Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Get this book. You may think you are busy. You may think books are boring. Not this one. You'll make time for this book once you read into the first 10 pages. Honest.

The overall plot may not seem that original. Basically the machines take over the world from humanity, a la Terminator or The Matrix. But they have vastly different selling points. Terminator is about how one robot time-travels to save John Connor, and The Matrix is about an alternate reality created by the machines. Robopocalypse is about the details of exactly how the machines take over and how the humans try to fight them off. Lots of very creative gore involving human deaths/mutilations at the hands (ahem, appendages) of robots. The most disturbing part is how these were carried out mostly by mundane everyday machines like smart cars or domestic robots (well, this is a sci-fi novel after all. Of course everyone has domestic robots that mostly just carry groceries for people and stuff like that).

It certainly helps that Daniel H. Wilson is a robotics Ph.D so he knows what he's talking about when it comes to AI and robotic joints and diagnostic tests and such.

But this story also has a humane core. It reminds me of Babel, where lots of people's storylines come together and the action of each person contributes to the big picture. All of these people start out being extremely ordinary; you may have seen them on the bus today, which is what makes them extremely easy to relate to. And that makes the hardest impact when these people are faced with extraordinary circumstances and have to make extraordinary decisions.

This book has all the necessary elements to make you want to keep going even though it's already 4am. Or maybe I'm just crazy. But Steven Spielberg has already signed up to direct a movie based on this novel, scheduled to be released in 2013, so I guess I'm not the only one.

True Grit

Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
8/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
7.5/10

Year released: 2010
Runtime: 110 minutes
IMDB page: here

Not much of a Western fan either (man, I hope this is not going to turn into a blog of things I'm not a fan of), and I realize last time I said that about country music, it was also a Jeff Bridges film (Crazy Heart). But yeah, this is a great film. I'm a bit of a fangirl for the Coen brothers. They've got this brand of humour that is not very much in your face and sometimes requires a double-take. But the hidden barbs are delicious brain teasers. And things are almost always unexpected (case in point: No Country for Old Men).

However, True Grit has got to be among the more rule-following and heart-warming of the Coen brothers' works. Based on the novel of the same name (of which the 1969 John Wayne movie is also based), it is the story of a 14-year-old girl in the American West in the 19th century trying to track down her father's killer with the help of an alcoholic, weathered and slightly trigger-happy US Marshal. And a Texas Ranger who talks too much.

The acting is quite beautiful; the language of that time period is spoken with such fluidity and everything is so believable, which is hard to achieve in this day and age of cynicism, especially toward Westerns. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld makes a deep impression as Mattie, stubborn and clear-minded and sternly reasonable, way beyond her supposed 14 years. Jeff Bridges as the Marshal is ragged, ruthless at times, and seems unreliable until he comes through for you. Every time. Matt Damon is the proud Ranger who always has a comeback for you but you just can't help but doubt if his money (or skills) is really where his mouth is. Watching the relationship between the three characters flourish during the course of the pursuit is the most rewarding part of this film.

I don't know about winning all the awards (speaking of which, Golden Globes this Sunday night!), because this film doesn't necessarily have that much ... shine to it, but it definitely has the makings of a classic that you would want to watch on some afternoon years afterward.

Yeah yeah...

I realize how much of a crappy blogger I am. It's dubious if I can call myself a blogger at all. But I try, sometimes, I really do. Not most of the time, but still.

On a brighter note, let me give a quick update of things I've watched/read in the recent past (in no particular order):

Movies:

1. Inception - I'm sure if my friends didn't build up my expectations so high, I would have found this movie a lot more impressive. As it is, I still think it's a very enjoyable movie, and the rules and logic of the dream world are pretty delicious to analyze. But there are also holes in the story and loose ends are not as neatly tied up as they should be. Also, one of my friends complained the movie was unnecessarily long. Some of the fight scenes in the snow did not add to the story and could have been cut. I have no problems with violent, creative fight scenes but I do see her point. But then I also have no problems with overly long movies.
2. Wild Target - See, no one built up my expectations for this movie. And it turned out to be great. Well, I kind of randomly stumbled on it and got hooked due to the cast. Bill Nighy (Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean)plays a by-the-books 55-year-old assassin, Emily Blunt is his free-spirited target with no morals, Rupert Grint (of Harry Potter's Ron Weasley fame) is a clueless young man who fumbles into the act and Martin Freeman (from A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and more recently, Dr. Watson from the BBC-produced Sherlock) is the creepily smiling secondary assassin with absolutely no gravitas. This thing is a comedy, don't get me wrong. The plot isn't all that important; what matters is these quirky characters come together and thin
3. Toy Story 3 - Need I say more? Pixar, Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Hmm... strawberries.

