What I'm Reading - October 2014

I've been reading a lot recently.  Here are a few of my recent reads.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
I read this book after watching the movie.  I liked it a lot! It was an easy read, and it was pretty much identical to the movie, so I don't have a lot to add.

Inamorata by Megan Chance
I read this as one of the Kindle First free books.  This book was following in the vein of recent young adult fiction.  The characters weren't very well developed and the story took a while to get into.  It also was kind of weird - there were some vampire-like fantasy elements, and strange relationships between a woman and her brother.  Once I got into the exciting part, about 2/3 of the way through, I couldn't put it down, but it wasn't very well written nonetheless.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
This was yet another book from the Kindle First collection.  I really enjoyed this book! It was fairly well written for a young adult novel, and the story was very whimsical and imaginative.  I really enjoyed this, and if there is a sequel I will definitely put it on my reading list!

The Bling Ring by Nancy Jo Sales
I really didn't like this book.  I feel like everything in it could have been easily condensed into a long-form article, and there was no need for the book format.  It repeated a lot of information throughout and had spoilers, and additionally, didn't present the story chronologically, or seemingly with any thought for how to best lay it out.  But a good gossipy beach read I guess...

25 Things: Fireworks!

This is another of the things that I actually did a while ago, but never wrote about.  Unfortunately, I also lost all my photos of this when my old phone died, so you'll just have to be content with this image I found on Google.

Two summers ago (2013) I happened to be still at my parents' house when the local fireworks stand got set up for the summer.  I went there and bought 2 small rockets with a friend from high school and then set them off in the street by my parents' house.

I enjoyed it, though I was a little scared that something bad could happen.  I also loved the smell, weirdly enough.  Would do again.

25 Things: Watch Star Wars (part 2)

Wow. So I just watched all six Star Wars movies in five days, and I survived to report back here!

It was really amazing to witness the progression of special effects, costuming, and realism of violence between the 1970s and the early 2000s.  The last movie felt like it was made today in terms of the gratituous violence, and the lack of plot-driven action in favor of lots of big explosions.  I was amazed by some things that must have seemed obvious or not really noticable in the time period in which these were made - for example, the fact that Luke's aunt works as a housewife in such a futuristic time.  Also, the nonchalant sexual harassment of Leia is pretty unbelievable with 2014 eyes.  You'd think that women would have broken the glass ceiling by then...  It also bothers me that characters speak in different languages, but everyone replies in English.  I also appreciated the abominable snow monster, which looked like the one from the claymation Rudolph movie.

In the early movies, the acting was much better than in the modern ones.  It was strange that Luke looks to be about 30 in the early movies, but I guess that's preferable to the terrible acting of Anikin in the later movies, which may partially be due to his youth.  It was also odd for me to recognize many of the actors in the later films.  I really liked both of the droids a lot, and in fact, the early movies where not as fun without them there.  It was interesting how R2D2 has a periscope that looks like Wall-E.  Accidental? I bet not!

The music was really great! I loved the obvious leitmotives for each character.  It did get a bit over the top after hours and hours of the same themes, however.  It was also interesting the use of the Vader and Anikin/Luke themes woven together in different ways, especially in Episode 3.  Also, I finally heard the cantina theme in context, which was nice.

There were lots of famous quotes here that I didn't know were from Star Wars, and some that I knew were from this franchise but didn't know exactly what they were referring to:

"May the force be with you."

I find your lack of faith disturbing."

"I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Turn this ship around!"

"The force will be with you always."

"The force is strong with this one."

"There's something familiar about this place."

"Do or do not; there is no try."

There were also so many parallels between the two sets of movies that I think each could stand alone.  Not only were there similarities in the stories of Anakin and Luke (too many to outline here), but also between young and old Obi-Wan.

I'm really glad I watched the movies in the order that I did, though it was terrible to end the series on such a sad and depressing note.  I can see why people say the old movies are so much better, but I don't think the new ones were that bad.  I've definitely watched many worse movies, and I don't think if I had watched episode 1 first, that I wouldn't have wanted to continue watching.  In fact, I would have been totally compelled to watch episode 4 right after finishing 3, since it ended on such a terrible note.  After episode 6, I didn't really have a huge desire to immediately watch episode 1.

Well, thanks for reading! Let me leave you with this Palpatine soundboard.  I had a lot of fun checking this off my bucket list, and I recommend these movies to anyone else who has never seen them!