Diary of a Network Geek

TheInformantAndNineAndExtract

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw a bunch of movies in the past two weeks.

I know I see a lot of movies, but, until I got behind on my reviews, I didn’t realize just how many!
So, these will be three short, quick reviews to help me catch up, also they’re being written on the WordPress iPhone app, which encourages brevity. I’ll review them in the order I saw them.

First up is Extract, which is a Mike Judge film. He’s the guy who did Office Space and if you liked that you’ll like this one, too. This time, the “hardluck hero” isn’t a front-line worker, but management. In fact, he’s the owner of a small factory that creates extracts, like almond extract and other flavorings. Now, this might not seem like a funny setup, but, trust me, it is. Judge manages to find the hilarity in an over-worked, under-sexed small-business owner, trapped in an unhappy marriage and disenchanted with his own creation, played by Jason Bateman. He struggles with all the problems attendant to an entreprenuerial business, but manages well enough. Until, that is, there’s a freak accident in the factory that partially emasculates one of his star employees. That alone wouldn’t be a problem, actually, but it draws the attention of a sexy grifter played by Mila Kunis. She conivces the “victim” to sue, setting off a chain of events that are not only tragic and hilarious, but also so incredibly believable that you never question how outrageous they are or the reactions to them.
Trust me when I tell you this will be a cult hit just like Office Space was. I laughed out loud so often my sides hurt by the end of the movie. Oh, and Gene Simmons as the ambulance-chasing, shyster lawyer is too funny for words! Watch for his ad in the background because when he does it in Spanish you’ll have a hard time controlling you bladder. Very funny film and, if it’s not too late, a must see.

Last week Friday, I saw The Informant, starring Matt Damon. Now, you might not expect that an action star like him could do comedy, but he really pulls it off.
Now, this movie is an entirely different kind of funny than Extract. It’s still funny, but as much in that over-the-top sort of way. It’s a dryer sort of comedy, almost British in where it gets its laughs. I doubt it will do as well as other comedies this season for that reason, but I found it very funny. Also, this movie is based on a book which is in turn based on actual events. In. nutshell, Damon stars as an exec at ADM, a corn conglomerate, who gets into a tight spot and does some lying to get out of it. The only problem is, those lies bring in the FBI who need to be distracted. So, in an effort to save his own skin, he rats out the company on a huge price-fixing scheme and ends up being an FBI under cover informant for almost three years. Of course, during that time he also embezzeled more than 9 million dollars and never seemed to tell anyone the while truth, not even his wife, not even himself.
Damon is clever and likeable, in a kind of nerdy way, as the obviously not quite right Mark Whitmore, who still thinks he can steal from the company, become the next president after the old management team is out, and inform for the government at the same time. The really funny thing is that he manages to pull it off for three years before things really start to unravel. And, this movie is more than just laughs. You see a guy under incredible stress trying to maintain his sanity, world-view and family image while betraying those very same things. Near the end, Damon has some truly poignant moments where the frayed edges of his assorted lives and realities begin to show through. I really liked this film, but I doubt most people would. I honestly don’t see it doing well in the theaters or in rental, but I really enjoyed the surprsing subtlties in this movie. Damon turns in a fantastic performance that I suspect will go largely unnoticed by the public. If you’re a Matt Damon fan, definitely rent this one.

The last film I saw last weekend was Nine. Nine is a pretty adult animation film. The story follows Nine, a magically created living puppet in a post-apocalyptic world. He wakes not knowing who he is or why he was made and not even having a voice. Nine quickly explores his world, however, and meets more of his kind, one of whom helps him find a voice, literally. When that other “person” is taken by some malevolent machine, Nine tries to convice his newly found brethren that they need to go and rescue their missing member. Much of the film is spent in that sort of activity, either convincing older “people” who are afraid of losing thei power to change, or off fighting technology that has no soul.
And, that is one of the major themes of this movie; fighting the soul-less technological world. In a sense, this movie is all about heart, but it’s also an action film of sorts. And it was animated. Actually, it was animated very well, so that’s a point in its favor.
I’d recommend this film for anyone who’s either a sci-fi fan or an animation fan, but it’s not for the kids. Way more grown up than that. But, even though I liked it quite a bit, I don’t think it’s everyone’s cup of tea.