This is only violently outdated. I do apologize.

Crazy Heart

Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
7.5/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
6/10

Year released: 2009
Runtime: 112 minutes
IMDB page: here

Please kindly notice that I just changed the featured music to... another piece from the OST of the NieR game. I swear, this will be the last one. I mean, they are good, but my obsession should come to an end because... there is so much more out there.

Now, back to Crazy Heart. I think it's an extremely good movie. It has strong pedigree and the acting is superb (Jeff Bridges got an Oscar for the main character, Bad Blake). If I were a country music fan, I would go nuts over it. As it is, I still liked it, and that is a great deal more than what I can say about country music. That's how good the movie was.

Plot: Bad Blake has been a tough-living country singer. A true has-been. After the ravages of booze, 4 divorces, and lots of years, there is not much left of the man. Except for his song-writing genius. Amidst the bitterness of watching his protegee achieve much more commercial success than him, he meets a lady who just might pull him out of the dump.

Honestly, even if you are not a country fan, you can still watch for the acting. And a good story.

Repo Men

Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
5/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
6/10

Year released: 2010
Runtime: 111 minutes
IMDB page: here

The premise seems so promising. Almost reminiscent of another sci-fi futuristic dystopia film that Jude Law has done in the past ("A.I.: Artificial Intelligence"). But something's amiss...

Plot: Remy (Jude Law) is a family man who works with his partner Jake (Forest Whitaker, as passionate as ever) as repo men for The Union, a company that sells artiforgs, or artificial organs, at outrageous prices, mostly to take advantage of people who need transplants but can't find a suitable donor. When people fall behind on their payments, the repo men track them down and take the artiforg back and basically leave the victim to die. Remy's very good at what he does, except one day when he's forced to get an artiforg himself...

There is actually a good amount of dark humour in this grim topic, like the silly liver costume at the Union (much akin to the chicken costume outside of fried chicken places) telling people to get an artificial liver, or the 9-year-old little Asian girl surgeon, or the horseplay between Remy and Jake... but a lot of the humour stems from the despair and depravity of the situation, the kind that you laugh from then feel slightly guilty for having laughed. The plotline, however, takes some unnatural turns that seem too forced and not necessarily logical. There is a lesson to be learned, but I would have preferred to have to think more to reach my own conclusions.

Cast: Jude Law's English accent is sexy as hell, as usual, but quite unexplained in this American setting. The story tries hard to portray Remy as a family man, but Law seems too detached from the family, especially the wife. His affection for his son seems ... a bit out of the blue, actually, because in every other way he just doesn't seem like the type that would care. Forest Whitaker has his usual intensity, but his character doesn't seem to be very well explained either. Liev Schreiber is a pretty good match for Frank, the smooth yet automatic Union sales manager who seems to lack all human compassion. Can't go into much more detail in terms of the characters... I just want to make sure I don't spoil anything for you.

Production: Nice, quirky soundtrack with quite a few delicious songs. Now I'm usually not a big fan of the songs with words in a movie (I'm more for just the pure music), but these songs have so much personality and fit into the plot so ironically (most of these songs are jazzy and relaxing and make a stark contrast with the tense blood splatter) that I just couldn't resist.

The colour tone is mostly dark, the fake blood also tends to run toward the dark side (looks not entirely fresh, but IS pretty visceral), and some of the artiforgs are pretty creative (although they are really chunky-looking pieces of metals and one can't imagine how they could fit snugly into the human body without causing more problems). The body cuts are rather fake-looking too (basically pieces of flesh-coloured rubber being sliced), and the pain the people SHOULD feel doesn't seem to be all there. But overall... eh, not too bad of a job, though definitively not the best.

This movie has its moments, though none shine too brightly. It has a lesson, though it's not handled in the most sensible and unforgettable of manners. I liked it because I like the general dystopia sci-fi themes, but it was just not the top of the heap and I could very well see people miss the humour entirely and think it's a rather unnecessarily bloody gore/violence fest.

