Author Archives: Arleigh

Song of the Day: Rivers and Roads (by The Head and The Heart)

Posted on by Arleigh

[spoilers]

One of my favorite show has ended this past Friday night. Those who have read my previous “Song of the Day” entry would know that the show I speak of is the spy-comedy series Chuck on NBC. This latest “Song of the Day” entry uses the song which plays during one of the most romantic and heartbreaking scenes to end the series. It’s an ending left ambiguous and allows for the viewer to decide if things work out for the best. The song is The Head and The Heart’s song, “Rivers and Roads”.

Some background info as to why this song has become a favorite of pretty much every Chuck fan. The two characters this plays for is the title character Chuck Bartowski who becomes a spy by accident in the beginning of the series. Sarah Walker (played by the lovely Yvonne Strahovski) is sent to become Chuck’s handler until he could get he spuer-secret Intersect spy database out of his brain or manages to use it well. Throughout the five season of the series these two characters have a “will they or won’t they” fall for each other. They finally do end up falling in love with each other midway through season 3 and even get married. Season 5 (which ended up being it’s last) had a major development in the last couple episodes where Sarah loses her memory of the five years she spent with Chuck and reverts back to pre-Chuck days. So, the wife Chuck married doesn’t remember their special moments together.

The series finale shows Chuck and Sarah back at the beach which ended the pilot episode with Chuck expressing his love once again to the woman he still loves even if she doesn’t remember those times. Throughout the episode we get glimpses that Sarah may be slowly remembering tidbits from their time together but not enough. This final scene has Chuck saying that his best friend in the show saying that one kiss from Chuck with Sarah will magically unlock those memories once again. It’s that final line uttered by Sarah and the two kissing with “Rivers and Roads” playing in the background and the show fading to back which made this episode so heartbreaking an, for many, hopeful that the magical kiss is successful.

I’d like to remember this scene as following the Disney magic that one kiss will unlock those memories. The song by The Head and The Heart is such a perfect accompaniment to this scene and as every fan of the show will probably do is go out and buy this album. This tv romance between Chuck and Sarah was one of the best ever on TV and I, for one, am glad I was able to witness it grow and develop through those 5 seasons on NBC.

Rivers and Roads

A year from now we’ll all be gone
All our friends will move away
And they’re goin’ to better places
But our friends will be gone away

Nothin’ is as it has been
And I miss your face like hell
And I guess it’s just as well
But I miss your face like hell

Been talkin’ ’bout the way things change
And my family lives in a different state
If you don’t know what to make of this
Then we will not relate
So if you don’t know what to make of this
Then we will not relate

Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you
Rivers and roads
Rivers and roads
Rivers till I reach you…

Review: Red Dawn (dir. by John Milius)

Posted on by Arleigh

“I don’t know. Two toughest kids on the block I guess. Sooner or later they’re going to fight.”

[guilty pleasure]

Anyone who grew up during the 1980′s would say that some of the best action films were made and release during this decade. I won’t disagree with them and probably would agree to a certain point. This was the decade when action films evolved from the realism of the 70′s to the excess and ultra-violence of the 80′s. This was the decade which ushered in such action heroes as Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis. It was also the decade which released one of the most violent films ever released by a major motion picture studio. It’s a film that has been remembered through the prism of nostalgia. I speak of the 1984 war film by John Milius simply titled Red Dawn.

John Milius is one of those filmmakers who never conformed to the stereotype of liberal Hollywood. He was an unabashed Republican (though he considers himself more of a Zen anarchist) in a liberal studio system who happened to have written some of the most revered films of the 1970′s (Jeremiah Johnson, Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry). He came up with a follow-up to his hugely successful Conan the Barbarian in the form of a war film set in current times (mid-80′s) America that he called Red Dawn. It was a story which takes an alternate history of the Cold War where Soviet forces and it’s allies launch a successful preemptive invasion of the United States. Before people think that this was the idea born of a conservative, warmongering mind it’s been documented that Milius’ inspiration for this film was a real Pentagon hypothetical exercise of what would happen if the Soviet Union conducted a conventional invasion of the United States and how the government and it’s population would react and resist such an occupying force. The  story would finally get it’s final treatment with major input from screenwrtier Kevin Reynolds’ own story which added a certain Lord of the Flies vibe to the group of teenagers who form the bulk of the film’s cast.

The film actually starts off with an impressive sequence of your typical Midwestern high school day with students seated in their classrooms. One moment this Rockwellian image gets a surprise from soldiers parachuting in the field outside the school. Thus we have the beginning of the Soviet invasion with one of the teachers being gunned down for trying to peacefully interact with the airborne troopers. The rest of the film is about a group of highschoolers led by senior Jed Eckert (Patrick Swayze) and his younger brother Matt (Charlie Sheen) as they flee with a handful of their classmates the massacre at their school and soon their whole town as well.

