Tamora Pierce's "Mastiff" --Book Review (SPOILERS)

I have always loved Tamora Pierce's books. I remember reading them since I was in 7th grade and one of my friends came in with it and was giggling and sort of scandalized that anyone would write about periods in a book meant for pre-teens and teens. But I started reading Alanna and was hooked ever since.

I've kept up with reading Pierce's books even as I grew older. There's something about them that goes deeper than the demographic they are geared towards. I love the gritty realism that she places in all of her "fantasy" books. They talk about mud and guts, all matter of vomit and piss and dung, the unfortunate reality of periods and puberty, hormones, you name it. Something that other books don't really go into for probably good reason. It takes away the "glamour" of the book. But for someone who knows that the medieval ages weren't all kings and queens, funny hats, gleaming jewels and sharp swords but a place where there was filth everywhere and disease running rampant in the city streets, Pierce's books (all placed in another world but during a period much like our Medieval Era) bring a startling amount of truth to the conditions of how humans lived back then. Now, her characters have the added comfort of magic to help ease their tough lives but she's careful to keep the setting as practical as possible.

She also writes all about women power and I love love love her for that. These are the books that little girls should be reading. They inspire strength and power in women, that girls can do anything no matter how much men may try to put us down, that we are worth something, not meant to be just stuck in the kitchen "barefoot and pregnant" but can do something worthwhile with out lives. I have to say I get some of my "women power" streak from her books. Her heroines are all people to look up to, overcoming adversity and society's norms with determination, perseverance and a steel will to do what is right, to not stand down for the sake of their fellow women and men. All lessons that should be learned by women today really. That we are not second class citizens, that we should not let our bodies be exploited, that we need to fight for our equality and change men's thinking of what a woman is or what women should be. We are strong. Not the lessons from books like Twilight where the woman is there to be helpless and the damsel-in-distress. Where she is only meant to be the girlfriend or wife of a "powerful" man.

Tamora Pierce's Beka Cooper series is about a Provost's Guard named Beka Cooper. The Provost's Guards are like the cops of the bigger cities. They are nicknamed "Dogs" because well I don't know why. Throughout the series, the audience gets to watch Beka grow up from trainee to full-fledged Guard. In Mastiff she is a fourth year Dog and on her biggest "Hunt" yet. The King's son gets kidnapped and made to be a slave. There's all sorts of politics involved like the fact that the King is trying to wage a bigger tax on the nobles and mages of the land so they kidnapped the Prince to gain leverage on the King before plotting to kill the King, Queen and Prince and put the King's brother on the throne, someone who can be more easily controlled.

It's an engaging book and I couldn't put it down. She weaves the fantastical and the hyper-real together in a such a way that the magic almost seems real. The characters are inventive and amazing. There are a lot of them though, and hard to keep track of. I felt the pace dragged a bit because a lot of it is truly a hunt, where they're on the road a lot, camping and searching for the missing Prince. Because it is written from Beka's perspective, a lot of the book is Beka's thoughts or observations which can get bogged down in directions of where they are or what her deeper emotions may be. There was a bit less action this time around. I thought the traitor plot was the most interesting. Once there was even a hint that there might be a traitor, the whole time you're trying to guess who it is. The end was a shock to me. I had a feeling Tunstall might die from a bit of foreshadowing in the beginning but I didn't think he was going to be the traitor. That was the only part that upset me the most because two books are spent with him being a great person and in this one he turns out to be one of the bad guys. I felt that it went against his personality actually and when he dies I was feeling extremely upset. I didn't think he had it in him to be a childkiller or a traitor to the Kingdom. He ends up dying and everyone doesn't feel that bad. Beka spends a few paragraphs grieving for him and then that's it while I'm still reeling from the shock. At the end no seems to feel bad for him at all. He was Beka's partner and he's just forgotten, just like that. It seriously felt like he was out of character for the end of the book. But what I like about Pierce is that she does add things like that, that people are not as good as everyone thinks or not as bad especially in the subsequent novels that she has been publishing. Everyone has a bit of both in them and she's right to try to make as complex a character as she can. It's upsetting but I'm sure Benedict Arnold was a great guy before he decided to become a traitor.

That doesn't mean I don't still feel really upset. I shouldn't be this upset about a fictional character but I do get attached to them. And none of her other books in this series had meaningless deaths of people that I cared about so I guess it was due. But she has a tendency of killing off people that I've grown attached to. In Alanna, Faithful dies or er returns to his rightful place and I was extremely sad about that, as well as her brother Tom, Master Si-Cham and Liam. In Daine's books, she killed off Rikash. In Kel's books, who didn't she kill off...? There was a high death toll in those books and each one was meant to be like a stab to your heart.

