Book and Movie Reviews

(Updated with movie review at the bottom of the post.)

With Ender’s Game, which was published in 1985, Orson Scott Card was successfully able to make guesses as to what the future will hold, at least technologically. He described interactive desks (iPads), internet blogs, and holographic simulations. It was definitely fun to see that many of his predictions of the future have already come to pass.

While this novel was filled with quite a bit of action, it was mainly about relationships. I can’t even really argue that it is a coming-of-age novel because the kids in this novel are forced to act like adults. The relationships varied from brother-brother, brother-sister, parent-son, teacher-student, student-student, and enemy-enemy, to name a few. I like how the author used these relationships to explain and affect the actions and motivations of Ender. I found it intriguing that because the main characters were children that the adults in the novel were adept at using these relationships to manipulate the young boys and girls.

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The Whodunnit? book series is based on the television series of the same name.  The television series is an actual competition where 10 or so individuals are brought to a mansion in order to essentially be the last man standing.  One of the contestants is actually the killer, who in each episode kills off one of the contestants who had performed poorly in figuring out how the previous murder had been committed. The remaining contestants examine various parts of the mansion, solve riddles, and team up with other contestants in order to gain the most knowledge about how the murder went down.  They state their case to an empty room and the contestant who does the best job is recognized along with the two or three who do the worst job.  Eventually there are 3 contestants left and there is only one contestant remaining in the room with the killer. Also, important to note is that there is a butler, Giles, who speaks for the killer and relays his/her messages to the contestants explaining that he too is a “œprisoner’ at the mansion and must do the killer’s bidding or else.

My opinion on the television series is that it was definitely a fun and entertaining way to spend our weekends in the summer. When I saw the first episode, I told my husband that I had just seen one of the cheesiest murder mystery television shows.  The cheese and the humor was what kept us watching each week.  Chris had a pretty good idea who the killer was from the very beginning due research he had done on the Internet about the contestants and, to be honest, it didn’t really matter to me who the killer was.  I just liked watching each week to see what crazy, funny thing was going to happen or what silly thing was going to be said by one of the contestants.  We had some issues with the show: it was never explained how the killer snuck away from the group to commit the crimes or was able to do so undetected (and there were some blaring contradictions), the killer’s motive was never really explained, and it was not said how and why the butlers and maids came to be there and were being held captive by the killer.

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A Clockwork Orange is another case where I have seen the movie before reading the book.  My original impressions of the film were that watching the movie is like a strange but fascinating ride to travel. I didn’t really ponder much what the political implications are and I think the reason that I did not is because the story feels so far removed from reality.  Reading the novel did not change this attitude.

A Clockwork Orange is based in the not-so-distant future where supposedly the youth gangs have taken over and society is going downhill very fast.  The narrator is the so-called leader of one of these small gangs and the story follows his life.  In the story, Alex goes to jail after being betrayed by his fellow gang members and left unconscious at a crime scene where Alex “œinadvertently” kills a woman.  After being in jail for two years, Alex is chosen to be the guinea pig in a brainwashing treatment that causes him to be physically repulsed by all violence.  The remainder of the story follows Alex as he is released back into the “œreal world”.  In this real world, the newly brainwashed Alex cannot function successfully. In the end, due to circumstances that leave Alex badly harmed, the brainwashing is reversed and he is “œcured”.  The 21^st chapter shows Alex in another gang but we find that he has a change of heart as he realizes that he has grown up and outgrown the desire for violence.

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I’m not into zombie stories. I don’t watch movies or tv shows about them (although I’m told The Waking Dead is quite good) and I don’t usually read about them. Similarly to Twilight being as much of a romance novel as it is a book about vampires, I had heard that the movie, World War Z, was more of an action flick than a horror movie. I chose to read (listen to) the book because I had read that the audiobook was great and I wanted to see the movie if for no other reason that I find Brad Pitt to be a talented actor (please see my The Lucky One review for my definition of talent).  Well, guess what. I am still not that into zombie stories but I liked the book.

To start with, Brooks found a unique and captivating way to the deliver the story of what it might be like if there was a mass outbreak of zombism.  It was as if I was listening to an actual documentary about “œthe Zombie War” just like I might listen to or watch a documentary about World War 2.  There were survivors of all kinds that gave their accounts of what happened.  The characters varied from a housewife to an army colonel to a doctor to the Vice President of the United States.  Each chapter of the book was an interview with a different person and took place in a different part of the world spanning from China to Cuba to California.  Their stories touched on what happened at the beginning of the outbreak to the way media covered it to the way that total cities were taken over to the war that took place to fight them and the aftermath of that war.

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The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas is a novel by Irish author, John Boynea.  The story is about a 9-year-old German boy, Bruno, whose father becomes a very important man within the Nazi party.  The boy’s father is transferred to be in command of the Auschwitz concentration camp and takes his family with him.  Out of loneliness and curiosity, Bruno goes exploring and discovers a boy who is the same age as him on the other side of the fence.  The boys find that they have quite a bit in common and after talking for many weeks or months they become very close friends.

The novel highlights the fact that this 9-year-old boy is very sheltered and relatively ignorant to what is going on in the world around him.  All the boy knows is that he had to leave his best friends in Berlin to come to this horrible place where he has no friends except for this one boy who lives on the other side of the fence. While he has been told that Germans are superior over others, he really doesn’t know why he was told that or what implication that statement has on other people’s lives.

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It is what it is and what it is is Nicholas Sparks.  I certainly would not even argue that it is Sparks at his best.  All the same, I enjoyed the book.  I live in the south so I like books about the south.  I savor the occasional romance novel and in both of those categories Sparks delivers.  In the case of this book, I saw the movie first so my images of the characters were already fairly well established.

Aside from the romance, the story consists of what are some somewhat complicated characters and relationships.  There is the girl who hates her ex but knows she must get along with him.  There is the ex who is despicable but who without a doubt loves his son.  There is the son who tries to fit in but seems to have an old soul. There is the grandmother who tries not to be a burden while acting as a support system.  There is the “œdrifter” who happens upon this little southern town and for some mysterious reason decides to stay.  I guess a major complaint of the book is that the characters are supposed to be complicated but when they are spelled out like I have just done they don’t seem complicated at all.

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I have always loved the Peter Pan story.  I didn’t realize how much I loved it until I found myself watching those new Tinker Bell movies on Netflix with my son for the 47^th time and not wanting to gouge my eyes out. I began wondering more and more about the mythos behind Tinker Bell and decided that it was time for me to take a look at the original ideas thought up by James Barrie so many years ago.

The book Peter Pan, which interestingly enough was actually first written as a stage play in 1904 and then adapted and expanded into a novel in 1911, was originally given the title Peter and Wendy and over the years became retitled to what it is known as today.  I fell in love with Peter Pan’s story when I first saw as a little girl a VHS recording of the stage musical staring Mary Martin.  I have since then seen Kathy Rigby play Peter Pan and I practically have every minute of the musical memorized.

After reading the book, I have discovered that of all of the adaptations of the book that I have seen that the musical is bar far the closest to the original novel.  There are, however, some aspects to Disney’s 1953 animated movie version of Peter Pan that are not in the musical but are directly from the book and there are some aspects (few though they are) that are apparent in the movie Hook that are found in the novel.  For example, the rescue of Tiger Lilly is more accurately portrayed in the Disney movie than in the musical and complexities of Captain Hook are more clearly witnessed in the movie Hook than in the musical.  Also, it should be noted that Peter has a darker side, which has been portrayed more recently in the television series Once Upon A Time.

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