So, to sum up, go see Extract quickly, rent The Informant, and see Nine if you love sci-fi or animation or both, otherwise just rent this one, too. But, for the record, I enjoyed all three films.

Oh, and just so you know, this was meant to be posted yesterday morning and would have been the fifth consecutive post written primarily with the WordPress iPhone app beta. Outside of a problem uploading pictures, the beta app is working very well.
More movies this weekend, so, more reviews coming, though, they may not all be via the iPhone.

MatineeInTheMorning

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I love this app.

No, seriously, this free app highlights all that I truly love about my iPhone. It checks to see where I am then finds movies and theaters near me. It shows me what’s playing, when it’s playing and where. And, if I’m not sure where the theater is, it even links to maps to get me from where I am to the theater of my choice.

Oh, and did I mention the app is free? Yeah, sure, Fandnago would love for you to set up an account with them to buy tickets, but you don’t have to do that for the app to work. How cool is that?

But, wait, as Ron Popiel would say, there’s more!
Because, if you’re not sure what film you want to see, there are ratings from critics and other Fandango users to help you decide. And, if that’s still not enough, there are previews. Yes that’s right, actual previews you can watch on your iPhone!
Now, I’m sure you’re thinking that watching movie previews on a tiny phone screen would be terrible, but, Saturday night after church, at least five people crowded around my iPhone to watch movie previews and were so drawn in not one made a sound while the 9 trailer played. No joke. All adults, too, over the age of 21.

In fact, I love this app so much that I’ve been thinking about getting a Fandango account. Which, of course, is why they offered this app for free, I’m sure.
But, you know what? It’s totally working.

UpMovie

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I got back from vacation Friday and, after returning my rental car, went and saw Up.

Now, I’m not normally the kind of person who goes to see kid’s movies, but either I’d seen everything else worth seeing, or my friend had, so we ended up at Up.
The premise is simple, in a way. We start with a young boy who’s caught up with a 1940’s adventurer who travels the world in a zeppelin with his faithful dogs. That adventurer claims to have found a rare creature on a lost world plateau in South America, but he can’t provide enough proof of his discovery, so he ends up drummed out of the explorer’s society and disgraced.
On the way home from watching his favorite adventurer on the news reel, he finds an old house that’s been sort of taken over by a young girl, who’s far more bold and, well, adventurous than he is. They fall in love, get married, make plans to go to South America where their mutual hero has gone, never to return, only to have those plans thwarted by life, and her eventual death. As one might imagine, this makes the old man a little less than fun, friendly and happy. Now, add in the developers who are trying to get him out of his house which he shared with his deceased wife and a chubby, little Asian “Adventure Scout” who just wants to help the old man to get his last badge to make Senior Scout and you’ve got a pretty unhappy guy.

Without revealing too much, circumstances turn even worse for the old man and he inflates hundreds of helium balloons to lift his house, like his hero’s zeppelin, and “sail” South to find the plateau where his dead wife wanted to move their house as a child. In his own way, he’s trying to fulfill his wife’s last wish.
They get there, to South America, and animated hi-jinks ensue. And, I’m sure how much I’d be “spoiling” anything by telling you all more of the plot, but I won’t tell you much more. Suffice it to say that the young man and the old man have adventures on the plateau while trying to get the house where it has the view the old man’s wife wanted it to have. They meet strange creatures and, yes, a dog that talks through a collar made by his master. And, along the way to the happy ending you know this feel-good movie has to have, the boy and the man both learn something about happiness and adventure and how our friends can provide the love and support that our family can’t always manage.

If you have kids, I’m sure you’ll see this movie, but it’s cute enough, and filled with enough subtle adult jokes, that you won’t mind taking the kids. Certainly, I was entertained enough by the whole thing that I didn’t mind going at all. It was, after all, a fun movie with a cute message and a happy ending. If you’re an adult, without kids, you may not be quite as excited by this movie, but, trust me, it’s worth seeing. Though, not worth seeing twice.