And the end was a bit rushed. It was unfortunate that she didn't expand the ending just a bit to Beka and Farmer's wedding. I did like her subtle building of their relationship though. It wasn't too all off a sudden that they loved each other and there wasn't the overdone underlying sexual tension that's been prevalent in a lot of fiction lately. It was more gradually built like how most relationships are and then there was a revelation about the other person that is more in line with how a lot of relationships are today.

All in all, I would recommend this book for all Tamora Pierce lovers. It was a solid addition and ending to the series but I wouldn't consider it her strongest work. It was a bit too convoluted in description and plot with too many threads of story trying to come together in one cohesive book which I don't think worked as well.

I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Blonde vs. Blonde

Two of my favorite shows have added new characters to their line ups. Morgan Brody, a plucky young CSI from LA joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab and a Lori Westin, the leggy NSA (?) Agent who joins the Five-0 team. Both are obviously additions to up the male viewership of their respective shows but both are used in different ways. Well, different way really. One is a full fledged character and the other one is only placed in the show to be a potential love interest for a main character and to attrach more male eyes.

Morgan Brody, the CSI audiences met last season in LA, is the estranged daughter of Ecklie, the sometimes misguided leader of the LV Crime Lab. She's plucky (There's that word again), feisty and altogether up for anything. She's a charming addition to the team. A little annoying sometimes, like in the recent episode where she was dumb enough to say she'll place the altogether very injured and very crazy victim into custody on her phone right in front of the guy who was regaining full consciousness and letting his hand fall near her gun. Now I know she probably didn't think he was going to go full Rambo on her but that doesn't mean she shouldn't have been on her guard at all times. Really, it was partly her fault that everyone ended up dying. But that doesn't mean it wasn't acted well. Elisabeth Hanois gives her character a cheerfulness and a gung-ho attitude that makes her not...painful to watch. And her whole character arc with a bit of flirting with Nick and a bit of competition (her side) and flirting (his side) with Greg gives the show a little bit more of a personal touch in a show that is notoriously known for keeping characters' private lives under wraps until the very last moment (CoughSaraGrissomCOUGH). The character centric episode was alright, seemed a little forced at trying to get the audience to like her (practically begging for the audience to like her, please like her) but overall well acted and just a little heartbreaking. Especially at the end when Morgan loses it because of her stressful day. She walks away from everyone, keeping up a strong facade until far enough away to let her emotions catch up. You gotta respect that.

Lori Westin on the other hand is a mystery. A one-note mystery. She's introduced as a blonde-haired object of flirtation for the strong-armed macho man that is Steve McGarrett. She's in a nice blouse and pencil skirt for her meeting with the acting Governor and she looks like she would break in half let alone be able to hold a gun. The Governor assigns her to the team and McGarrett puts up a hissy fit and so on and so forth until she's working in the same blouse and pencil skirt and one wonders if she just didn't have enough time to change or if that's just how she's gonna be for the rest of the season. Running after a suspect in heels is even worse and then one sighs because it seem like it will be. But the place where the writers' ask us to suspend the most disbelief is when she disarms the man that has a shotgun on her. Really? Really? She's half the size of that guy and you're telling me that her arm strength is enough to disarm him. Sometimes I feel like that with Kono too, where the suspension of disbelief is just too much. I can understand if she kicked the guy, women's legs are usually stronger but with her arms? No way unless she's got some Kung Fu moves that I don't know about. Unless her arms are the size of my cousins and she can bench press more than a hundred pounds will I believe it. Or maybe she just has wiry muscles? (More like...no muscles....) When will TV shows pick actual actors that look like they can do what they do on camera? Not just stunt work but someone who actually looks like they can punch you out? Why does she have to be so stick thin? The actress in Captain America said in an interview that she tried to look like she could actually pick up a gun and shoot it, that she wanted to have the physique of someone who could throw a punch and the bad guy would stay down. That's the kind of body type these women need to have to make it believable.

And so the episodes go on and she's believe it or not really hard to pin down. As an audience member, you're not quite sure if you even like her. She's not very friendly or cheerful, not charming, doesn't have an interesting backstory like Jenna, not an overeager rookie or a witty drawling veteran. And then the ahah moment comes when one realizes, she's just there to look pretty. There's no need for the writers' to be consistent with her because she can be whatever they need her to be. It's not a complexity of character, it's more like a lack of character. They don't know what to do with her. She's stoic and distant in one episode, witty and smirking in another, and then, the most out of character, gossipy and flustered. Just because she's a woman doesn't mean she shouldn't be given something more substantial. I don't know what angers me more, the fact that she's just placed as eye candy or the fact that she's not a minority.

