Books, Reviews

Kagegiving: Interview with the Vampire Book Review

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INTRODUCTION
     Long before vampires sparkled, they brooded and could not shut up about it. I should probably point out, I was never an Anne Rice fan. I read Servant of the Bone, since she was recommended to me, because I liked Stephen King when I was a child and hated it. That was 20 years ago, so I decided, hey, why not give it another shot. Oh boy, was that the wrong way to think. This review is going to give a subjective opinion, but with an objective star rating.

SYNOPSIS
     Young, possibly gay or bisexual, introverted male, gets turned into a vampire by extroverted bisexual vampire, who then live a weird life of pedophilia together and bitch like a married couple, whilst nothing else of merit happens. Oh and a holocaust so easy to cause, that it would make Hitler blush.

CHARACTERS
     Let me start by saying that Anne Rice is very good at making her characters developed with very little. What would make other character’s shallow by other writers, she can get away with. So I’m very pleased that the characters are evenly built and seem like real people, when they are not just melodramatic and throwing tantrums. The main character is an analogy for herself, because homosexuality makes great subtext for your wishy-washy feelings about god. Lestat is a boyfriend, apparently similar to her husband and then there is the sexually abused girl.

DIALOGUE
     This is something I have often overlooked in reviews, mostly because it takes a hell of a lot of effort to write really bad dialogue, but I’m going to start including it here. Dialogue is mostly decent, given one or two weird spots. Not much to complain about.

PROSE
     You can tell Anne didn’t know if she wanted this to be third person or first person, so she settled for both, but wrote 99% of it in first person. The book is annoying in third person, with great lines such as “The vampire looked at the interviewer.” How the hell does anyone know he’s a vampire yet and if God is telling the story, why the fuck do we have to deal with a whiny emo bitch? Once she finally picks a fuckin’ narrative, business picks up. Spoiler alert, she picks first person, presumably because she realized what an “Interview” was and that it did not allow for third person, but I might be giving her too much credit here.

     She is descriptive enough to make the world seem plausible. She does not overdo it with too much description, but it isn’t lackluster either. That said, this woman doesn’t know what the fuck a chapter is, nor what a scene break is and the writing is dense as fuck. To be fair, by the end of this book, she finally got scene breaks right, but far too late as reading this is a nightmare.

     Other than those technical aspects, the only flaw would be the waxing philosophical about nonsense topics. Pseudo intellectualism has never been more fun with such shallow topics. Interview with the Vampire is like doing your Philosophical PhD thesis on the Insane Clown Posse, but instead of being laughed at and ejected by the college, people willingly paid you hard earned money to read your work. It wants to be literary and in some cases, it has merit, but like I said, it isn’t decent enough to be called such.

CONCLUSION
     While Anne is on record saying the main character is an analogy for herself, which always makes for horrible writing, at least I could understand why this was fresh in 1976. Up until that point, most vampires were vicious and here is one that is different from all the rest. The homosexual aspect was not needed. I’m on record as stating that vampires being dead, do not need a sexuality. I’m not saying you cannot see them as analogies to feeling like an oppressed minority, but straight up making them that way is dumb. One of the things that makes classics is the ability for multiple people to pick up different aspects of subtext, which could have worked to make this a classic like Dracula, but falls way short of that. Vampires are predators, first and foremost. Sexuality is a sirens call, at best and an easy way to trap prey. I noticed that Anne and others like pointing out the vampire’s fetid breath, normally to showcase dead people do not bush their teeth. Logic states that if vampires don’t eat or brush their teeth, they don’t have enough time to suck cock either, just saying. Regardless of that gripe, she at least cut out a lot of stupid shit, like garlic and crosses, so that was a plus. She was the progenitor of the near sparkling vampire though. Also, it could of removed the weird pedophilia shit as well. So is this book something to be thankful for? Nope, it is like giving a small pox blanket to a Native American.

     3 out of 5.