Oh, and in case you were interested, here are pictures of my 2009 vacation. Enjoy!

I finished Vampire Zero by David Wellington Friday night.

Vampire Zero is the third, and apparently last, book in the vampire series by Wellington that started with Thirteen Bullets and was followed by Ninety-nine Coffins.  I’ve already reviewed those here and, if you read those reviews, you’ll know that I think David Wellington has done a great job reinventing the vampire genre with his vision of the vampire as monster.  But, to me, that’s worth repeating, because I really hate the humanization and romanticizing of vampires that’s gone on in modern literature.  Wellington’s vampires, though, are monsters.  They’re like bipedal sharks who live on blood and think as well as humans and have their own form of culture.  But, they are like sharks.  They’re predators and they hunt humans.

In Vampire Zero, Wellington presents us with the last vampire hunter, Pennsylvania State Trooper Laura Caxton, who’s trying to hunt down her old mentor, Jameson Arkeley.  In 99 Coffins, he took on the vampire curse to help Caxton lay the brood of Civil War era vampires to rest, because she just couldn’t quite manage it herself.  In that book, Arkeley claimed he would dispatch those beasties, and then turn himself in to Caxton for his own execution.  As you might imagine, he wasn’t quite able to pass that final test and retreated out into the world.  Naturally, Caxton is the only one really qualified to hunt and kill vampires, so she ends up trying to track Arkeley down before he gives into the bloodlust of the vampire curse and starts killing humans, or, worse, starts making more vampires.   Before he becomes “Vampire Zero”.  The term, of course, is derived from regular epidemiology, where “patient zero” is the first known case from which all other cases of a disease derived.  In this case, however, the disease is even more deadly than anything we’ve ever imagined.

Naturally, she doesn’t quite manage to stop Arkeley from making more than one new vampire, but it’s a long, twisty ride to that point.  Caxton stays hot on her former mentor’s trail, becoming more and more like him along the way.  She even becomes a Special Deputy U.S. Marshall, just like Arkeley was before he turned.  The difference, of course, is that Caxton can see what’s happening.  She can see how she’s becoming harder and colder and more driven, while caring less and less about other people’s feelings, as she gets closer to her mentor-turned-vampire, in more ways than one.  But, she also has to fight the system, the bureaucrats, the paper-work and the less motivated public servants.  It’s no easy job, even for someone far less human and caring than Laura Caxton.
It’s brilliant work.  Both Caxton’s and Wellington’s.  The writing and the story are both really, really engaging and compelling.  No less so for the fact that humanity’s future may well hang in the balance.  Something, incidentally, that Caxton is quite aware of pretty much all the time.  But, Wellington’s writing and Caxton’s awareness don’t distract from the action at all.

In short, this is a great ending to a great series.  Though, the way the book ends, there is room for a sequel.  At least one more.  I hope Wellington writes that eventually.  I do love his work and these books.
So, hopefully, I’ve given you enough warm, fuzzy feelings about a vampire book and series to get you to check out Vampire Zero, after hitting the other two books, of course.  It was a damn fine read.

Sunday, I finished Fool: A Novel by Christopher Moore.

First of all, you should know that I pretty well love almost anything that Christoper Moore has written.  Granted, some are better than others, but I started with him back when Practical Demonkeeping was new and not even a best-seller yet.  It always struck me as funny when my parents told me about this “new” author who’d written a brilliant re-telling of the Gospel titled Lamb:The Gospel according to Biff, Christ’s childhood pal.  So, that enthusiasm for his work may effect the way I see his most current work.

But, I’ll say this, it is good.
Fool is a retelling of King Lear from the point of view of Lear’s jester, commonly known as a fool.  Naturally, that’s where the book gets its title.  Now, King Lear, if you’re not familiar, is a play by William Shakespeare about a king who, for foolish reasons, divides his kingdom amongst his three daughters, based on how much flattery they can heap on him.  The only problem is one of his daughters, the most faithful and true, in fact, won’t play the game, so he splits his kingdom between his two deceitful, unfaithful daughters.  They’re supposed to take care of Lear in his old age, but they really don’t want to take care of him so he’s sort of forced into the Medieval equivalent of homelessness.  It’s quite the tragedy.  But not in Christopher Moore’s hands.