Which brings me to another point. Why are both these new characters blond and white? Can't people from other ethnic backgrounds be love interests too? I guess the majority of people are white, oh wait...it's not the FREAKING 18TH CENTURY. America's got a lot more diverse if anyone hasn't noticed. How come the other ethnic groups aren't really being shown in TV land? Most title characters are white. Most more ethnic characters are relegated to the asian mob, the hokey sidekick, the real sidekick or just second best. The only mainstream movies I know where the main characters are not pale white is the Harold and Kumar series. Is it really that hard to get other races as main characters? Yes, yes it is.

Take John Cho for instance. He's a great actor, diverse, versitile, funny, dramatic, he's been around since '97 with 67 titles to his name and yet only recently has he been in the spotlight. Now, people might say things like, oh but that's just the business, a lot of actors have that if not more. And that's true, it partly is the business of being an actor but he's had to be "Parking Valet" or the "Sales House Man #1" in more mainstream stuff. Or be in comedies where he might get an actual name or in some indie movie about a specific culture where he'll actually get a name. Even now being the more household name he is for Star Trek and FlashForward, he's still not getting more title parts. Which again, might just be the business but compare his acting chops to Channing Tatum and I'll ask again, which is more fair? (GI Joe was a horrible movie and no one can convince me otherwise.)

Now one could say, Sandra Oh made it. She's been in more substantial movies than American Pie and Harold and Kumar and she's in a hit TV Show. Which is true, but that's only one out of, what, more than 2 billion Asians (and that's just counting India and China's populations) in the whole world? Sort of a sad statistic I would think.

We need to do something about it. And I think people are. Websites like youtube and tumblr make it easy for budding filmmakers to post videos and gain popularity. Wong Fu Productions comes immediately into mind. People from all ethnic backgrounds (even "white" people), joined together to express their outrage at the casting announcements for The Last Airbender. Hopefully we can get to the point where anyone, no matter what color their skin, or what race they're from or their ethnic background, will be able to be as popular as the next person based on what really matters, talent.

It's nice to see Asian people in the spotlight for once. Hopefully it'll keep going.

Blast from the Past: Star Trek Review

If you don't want to know what happens in the Star Trek Movie stop reading NOW. Because this thing is gonna be filled with Spoilers. Actually...I might not have that much to say other than it's AWESOME and everyone should watch it.

Chris Pine as Kirk is FANTASTIC...he has the cockiness and the bravado and the gut instinct that is totally Kirk. He's less womanizing than Shatner's Kirk I think mostly because there weren't really any women in the movie other than Uhura. He also brings a sort of vulnerability, an intelligence, a sense of nobility and a sweetness that Shatner didn't really have. I think it's his sweetness that is really different. He has this young sense of being cocky but not annoyingly so. He's not annoying...which is odd. Not one time in the film did I think he was annoying as a womanizing jerk or as a cocky cadet or anything. I was on his side for the whole time, rooting him on, feeling his pain. He was very likable, that's the word. And boy does he feel pain in this film. He's always beaten up, the only reason he's still alive is because he can take it more than everyone else can. I mean he gets beaten up...like 5 times in one day, I should count next time.

Zachary Quinto as Spock was...OMFG NINJATASTIC....that's not even a word, well we'll make it word now. Seriously...seriously...he held his OWN in scenes with Leonard Nemoy playing Spock. And like the sexiness factor!! It should be impossible to make a Vulcan sexy but he managed it! I mean even with the bowl haircut and the pointy ears...he is DAMN sexy. And I love his fight for control...and being the good guy this time. We only ever see Zachary Quinto as the bad guy in Heroes and now he gets to play the good one. And when he was standing up to that Vulcan Council!! Omgggg he was just so perfectly subtly insulting...and when he said "Live long and prosper," giving just the hint of inflection on the words, it made me have shivers. And when he fights for control...it was heartbreaking. Gah...

Simon Pegg as Scotty only came in the second half of the movie but he was still GREAT! He had greattt linessssssss omgggg and he was so perfectly enthusiastic about everything. And I liked his Scottish accent even though it wasn't perfect, it wasn't like...a BAD Scottish accent.

