Movie: "300" (4.5/5 stars) 2006

A !MANLY! romp of a movie with a wall of indestructible Spartans meeting an army of a million Persians bent on capturing all of Greece.

I thought that the initial trailer looked bloody awful and camp, but the campy scenes from the trailer actually fit nicely into the context of the movie. I ended up loving the movie - thought that it was a brilliant display of style and action with an excellent cast and some very exotic Persian excesses even as they march an army of a million people forward into Greece.

Things I loved:
cinematography, directing, cast, action sequences, comic book feel, the Persian army, tough lines from various Spartans

Things I didn't like:
The voice over at the beginning, the lame special effect of the oracle floating in mid-air (a total of 5 minutes of the movie)

I have to say, 20 or 30 Spartans turning around in sync with their shields and spears all ready was very cool.

I know there is probably a mile of critics who will pick on the inaccuracies of the historical content and the actual Battle of Thermopylae but I know it's based on a comic, and the comic took great liberties so I can ignore that problem and just sit back and enjoy.

It isn't for everyone, and I think that there will be many polarized critics either loving it or hating it. I am firmly in the "love it" camp and will certainly be seeing it again, probably in the theatre.

Book: "Six Easy Pieces" by Richard Feynman (2 of 5 stars)

I made the mistake of viewing a set of lectures from Auckland University when Feynman was there in 1979 at the same time I was reading this book.

The books is good, but the lectures are SO MUCH BETTER.

This book is based on The Feynman Lectures, classic books in the field of educating young physicists. Being much, much shorter, lots is left out, like equations and any mathematics. This is fine for a pop culture science book and I didn't mind, but found Feynman's voice doesn't shine through here. Also, the editor of this book decided to keep several pieces of text that say "I cover this in more detail in the next chapter" or "we continue with this in more detail", when there is obviously nothing more coming. This happened on the 2nd to last page and then the book just ended. It felt somewhat poorly put together.

Still, I consider it a gentle introduction to everything about science and how a few simple ideas can be used to derive all the rest. If you need to cover all of science in a book that is only 150 pages long, this is about as good as you can get, certainly content-wise.

If you read and like this book, I highly recommend listening to Feynman's 1979 lectures in Auckland as well as reading James Gleick excellent biography of him, "Genius".

Book: "The World Gates" by Holly Lisle (2 our of 5 stars)

I just read Holly Lisle's "The World Gates", 3 books called "Memory of Fire", "The Wreck of Heaven" and "Gods, Old and Dark" about two woman named Loren and Molly (sounds like Holly, is probably meant to be the author in some shape or form).

Molly and Loren are sisters and each independently discover that there are magical gates leading from earth going to other worlds, upworld, downworld and side worlds etc... In the downworld, humans have magical abilities and are considered gods there. Consequently, beings from our upworld have magical abilities on earth and are considered gods here (Zeus, Thor, Ra etc... were all originally from upworld somewhere).

The premise is good, lots of potential for interesting story lines, cool fantasy and so on. Lisle seems to write about interesting things and most of the books content is interesting to read. Having read many of the author's writing tips, and listened to her podcast "On Writing", I assumed that she'd be a cut above the rest, since she obviously cares about her writing, world building and characters a great deal.

Despite this, what I read was a completely average, pulp, fantasy novel with underdeveloped villains (to the point of ineffectiveness) and annoying, unsympathetic main characters whose troubles are bashed over the reader's head again and again. Writing was passable, but often awkward in places and in need of more editing.

Whenever it comes down to a battle between good and evil, somehow, the bad guys never know how to use magic as well as the good guys do... no reason, just the way that it works. Some of these bad guys are ancient gods, with ten thousand years of experience crushing pissants like the main characters, yet in the end, while it looks hard, it ends up being so damn easy that it's not worth reading. There was one scene in the middle novel where "A group of dark gods..." were "pinned down" by fire from good guys. The dumbness of the phrase completely pulled me from the story and left me shaking my head. There are many scenes like this.

I will only read more work by this author on recommendations from friends. I think I'll stop reading her writing tips and listening to the podcasts too.

