a literary exercise.  To call this book a zombie novel wouldn’t be fair to those who read zombie fiction or those who try to avoid it.  You won’t find the usual gore and suspense that the typical genre fare holds.  What you will find is wonderfully writer prose and a valiant effort to use the zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for the state the current population is under.  I know, I know, that’s the metaphor almost every zombie story tries to make, but Whitehead does it by studying the characters instead of through zombie attacks.  Although those characters sometimes boarder on cliché, there is plenty to take from the world that Whitehead has created.

            I’m not sure that Zone One reaches the heights it’s intended too, but it is an enjoyable read.  The world Whitehead has created is stark and filled with poignant stories, even though it lacks any suspense or intense action.  The prose is what keeps the novel ahead of its zombie genre brethren.  The vocabulary is beautiful and the pacing poetic.  It’s not the best zombie novel I’ve read, but an enjoyable read none the less.

The Walking Dead: Judge, Jury, Executioner

     I've been on board with The Walking Dead and its writers even though they has taken a lot of criticism.  They might not be following the comic books to a tee.  They might not be cranking out the most intelligent hour of television on the dial.  They don't fill every minute of air time with zombie gore, either.  But I've enjoyed the story they have been telling and the characters they have developed up until now.  In my eyes, "Judge, Jury, Executioner" is The Walking Dead's first misstep.  I understand why the writers did what they did, on a show like this you have to make the audience fear they could lose any character at any time, but I think Dale's death was misplaced and I fear the event's repercussions.
     The Walking Dead is set in a world consumed by death; it's everywhere you look and at the core of every story told.  To think that our favorite characters are immune to death themselves would be disingenuous to the world they now live in.  At the same time, you would like to think their deaths would have some greater meaning in the grand story being told, that the writers would use the loss of a character to make the story richer.  I just don't see that with Dale's death.  It was random and meaningless, almost as if the writers realized they needed to kill someone off to keep true to the show and Dale seemed as good as anybody.
     If Dale's death has any meaning, it's that hope and humanity are now dead in the world our character's are living in and that message scares me more then it having no message at all.  Dale had grown to become the conscience of the group, the person who kept them grounded and reminded them there are still choices on how to behave.  By having him die in such a random and pointless way, I can't help but feel hope died with him.  If he died in some heroic gesture it would have supported his beliefs and the theory that there is still something to being living and acting with civility for.  But instead we are left with the feeling that there is no room anymore for people like Dale and his humanity.
     Even more bothersome for me is that his death came on the heels of such a great moment of hope.  Rick stopping the execution of Randall after seeing the blood lust in his son's eyes was such a poignant moment; a realization where the group was headed and the effect it would have on the future.  Now, who is going to carry that message on.  Rick?  As powerful as the moment may have been for him, I'm not sure it was a transcendental moment that is going to totally change his outlook on things.  Rick is still the leader and leaders have to make tough choices.  Him becoming the conscience of the group isn't realistic to his status.  Andrea?  She had some nice moments in the episode where Dale helped her see the errors in her behavior of late, but we've spent almost two seasons documenting her downward spiral.  I don't think it's realistic to believe she's suddenly done a 180.
      So, as far as I can see it, we're left with no hope.  And as much as I understand  that being a possibility in the world the show takes place in, I don't understand it from a story telling point of view.  Why are these characters continuing on if there's no hope?  Why am I watching if it's just a matter of time before all the characters are dead and society fails to exist?  I want Dale's death to have meaning and purpose other then the loss of hope.  The season isn't over yet, there is still more story to be told and maybe the writers are going to make it all come around, but I need to be given a glimmer of hope if I'm going to stay interested in the plight of this group of survivors.  Hopefully that glimmer will be coming soon.

Book Review: The Strain (48 in 2012? #7)

     There are some books that while I am reading them I see them playing out like a movie.  I imagine what the scene would look like and how the text could be slightly changed to work in its sister format.  The best example I can think of was World War Z,which I almost wrote a script for because the story was screaming for the big screen.  I couldn't help but picture how the action would play out and how the unique style of writing would work in a movie format.  I certainly wasn't the only one to see the book's potential because the movie is coming out later this year.  The Strain gave me that same feeling, but as I sat there reading, picturing the movie scenes in my head, I never fooled myself into thinking I could adapt it since it's co-author is one of the best movie makers out there, Guillermo del Toro.
     The Strain is an exceptional horror story.  It has you on the edge of your seat from the first few pages and never lets up.  The action is intense, the suspense is as good as any I've ever read.  It's yet another vampire book, yet it felt fresh and new in every way.  The authors treat vampires more like viruses then creatures of the night and give the transformation from human to monster a whole new mythology.  The creatures that haunt the pages of the book felt like a mixture of zombie and vampire and functioned in ways that have never been explained in other vampire book that I have read.
     It feels odd to say that someone is breathing new life and mythology into the vampire genre at this point in the game, but that's what The Strain has done.  This isn't your teenage daughter's vampire story.  This isn't Anne Rice or Charlaine Harris's vampire stories.  It is much closer to Bram Stoker then what we see today, but takes away all the mythology and superstition Stoker created.  It's a horror story, not a love story.  And I can't wait until del Toro comes out with the movie.