John Cho as Sulu finally got to be MANLY...GOOO FOR MANLY ASIAN GUYS FINALLY, he pulled out this collapsable sword which sounds kinda hokey and it was kinda cuz it was like he just pulled it out of nowhere but he could FIGHT with it like NOBODY'S BUSINESS. And how cute he was when he couldn't get the Starship to move. Haha...He also got to be more serious...instead of the more college humor comedies he was making.

Karl Urban as Bones...WAS....OMG SO DIFFERENT BUT STILL GOOD. I mean he played Eomer in Lord of the Rings and then he played a lot of like darker action roles but this time he got to be FUNNY and he was funny!!! I mean the sequence where he gets Kirk on the ship by injecting him with this like almost toxic vaccine is one of the FUNNIEST SEQUENCES IN THE WHOLE MOVIE...HAHAHAHAHA. Omggg..I laughed so hard. And I like how he has this sort of dead panned humor.

Anton Yelchin as Chekov is sooooo cute!! His little Russian Accent and not being able to say V...he always says it as a W. So Vulcan is Wulcan and invisible is inwisible. Awww he's so cute. And everytime he said something I burst out laughing because he was SOO cute!! I don't know why they put him on Com though...hardly anyone can understand him. Haha.

Uhura kicks ASS. Omg she's so STRONG...and she can totally take care of herself. When she finds out she's not on USS Enterprise and tells Spock with this attitude and TELLS him that she's on the Enterprise he's like...Ooohhh well lookie here...must have gotten it wrong somehow...heh...yes, you're on the Enterprise and she's like "I thought so, bitch." haha...well okay not so much like that...but LIKE THAT....and yeah.

Things that surprised me or I didn't like: The skirts on the uniforms of the girl cadets in Star Fleet...like...SHORT MUCH?? Seriously?? Even in the military today the skirts are WAYY longer...they're like MINISKIRTS on the girls...and anyone who's a girl would know, we can't run in miniskirts!! How in the HECK are we supposed to do jobs in miniskirts?? At least make it longer...or let us freaking wear pants!...Class A's for women in the military have skirts wayy longer, I mean it's not about looking at the legs of the female it's about uniformity...geez Louise. Another thing that threw me for a loop was Spock and Uhura's relationship...it kinda all of a sudden was there. And I didn't see it coming...and I thought it was awkward at first but it kinda grew on me. I mean when she comforts him in the Elevator...that was a good sequence but...I don't know...all of a sudden it was there but before it wasn't...sooo it was weird. Maybe we'll see it evolve more. I kinda thought Uhura was gonna be with Kirk though. I felt like Spock and Uhura didn't really match that much...at all, personality wise...maybe that's why I thought it was weird. Uhura's feisty, I thought she would be with Kirk. Spock is kinda androgynous that way...haha...it's hard to imagine him with anyone even though he's sexy in this movie. Another HUGE plot point was the longggg thin line that holds the drill up...seriously...the Romulans couldn't think of a better way to secure it?? I mean didn't they think someone could just cut the line with some lasers and then bye bye drill?? I mean that's what Spock did and that was it!! It was kinda anti-climactic. I mean they should have known that someone would do that...and it was only ONE line. I mean they could have secured it with more or something.

Moments that made me laugh: Nearly the whole movie but to narrow it down, Scotty saying "I'm giving it all she's got Captain," and "She canna take anymore!" [I may have made that last line up...because I thought it was in the movie and it might not be...haha] And when Bones goes, "I'm a doctor, not a physicist." And any line by Chekov...that boy is so cute, "I CAN DO IT, I CAN DO IT..." haha Any line by Scotty actually. I love Simon Pegg as Scotty.

I loved the whole first sequence, it was so good.

AND THERE IS GONNA BE A SEQUEL...I KNEW IT. Because of the way they made this movie, they don't have to follow canon at all because it's an alternate universe, so of COURSE there's gonna be a sequel because now the writers can do whatever they want, and make up whatever they want and no one can be like OH NO THAT'S NOT CANON because it doesn't have to be now.

JJ ABRAMS...I want to take off my hat to you. You have made a Star Trek that Trekkies can be proud of. Seriously, this is what the Star Trek franchise has culminated in. I mean I saw the potential it had to be REALLY good, to be Star Wars level good, to surpass Star Wars, in effects, acting, set design, script and story, and overall feel but everyone had kept making Star Trek that hokey, corny, never-want-to-be-seen-with second cousin of the more polished Star Wars. The premise was there, it had everything but it just needed that push to be EPIC. Now Trekkies everywhere can take pride in the fact that their beloved story/premise/world has been taken care of and one upped Star Wars. Seriously...the sleek lines, the epic feel all are attributed to you JJ Abrams. It is truly an epic piece of SciFi. Thank you, man, thank you.

