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Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The first word that comes to mind when I consider this movie is action. Director Michael Bay did a wonderful job in putting together this movie, and personally, I loved every second of it. There wasn’t one moment where I could look away from the screen, or even whisper to the person next to me. I was so captivated in this movie, it was remarkable.
When the protagonist, Lincoln 6-Echo, and his girlfriend, Jordan 2-Delta, escape from the institution, they end up “on the outside”, Earth, and find that it is, in fact, not contaminated. And for Lincoln and Jordan, Earth soon becomes, eye-popping, in your face, bombastic, action-packed second half with enough chase scenes and explosions to satisfy even the most demanding action fan as the owners of the institution hunt them down. While the action is definitely riveting, it leaves you wondering when things will ever calm down for the two of them?
Probably one of the biggest things that made this movie so entertaining to me was the debate over the moral propositions of cloning humans and the effect is has on the main characters of the movie. Ewan McGreggor stars as Lincoln 6-Echo, a white jumpsuit wearing, tennis shoe missing young man who is having bad dreams and who increasingly questions the world around him. Also clad in a clingy white jumpsuit is Scarlett Johanson as Jordan 2-Delta. Actually everyone in the world these two inhabit wear white jumpsuits. It’s the required uniform in the sanitary, sterile, carefully controlled facility in which they live. The facility residents, all of whom have their food intake monitored and their health checked on a continual basis, live for just one thing: to be chosen to win a trip to The Island. Supposedly The Island is the only place that wasn’t contaminated when an ecological disaster wiped out the entire population of Earth. But something’s literally bugging Lincoln Six-Echo. When he discovers a moth inside the building, he starts to question where it came from. If one moth exists, what else is outside the walls? The old expression curiosity killed the cat can also be applied to clones as Lincoln 6-Echo grabs Jordan 2-Delta and hightails it out of the facility, with a whole slew of security people (and a squad of professional killers) ordered to hunt them down.
Once in the real world, Lincoln Six-Echo and Jordan Two-Delta – with the help of Steve Buscemi as a facility worker who sets them straight – figure out they’re clones. They’re merely living beings created to be used as harvest material should their human counterparts become sick or need spare parts. Pissed off and immediately deciding they’d rather live with all their extremities and internal organs intact, they set off to find the people who had them created – the real humans who paid to be cloned.
Bay puts McGregor, Johansson, and their stunt doubles through the wringer during the latter part of the film as he packs in car chases, a fall from a 20+ story building, and a wild ride on a flying rocket-bike. By far the best scene of the film takes place during Bay’s action tirade when McGregor as Lincoln Six-Echo pushes gigantic rear wheel assemblies off of a tractor trailer and into the path of his pursuers. Incredibly well done and original, that scene actually had me gripping my armrests.
I liked this movie a lot, and would say that it was one of my favorites. I did not, however, appreciate the major plot holes. The director could have explained better why the clones could only be adults but never children, or the conflicts between the clones intellectual integrity. But, overall, the movie was one fantastic, jam-packed action movie, and I appreciated that as much as anything.
THE HUNGER GAMES
THE HUNGER GAMES
The first word that comes to mind when I think of this book is thrills. Author Suzanne Collins does a phenomenal job of describing every detail of the book in such a fashion that I couldn’t put the book down if I tried. I stayed up all night reading it, and didn’t sleep a wink even after I had finished it. I spent as much time reading it as I did contemplating it afterwards. Remembering the story of love, death, loss, and tragedy kept me awake for hours, wondering, what would it be like if I was in that situation? Would I be able to survive to the end?
In the beginning of the book, you find out that what used to be called the United States has been turned completely into a TV-dominated dictatorship run from a city called the Capitol. The rest of Panem, the new United States, is divided into 12 districts (seeing as the former 13th had the bad judgment to revolt and no longer exists). And the highlight of each year is a nightmarish event called the Hunger Games, a bloodthirsty reality TV show in which 24 teenagers chosen by the lottery – a male and a female from each of the 12 districts – fight each other in a desolate environment called the “arena”. The sole winner gets a life of ease, the loser gets death. And the only unspoken rule of these horrid games is that you can’t eat the dead contestants.
The first word that comes to mind when I think of this book is thrills. Author Suzanne Collins does a phenomenal job of describing every detail of the book in such a fashion that I couldn’t put the book down if I tried. I stayed up all night reading it, and didn’t sleep a wink even after I had finished it. I spent as much time reading it as I did contemplating it afterwards. Remembering the story of love, death, loss, and tragedy kept me awake for hours, wondering, what would it be like if I was in that situation? Would I be able to survive to the end?