A Single Man

Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
7/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
6.5/10

Year released: 2009
Runtime: 99 minutes
IMDB page: here

It sure has been a while since I've reviewed a film. And aren't I a diligent little elf for writing twice in as many days... (funnily enough this is the second time today I've been described as "diligent"... not the elf part, because that would be creepy). The reason I don't review as many films is -- other than general laziness -- it is hard to find a worthy film to review. Worthy by my standards, which means the film can't be too wildly popular (like Avatar) because then everyone and their mother had already said something about the film. The film has to stand out somehow. It can be extremely boring or bad or captivating or well-acted or ... just remarkably mundane. That sounds like just about every film that has ever been made, but I've tried hard to avoid reviewing films that you ... just can't say anything about. And you'd be surprised how many of those there are out there.

But back on track. And back in format.

Plot: A middle-aged gay British-born college professor suffers through daily life 8 months after the death of his lover of 16 years. In the 60's. In L.A. The story is pretty simple. There aren't a lot of plot twists (though there is a very fitting turn of fate at the end), you aren't really kept on the edge of your seat. And granted, the story moves really slowly at points. But the devil is in the details...

Production: the details are wonderfully rich and presented in slow motion by the director/writer, Tom Ford. He is actually a fashion designer, and a very famous one at that: he helped turn Gucci around from near bankruptcy before starting his own line. The costumes in the film give an air that they were very carefully chosen, even if it is just a plain white T-shirt. But the more stunning part of the film is the vision that the director shows. The way the eyes are drawn through a series of objects and motions. The style of the film is very similar to the touches of Wong Kai Wai (of "Chungking Express", "In the Mood for Love" and "2046" fame). Even the matching sweeping cello soundtrack (which reminds me... I must have!) matches pretty closely.

Cast: Colin Firth is perfect for this. He always seems like he can do better than the stiff English guy in a rom-com, and now he has. The fastidiousness, even when he is at a loss of what to do or why he should go on, is fascinatingly heart-breaking. Or maybe it's precisely because he doesn't know what to do next so he fusses over the most minute details, and that makes everything all the more depressing... but eh, I am confusing the character with the actor. Julianne Moore, on the other hand, seems a bit out of place as the professor's female best friend who has always wanted to be his wife (kind of Will and Grace style). Sure, the character should be a redhead (like Grace). But Julianne Moore is not glamourous enough, not jaded enough, not wasted enough, not enough of a wash-up, has-been. In short, the character should have been a proper English crazy batty old hag. With red hair. Julianne Moore just doesn't reek enough of desperation for the old times where things were better and brighter.

This is definitely an art-film piece that takes patience and willingness to digest all the juicy, bitter bits and images. In case you need some help, a myriad of supporting actors with extremely chiseled looks and brilliant eyes that somewhat resemble pictures of models in a fashion catalog can always serve as eye candy to help you pass the time.

B Gata H Kei (Type B Style H)

Kanji: Ｂ型Ｈ系
Author/Artist: Sanri Yoko さんりようこ
Status: Ongoing
Span: 2004-present
Volume #: 7
Wiki page: here
Series can be read at: here
Japanese word learned while researching the series:
~ sekufure (セクフレ) - sex friend/friend with benefits ... (what a useful word...?!)


I know, what an intriguing title. And judging from the style of the cover, it is quite far from the stuff I usually read/review. But worry not, I have not gone soft on you. Don't let the looks deceive you: according to the honourable wiki page, this series is qualified as "seinen." Which means it should be hardcore something, be it violence, sex, language, themes, or ... all of the above?

No, no, this series is not quite THAT hardcore. But let me give you a hint: H in Japanese is synonymous with sex.

No, no, no, I'm not about to turn this blog into a hentai review site (hentai being anime/manga porn... what, some people actually get turned on by ANIME/MANGA PORN? In a word, yes. Now go ask those people why. And how.). This series does not feature any physical sex (yet). There is no actual depiction of sex (or is there...?). There is no naked girl with giant boobs or any real nudity (any body part overly racy is covered by a giant billboard... you can't miss it). Huge turn-off? Sorry. Maybe you should look up some hentai after all.

This series is actually extremely cute. Cute as in "aww... look at these hormone-ridden adolescents and their frustrated sex drive." Okay, maybe not so much. More like "aww... they like each other and want to hold hands (or some other body parts) but are too shy to do so." This can definitely be described as coming-of-age drama. It's got its bittersweet moments, but it is foremost a ...

