Book review: City of Bones

Young adult fiction isn't an area of expertise for me, but I've found myself enjoying some of the more popular sci-fi/fantasy series that have popped up over the last few years. I think the appeal for me is emotional, as there's an intensity to the protagonist that drives the story. Not that adult fiction can't be dramatic and emotional, but there's something about young adult fiction, some hook that you don't always find in adult novels. On the other hand, I also usually can't read one YA novel after another. I need a serious break from the teenage mind to read and think like an adult again. I'm currently rejoining the adult world with Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND after blowing clear through Cassandra Clare's CITY OF BONES in a matter of days.

Horror Marathon: Shark Week Edition

This Sunday marked the beginning of a beloved annual Discovery Channel tradition: Shark Week. I myself am not necessarily a shark enthusiast, but I would have loved to check some of it out... if Comcast, slimy bastards that they are, had not taken away the few remaining cable channels that I actually gave a damn about. I'm not entirely sure I still have enough channels for it to qualify as cable, but they still keep charging me for it every month like clockwork. (If there's any justice in the world, someone from Comcast will read this and do something to sway my increasingly plummeting opinion of their service, which I am eager to drop completely.)

So instead, I'll have to make do with whatever content Discovery puts on their website. I also took it upon myself to have a bit of a shark marathon over the weekend, to get in the mood. Creature features are not my forte in the genre, they either have to be really good, or really funny to keep my interest. Out of the four films I chose, I had only seen JAWS once before. All things considered, it didn't turn out too bad. I came out with one great film, one surprisingly decent film, and two that I feel dumber for having watched.

Film review: Mama

Let's amputate the fancy preamble and cut to the chase about this movie. I don't have a good segue for it, and it seems so clear to me in the light of day that I want to jump right in.

Watching the Guillermo del Toro produced MAMA was like reading a story out of sequence. Being an aficionado of horror movies featuring frustrated ghosts, I know the drill. Spooky happenings, the skeptic explains it away, the believer does some research and finds a juicy story, activity ramps up, maybe the ghost is finally seen to prove its existence, they realize they have to do something to appease or banish the ghost, and in some films that works and in others it totally doesn't and they're all hosed.