No, Moore takes this tragedy and makes it into a damn fine comedy, thanks to his narrator.
Moore is mostly true to the story according to Shakespeare, but with a few additional anachronisms.  His writing is light and pithy and quite enjoyable, not to mention smooth and easy.  Really, considering the weight of the subject matter, it’s a testament to his writing that the book moves so easily and well.
The story follows a fellow named Pocket, who is born somewhat disadvantaged and orphaned.  He’s left on the doorstep of a nunnery and it’s the nuns who raise him.  He has some misadventures along the way to adulthood and a job working for Lear as a fool, though we see all that as various flashbacks.  The main story line starts with Pocket relating the tale of how he watched Lear foolishly divide his kingdom.  Then, the tragic results of that somewhat stupid decision.  But, as I mentioned, somehow, he manages to make it a comedy.

Oh, hell, you’ve probably read or seen King Lear at least once.  This is the same story only funnier and written in more modern language.  And, anything by Moore is pretty good, so, all in all, I’m saying, buy this book and read it.  You won’t be sorry.

Watchmen

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

Well, I do, for one.

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”, for those of you who don’t know, translates, roughly, to “Who watches the watchmen?” And, yes, it’s been made more famous by popular culture and a little comic book series, later gathered into a graphic novel, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons titled “The Watchmen”

The story, in brief, is about a group of retired heroes. Well, more like masked vigilantes, since only one of them, Dr. Manhattan, really has super-powers, per se. The story opens with a murder. The victim is a brutal man who went by the name The Comedian, though he was far from funny. The rest of the story then is the quest of a fellow “hero”, named Rorschach, to solve this murder. Naturally, he visits The Comedian’s old friends and enemies and gets into quite a bit of trouble himself along the way. And, as he follows his investigation, he stirs up old memories, which we see as flashbacks. One thing I liked about both the comic and the movie is that it took Stan Lee’s idea of showing us a more human superhero to the limit. We see so-called heroes being petty and brutal and sad. We see them love and hate and argue, just like real people would. Except, of course, these people move in a very different circle than we do indeed.
The entire story takes place in an alternate history where Nixon is elected for a third term in office and many other things have been altered or influenced by the addition of masked crusaders, super-science, mad geniuses, and at least one God-like super-being. It’s an interesting world, to say the least.
I won’t ruin either the comic or the movie by telling you how it ends, but, let’s just say that there are twists and turns and global plots involved worth of the best comic books and handled as well as any superior fiction can handle them. Both, I think, are well done.

Now, that being said, I’ll probably be at odds with the fanboys on this, but I liked the movie.
The movie followed the graphic novel quite closely, though there were many things that had to be edited out for time. The running time was fairly close to a full two-hours and forty-five minutes, but my understanding is that there is a giant “director’s cut” version planned for the DVD release that runs a full FIVE hours. I can see how they might manage that if they filmed every scene in the book. It’s quite dense. However, one reason to actually read, or re-read, the graphic novel before seeing the film is that doing so will help fill in the gaps that exist, by necessity, in the film. For instance, there was just a brief mention of Rorschach’s origin and no explanation of how he got his ever-changing ink-blot mask, which confused the person I went to see the movie with who was not a fan of the comic. (Though, I think it’s important to note that he is a comic fanboy, just mainly the Darkknight and more mainstream books.) Also, I think they could have cut some of the sex from the movie. Granted, I’m sure the scene where the Silk Spectre and Nite Owl get their freak on in “Archie”, Nite Owl’s flying car, helped get them their R-rating, they still could have trimmed it down to make room for something else a little more germane to the plot. The attempted rape scene, though it may seem a bit gratuitous, does at least have a central focus to at least one sub-plot, so I can see having it in there, but even that seemed… Well, they seemed to linger a bit longer on some of that than the plot really required. Oh, and as a word of warning, you do see quite a bit of Dr. Manhattan’s giant, blue, glowing penis, so if that sort of thing bothers you, well, you’ve been warned. The violence is, at times, extreme, though no more extreme than what’s pictured in the graphic novel. Of course, seeing it on screen does make quite an impact. My friend is far from squeamish, but I noticed he flinched several times, as did I, at parts of the ultra-violence. As an example, there’s a bit with a meat cleaver that really drives home just how brutal and savage the world, and Rorschach, can be, not to mention another moment with a load of hot oil from a deep fryer that is startling to someone who’s not anticipating it. There are other moments of brutality, also, but many of them seem, well, rather like comic-book violence and have no more impact than any other action-movie violence.
And, I should also add that the soundtrack was wonderful.  Lots and lots of Sixties classics.  It was a wonderful companion to the visual aspects of the movie.