I love how old SciFi shows are getting an upgrade to something sleeker, or more grittier, or more realistic. I LOVE THAT...Battlestar Galactica, now Star Trek, and old shows as well. Batman, Transformers, Bond. GAH! Makes me soo happy.

Blast from the Past: Harry Potter 6 Review

Saw Harry Potter 6.

It was okay. I mean better than some other of the Harry Potter films and stuck pretty close to the book but it wasn't THAT great. It was like every other Harry Potter, mediocre. Just the story making it something more than just ordinary.

On the good side:

Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy was pretty good. I mean he brought a sort of humanity to the character I guess. Although there were some shots where he was very good looking...and I liked his suit....but other shots where he wasn't good looking at all.

Oliver and James Phelps as the Weasley Twins were GREAT! I know have a thing for the Weasley Twins. I mean seriously. It's kinda like that for every Harry Potter fan who likes boys. First they like Harry and then move on to Secondary characters and then maybe back to Harry and then back to a secondary character again. I liked their shop. It was like a dream....for all mischief makers.

Alan Rickman as Snape was wonderful as usual. I like his sort of low-key approach to Snape. Not the sort of seething, frothing at the mouth madman that other people seem to think of him as.

Dumblerdore's death was done with great clarity and emotion. When Snape all of a sudden said Avada Kedavra I nearly cried right then and there. The look in his eyes was perfect. I almost did cry when Dumbledore died. I wish they would have put in Dumbledore's funeral though with the white tomb.

The fumbles at love were really funny and rightly so. But I feel as if they didn't really expand on it. Like Ginny and Harry. He was supposed to kiss her after a Quidditch match in front of everyone and he didn't. I feel as if they cheated us out of a moment. Blegh.

Cormac McClaggen was perfect. Whoever he was.

Hermione's hair in the potions scene...it should be that fluffy all the time!

LUNA'S LION HEADDRESS THING IS GENIUS.

Kinda fishy about Snape and Draco....especially when he pushes him against the wall. I foresee many slash fics popping up in the future.

And Harry being kinda....loopy after drinking the Felix Felicis....

Bad things:

There was one moment when Harry looked like Michael Jackson. NO JOKE. I mean his face was really really pale and he looked like he had eyeliner on and his lips were really red.

Bonnie Wright as Ginny was eh...it was like Ginny had no personality. Everything was said as a monotone. And the director seemed to put her in at the most randomest of times.

They didn't really expand on the Half Blood Prince even though that's what the movie is named. They could have just named it Harry Potter and Dumbledore's Quest for all I cared and that would have been a more truthful title.

They didn't put much of the meat of the book in it....other than Dumbledore's Quest.

Harry mouthbreathed wayyy too much. I don't know...do I even like Daniel Radcliffe anymore?? The world might never know.

Bellatrix's kiss on Draco's neck...bleghhh....incest.

All in all it was an okay movie. I still love Harry Potter and I love the fact that the stories were put in visual form but the books are still better.

As usual.

Rant: Vampires

Vampires are jokes now in the fictional world. What used to inspire fear and loathing in the minds of men have now become soft, pretty, love inducing (or vomit inducing) figures of "marble" that every fan girl from here to Timbuktu have their hearts set on. What has happened to these Nosferatu? Once one of the most feared monsters of our time, fictional or not (They are fiction, other people don't think so, I think those people are crazy but so goes the world) have become a laughing stock...or something to be lusted after.

I must say it started with Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire. Casting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as whoever they were made vampires one step closer to Edward Cullen. (Although I don't think many people took the movie that seriously as I'm pretty sure it wasn't that popular? People back then had their brains still. Interview with a Vampire is very close to Twilight in the prettiness factor and people rejected it then which only means the generations have gotten dumber, but I digress.)

In the beginning, when Vampires were first put on celluloid, Dracula was bald, ugly, old, and hunchbacked. No woman in their right mind wanted to become on of those. Or get bitten by one of those. He looked like a bat, all pointy ears and teeth. Dracula the book is written like a horror story, not a romantic one. It's supposed to be gruesome. Dracula was based on a Count that used to, according to legend, impale his victims and stake them outside to the horror of his enemies. Edward Cullen is obviously not Dracula, being neither bloody nor insane and altogether too human, no matter how many times Stephenie Meyer tries to prove otherwise with her descriptions of his pale skin, amber eyes and marble-Adonis-perfectly sculpted body.