Red Dawn uses the first half of the film to show the confusion and chaos created by the sudden appearance of foreign soldiers on America soil attacking civilians and, soon enough, whatever American military response that manages to react in the area. We’re put in the shoes of Jed and his band of teenagers as they try to survive the roving bands of Soviet and Cuban soldiers patrolling the plains and countryside surrounding their hometown of Calumet, Colorado. We see American civilians packed into re-education camps and rumors of KGB secret police making certain troublemakers disappear and worst. It’s the America Cold War nightmare scenario where the Soviet Evil Empire has taken a foothold on US soil and the government and military nowhere in sight to help it’s population.

The second half of the film solves this scenario by arming the teenagers led by Jed into a sort of teen guerrila force using their school’s mascot as their rallying cry. It’s the shouts of “Wolverines!” which has become part of American pop-culture as we get to see these teenagers conduct hit-and-run strikes on enemy patrols and forward bases while at the same time arming those they free from camps. It’s during this part of the film where the violence gets ramped up to an almost ridiculous level. It’s no wonder that for almost two decades this film would be considered by Guinness World Records as the most violent film ever put on the big-screen. Milius and his filmmaking crew do not skimp on the use of blood squibs as Jed and his ragtag band of teen fighters gun down Soviets, Nicaraguans and Cuban soldiers by the score every minute during a long montage in the middle of the film.

Red Dawn in terms of storytelling is actually quite good in the grand scheme of the narrative being told, but even through the prism of nostalgia and rose-tinted glasses the characters in the film get the short-end of the stick. With the exception of Swayze’s eldest teen Jed as leader of the Wolverines the rest of the band’s teenage characters look like your typical casting call stereotypes who fill in the required roles in any ensemble cast. There’s Darren Dalton as the high school class president jealous of the group’s leader Jed, but unable to act on it. We have C. Thomas Howell as Robert the mousy one when the film begins who becomes a hardened and cold-hearted killer as the film goes on. Everyone fits in neatly to their assigned role and noen of the young actors (at the time) bring much to their characters.

This film continues to be remembered fondly by it’s fans both new and old because of the “what-if” scenario being played out on the screen. I would say that if there ever was a pure American film I would think Red Dawn manages to fit the bill. It’s a film which highlights the so-called individualism and can-do attitude Americans see for themselves. How it’s up to each individual to fight to protect their loved ones and for what is theirs. Some have called this film as a conservative’s wet-dream, but I rather think it’s a film that should appeal more to Libertarians as it focuses on individual liberties and self-preservation when the government and military tasked to protect them have failed.

John Milius has always been a maverick in Hollywood and his unpopular political beliefs have kept him from doing more work in the film industry, but one cannot deny the fact that he made one of the most iconic films of the 1980′s. Whether one agreed with the film’s politics and thought it to be a good film or not was irrelevent. Red Dawn has become part of American pop-culture and will continue to be a major example of the excess of 80′s action filmmaking for good or ill. Plus, even the most liberal people I know find the basic story of fighting to protect the nation from invaders something that feeds their innermost fantasy of playing the good guys fighting the good fight. Red Dawn is a great example of the underdog film that just happens to have teenagers kicking Soviet military ass.

Arleigh’s 13 Favorite Films of 2011

Posted on by Arleigh

2011 was a year that wasn’t spectacular by any stretch of the imagination. From January right up to December there were not many films which I would consider event films. This is surprising considering all the superhero blockbusters which arrived during the summer and the final film in the Harry Potter film franchise. Even the prestige films which came out during the holidays never truly captured everyone’s imagination (though one film was very close to achieving it due to one Michael Fassbender).

What 2011 did have was a solid slate of titles which ranged from the pulpy to the cerebral. We even got films which were able to combine the two to come up with something very special. Not every film resonated with everyone and some even split audiences down the extreme middle with half hating it and the other half loving it.

The list below catalogs the films which I consider my favorites of 2011. Some titles on this list I consider some of the best of 2011 while some didn’t make that particular list but were entertaining enough for me to make this favorite list. Once again, the list is not ranked from top to bottom, but only numbered to keep things organized….

