7. July 2010 by Samldanach.

iPad - Very easy to use.  Much more comfortable and convenient than any laptop I’ve ever used.  I do want to see multi-tasking.  It lives and dies on its apps, so take the time to look for good apps.  I think it will definitely replace my netbook, but I will still keep my desktop for anything that requires a real computer.

Karate Kid - Manages to hit all the same emotional beats as the original movie, without just re-telling the same story.  Jackie Chan was fabulous, even if he did very little action himself.  Jaden Smith is going to be a star, if he can survive being a child star.

A-Team - Exactly as fabulous as the original series.  If you liked one, you’ll like the other.  My one complaint with the movie was the violence.  The show had campy pseudo-violence, where everyone safely dives behind cover.  The movie had serious violence (though of an action movie style).  I had a few other niggles, but there were also lots of truly awesome moments.

The Last Airbender - Honestly, I liked it.  I didn’t love it, but I liked it.  Maybe I just went in with really, really low expectations from other reviews.  And, keep in mind that I haven’t watched the series yet (we just bought the first book on iTunes).  Sonya and I were discussing it after, and we noticed that Shyamalan has a lot of the same problems as Lucas.  The broad plot was good.  The effects were good.  The visuals were good.  The acting was good.  The directing was good.  The details of the plot didn’t hold together well.  The dialogue sucked ass.  Oh, and maybe I’m just too Euro-centric, but that didn’t look like a whitewashed cast to me.

Knight and Day - Lots of fun action.  Um, really, that’s all the movie was.  All the characters were one-dimensional and cardboard.  The plot managed to be unpredictable by virtue of jerking around, more than by being clever.  There were a few good lines, but the dialogue was largely forgettable.  If you like Cruise and Diaz, they provided eye candy.  But, if all you are looking for is to turn your brain off and enjoy some over-the-top action, you can do a lot worse than this movie.  (If they had gone with the twist I was looking for, and had Diaz turn out to be a spy pretending to be a helpless innocent, the movie could have ended up being awesome.)

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13. November 2009 by Samldanach.

So, I just finished off Dan Brown’s latest this morning, The Lost Symbol.  I figured I’d write up a review here.

Spoiler-free version:

It should have stayed lost.  Seriously, this was by far the weakest of the three Langdon books (note, I have not read Digital Fortress, and based on other reviews, do not plan to).  The plot was surprisingly simple and hackneyed.  Everything was telegraphed way ahead of time, and even so wasn’t novel.  The only suspense to be had was trying to guess the latest scene location based off the incredibly drawn out “tantalizing” hints.

The other reason to read Brown’s books, of course, is for the esoteric history.  Whether or not his research is pathetic and/or deliberately malformed, it is generally entertaining.  Not this time around.  Maybe I just already know too much about what he’s discussing.  Maybe too many of the criticisms of DVC and A&D stung, and he decided to stick closer to the mundane truths.  Maybe Masons just aren’t as exciting and exotic as ancient Roman Catholic secrets.  I’m not sure, but I did not enjoy most of the asides.

When discussing Brown with a friend shortly after the DVC movie came out, I realized what Brown’s  appeal is.  He has a remarkable knack for making his readers feel intelligent.  He explains things well, and has many of his characters, including Langdon, be just clueless enough about enough stuff that you can go, “Hah, for all your Ivy League education, I know stuff you don’t!”  That spark wasn’t there this time.  Most of his explanations were far too long, and included too little humor and character.  Some were lectures, and some were sermons, but very few were conversations.

It also didn’t help that Brown apparently doesn’t have very many voices he can speak with.  The woman sounded just like the woman from A&D and just like the woman from DVC.  The villain sounded just like the villain from DVC.   Sato, the main “cop,” was a bit different, admittedly.

There were a couple things I did like.  First, Langdon’s introduction to the mystery was surprisingly well-handled.  Many similar series have a really hard time with the suspension of disbelief that one guy can have three or four “once in a lifetime” adventures (q.v., “Die Hard”).  In each of the three books,  there is actually a good, solid reason for Langdon, specifically, to be involved.  I did like the central messages of the book (I’ll wait for the spoilery section to discuss exactly what those are).  The central puzzle was very well done, even if the characters took WAY too long to figure it out.

Setting it in DC was, um, interesting.  On the one hand, it was kind of neat that I knew all this stuff.  I know where most of these places are.  On the other, he got a bunch of stuff wrong.  When Langdon is flying into DC, he looks out the window at the Washington Monument.  The problem is, he’s flying into Dulles.  Trust me, you can’t see the Monument from Dulles.  OK, I’ll allow some poetic license there.  But, his errors when describing the Metro go beyond “poetic license” straight into “bah, I don’t need to actually go see the station, all subway stations look alike.”  Er, no.  Of course, Sonya pointed out to me that DC has a history of forcing writers to deliberately misrepresent places, security measures, etc.  Maybe that’s part of what is going on here.  So, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.  Especially as it won’t make any difference whatsoever to most of the readers.

Short version:  If you actually like Brown, go ahead and pick it up (though you probably already have).  If you actively dislike Brown, this won’t do anything to change your mind.  If you’re meh on Brown, wait for the movie.  Based on A&D, it will probably be better than the book.

Now, we’ll get super-spoileriffic:

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