Unfortunately, vampires are back in style with a protagonist that is NOT a villain like he's supposed to be. True Blood, the Twilight series and countless of other Young Adult books about vampires (MY GOD, WILL IT STOP? Seriously, when I go to the bookstore it's like every other book is about Vampires? Can no one think of anything better to write about?) and seemingly NEW movies about vampires as well! Soon Dracula himself will have sparkly skin and an affinity for animal blood.

Contrary to what I've been writing, I'm not a huge fan of the Vampire genre, I just seem to know a lot about it. I've never read Anne Rice's books, nor Bram Stoker's Dracula, nor most of the Young Adult books. I've never seen the Old Dracula movie or Interview with a Vampire. But from the little I've gleaned off the internet, pictures, and clips, the history I know of Vlad the Impaler, the vampire is not something to be admired but something to be feared! I know the whole tragic hero is appealing but it's a MONSTER not a HUMAN. No matter how much you spin it, that person is not a person anymore, it's DEAD. It might as well be a zombie! But you don't see fangirls for Zombies do you? Rotting flesh and an appetite for brainzzz would put anyone off, but it's alright if the dead person has flesh like "cold marble" and appetite for blood? I don't get you human nature!

But on a hypocritical note, I think Johnny Depp would make a very good vampire.

Backstreet's Back...alright?

So, for my third post, I decided to talk about something that I have liked that I am most in the closet about.

The Backstreet Boys.

Oh, don't give me that look. You've liked them too, one time or another, especially if you're my age or older. It was either them or N'Sync.

Was it something about the way they smoldered at the camera? The 90's dance moves? The cheesy outfits? The haircuts that were supposed to fit their differing "personalities"? Or maybe a combination of all that made boybands some of the most beloved music groups of all time? I mean even The Beatles could be considered a boyband...back in the day. The love of all-boy groups hasn't exactly been inspired all of sudden in the 90's, that sort of love has evolved over the decades. And even today, the Jonas Brothers were big for a while, and even good ol' BSB and NKOTB (or New Kids on the Block for anyone who doesn't know--or has been living under a rock) have been on a reunion tour to sold out audiences, so the love that I know I have for the Backstreet Boys hasn't exactly gone away for anyone else either.

But while I love the Backstreet Boys and I have to admit, a lot of their music videos...if not all of them, are very very cheesy. They can't help it, it's the boy band thing. But I stumbled upon the first version of "I'll Never Break Your Heart" and it's set in a Ski Resort. Seriously...a ski resort? Watch it.

Now, tell me that isn't totally random. Okay, I'm gonna break it down for you:

+The intro: who doesn't love some deep-voiced guy spouting off all the things that they think girls want to hear? It's not just the fact that it's kind of creepy, all I can think of is that Marvin Gaye song, "Let's Get It On." I don't know why.

+Location: They really put it in a ski resort...why? What's with the puffy jackets and goggle for no reason? It's not like it's for sex appeal, the guys are totally covered up! And the girls too so that's good. Maybe it's for the next point...

+One of the guys, Brian, draws a heart in the snow...dude, I knew you were a goofball but I had no idea you were that cheesy. It makes me wonder how you ever got your wife if you think that drawing a heart in the snow will make a girl love you.

+Nick looks like he's five.

+How come they all stand around looking pensive or in pain...? Or constipation? I don't know, I really can't tell sometimes. They just stand there while someone else is singing. Don't they have something better to do than stare into the camera while someone else is singing?

+The sweaters! Brian and AJ have the exact same sweater on. What? They get it 2 for 1 at the Hideous Sweater Sale?

Not that the new one is any better. Watch it.

+Nick's hair...that's all I have to say about that.

+The stereotypical rooms: They all have a room that's supposed to "match" their personalities? Whut? ...?

+The girls: They have to have all races, just to cover their whole demographic. Just saying.

+Howie's tear track motion at the "make you cry". I was just waiting for that cliche. Just waiting. Thank you for fulfilling it for me. It really made my day.

But I don't think that's the worst video. That honor goes to "Quit Playing Games with my Heart". Here's why. Watch it.

The bad:

+They're all in a Basketball court at NIGHT...who does that except for rapist/homeless people/pervs? If there were a bunch of boys singing in at a basketball court at night...I would run.