The fanboys will be up in arms, no doubt, about what was cut and the relatively minor change in the ending. I won’t reveal that here for anyone who wants to see the movie, but, personally, I didn’t find it all that distracting or even very noticeable at all. In fact, I had to come home and whip out the graphic novel to check was had been changed!

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit and I’ll happily being seeing it again with some other friends, I’m sure. Though, the next time, I’ll definitely pee first. I sat through almost two hours of this movie with a brick-hard bladder so as not to miss a thing. And, I guess that should tell you how good I thought the movie really was. Not quite a Darkknight, but still, one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.
I’m sure Watchmen will prove to be one of the better movies of the year, no matter what the crazed fanboys or the out-of-touch critics think. Well worth seeing.

Taken

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw Taken Friday night with a group of friends for a “guys night out”.

First of all, let me say that this was a pretty simple, straight-forward movie in terms of plot and message. Of course, that was one of the things I liked about the movie. The bad guys were undeniably bad and the good guy was, well, a little bad, too, but considering that he was a father saving his daughter from a white slavery ring, I think that’s understandable.
Okay, so this movie is probably not going to win any awards or be very acclaimed by the critics, but I liked it a lot. It stars Liam Neeson as a former CIA agent who sacrificed his family and home-life in his dedication to the job. As a result, he’s become estranged from his now teenaged daughter. In an attempt to fix that, he’s given up his work and moved to L.A. to be near his daughter and his ex-wife and his ex-wife’s very rich new husband. Neeson plays a pretty sympathetic character, I think. At least, he’s sympathetic to anyone who’s ever been a father. He’s quite protective of his daughter, which is understandable both because of the world we live in and the job that his character used to do.
The plot, as much as I can say without revealing anything important, revolves around his daughter going on a trip to Europe. A trip about which she is not quite entirely honest with her father. It’s a classic plot launcher for simple, straight-forward movies like this that the dishonest must pay. And, she does. To start with, things aren’t quite as she’s been led to believe and she’s alone with another girl in Paris. That alone wouldn’t be so bad, but they run afoul of Albanian white slavers. Man, there’s nothing I hate more than Albanian white slavers. (Yes, I’m poking a bit of fun at how often they emphasized the fact that these guys were, in fact, Albanians. I guess someone had an axe to grind.)
In any case, Neeson’s character gets a panicked phone call from his daughter as she’s being taken. He warns the men to let her go or they’ll be sorry, but they don’t listen. Basically, they have no idea just what kind of damage Neeson’s character is capable of dishing out, or that they’re about to feel the full effect of that skill at hurting people.

And, again, without revealing too much, for about an hour and thirty minutes, what you have is Liam Neeson chasing bad guys all over Paris. Chasing them on foot, in cars and on a boat. Chasing them down alleys, hallways, stairways, through rooms filled with parties and criminals. Often, shooting them when he finally catches them. Occasionally cutting them or stabbing them. At least once, hitting them with a pipe and hooking one up to electricity. But, I assure you, he only does that to the bad guys. Oh, well, except for the one time he wings the wife of an old colleague who’s gotten corrupt. Other than that, though, he’s only shooting, stabbing, punching and torturing the bad guys. Honest.

I won’t tell you how it ends, but Taken is a very good action movie indeed. Edited down to a PG-13 here in the States, it was even more violent in other places, so I really look forward to a Director’s Cut DVD. It’s no surprise to me that this is at the top of the box office returns this weekend. It was a great movie and I recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone who digs action without gratuitous explosions. Again, it’s a simple, straight-forward movie, but it delivers on every promise it makes in the trailers, ads and reviews.
Well worth seeing in the theaters on the big screen!