  1. Shame (dir. by Steve McQueen) – This character-driven film starring Michael Fassbender and Cary Mulligan was one of those film which got close to becoming the one film everyone ended up talking about as the year wound down. It’s an exercise in minimalist filmmaking as Steve McQueen doesn’t allow too much dialogue to get in the way of telling the visual story of sex-addict Brandon and his downward spiral from addiction to self-hate. Much have been said of how much Fassbender’s penis in full display was a reason why people flocked to see this little existential film, but I rather thought that was probably just a bonus for some and instead it was Fassbender’s uncompromising performance in the role of Brandon which made Shame one of my favorites for 2011.
  2. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (dir. by Rupert Wyatt) – this film was one which didn’t garner too much high-anticipation from genre fans leading up to it’s release. People had been burned by Tim Burton’s reboot of the franchise and saw this second attempt to reboot the series as a failure in the making. So, it was to o everyone’s surprise that Rupert Wyatt’s film managed to not just bring new life to a stagnating franchise but do so in such a way that it became one of the best films of 2011. Sure, there was some flaws in how the human character were written, but in the end it was the performance-capture work by Andy Serkis and the digital wizardry of WETA Digital which made Rise of the Planet of the Apes not just a wonderful and fun film this past summer, but also one which laid the groundwork for more stories in what is a franchise reborn with fresh blood and life.
  3. I Saw the Devil (dir. by Kim Ji-woon) – this little revenge thriller from South Korea was one which I happened to catch just before it left the theaters this part spring. It had played in one of the few arthouse theaters in the Bay Area that hadn’t closed down. I was glad to have seen this film on the big screen instead of on Netflix Instant the way most have seen it. It’s a brutal cat-and-mouse story of a South Korean secret agent who stalks and hunts the serial killer (played by Oldboy‘s Choi Min-sik) who kidnapped and brutally murdered his fiancee. The film is not for the timid and weak of stomach as we see through the eyes of not just Agent Soo-hyun (played by Lee Byung-hun) but that of serial killer Kyung-chul the dark corners of South Korea where hunter has become prey and vice versa.  South Korea has always been good for one great film that I feel personally attached to and for 2011 it was this film.
  4. Cave of the Forgotten Dreams (dir. by Werner Herzog) – I don’t think I could ever make a year’s favorite list of any year that had a Herzog release and not have it as a favorite of mine for the year. It happens that Herzog had two films come out in 2011 and both of them excellent documentaries. It would be his earlier documentary for 2011 that became a favorite of mine. It also happened to be his first (and according to him the only time) foray into 3D-filmmaking. Herzog makes great use of 3D filmmaking’s added epth of field to make the cave paintings in the Chauvet Cave come to life. If this was going to be Herzog’s only film shot in 3D then he made one for the ages and it’s a travesty that those who vote for documentaries to be nominated for the Academy Awards failed to even list this film.
  5. Attack the Block (dir. by Joe Cornish) – this scifi-action film from the UK became the darling for genre fans everywhere. It had everything which bigger-budgeted films of the same stripe failed to accomplish. It was fun, thrilling and, most important of all, had characters which the audience would get to know and care for. John Boyega as the gang leader and, ultimately, the reluctant savior of the block which has become under siege by an alien force is just one of the highlights of the film which boasts one of the best screenplays of 2011. Joe Cornish joins the likes of Neill Blomkamp as a filmmaker whose first feature-length film hits on all cylinders.
  6. Captain America: The First Avenger (dir. by Joe Johnston) – this film was to be the last leg of the Marvel Films before 2012′s highly-anticipated The Avengers film. It introduced the film’s title character and his origins for those not familiar with the name Captain America. This film could easily have been a throwaway one. A film to set-up this year’s The Avengers. Instead what we got was one of the most fun blockbusters in the summer of 2011. Joe Johnston goes back to his Rocketeer days and creates an action film that’s full of genuine nostalgia but not burdened by it. Any doubts fans might have had of Chris Evans in the role as Captain America had them wiped clean with his pitch-perfect performance as the title character. The film also had one of the most romantic relationships on-screen in quite awhile with Evan’s Steve Rogers and Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter.
  7. Drive (dir. by Nicolas Winding Refn) – In my opinion, Refn’s existential take on the pulp genre with Drive is also one of the best films of 2011, if not the best of them all. Refn, with Ryan Gosling in the role of  the Driver, has created a film that mashes up so many different genres and does it so well that it’s hard to be sympathetic to those who felt they were misled by the fim’s trailer that it would be a nonstop action film similar to Fast Five. The film is not an action film, but a film which just happens to have some action in it. Action that comes sudden and brutal and none of the whiz-bangs other action films rely heavily on. It’s another film where Refn explores duality of the male persona. It helps Refn’s film that Gosling is so great as the Driver that the film never slows down too much before things revs up once more. The rest of the ensemble cast also does stand-out work with Albert Brooks as an aging, cynical Hollywood gangster leading the pack.