+The freakish close ups! I mean Brian is okay because usually he doesn't pull funky faces at the camera...but the rest of them? Like Howie and Nick...especially Nick. I think it was because he was so young and didn't really know how to be sexy so he was trying too hard...and boy was he trying too hard.

+Howie's random guitar playing. He played like two chords and then it cut away from him. That was the only shot of him with a guitar in the whole video. If they weren't going to use it why even put a little scene of it in?

+The whole bit in the rain. I understand that their fan base usually comprises of sexually frustrated teenage girls but seriously...in the rain? And Howie's weird undulations? Which just end up making you feel extremely uncomfortable, extremely dirty or both? Some of the shots it's only his naked torso rippling in front of the camera. Nick is the absolute opposite, he's supposedly tummy shy but you never see his torso in the video. Only from FAR FAR away. Most shot of Nick are close ups of his face in water. And then when he's with the rest of the guys, he's the farthest from camera. And it's actually really funny because he doesn't even look like he's part of the group. Just some blond white kid in the background doing some weird arm motions...

I do love this group...but seriously, how could you not make fun of them just a little bit? They certainly make it easy.

Don't get me started on N'Sync. If this is how I treat a group I actually like, how do you think I'll treat a group that I really have no love for?

Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary Review

I told you I was a musical theater geek. So I warn you this is going to be long.

I went to see the Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary concert/show/movie thing. I don't even know how to explain what it is exactly. It's the musical show screened in a movie theater from the Royal Albert Hall in London, England. It's like the actual musical but filmed so more people can see it. I took my grandparents with me, we sat in the cold theater for like 3 hours. It was an alright show...I mean I'm very picky when it comes to things I like.

The Breakdown--(SPOILERS-ish)

The good:

+I liked the extra scenes they showed on the projection screens. Like the Phantom writing the notes as he was reading them.

+The closeups of everyone's faces. I mean the only way you'll be able to see close up of the actors' faces on Broadway is if you pay an exorbitant amount of money to sit in the front row (which I have done...cough).

+The woman who played Carlotta was pretty good, as well as the dude who played the husband in the production of Il Muto.

+"Masquerade" was awesome. It was great to have a lot of people on stage for once during that song. In the actual Broadway/West End production, there aren't that many people on stage, half of the performers are actually mannequins dressed in costume to fill out the staircase. But in this show, they had three full staircases of people. Which made it look pretty impressive.

+Colm Wilkinson. <3. I love Colm Wilkinson. If you don't understand, then you haven't seen the 10th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables. Here. Watch at 7:13. I have never heard anyone pull that one note off. He had also played the Phantom at one time or another. His voice is amazing, with a huge range of notes. If you want to see his 25th Anniversary performance it is here. Starting at 7:40. He, Anthony Warlow (who is also amazing), John Owen Jones who is also...you guessed it amazing and some other dude on the end who...has a horrible voice for the Phantom and I don't know why they picked him. It was always said that Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted a "rock and roll" voice for the Phantom which is why he picked ohGod Gerard Butler for the role in the 2004 movie which...was a poor choice. Broadway has always taken the Phantom's voice to be more of a tenor, more classically trained. While I feel West End productions always looked for a Phantom with a really powerful voice, a voice which could blow you out of the water, hence John Owen Jones (Anthony Warlow was the first Australian Phantom but I feel he is also West End Production material). Colm Wilkinson on the other hand, I feel has that rock and roll quality that Webber was looking for without being limited in its range or not "musical theater" enough.

+Seeing the Phantom actually strangle Buquet was a change. It was a good change I thought considering I've only seen the production on Broadway where it's only a shadow fight.

+The fact that the Phantom actually catches Christine instead of just letting her drop to the floor like he does in the Broadway production.

+The boxes in the side and people in period costumes actually as part of the musical but playing the "audience". That's pretty cool.

The Eh:

+The casting of the three principal actors--

=Ramin Karimloo was never my first pick for the Phantom. Never. I don't know how to explain it. I always thought his voice was too low for the Phantom. Now I've been listening to Michael Crawford since I was a little kid. I saw the Broadway productions with Hugh Panaro and saw youtube videos of John Cudia. Their voices are a bit more in the tenor range. They still have a fullness in the lower range but their high notes are awesome. Which they have to be for the role. The Phantom goes high up there on a lot of the songs. But Ramin Karimloo has more of a baritone voice. He never seemed comfortable with the higher notes, he just sort of...blasts them at you rather than floating over the note. I'm not saying he doesn't have an awesome voice as well but it never fit with my version of what the Phantom should sound like. He was great as Enjrolas in Les Mis with his voice but not the Phantom. There's also the fact that he was in the disaster that was the Phantom sequel "Love Never Dies." I heard he was the reason that there was a revival for the Phantom in the West End which I don't really understand and I hate his over-enunciations.