Books, Reviews

Heffalumps and Woozles: The Devil Crept in Book Review

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INTRODUCTION
     I really had high hopes for this author. I did a Google search looking to see what the modern landscape offered for new authors and most things yielded surprisingly little, which is shocking, given one Amazon search yields millions. Ania showed up on a list, along with Mylo Carbia. I had hopes for Ania, but Mylo seemed more like a waste of time. My thoughts weren’t entirely unfounded, but sadly, they we’re not entirely accurate, either. So let us take a look at the book on a deeper level.

SYNOPSIS
     Two cousins, best friends, live in a small town called Deer Valley. It’s a weird place, ala Stephen King and Joe Hill, but there is something more afoot, something evil, perhaps and it isn’t long before both find themselves in for the fight of their lives.

CHARACTERS
     We are treated to one, really good developed character. Two piss poorly developed characters through too much told back story, The rest are, well, pretty much just cunts to elicit sympathy from the reader. Alcoholic abusive stepdaddy, cliché I don’t believe my child mom, The douchebag older brother, think Buzz in Home Alone, Kindly old convenience store man and an aunt with nothing interesting about her. Stevie is the main focus and he is built well. I like him as a character. Jude is slightly more relatable, if you were ever the kind of child that marched to the beat of your own drum, which I did, but sadly, Jude wasn’t much developed past that and pretty much just labeled a nuisance for such.I’m not going to discuss the other two characters, because I would give too much away, in case you still want to read it.

PROSE
     When she isn’t bogging us down with backstory, she can be pretty decent, albeit, sparse writer. She reminds me more of Stephen King, but not as evocative as King, in terms of imagery. I think the biggest problem I have is with this being professionally done novel, with an editor, who is clearly inept. A running theme is “But” starting a sentence, when the last sentence didn’t need to end. Sometimes, you see the sentence as it should have been written, with just the “but” being the bridge of the sentence with or without comma. The word Tic for a mannerism, is spelled Tick throughout. Add in a few awkward analogies and it makes it seem like they rushed to print or the editor, as I said, was too inept. I’m not going to fault her here, because she is Polish, so English may be her second language and for the fact it isn’t her native tongue, she shows a lot of competency.

SUBTEXT
     There is none, except for some autobiographical writing. Such as a woman immigrating from Poland and the fear of being a foreigner, a mention of an inability to write a romance novel, which if you read the acknowledgements, you will see the link to her and not to mention, I think there was fear about being a new mom, strewn throughout.

CONCLUSION
     If she can improve the imagery of the world she is building, heighten up the suspense to actually make it scary, evenly build the characters, fix the few flaws with the style or find a better editor and pull back that exposition dump, she is well on track to actually being the next Stephen King, as opposed to Mylo Cabina, who pretty much called herself that. Outside of these few technical flaws, my only gripe with the book comes down to being able to call the entire ending by page 50 and the fact she has two narratives going back to back by the middle of the book, which wasn’t needed at all. It would have been better to perhaps made the child birth scene a prologue and stuck to one narrative, which, even with the bog of backstory, to build up Jude, would of made the pace of the book move faster. Still, I bought three of her other books on Kindle and plan to pick up a couple others, because I really feel she has a lot of potential. Either way, she is worth watching to see how she grows as a writer.

     3 out of 5

Books, Review, Uncategorized

Halloween Movie Novelization Book Review

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INTRODUCTION
When I was a child, almost all movies had a novelization. Why? Most likely because Hollywood wanted to make more money and much like a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy, this was one more worthless item to shill to kids or fans of popular novels. Sadly, the novelization was almost always terrible prose, aimed at the lowest common denominator and forgotten about with glee, shortly after you bought it. Remember the heyday of these is pre-DVD, when extras weren’t as easy to come by via VHS and some audiences were clamoring for more of these favorite flicks, so you cannot really blame anyone for giving them a gander, as they weren’t all terrible, but they weren’t very good, either. My reason for buying these as a child, they often could give more insight into scenes that were cut from the movie, as well as hopefully develop characters past the confines of the movie, whilst giving us more depth in general as well. Few ever lived up to that, that is until Halloween 2018, went retro and made a novelization for its movie and that is one reason for me to buy it, as I am waiting for the DVD or a Double feature of this and the original 1978 classic to finally see it. So is this little gem worth it?