  8. Fast Five (dir. by Justin Lin) – Speaking of Fast Five…this was a film that surprised me in so many ways. It’s the fifth installment in a series that seemed to have evolved from being an action series whose main goal was to highlight the street-racing community and the ridiculous lengths people in it would go to in order to trick out their cars. This latest installment in the franchise has put the street-racing aspect of the series on the back burner and instead has remade the franchise into an action-heist series that just happens to have fast cars in it. This film was loud, fast and fun and despite some major leaps in logic in the storyline it never stopped being entertaining. It also brought back Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in an action film role that he had stopped doing these past five or so years.
  9. Hanna (dir. by Tom Hooper) – If someone had come to me and said that little Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Atonement) would turn out to be kickass action-hero directed by a British filmmaker not known for action films then I would dismiss such a thing as crazy talk. But crazy talk it wasn’t and all that came to pass with Tom Hopper’s excellent modern fairy tale in Hanna. Ronan as the title character was asuch a find in a role that didn’t just need for her to act like the little lost babe in the woods, but to also turn on a dime and kick ass with the best of action heroes past. It helped that everyone else around her were up to the task of supporting her performance whether it was Eric Bana in the role father (huntsman in fable lore) to Cate Blanchett as the cold-hearted CIA chief (evil queen) whose connection to Hanna drives the film’s narrative from beginning to end.
  10. Kung Fu Panda 2 (dir. by Jennifer Yuh Nelson) – in a year where Pixar had one of it’s rare misses (Cars 2 really was awful and such a blatant cash grab for the studio) it was there for the taking for top animated film of the year for everyone else to fight over. There was Rango and there was The Adventures of TinTin, but my favorite animated film of 2011 has to be Kung Fu Panda 2. It continues to adventures of the Dragon Warrior and panda kung master Po and his compatriots, the Furious Five. With the first film having done with him becoming the Dragon Warrior, this sequel was free to explore more aspects of Po’s life and personality such as his true origins and the tragic circumstances which led him to be adopted by his noddle-making goose of a father. The film is much darker than the previous one with it’s storyline exploring such themes as genocide and the destructive march of technology over nature’s harmony. It also had one of the best villains to come out in 2011 with Gary Oldman as the evil peacock, Lord Shen. Plus, it had scenes of Po as a baby Panda…A BABY PANDA.
  11. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (dir. by Tomas Alfredson) – a feature-length film remake of the BBC miniseries of the same name (adapted from a John LeCarre novel), this spy thriller/procedural was Tomas Alfredson’s follow-up to his coming-of-age vampire film, Let the Right One In. Once again he has taken a well-worn genre and infused it with his own unique style of storytelling which valued characters and how they all interacted with each other over action and thrilling sequences. With a cast that’s a who’s who of British cinema the film was able to condense many hours of the miniseries into just a couple and still not lose the complex and layered plot involving political intrigue and betrayal. This film also had one of the best performances by any male actor for 2011 with Gary Oldman in the role of George Smiley. With Fassbender being passed over and not nominated for Best Actor for the upcoming Academy Awards I would be very perturbed if anyone else other than Oldman took home the statue.
  12. Kill List (dir. by Ben Wheatley) – I’m not well-versed on the work by Ben Wheatley so I saw this film on the recommendation of many whose opinions I trust when it comes to genre films. To say that I was thoroughly surprised by just how well this filmed turned out would be an understatement. Kill List is one of those films which turns so many horror and thriller conventions right on its head, but do so to serve the film’s narrative instead of a filmmaker trying to show his/her audience just how clever they can be. The film moves at a gradual pace that leads to a surprising ending that has split audiences down the middle. Some have loved the ending and other have hated it. I, for one, thought the ending was the only way the film could end. This was a film that was able to balance the different aspects of what makes a thriller and what makes a horror film. The moment when the film transitions from the former to the latter was so seamless that it takes several viewings to find just where it occurred. The best horror film of 2011, bar none.
  13. 13 Assassins (dir. by Miike Takashi) – many will be saying that I’m cheating with this final entry since the film was released in 2010. I would agree with them, but then again this film wasn’t released in the US until early 2011 so in my own honest opinion it qualifies as a 2011 film. This latest from Japan’s eclectic and prolific filmmaker, Miike Takashi, is his own take on the Japanese jidaigeki and a remake of the 1963 film of the same name. If there was ever a best action film of 2011 then this film would be it. Miike would pull back from his more over-the-top visuals (though he still manages to insert some very disturbing imagery early on in the film) for a much more linear and traditional action filmmaking. It’s a men-on-a-mission film that pits the 13 assassins of the title against 200 or more bodyguards of a sadistic lord who must be killed for the sake of the country. The first 45 minutes or so of the film shows the film gathering the assassins and planning their ambush. It’s that final hour or so of the film with it’s nonstop action which qualified this film not just one of my favorite for 2011, but that year’s best action film. No other film could even get to it’s level.