=Sierra Boggess. Dear me. I never liked her. Which sounds really really horrible. But it's true. She was the original cast of The Little Mermaid on Broadway and when I saw the preview for that show on TV there was something about her that annoyed me. I never thought her voice was that operatic and I feel like she had to get mondo training to sing like this. She was the original Las Vegas cast but her voice is too thin to be Christine. I mean if Christine is supposed to have all this singing potential, shouldn't her voice at least be powerful? Maybe they meant to base her off of Sarah Brightman's voice but even though I really really really don't like Sarah Brightman, I have to admit she at least had a fullness to her voice. Boggess was also in "Love Never Dies" which is an automatic strike against her and she has weird over-enunciations as well and an odd accent when she sings. It's like an Irish lilt. She sings this line "Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?" and says flesh like fliiiiiish. I was like what is that? Is flish anything like flesh? I have to admit that she can act though. I actually caught myself feeling bad for her throughout the show so I guess that's one thing she can do right.

=Hadley Fraser as Raoul. He was pretty angry throughout the whole show. Not the doting boyfriend he was supposed to be. He never really seemed like he cared for Christine at all. More just thought she was annoying or delusional most of the time. I felt like he was just rolling his eyes at her for the whole duration of the musical. So at the very end when the Phantom kidnaps Christine and he's supposed to save her, you don't really believe that he cares. It made the impact of their love story at the end very anti-climactic. His voice was good but his acting was off.

+The fact that the Phantom tries to choke Christine. The nature of his character is that he loves her so much he would kill FOR her but not actually...kill her. That goes against everything he believe in. I mean if he was just going to hurt Christine, why make her marry him and not just kill her if he couldn't have her? It even says in the musical "Did you think that I would harm her? Why should I make her pay, for the sins which are yours?" So after he chokes her he says that line in the show...which makes NO sense! He just did harm her!

+The fact that Christine is crying when she leaves the Phantom. In the Broadway musical you feel as if she pities him and feels sorry for him but understands that they'll never be able to be together. She can't be with someone so emotionally unstable. And I don't think she ever really felt romantically about him. He was more a father figure while he was the one who felt romantically about her. But in the show, she's crying like she loved him her whole life and wants to be with him and it's like Raoul has to drag her away. If she felt like that, why not just stay with the Phantom? It doesn't make much sense in the context of the thing.

+The fact that the chandelier didn't even fall, not even just a little bit. I mean it doesn't make sense why everyone would be running of the stage for a chandelier that's just sparking. I mean why would a candle-lit chandelier be sparking in the first place? In the beginning of the musical the chandelier is fitted for the "new electric light" so it wasn't electric before.

+The sets were very minimal which sort of disappointed me. They used a lot of the projections to make the sets but I wish they had done the real Broadway/West End sets.

+The piccolo player messed up. It was his moment! His solo! And he flubbed it. I felt bad for him or er..her.

This was long. But it's a long show. I feel like they should have cast it better but I can't really go against the show's creator who handpicked them. So I can only gripe about them after they'd been picked.

Introductions all around!

Hi, I'm Lauren...

"Hi Lauren."

And I'm a movie/musical theater/literary/tv shows/most things geek.

I feel like starting one of these things is an awkward situation. I mean how much do you tell your prospective audience? What if no one reads such things? But here I am, letting my geek flag fly. I hide it pretty well, this geek heart of mine. No one really suspects unless I let loose about my love of Star Trek, why Lord of the Rings is one of my most favorite movies, or the fact that I've seen Phantom of the Opera on Broadway 3 times. I feel like now it's "cool" to be a geek. But when I was in high school (not that long ago), it was weird to be a geek. Now it's considered "hipster" to like old things or things out of the ordinary, in high school, I knew a boy who made little Lord of the Rings figurines, wore the One Ring around his neck and had the nickname "Frodo" and everyone avoided him. Okay, what he did might be a bit much, but nowadays he would be commended for his "out of the way" interests.

So this blog is being started for what I love most, the geekdom. Mostly it'll probably be movie reviews, book reviews, things I'm excited for, and other random rants/observations about life. I'm going to actually keep a blog for things instead of letting it die like all my other journals (coughlivejournalcough).

Starting now...