SYNOPSIS
Jason Micheal is accidentally released back into Haddonfield on the eve of his transfer, exactly 40 years to the day of the babysitter murders. Laurie, estranged from her family, finally gets a chance to end her nightmare that started back in 1978. Who will rise victorious? (Hint: it’s Hollywood, it’s almost never the bad guy.)

PROSE
Finally, a novelization that does prose well. Holy shit! Not only is this guy hyper competent, but he adds a bit too much description. There is very little errors within this book, minus like one that you can discover for yourself should you read this. Not only is the description spot on, but the word use makes this one of the smartest novelizations ever. Mea Cupla for instance, is Latin. That is high brow for this type of book and I am very happy to see such. It also adds a bit of physics and quoting of Nietzsche. If all this sounds right up your alley, you will love this.

CHARACTERS
They’re developed enough, but not really in a memorable or you will care sort of way. Most the cast is simply there.

SUBTEXT/THEME
Not much, but they occasionally add a tiny insight when it comes to evil in the word and like I said, it’s a novelization.

CONCLUSION
While this book is sadly just relaying the movie with no real additions via different scenes or extrapolation to the world that is Haddonfield, the myth of Michael or developing the characters more, it still one of the better efforts that a novelization has ever undertaken, even if it lacks suspense, has kills which are weak and is longer than it should be. Overall, I think this and the movie are going to be worth your time.

3 ½ out of 5

Books, Reviews, Uncategorized

Heffalumps and Woozles:The Raping of Ava Desantis, Book Review

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INTRODUCTION

     I don’t what to think about this novel, whatsoever. I ordered it a few days ago, started it at 1pm today and just finished it about 8:30 pm. When I first looked up this novel, it was to investigate what it was about. Apparently it was a multi-award winner in 2015, but I never heard a damn thing about it, nor of the awards it won. It claims they’re industry related, but it is hard to have industry related awards when none of them are well known brands. I mean, I have an award for best critic of the year, but I made it up just now, so I’ll be like Donald Trump and Barrack Obama and put it on my book, just to sell more copies, because why merit anything when you can just pull bullshit out your ass, because the sorry ass consumers cannot be bother to do so much as the bare minimum of research in order to vote, never mind buy a fuckin’ novel. One “reviewer” claimed it made 50 shades of grey look like a training manual. Did that idiot even read either book or does he/she have rape fantasies? It isn’t even a horror novel. Goosebumps have more horror. So much seems wrong, but whatever, let us look at this novel a lot deeper than other “reviewers” have.

SYNOPSIS

     It is 1991, nerdy introvert needs to help jock type get good grades, invites her to frat party, even though cliché stock character doesn’t like her. The basic bros do too much drugs, and rape the chick to kingdom cum. The mother pays her off to keep, well, mum. She gets paid, but decides to avenge herself.

CHARACTERS
     This book isn’t black and white, but it isn’t color either. The only thing less developed than the characters in this book is the infrastructure the GOP keeps promising to fix. This book is like John Hughes took a copious amount of blow and forgot what he was able to accomplish, ala Steven King in the 1980’s.

PROSE
     Shallow, uneven, but with bits of competency as a writer, strewn throughout. It is super concise and can be read quickly. She knows how to paint a background, showcase humans, but everything else ultimately make this novel wonky at best. It is a debut novel, so perhaps she could be forgiven? Well, she claims to have been a Hollywood ghostwriter for years and to be fair, it shows, when she writes her onomatopoeia in all caps like this RING. In screenplay writing, you do that in order to show where the camera is to place emphasis. It is lost on most readers in this novel and doesn’t add anything.

THEMES AND SUBTEXT
     This isn’t the book to be looking for such, it is shallow as a puddle. I mean, we don’t even have a motive for why she is bothering to kill these people in the first place. The only thing I can gather is the following: 1. the writer has the mind of a man. 2. She is possibly bi-sexual. 3. She likes redheads, which I can relate to, but I still like brunettes and blondes too. 4. She has possibly engage in very weird, kinky sex or wants us to think that. 5. She has a fake publishing LLC just to post reviews of her own book and drum up publicity, including hiring actors. 6. The awards are dubious. 8. She clearly wants to be famous. 9. She is at least semi competent. 10. She will probably fare very well in the future.