Honorable Mentions: Warrior, Super 8, Batman: Year One, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights, Sucker Punch, A Dangerous Method, The Adventures of TinTin, The Skin I Live In, Bunraku, The Guard, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Hugo, Tyrannosaur, Thor, The Interrupters, X-Men: First Class, Contagion, Battle: Los Angeles, Project Nim

Song of the Day: Take On Me (by A-Ha)

Posted on by Arleigh

Tonight marked the end of one of my favorite TV shows. It was the little spy-comedy show that could. The show powered through the last three seasons of less and less episodes with the threat of cancellation always above. The show I’m talking about is Chuck and to say that my tv world is a little less awesome now that the series finally ended tonight with it’s 2-hour series finale would be an understatement.

This series finale also brought back to my attention a song from my youth that has always been a guilty pleasure that’s become used as a joke or cynically deconstructed by hipsters in this day and age. This series brought back A-Ha’s “Take On Me” as covered by the show’s resident disturbingly hilarious musical duo, Jeffster. Instead of using it as a joke or something for people to laugh at the show used the song in a way that fit the bittersweet feeling fans over the show’s final moments.

I will forever remember this song as one of the many awesome songs which became part of Chuck.

Take On Me

We’re talking away
I don’t know what
I’m to say I’ll say it anyway
Today’s another day to find you
Shying away
I’ll be coming for your love, OK?

Take on me, take me on
I’ll be gone
In a day or two

So needless to say
I’m odds and ends
But that’s me stumbling away
Slowly learning that life is OK.
Say after me
It’s no better to be safe than sorry

Take on me, take me on
I’ll be gone
In a day or two

Oh the things that you say
Is it life or
Just a play my worries away
You’re all the things I’ve got to
remember
You’re shying away
I’ll be coming for you anyway

Take on me, take me on
I’ll be gone
In a day or two

Scenes I Love: Oldboy

Posted on by Arleigh

The month of January has always been a slow one in regards to quality films being released in the theaters, but this weekend a good one comes out with Joe Carnahan’s latest, The Grey.  I plan to see this film over the weekend, but tonight I decided to pass the time and feel better from a bout of the flu by watching one of my favorite films of the past decade: Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy.

The latest “Scenes I Love” pick takes a scene from this classic film of revenge. It’s a scene where we have our film’s protagonist, Oh Dae-su, tracking down one of those responsible for keeping him locked up for 15-years without reason or cause. The scene starts off with some DIY dental work that still makes me cringe every time I see it. Once Oh Dae-su finishes with said dental work he has to get through a gauntlet of thugs and goons with just a claw hammer.

This scene is not just great because of how action-packed it was but how Park Chan-wook ended up shooting the whole scene. A fight scene begins which looks to be shot using just one long take and made to look like those classic side-scrolling action games like Double Dragon and the like. Whether the intention of how the scene was shot was to pay homage to such games or by accident doesn’t diminish the fact that the fight scene ended up becoming one of this film’s iconic sequences that continues to be talked about by new and old fans alike.

Scenes I Love: Tombstone

Posted on by Arleigh

Kurt Russell I consider one of the biggest badasses of Hollywood and his work in 1993′s Tombstone showed just how much a badass he was and still is.

This scene from that film was one of the best scenes in the entire film. It shows Russell channeling his inner-Wyatt Earp and bitchslapping Billy Bob Thornton (who probably deserves it both in and out of this film). I just love how his demeanor was so confident and how well he judged Thornton’s character as nothing but a blowhard and a bully. This scene even has some killer lines from Russell. How often have we wished we could do what he did in this scene to our own douchebag bosses at work. I know I have imagined it many times.

One cool thing about this scene is how it doesn’t end in the saloon, but continues outside with Val Kilmer just killing it as Doc Holliday. Love how Doc and the Earp’s just ignore Thornton’s Johnny Tyler and how he just stands there looking like the idiot he is. Good thing he said thank you in the end or he may have just gotten another bitchslap session from Wyatt.

Some people love this film. Some people don’t like this film, but I’d be hardpressed to find anyone who didn’t think this scene was the epitome of cool and badassery.