DayTheEarthStood

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw The Day The Earth Stood Still Friday night, for my birthday.

Okay, now, it’s probably important to know that the original version of The Day The Earth Stood Still is one of my all-time favorite science-fiction films. It’s regarded by most film scholars as a classic, and not just of science-fiction. So, I did my best to set aside any preconceived notions of how this film should run or the ways that it could go wrong and just enjoy it for what it is.

The movie stars Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly. I’m not a big fan of Keanu Reeves, even though he starred in the Matrix, but I do adore Jennifer Connelly. In any case, Reeves stars as the alien who’s deciding whether or not to eradicate all life on Earth, to let it restart, basically. To remove all of humanity’s damage so that the Earth can restore herself to her natural, pristine state. Jennifer Connelly plays a scientist who is called in to study Klaatu, played by Reeves. She and Klaatu form an uneasy alliance as he explores the world he’s come to destroy and the people he’s come to erase.
Naturally, the plot runs about the way you think it would. Klaatu starts off remorseless and determined to fulfill his mission. Connelly’s character uses every means at her disposal to convince him to do otherwise. She uses her son, who’s really the son of the man she was married to before he died. That’s one of many departures from the original film. Connelly’s character is really several characters from the original film all in one. She also takes Klaatu to see a genius friend of hers to try to convince him that humanity can change and the Earth isn’t lost. The genius is played by John Cleese, who is a real genius and actually plays a serious role here.

Now, normally, I try not to spoil films and books by not giving too much away. But, I’m going to deviate from that a bit here and just warn you that I’m totally going to fill the rest of this paragraph with spoilers. If you don’t want to “ruin” the movie for yourself, skip to the next section. Ready? Still with me? Okay, so the movie was okay, but it seemed like it was building towards something then, suddenly, with the Earth saved, the movie just ends. So, there’s all this huge build up and then… Poof! Nothing. Fade to black and roll the credits. That’s it. A mediocre film with great effects that just never quite pays off in the end.

So, yeah, it was okay, I suppose. Most of the film was decent enough, except for the part I described in the “spoiler paragraph” above. It’s a shame, really, since Reeve and Connelly do a good job otherwise and have decent roles going right to the end. The movie just never seems to get to its point, we never get the pay-off that we’re expecting. Worse yet, I don’t ever remember Keanu uttering the famous words from the 1951 original: “Klaatu barada nikto! ”

I recommend that you see this on the big screen, but at a matinee. This remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still isn’t as good as the original, but the effects make it worth seeing on the big screen, just not at full price.

QuantumofSolace

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

I saw Quantum of Solace Friday night, but I’m just getting to review it now.

I have to admit, when Daniel Craig was revealed as the newest James Bond, I wasn’t impressed. But, after seeing Casino Royale, my opinion on the subject changed. Dramatically.
Quantum of Solace, in spite of the goofy, contrived title, is, if anything, better than Casino Royale ever thought of being. In fact, unlike all previous Bond movies, this is the first movie that’s not based on a book or story from Ian Fleming.  UPDATE: I’ve been told by a pair of Bond fanatics at work that this is incorrect.  Goldeneye is the first Bond movie not based, at least in part, on an Ian Flemming story of some kind.  This is, however, the first movie that is an obvious and direct sequel that really doesn’t stand entirely on its own. This let the script writers do some things that they might not have been able to do otherwise. For instance, this movie continues from where the last one ended. In fact, it really sort of helps if you see Casino Royale right before going to see Quantum of Solace, because things will make more sense. Honest.