Town, pesdestrian friendliness: Taupo/Rotorua, NZ (1/5 stars)

I haven't reviewed a town before, let alone two at once.

I'm a fan of Taupo and Rotorua, the thermal activity, the views, the lake front walks - all very lovely/scary/amazing.

Now, my review isn't actually of the towns, it's of the pedestrian friendliness. Both Rotorua and Taupo are certainly NOT! pedestrian friendly.

I don't know if you live in New Zealand, but the 2nd most amazing thing about Taupo, after the fact that it's built on the edge of a massive volcanic crater is that there isn't a single crosswalk all the way along the main drag. Not one! Who planned this?

Whoever planned the town must have done one of three things:
1) said - "There will never be enough people or traffic to warrant crosswalks!"
2) felt sure that they'd mentioned it to their assistant
3) doesn't walk, so doesn't need crosswalks

I don't spend as much time in Rotorua, but did this weekend - same thing. Crosswalks conspicuously absent.

Tell me if you've noticed this.

movie: "An Inconvenient Truth" (5/5) 2006

I've been incredibly slow with this blog entry and have had it in "draft" for weeks. Time to finish it while I'm procrastinating on my Kiwiwriters Easter Writing Challenge.

Al Gore has been an environmental proponent for decades. This isn't a recent phenomenon for him. He's done what he calls his slideshow at least a thousand times.

During and after the movie I was both appalled and worried. I know many people who will avoid this movie simply because it is scary and who wants to watch a movie to be scared of the big bad outside world, after all, movies are about escape. Right?

Please, please, please don't do that with this movie. This is information everyone must know. If this helps you change one thing about your life that means you are more of an activist, then we are one step closer to solving the problems.

All the technology we need to solve this issue is available now, but governments are slow to react and legislate its use now, things are changing faster than predicted and everyone can contribute to the solution.

I beg you to take a look at this movie and listen to what Al Gore has to say. It's worth listening to!

book: "Way of the Cheetah" by Lynn Viehl (4/5 stars)

This is a book about writing. It is about how to be a more productive writer. She compares each of her strategies to the life and hunting strategies of a cheetah, sometimes to comic effect (imagine a cheetah being patted on the head by its cheetah friends that think his hunting is a nice little 'hobby')

I loved the book and even though it's only 72 pages, I though it was well worth the $9.95 I spent on line for it. The shortness is part of the appeal, and I finished it in about an hour and got lots out of it. It's an e-book, so you get it right away in pdf format (zipped) from Holly Lisle's writing resource page.

Lynn Viehl is the author of 36 novels in 5 different genres and writes over a million words per year. She is well worth listening to if you are interested in success as a writer. She also finds the time to share information on her popular and almost daily Paperback writer blog - I'm not sure where she finds the time.

Highlights for me included:
1. Strategies for upping your word count
2. Her own change of habit and how it helped her become more productive
3. That is ok to write for money
4. Her editing strategies and that she edits daily (a no-no in [[Nanowrimo]])
5. The constant and consistent cheetah analogy (it just works)

If you are interested in writing and have no clue how you could ever finish a novel or short story, and wonder where you'd ever find the time - this book answers all of those questions. If you are a writer by profession and want to be more productive, this is a must read.

Movie: "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1/5 stars) 1964

This is one of those movies you always plan to see but never do.

I see why now. It just was not my thing, i.e. well made, well written cinema.

I don't quite see why it's the classic that is #19 on imdb's top 250 list. It's next to good movies, there are good movies before and after it, but I don't think it is a good movie.

I think everyone thinking back remembers the few good lines in the movie, specifically, "You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"... I can't remember any of the other ones, although I vaguely remember that there were more.

Peter Sellers and George C. Scott are good, but are sitting in the middle of something even they can't save. Sorry, but I have to give a thumbs down to a 'classic'. I think the pressure is always why this movie consistently ranks high on people's lists - they think they may have missed something and come out looking stupid. Fair enough... I suppose I could give it a 1.5/5 - nah!