Review: Three Sisters Island Trilogy (by Nora Roberts)

Posted on by Arleigh

                                                           

[guilty pleasure]

My taste in entertainment tends to be on the darker, violent and existential side of things. Horror, action and sci-fi tend to perk up my attention when looking for something to read, watch and/or play. This particular guilty pleasure I came across by accident. I think most people’s guilty pleasure were discovered by accident or happenstance. I would be the first to admit that romance novels would be the last thing I would consider my type of entertainment. Not saying romance novels have no place, but it definitely doesn’t fill the criteria of what I like and listed above.

Ten or so years ago I would never have picked up these books, but I have since found them to be much to my liking. I’m still not sold on a majority of romance-themed novels, but I have been sold on the one’s written by that queen of the romance novels: Nora Roberts (and to a larger degree the one’s she writes under the pseudonym J.D Robb). The novels which sold me on her type of writing was her Three Sisters Island Trilogy.

1. Dance Upon the Air

Dance Upon the Air was a surprise find for me as a reader. My initial introduction to Nora Roberts’ writing was through a mystery-romance series of hers written by her under the pseudonym, J.D. Robb. Her In Death series had just the right balance of mystery, police procedural, humor and romance to make this male not feel all weird reading was really was a romance novel. On the prodding of a friend who is a voracious reader of all things Nora Roberts, I picked up Dance Upon the Air. From the moment I began to read the exciting introduction of the Three Sisters Island being born, I was hooked line and sinker on this book.

The Three Sisters Island is a small and quaint little island community off the coast of Massachusetts whose origins, legend has it, was due to a powerful spell weaved by three sister witches. Their spell ripped a portion of the Massachusetts coastline from the earth and floated off to just off the coast to form a sort of haven for their descendants. A haven from the puritanical witchhunts which have taken the lives of both real witches and those falsely accused as one. It’s through the later generations and their descendants that the story for this trilogy is played out through.

Dance Upon the Air deals with one of the descendants of the Three Sisters. The books tale concentrates on the trials and tribulations of one Nell Channing whose a direct descendant of the Sister whose powers were of the element of Air. A delicate woman whose life has been a living hell due to a very abusive and powerfully connected husband, Nell finally escapes her abusive relationship through guile and trickery, but as the story progresses its not long before the husband she left behind finds out the truth about his wife’s apparent “death”. Nell makes it to Three Sisters Island and upon setting foot on its soil feels as if she’s returned home. Whether by fate or providence, Nell soon meets two other women on the island whose destinies have been preordained to entwine with hers.

Dance Upon the Air sounds a bit like the Julia Roberts thriller Sleeping with the Enemy. The similarities are pretty close, but Roberts’ tale of magic, fate and self-reliance was the better of the two. Nell’s experiences as she learns to live and love again on Three Sisters Island has a sense of hope and self-reawakening which the Julia Roberts film lacked. This book shares some of the thriller aspect of the film, but doesn’t rely on it to weave a beautiful tale. Instead, Dance Upon the Air reads more like the journey of a damaged woman whose realization that the place she has now decided to call home and those friends and lovers she’s met will be the anchor in finally realizing the life she’s always thought she should have lived.

2. Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth marks the middle installment in Nora Roberts’ Three Sisters Island Trilogy. The first book in the series, Dance Upon the Air, started off the trilogy on a magical note with Ms. Roberts deftly combining romance, abit of the supernatural, and a nice thriller into an exciting tale of intertwined destinies and pasts, strong female characters, and passionate romance.

Heaven and Earth starts with the wedding and honeymoon of Nell Channing and Zack Todd (island town’s sheriff). This helps cement Nell’s full acceptance into the island town’s fabric. Her trials and tribulations which led her to Three Sisters Island and the test she had to pass to finally begin her life anew seem less of a coincidence and more fate and predestiny. Nell is very open to such a possibility and helps explain to her just why she felt so at home upon her arrival on the island. She thinks its the magic in her past and blood that she now has learned she has. Her new sister-in-law and fellow “sister witch” Ripley Todd thinks its all crapola and would rather not dwell on such things. Ripley Todd knows of the island’s magical history and her own role in it, but her fear and stubborn reluctance to accept her magical heritage makes up the meat of the novel.

Ripley’s attitude towards the magic that permeates the island and the two other women supposedly tied to her, Nell Channing and Mia Devlin (the resident island witch and seemingly its most desired woman on the island), run from tolerance to outright restrained hostility. Ripley’s willing to tolerate her new sister-in-law’s acceptance of her magical heritage. Mia Devlin on the other hand she avoids and ridicules in equal amount. Mia takes it all in stride but at the same time drops comments in an attempt to remind Ripley of her past and future. Ripley doesn’t like this at all and does all she can to avoid the fire-haired Mia. But soon a new factor drops into her life which would lead to her finally confronting her fear of her heritage and her role in what could be the survival of Three Sisters Island.