In the beginning of the book, you find out that what used to be called the United States has been turned completely into a TV-dominated dictatorship run from a city called the Capitol. The rest of Panem, the new United States, is divided into 12 districts (seeing as the former 13th had the bad judgment to revolt and no longer exists). And the highlight of each year is a nightmarish event called the Hunger Games, a bloodthirsty reality TV show in which 24 teenagers chosen by the lottery – a male and a female from each of the 12 districts – fight each other in a desolate environment called the “arena”. The sole winner gets a life of ease, the loser gets death. And the only unspoken rule of these horrid games is that you can’t eat the dead contestants.
Our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen (known as Catnip to her best friend, Gale) is a resident of District 12 which used to be Appalachia. She lives in a desperately poor mining community called the Seam, and when her younger sister’s name is chosen to be a contestant in the upcoming Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place. A very sketchy decision seeing as District 12 hadn’t one a game in at least thirty years. Complicating her already miserable situation is her growing affection for the other District 12 contestant, a clueless baker’s son named Peeta Mellark. And even further complicating her situation is her sorta-crush on her eighteen-year-old hunting partner, Gale. Gale isn’t clueless; Gale is smoldering, as said on page 14.
Then the Hunger Games begin; a violent, jarring speed-rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense and may also generate a fair amount of some controversy. I wonder how they can categorize this novel as a “Young Adult” novel seeing as some of the kids in the Hunger Games are stung to death by monster wasps and others are eaten alive by mutant werewolves. Reading The Hunger Games is as addictive (and as violently simple) as playing one of those shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames. You know it’s not real, and yet you keep pursuing it regardless. And some parts of the book just flat out surprised me. Such as when Katniss needed burn cream or medicine for Peeta, whom she more or less babysits during the second half of the book, the stuff floats down from the sky on silver parachutes. And although the arena is televised by multiple cameras, Collins never mentions Katniss seeing one, which just adds to the mystery of the book.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Hunger Games, and would recommend it to everyone I know, though I’d advise only teenagers and up to read this book, only because of graphic images described, but I have no regrets whatsoever about picking up this book, and I am thrilled that The Hunger Games is only the first in the trilogy of three.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Short Story: Insanity
“I know what you’re thinking.” Came a voice outside of the visions. A voice strange, and cold. A voice that didn’t belong.
Flashes shot through Isabelle’s head like strobe lights. One second her child was there, right in front of her, laughing and clapping his small hands at the waves crashing on the beach. The next minute he and Isabelle were demolishing other sand castles; sun shining down on his blonde, baby hair. The next, he was running for the first time, out to the water. The farther he got, the more Isabelle’s smile grew.
Then there were other flashes… flashes of rip tide and under toe.
“I know you feel guilty,” came the cold, outside voice. “But there is no such thing as guilt. Only the fear of getting caught.”
Isabelle was back on the sand then, grinning as Jonathan knelt next to her and helped her pile wet sand into a mound.
“Come, Jonathan, let’s make the biggest sand castle ever. It will be bigger and better than all of the other’s on this beach. And we’ll have done it together. Alright?”
“It’s the day after, so the fear is still fresh.”
Isabelle looked up from the sand castle they were building and out over the mounds of sand. No one was on this beach, for it was a private beach and late in the day. They had the entire afternoon to themselves.
So they continued to play in the sand until the figure of a man came into view, walking towards Isabelle and her child building a sand castle.
“Look, Jonathan! There’s Brady. Let’s call him over.” She began yelling to the figure walking towards them.
Brady stopped and raised his arm, waving at the two of them.
“Jonathan, look. He sees us. He’s smiling. He’s waving to us, Jonathan! Let’s invite him to come and build sand castles with us.”
“It is natural for the mind to slowly come to a closure and begin to shut down. But tomorrow, you will wake up, and it’s going to be the same world. Nothing has changed.”
But before Isabelle could raise her voice to call Brady over, he turned and slowly began walking away. Isabelle could feel her stomach dropping.
“Brady? Brady, where are you going? Brady over here!” Isabelle began waving her arms frantically in the air, high over her head as if to get Brady’s attention. “He doesn’t see us, Jonathan. We must call louder. Brady!”
Brady disappeared.
When Isabelle looked at her side to see why Jonathan had not helped her call to him, she saw him running and forgot about Brady. Just like she had just forget about Jonathan only moments ago.
Jonathan was running. For the first time in his life, he was running.
And then she remembered.
“Jonathan! Jonathan, stay out of the water!” His fading figure continued to get closer and closer to the now roaring waves, the white angry foam of the water waiting only inches away from devouring her son.
And then he was gone. Disappeared. Just like Brady.
She was alone.
“Jonathan! Where have you gone? Oh it’s so dark out here… When did it get so dark? Jonathan, can you hear me? I can’t see! Oh my God, Jonathan, help me I can’t see!”