CONCLUSION
     Mylo Carbia has managed to write an entire book that is like a episode of Seinfeld. I mean, nothing happens, yet, is has some appeal, or enough to have keep me reading it. It has uneven prose, zero suspense, shallow characters, a dumb double twist that was never set up nor is it actually a twist. The references are understandable, even to a younger audience. I mean, I’m confused as to if I enjoyed it, even with the flaws or not, to even recommend. Still, Mylo shows promise and clearly a drive to succeed, if you’re faking an organization just for reviews. With a few tweaks, she could have a hell of a lot of potential, even if she is the equivalent of a Millennial in GenX form.

3 out of 5.

Kagegiving

A Word on KageGiving

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Kageoween worked out pretty well for me, so I decided to do two more holidays, Kagegiving and Kagemas. While there is things I would like to fix and some stuff I wish I got to for Kageoween, I know next year will be a vast improvement over the inaugural year, as I have a lot planned out already for Halloween 2019.

In regards to Kagegiving, I wasn’t quite sure how I would go about this, since Thanksgiving doesn’t really lend itself to a lot of material for book, movie or tv reviews. So I have decided to make Kagegiving all about discovery of new material that I can find, between youtube, kindle or else, I’m going to look for the some of the best stuff I can find and give it a write up. The format may change at some point, but for now, this seems apt. I think I will do leading right up to the holiday, a week of thanksgiving, to see how this fares at first.

So if you’re reading this and have any ideas on what to watch, read, ect, feel free to comment below and I will see what I can get to.

Movies, Review

The Man Who Invented Christmas Move Review

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INTRODUCTION
     I have always loved A Christmas Carol. It was one of my favorite Dickens tales and one of my top ten books of all time. It is the original Christmas tale, not counting the story of Jesus or Santa Clause himself.
The movie is a basic concept about Charles Dickens being down on his luck and really needing a bestselling book. Which of us don’t, though? The rest of the movie is a search for inspiration and the struggle against writers block, combined with a weird rendition of the novel itself, don’t in bits and pieces, sewn throughout.

STORY
     There isn’t a real story here. At least not a very interesting one, anyways. Writer needs inspiration, writer finds inspiration, and writer publishes. Most of us that are writers go through this on a day to day basis, so it makes me really wonder who this is for. Is it for writers, creators, family or Victorian era England aficionados?

     I loved all the little Easter eggs to the Dickens other works,such as the orphanage that a young Charles Dickens was forced to labor in, when his after was arrested, leaving Charles stranded, the inspiration for Oliver Twist. I love the meeting with a Constable, named David Copperfield. The language coming directly from the world around Charles Dickens and the fun, but most likely, overly exaggerated way he worked.

T     he problem is, who is going to care if Charles Dickens is going to finish A Christmas Carol? What happens if he doesn’t publish it, besides being in debt?

     Nothing in this film is really of the essence and none of it is really going to draw us into the story and watch this for over an hour. Thankfully the screenplay was well written, so at the very least, we didn’t fall asleep during the middle of it.

ACTING
     The acting is superb. Not a single bad actor in the lot and all did a very good job at their individual roles. The two break away performances belong to Scrooge himself, slicing at Dickens with his acerbic wit and Dickens himself. An honorable mention goes to the character of the young Irish house maid, whose emotional investment in Charles Dickens book is the desire of every writer to have and also the soul of every single one of us when we finish a good book.

VISUALS
     Beautiful lighting, fantastic sets, it really looked like the embodiment of the area that we’re accustomed to seeing. The CGI is on point and I think it will hold up in the years to come.

CONCLUSION
     This movie is probably not for everyone. If you’re a Dicken’s buff, a fan of his work or a writer yourself, then you’ll absolutely will appreciate this the most. Even if you’re not a fan, it is decent enough to hold your attention for the duration of the movie. It is hardly a terrible movie, but to be honest, it is one that I don’t think we really needed, either. Regardless, it is a rousing Christmas romp that isn’t a horrible way to spend a night with the wife and kids, if you’re looking for family fare.

3 ½ out of 5 stars.