This factor comes in the guise of Dr. MacAllister Brooke. Mac, as he likes to be called, is a professor whose main call in life is the hunt of the so-called supernatural. His travels and research leads him to the island. He plans on researching the island and determining as to the veracity of the island’s supernatural past and origins. For some reason he and Ripley are set on a course to deal with each other. Mac sees Ripley as a challenge and an attraction forms. Ripley on the other hand sees Mac’s research and choice of profession as being something close to being worthless, but as they continue to stay in close proximity she too cannot deny the growing attraction between them.

As the story moves along, Ripley and Mac must contend not just with each other’s prickly and stubborn natures, but an outside force threatens to destroy the peaceful lives of the original Three Sisters’ descendants and the idyllic island home they and the other townspeople call home. Ripley will have to decide in the end whether to accept that which she has feared for so long, or close herself off from it forever and thus dooming her and everyone close to her. In the end, Ripley will not be alone in her own confrontation with the darkness looming over the Three Sisters Island, Mac, Nell, Mia, Zack and many others will be there to help and support her.

All in all, Heaven and Earth is a great continuation of the epic tale began with Dance Upon the Air. Ripley and Mac’s relationship is a source of both humor and heat. It’s amusing to see polar opposites, yet with so much in common personality-wise, fight tooth and nail not to give in to what is definitely two halves of the same coin finally finding each other.

3. Face the Fire

Face the Fire is the third and climactic installment to Nora Roberts’ entertaining and fun Three Sisters Island Trilogy. The first two books dealt with the first two “sisters” whose powers were tied with the elements of Air and Earth. In this third book, Mia Devlin, the third so-called sister of the title takes her power from the element of Fire. Like the element itself, Mia mirrors it in her stunning look, with her flowing fiery-red hair and even fiery demeanor. In the previous two books in the trilogy it was always Mia who guided and helped both Nell and Ripley to finding their true path in life and in finally accepting their magical heritage.

Face the Fire now has Mia becoming the center of all the magical happenings on the titular Three Sisters Island. The previous two books gradually gave its readers more and more information concerning the original Three Sisters and the prophecy/curse which befall them and which still hangs over their descendants and the island refuge their created. Nell and Ripley have done their part in trying to prevent the darkness about to descend on their island home, but its all up to Mia and her own intertwined destiny with a man who broke her heart many years past that must find a way to head off disaster and break the curse that has plagued their line through the generations. Will Mia succeed in breaking the chain of heartache which started with her ancestor? No matter what, Mia has her two “sisters” to help and assist her in her own trials.

Of the three books in the trilogy this one would lean heaviest on the supernatural aspect of the series. We learn even more of the back story of the Three Sisters Island which Mia has called home all her life and one she’s protected by herself against the evil her ancestors (also Nell’s and Ripley’s). Of all the three “sisters” who form the core of the trilogy it’s Mia who has fully embraced her heritage and her story also show’s that she is the most powerful of the three but no less damaged by a past relationship that she must acknowledge and repair if she, Nell and Ripley will succeed in preventing the age’s-old evil from returning to Three Sisters Island and finishing what it was preventing from doing so by the original three sisters.

In the end, Face the Fire is a worthy conclusion to what has been a magical trilogy. The novel continues where Dance Upon the Air and Heaven and Earth left off. It was nice to have Mia becoming the center of the story. In the previous two books she’s always been like the omnipresent powerful white witch who knew all. This time around we got to see her human side and know that she’s as damaged as her other sisters. Ms. Roberts did a great job with this trilogy and as great as the three books has been and why it continues to be a guilty pleasure of mine.

Trailer: Resident Evil: Retribution

Posted on by Arleigh

The Resident Evil film franchise seems to be the franchise that just keeps on going and going. Like the undead which forms the bulk of the danger to the characters in the film, this film series just won’t die. It’s success has both confounded critics and audiences alike. It’s turned Milla Jovovich into an action star whether we like it or not. It’s also a series that despite some major flaws continues because it makes it’s studios money.

We now have the first teaser trailer for the 5th film in the series, Resident Evil: Retribution, and just like the 4th film in the series it will be in 3D. It will also have several characters from past films who we saw die make appearances in the film. Whether they come back as themselves in the film’s present storyline or in flashbacks has yet to be determined. The trailer itself looks like a major advert for Sony smartphones, PS Vita and tablet products. In fact, I’d say that almost 40% of this teaser is all about pushing Sony products.

If that’s the case then this trailer does teach me one thing: Sony products will lead to a global zombie apocalypse. I think this event would never happen if people bought iPhones and iPads.