Sex comedy. That's right, it's a 4-koma (4-cell comic strip) about the quest of one girl named Yamada (first name purposefully not revealed) to get 100 sekufure. Sounds lewd and entirely disgusting? Okay, let me explain. Yamada isn't just any girl. She is a stereotypical bishoujo, or beautiful young girl. She starts out being around 14 years old (now she's probably 15) and extremely cocky of her good looks. There is just one thing though: she thinks she has the fatal flaw of ... being a virgin. That somehow marks her immaturity as a woman and debases her bishoujo status (in her mind). Her idealized self is the kind of woman who doesn't bat an eye when someone mentions sex, who is always calm and collected around men and can bend men around her fingers. She thinks her virginity is the reason she always freaks out and over-reacts around boys, so she wants to lose her virginity and train herself to become her ideal upon her entrance into high school.

But finding someone she can lose her virginity with proves to be difficult. Though guys are constantly throwing themselves at her, she always turns them down because she's scared and over-reacting. She doesn't want to do it with a good-looking guy because she's insecure and thinks he will laugh at her for still being a virgin (at the whopping age of 14... who wouldn't?! ... That was sarcasm, guys, in case you didn't get it. I do not endorse sex at puberty). So she settles with doing it with an average guy. It's just to lose her virginity after all, nothing emotionally important (?!). That's when she meets...

Kosuda. An incredibly plain boy who ends up in her class in school. He's nice and gentle and likes photography but is otherwise ... entirely average, in terms of looks, physique, grades, and other abilities. To the casual eye, he is quite unremarkable. Most boys in the class have a crush on Yamada, but Kosuda falls in love with her especially because she literally falls on top of him (and nearly crushes him) while reaching for a book in the bookstore. Yamada sets her eyes on Kosuda as the guy to dump her virginity on, but she gets so nervous around him that every time she tries to seduce him, she ends up abusing him or getting it wrong some other way. Kosuda is quite confused. He likes Yamada, but she seems pretty mean to him. But then sometimes she pays special attention to him and seems to like him, but then he doubts a girl like that would fall for a guy like himself, and so on... Slowly Yamada begins to have protective feelings over Kosuda and unconsciously shift her goal from losing her virginity to getting together with Kosuda (it has to be Kosuda, not just any person on the street), but she refuses to acknowledge that she cares for him because she thinks she deserves better than the average joe that he is.

Their extremely un-straightforward interactions and expressions of teenage crush are only one source of comedy in the series. More comes from Yamada's conflicting personality. Her beauty and good grades grant her celebrity status in her school. To the outsider, she is the constantly smiling, good-natured queen of the school. Only a handful of people (including her best friend Takeshita) know that she constantly thinks about sex and can be quite silly and perverted. She always laments after the fact that she's only a B cup (yes, I'm talking about bust size) while Takeshita is an F cup. Takeshita tolerates all her silliness rather well and tries to make her realize her true feelings toward Kosuda. Yamada's combination of aggressive sexuality and naive innocence gives the teenage girl character more depth and multiple facets, not to mention it makes her hilarious. It rips away the mystique of teenage girls and shows that yes, girls, even (or especially) good-looking ones, can slavishly obsess over sex.

A colourful cast of classmates and family members fawn over, laugh at, lust after, and generally support our girl Yamada. Especially Kanejo Kyouka, the rich girl newly transferred to Yamada's school from America. Like Yamada, Kyouka seems the perfectly courteous, well-educated young lady to the outside world, but secretly she harbours a very unhealthy obsession for her own older brother, Keiichi, who is so handsome and charming that a foreign princess once proposed marriage to him ... upon laying eyes on him at an airport (he's also attending Harvard at the moment). Kyouka sees Yamada as a great rival and has this notion that if she can steal Yamada's boyfriend, then she wins (in this imaginary competition). Both of them try desperately to hide the fact that they don't have a boyfriend despite their popularity. Kyouka's interference causes additional problems for Yamada in her pursuit of Kosuda.

One special touch this series offers is the characterization of the ero gods/goddess. They are basically the spirits that govern all things sexual about a person. Or they are the person's inner consciousness about sex (depending on how you interpret them). They take on a hyperbolized appearance and personality after the person they are governing. It's quite entertaining to see how the each ero god egg their individual on or, alternatively, deflates the individual's confidence.

