Rise of the Guardians

We go by many names, and take many forms. We bring wonder and hope, we bring joy and dreams. We are the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy, we are the Easter Bunny and Santa. And our powers are greater than you ever imagine.

Last night, I finally watched Dreamwork's Rise of the Guardians.  I have a mixed attitude towards their works: How to Train Your Dragon was amazing, but I tend to associate them with more potty-mouth,crude humor, as in Madagascar, Over the Hedge,  and Monsters vs Aliens. However, I'd seen enough of the Big Four (also known as Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons) posts on Tumblr to understand parts of it, as well as know the big spoiler of Jack's origins. 
I really like fairy tales and mythical creatures, but I'm also wary of Dreamworks' approach to such stories--Shrek was horribly modern for my tastes.  At first glance, Jack might seem to be a similar character--he dresses much more modernly than the other guardians and laughs at authority, but he also has hidden depths and genuinely cares about the children. Pitch was an interesting villain as well, especially with his similarities to Jack. However, Jack still chose to accept his role, even though he wasn't happy with his situation.
 My biggest concern with this movie was that a lot of the ninety minutes was taken up by fight  scenes and action sequences.  While I can understand the audience appeal, especially for younger kids, I would have liked to see more world development--what exactly are the roles of the Guardians? Why do they take on certain appearances? How does the belief/strength equation work out, anyway? However, I still thought it was a good movie. 

Magnificent Malevolence

Magnificent Malevolence  attempts to evoke the spirit of C.S. Lewis's  The Screwtape Letters by laying out the grand agenda of the Lowarchy over the past half-century. It's an impressive goal, but also a notable departure from Lewis's focus on an individual tempter and patient. Another difference is the format--as the subtitle declares, this book is written as a memoir, rather than letters. While this makes sense with today's genre preferences, I feel the author missed a chance to introduce further conflict within the story.
The book was well-unified, with intriguing, sometimes controversial interpretations of recent events. But even when I disagreed with the author, I felt he raised valid concerns with contemporary American culture. However, the book fell short in the most important area: the tone.  Although The Screwtape Letters has a very dark, gritty tone, there are also moments of levity and irony when the reader realizes flaws in the demons' arguments. Magnficent Malvolence takes itself so seriously that the darkness threatens to suffocate readers. It rates a solid three stars, but I'd recommend As One Devil to Another by Richard Platt for someone looking for a modern perspective on devilish correspondance
I received this book for free from Kregel Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

Flags and Fantasy

Several weeks ago, I came across an online opinion piece with the subtitle "Where are all the American fantasy characters?" A few weeks later, my favorite blog posted a brief discussion of it, but I still feel like I should explore some of my own reactions. If you don't have time to  read the whole article, his argument can be summarized in two sentences--

The problem is that most of our Fantasy isn't written by Americans about American culture and values.Even American Fantasy writers write like they're British. 

Apart from his capitalization of  the genre--English major pet peeve--I fail to see the problem with this situation. Yes, my favorite writers/producers are British--Lewis, Tolkien, Moffat, Neil Gaiman (though he currently lives in Wisconsin) and Jasper Fforde--but is there a problem with that? It's not like their characters go around eating scones and singing "God Save the Queen" every ten pages, even when the events primarily take place in "our" world. As for American values--er, I don't think we're doing so hot in that area either. Look at our economy, look at our crime rate, look at how causal we are about truth--modern (secular) American values are nothing to celebrate. And so many of the values celebrated by the best speculative works--self-sacrifice, friendship, strong leadership--should be INTERNATIONAL values, not merely British or American.
As for "even American fantasy writers write like Brits," my response is partially "so what?" and partially "you don't understand the genre. He mentions George R.R. Martin as a famous American fantasy writer, but dassifies him as primarily British for using a medieval-European setting. Seriously? America doesn't have hundreds of years of history to draw from--the oldest we can reliably refer to is the 1600s, which isn't old enough to have a mythic atmosphere, and records from further back are scarce, not to mention possible accusations of plagiarism from native peoples.
For "American fantasy," the article mentions two examples: Twilight and the Hunger Games. At least he acknowledges the poor quality of the former--but I'm still not sure the Hunger Games has the world-building of other famous series. Yes, it would be nice to have some American fantasy writers, but can we just keep looking for GOOD fantasy in the meantime?

An Eureka Moment

The sun is shining, the birds are singing—and the pollen is gathering in my sinuses. But it’s so wonderful to go outside in shorts and a t-shirt, to sit in the sun and eat a cup of maple nut ice cream without freezing my teeth.

I finally understand how people can do drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and other things that may seem pleasant at the time, but cause long-term harm. It’s because the world seems so much brighter, so much happier, so much more satisfying, even though you know it will only make things worse in the end. And maybe there are things you can do to stave off the harm—a healthy meal here, exercise there—which are good in themselves,  but don’t reverse the damage. Someone smoking knows that it damages his lungs, but it makes him feel so good at the moment that it doesn’t matter.

Likewise, I could sit outside for hours, even though I know my sinuses will make me regret it later.

Les Miserables

To love another person is to see the face of God

---Les Miserables. 

After putting up with my roommate's obsession for months--she had  "Red and Black" as her ringtone until even she got fed up with it and put it on vibrate--I have finally watched the 2012 film adaptation.  And my opinion?

Well, I really liked the first half, with Valjean fleeing Jarvert (Do not forget his name!). I think I saw one of the old film adaptations, or at least the candlestick part--and I dimly remember reading it at the school library, though it must have been an abridged version. Anyway, I liked seeing Valjean's transformation and his care for Fantine. Especially since the opening of "Lovely Ladies" reminded me of nothing so much as maggots crawling from a corpse onto a fresh body and transferring infection. Ewww! Definitely not rated PG, especially since the bed at the end of the scene strongly resembles a coffin.  After that nightmare, his kindness must have been so surprising, especially since Fantine believed he'd consented to her canning.

The second half, on the other hand....I couldn't keep the barricade boys straight in the least. Their plan didn't make sense to me either. Okay, so you hijack the parade of a national hero and build barricades from everybody's furniture--and this is supposed to accomplish what, exactly? It's as odd as the Occupy Wall Street protests, except there's guns involved and almost everyone dies. Maybe it's because I like character development, but I couldn't really see any development in any character besides Jarvert , Valjean, and (more passively) Fantine. Cosette is Marius's blond sweetheart, while Eponine is the unlucky first girl and the guys are handsome canon fodder. Gavroche was cute, but given what happens to him...

I think I'd like the film better if I had the author's original backstories in mind, which means...a lot of reading

Contest thing

Guys, figment is holding a contest for Doctor Who fanfic. Please click and vote for my story “The Never-Weres of River Song”

The Never-Weres of River Song

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"Apparently you used up all your remaining regenerations in one go." When River gave up her regenerations for the Doc...

Twilight Zone

Snow on the first day of classes after spring break is a little weird,  although normal for this region of the country. First day of spring today? In my dreams, sweet summer child.  We're probably the only people to understand the phenomenon of "second winter"--such as last year, when we had an 80 degree week in March followed by 50s and 40s.  

But what's even weirder is the effect of Daylight Savings Time.  It got kind of trippy to begin with, since I was down at my grandparents' that weekend, and we went to their church...which happened to be just inside another time zone. So I'm not sure what that did to my body clock, but...

It's still light out till, like 6 pm! Left for Awana the other night and it felt so off driving to church in daylight. I don't think my mental clock is comfortable with this yet. And that's not even counting food schedules...yeah, I have no idea about time anymore.