Resident Evil: Retribution is set for a September 14, 2012 release date.

Quickie Review: 2012 (dir. by Roland Emmerich)

Posted on by Arleigh

[guilty pleasure]

When one sees the name Roland Emmerich attached as the director to a film on any given year one almost has to audibly groan. He’s not on the level of Uwe Boll in terms of awful films, but he does give Michael Bay a run for the title of worst blockbuster filmmaker. It’s quite a shame to see Emmerich’s films one after the other get worse and worse. This was a filmmaker who showed some talent in the scifi-action genre with such cult classics as Universal Soldier and Stargate. He would reach his apex with the popcorn-friendly and thoroughly enjoyable Will Smith alien-invasion flick, Independence Day. Since reaching those lofty heights each successive film has been more groan-inducing and worse than the previous one. For a brief moment in 2009 this would change as he finally succeeded in destroying the world that he had only hinted at with previous films such as ID4, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow. The film 2012 was released in late-2009 and, while it was universally lambasted by critics and a large portion of the public, I thought it was his most fun film since ID4.

2012 literally has the world greet it’s apocalypse according to the Mayan Calendar in the year 2012. The first forty or so minutes has Emmerich explaining the details of how the world will end in 2012 either through the film’s lead scientist (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) or through a conspiracy-theorist played with manic glee by Woody Harrelson. The bulk of this film is almost like disaster porn for film lovers who are into disaster flicks. We have earthquakes which sends the whole California coast sliding into the Pacific. Supervolcanoes erupting in what is the Yellowstone National Forest right up to mega-tsunamis that dwarf the highest mountain ranges.

The cast might be called an all-star one, but I rather think it’s more a B-list with such names as John Cusack playing a goofy everyman who must save his ex-wife and two young children right up to Danny Glover playing the lame duck of lame duck presidents (I guess Morgan Freeman was unavailable or already done with disaster films after doing Deep Impact). The performance by this cast ranged from alright to laughable, but even with the latter the sense of fun never wavered. This was a flick about the world ending and Emmerich delivered everything promised.

It’s the scenes of world devastation which made this film so enjoyable for me and has become one of my latest guilty pleasures. No matter how bad the dialogue got or how wooden some of the acting came off the sense of wonder from Emmerich destroying the world on the big-screen and on my TV made this film fun to watch. Maybe those who hated it or thought it was trash were aiming to high. I will admit that the film is trash, but in a good way that past enjoyable disaster flicks of the 70′s were fun. It took the premise serious enough, but the filmmakers involved didn’t skimp on over-the-top destruction. I mean this film’s premise means we get to see in high-definition billions of people die as the planet decides to suddenly switch things around to get a better feng shui vibe to the planet.

Scenes such as the mega-tsunamis topping over the Himalayan mountain range was awesome. But even that scene couldn’t top the super-quake which destroys Los Angeles around Cusack’s character who tries to outdrive the quake and the resulting chasms which appear to chase his limo with is family inside. Seeing Los Angeles and the bedrock it’s on upheave and slide into the Pacific was one of the best disaster porn sequences I’ve ever seen and I don’t see anything topping it in the near future.

2012 as a Roland Emmerich production already has a black mark on it because of his reputation as a filmmaker, but for once he actually made a film that was able to surpass all the glaring flaws from it’s one-note, stereotypical characters to it’s wooden dialogue. He did this by making a film with disaster scenes of such epic spectacle that one had no choice but to just sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s a bad film, but it sure was a fun ride. This is why I decided on a fan-made trailer which best exemplifies this film and not the one made by the studio.

I eagerly await the sequel I fully expect from Hollywood: 2013: Disaster Strikes Back.

AMV of the Day: Fullmetal’s Back

Posted on by Arleigh

Ok, I never thought I’d say this but it looks like Backstreet Boys has finally been part of something that’s been fun to watch and quite enjoyable. It’s this very one thing which is the latest entry in our recurring blog feature: “AMV of the Day”.

The video makes a play on the Backstreet Boys’ party song title, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”, by taking out the band’s name and putting in Fullmetal. Yes, this is an anime music video where creator Rider4ZMusicVideos has combined the very popular shonen anime series, Fullmetal Alchemist, with the aforementioned Backstreet Boys song. To say that it was a surprise to see the two work well hand-in-hand would be an understatement.

Rider really plays up some of the comedy in the series with scenes chosen, but also does a great job of picking particular scenes to help lip-synch the lyrics of the song. Once again, I was thoroughly surprised just how enjoyable this video was and for the first time in my life I actually enjoyed listening to a Backstreet Boys song.

Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Song: “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by Backstreet Boys

Creator: Rider4ZMusicVideos