Well, I think I've given away more than my fair share already. The rest awaits you in a shining, ongoing series of 7 volumes. Or you can catch the anime series that aired this year (April to June). They did a pretty good preserving the humour and style of the original.

(The center one is obviously Yamada. The old little dude on the cloud is her ero god. The one with the boobs is ... Takeshita. The only boy is Kosuda. The girl with long purple hair is Kyouka (both she and her brother are always drawn with gold stars around them to show their... aura of perfection).)

NieR Gestalt and Replicant - OST

I don't know why all these games and animated films with great graphics and soundtracks all have the most boring cover art they could possibly come up with. This is the official cover art for the game's OST, but I have decided to remedy this with some more interesting and representative graphics from the game, such as the following:


I randomly chanced upon the soundtrack and it has this ethereal and soothing quality with a tinge of melancholy that is instantly attention-grabbing and so refreshing. One of the tracks, Obaachan (Grandmother), is being featured on the right. There are so many good tracks from the 2-CD OST release that it is hard to pick one to feature... perhaps I will feature the other ones later.
The OST, composed by Okabe Keiichi (岡部啓一) and a group of other composers, is from the video game NieR released in April 2010. The version for XBox 360 is called Gestalt and the one for PlayStation 3 is called Replicant. They are virtually the same except the protagonist's relationship to the girl he is trying to rescue from the plague (daughter vs. younger sister) and his physique (rough muscular father figure vs. slender older brother type). The game is a loose sequel based on another game called Drakengard. Both are basically action games with missions and battles. The information on these games is a bit vague; suffice to say the stories take place in another world with dragons and monsters and magic and infection and gigantic swords and mostly pretty people. Can you tell I'm not a big fan of the game? The story's too convoluted and the gameplay is not all that exciting and from what I can tell, the actual in-game fighting graphics (not the animated clips or the game posters) are a bit shoddy.

But the story does give that sad vibe that is perfect when translated into music. Characters are fighting against destinies that they eventually succumb to anyway (in a general sense; this is absolutely not a spoiler). But they keep on fighting still, which is inspirational but sad. The soundtrack proves that in music, "inspirational but sad" sounds pretty good.

Anyone's going to say "Welcome back" to me?

Alright babe, I'm back full-time. Full blogger time, anyway. Working to fix all the music links right now... should have an update about that soon-ish.

Also trying to get back in the game of watching movies. Had to take a huge break due to that insufferable exam I had to take, so now I'm a bit rusty. But there are so many films to pick from right now! I wonder which ones I'm going to get through this summer...

Also also, I have started watching quite a few TV series since the last time I wrote about TV. The most prominent of my acquisitions would be Lost, which I started to watch after it ended. I've been holding out ever since the series started, just because it seemed so intriguing and I knew I would die having to wait a week later for the next episode. So I vowed to not start it until it has a conclusion and I can watch everything at once. This did not bode well, since I was supposed to be studying for that nasty test, but hey, at least it is over.

To my invisible (and likely imaginary) audience out there in the ether... please keep your eyes peeled for the upcoming excitement.

EDIT: All music links to the right are up and functional! Get 'em while they are hot! ... ?! It's not like they ever get cold, but they may disappear or break down or do some other funny business.

Broken music links...

After a great amount of eye-rolling, I just had to admit a little bit of defeat on my part: some of the music links on the right are broken ONCE MORE. I've tried to keep up with fixing them but... ugh. The broken ones are mostly the songs I had to upload myself because I couldn't find them anywhere else. My server deleted my account. How sweet of them.

And I will be quite busy for the next few weeks preparing for something vastly draining so I will not be able to get a new account and re-upload everything and re-post all the new links. For the time being, please just gorge yourselves on the songs that are NOT broken (which still remains the majority). I promise to fix everything in the later part of June.

Also, my new obsession is with the soundtrack of the video game NieR Gestalt & Replicant. The video game itself does not look very attractive (graphics could certainly improve... and the plot line seems a bit convoluted and too anime-ish). But the soundtrack is superb in its medieval style, with the chorus and the drumbeats and the sometimes smooth and calming ballade melodies. Do not fret if you can't find it anywhere online; I will upload samples at the same time that I fix all the broken links. Gives me something to look forward to.