Quantum of Solace starts with Bond running from pursuit by both classic, unnamed “bad guys” and police. It turns out that he’s running because he has Mr. White, who’s responsible for killing Bond’s lady love in Casino Royale, in the trunk of the car.
Mr. White, in classic “War on Terror” fashion is tortured somewhere off UK soil to get information out of him. But, instead of cracking, with the help of a turned agent in MI6, White escapes. Bond, naturally, gives chase. And chases the whole organization through the rest of the movie. Though it’s not clearly identified, I think, Quantum is the name of the vast criminal organization to which Mr. White belongs. Of course, the chase runs through several exotic and beautiful locations, not to mention the two very exotic and beautiful women that Bond meets along the way.
I won’t ruin the movie by revealing the rest of the plot, but there are a few twists and turns that you won’t expect. Also, an homage to earlier Bond films, including Goldfinger. And, there are quite a few car chases and intense action scenes. The villain is a little weak, especially compared to Craig’s Bond. The only thing that wasn’t there were a lot of gadgets. Oh, sure, Bond had a super cell phone and there were some cool computer gadget things, but those are really almost here now, if they aren’t already.

I won’t say this is the best James Bond film ever, but it’s got to be in the top five, for certain. I’d definitely see this again if the opportunity presented itself. And, no matter what anyone says, Daniel Craig makes a great James Bond.
If you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor and go see Quantum of Solace!

Last week, I read Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan.

Though this book wasn’t terrible, I can’t really recommend it to anyone. Look, I applaud anyone who can write a whole book and get it published. Just writing a novel-length work is quite an accomplishment, but that doesn’t make it necessarily good. That’s kind of how I feel about Geek Mafia.
The implication of the title is that the book will somehow link “geeks” with some sort of organized crime, which, to me, usually means La Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. But, the author never really quite manages to accomplish this. The book starts with a comic book artist that’s been working for a game company who’s about to be fired dodging work at the bar of a Mexican restaurant. There he meets an attractive free-lancer of some kind who immediately starts to flirt with him. Now, in the real world, this should have set off bells and whistles in this guy’s head, but it doesn’t. Apparently, we’re supposed to believe that a pudgy, almost middle-aged guy completely buys that a pretty girl more than ten years his junior, who he’s just met, is interested in him and doesn’t have any ulterior motive. I know what I think when that’s what seems to be happening to me. Yeah, right, I don’t believe it could be happening to me, but we should believe that this guy totally buys it. What’s more, we should buy it when it turns out to be true.

Well, this girl volunteers to help him get one over on his company and bluff them into giving him a bunch of money instead of the two months severance they want to give him.  Again, if this were me, I’d be super, super suspicious, but this joker just completely buys it and goes along, until it’s almost too late.  Then, and only then, he gets worried that maybe, just maybe, this girl is too good to be true.
But, all that aside, the writing is just, well, mediocre at best.  The author not only uses all the geek and mystery/heist cliches but he over uses them.  I mean, this guy really piles them on.  In a way, he takes using trite situations and predictable scenarios to an art form.  It’s almost like he was trying to make use of every single scene he was given from a writing class or something.  It was amazingly formulaic, from the various scams to the main character trying to join the criminal crew, right down to one of the criminal crew betraying him and his new lover.

The whole thing works, on one level, but it’s certainly not “Best Seller” material.  It was disappointing in several ways beyond the lackluster writing.  For instance, it never really lived up to either promise in the title.  There was no mafia in the book and, in fact, barely any organized crime to speak of at all.  Nor did it live up to the geek portion, really, either.  Any technology or “geekiness” was merely a plot device seen at a distance, at best, and was really not required to move the story forward at all.  It could have all pretty much been done some other way without any significant impact.  Or, the technology was used at about the same level that pretty much any traveling salesman might use.  Laptops and e-mail and all the normal trappings of modern life, not really geeky at all.
And the characters did all sorts of fairly incongruous things, too.  They were quite inconsistent, even considering their obviously “hidden” agendas.  They were, at times, wholly unbelievable, acting in ways that I cannot imagine any normal, reasonable person acting.  Not even perfectly reasonable criminals.
This whole book read like someone attempting NaNoWriMo for the first time and not doing any editing work to the manuscript afterward!

Frankly, I had a lot of hope for this book.  The title alone led me to expect an entirely different book.  One which I had truly looked forward to reading.  Sadly, what was behind that title was not the book I’d hoped to read.  So, as appealing as the description of this book may seem, I just cannot recommend it to anyone.