Isabelle collapsed on the sand of the beach, clawing at her skin with her nails as if she had a mad case of poison ivy. Her eyes began to roll back into her skull and she began shouting nonsense.
Paramedics arrived within only a few minutes when someone who lived on the house on the rocks complained about a girl lying on the beach, screaming phrases like “Same world…” “New man…” “Nothing has changed…” while tearing at her skin with her fingernails.
When they got Isabelle under control, they scoped the area to see if there were any cause for such insanity and they found nothing.
No body washed up to the shore.
No sand castles to prove her story.
It was as if Jonathan had never really existed.
“This infection, this… insanity of yours has somehow slipped beneath the notice of the world.” The psychiatrist noted as she circled above Isabelle who was drugged beyond belief. So much so, that she could do nothing but stare off in space and listen to the words that were floating around her, torturing her.
“I didn’t kill him,” she tried hard to say. But Isabelle didn’t know if the psychiatrist had heard her or not.
“And then, and only then, will you shed your cocoon and become something entirely new. This is your second chance.”
Flashes shot through Isabelle’s head like strobe lights. One second her child was there, right in front of her, laughing and clapping his small hands at the waves crashing on the beach. The next minute he and Isabelle were demolishing other sand castles; sun shining down on his blonde, baby hair. The next, he was running for the first time, out to the water. The farther he got, the more Isabelle’s smile grew.
Then there were other flashes… flashes of rip tide and under toe.
“I know you feel guilty,” came the cold, outside voice. “But there is no such thing as guilt. Only the fear of getting caught.”
Isabelle was back on the sand then, grinning as Jonathan knelt next to her and helped her pile wet sand into a mound.
“Come, Jonathan, let’s make the biggest sand castle ever. It will be bigger and better than all of the other’s on this beach. And we’ll have done it together. Alright?”
“It’s the day after, so the fear is still fresh.”
Isabelle looked up from the sand castle they were building and out over the mounds of sand. No one was on this beach, for it was a private beach and late in the day. They had the entire afternoon to themselves.
So they continued to play in the sand until the figure of a man came into view, walking towards Isabelle and her child building a sand castle.
“Look, Jonathan! There’s Brady. Let’s call him over.” She began yelling to the figure walking towards them.
Brady stopped and raised his arm, waving at the two of them.
“Jonathan, look. He sees us. He’s smiling. He’s waving to us, Jonathan! Let’s invite him to come and build sand castles with us.”
“It is natural for the mind to slowly come to a closure and begin to shut down. But tomorrow, you will wake up, and it’s going to be the same world. Nothing has changed.”
But before Isabelle could raise her voice to call Brady over, he turned and slowly began walking away. Isabelle could feel her stomach dropping.
“Brady? Brady, where are you going? Brady over here!” Isabelle began waving her arms frantically in the air, high over her head as if to get Brady’s attention. “He doesn’t see us, Jonathan. We must call louder. Brady!”
Brady disappeared.
When Isabelle looked at her side to see why Jonathan had not helped her call to him, she saw him running and forgot about Brady. Just like she had just forget about Jonathan only moments ago.
Jonathan was running. For the first time in his life, he was running.
And then she remembered.
“Jonathan! Jonathan, stay out of the water!” His fading figure continued to get closer and closer to the now roaring waves, the white angry foam of the water waiting only inches away from devouring her son.
And then he was gone. Disappeared. Just like Brady.
She was alone.
“Jonathan! Where have you gone? Oh it’s so dark out here… When did it get so dark? Jonathan, can you hear me? I can’t see! Oh my God, Jonathan, help me I can’t see!”
Isabelle collapsed on the sand of the beach, clawing at her skin with her nails as if she had a mad case of poison ivy. Her eyes began to roll back into her skull and she began shouting nonsense.
Paramedics arrived within only a few minutes when someone who lived on the house on the rocks complained about a girl lying on the beach, screaming phrases like “Same world…” “New man…” “Nothing has changed…” while tearing at her skin with her fingernails.
When they got Isabelle under control, they scoped the area to see if there were any cause for such insanity and they found nothing.
No body washed up to the shore.
No sand castles to prove her story.
It was as if Jonathan had never really existed.
“This infection, this… insanity of yours has somehow slipped beneath the notice of the world.” The psychiatrist noted as she circled above Isabelle who was drugged beyond belief. So much so, that she could do nothing but stare off in space and listen to the words that were floating around her, torturing her.
“I didn’t kill him,” she tried hard to say. But Isabelle didn’t know if the psychiatrist had heard her or not.
“And then, and only then, will you shed your cocoon and become something entirely new. This is your second chance.”
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