book/movie review

BOOK AND MOVIE REVIEW

Usually on holidays when I don’t work I don’t post any articles. However, I know that without my guidance you are cast out upon a dark and stormy sea and I wouldn’t want to subject you to that. Plus, I had to come in for a few hours for food pick ups anyway. So I threw this together on Sunday and will pre-post it for publication at the usual time. I know, please don’t thank me all at once. I cast my pearls before you with only the noblest motivations.
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As I threatened, I went to see the new Terminator movie on Saturday. I normally roll into town about seven and go grocery shopping and do my laundry. Go to the library, do whatever other errands I need to complete. Even taking my time it takes me at most four hours. I can do it in even less time, putting my laundry in and going out to do an errand or two before the load gets done. Not wasting time in Wal-Mart by going into every department even when I won’t buy something there. But I’m never in a hurry. I don’t want to waste the day, but even taking my time for those four hours I’m still home by eleven o’clock. Generally, I hurry more in the winter because I have a lot less daylight hours to enjoy once I get home. Anyway, I had a heck of a lot of time to kill because the matinee didn’t start until one. I went out to eat for the first time in three or four months. Let me tell you, the casino restaurant has really started to suck. It used to be a treat to go and get the $7.77 steak dinner. Salad, roll, potato and dead cow. Well, they changed to a ribeye ( I guess to save money ) and it was less than ideal. And the fries soaked up the condensation. And I couldn’t get seasoned fries anymore. Come on, you tight bastards! Well, there is a little hole in the wall with chipped linoleum and garage sale tables and chairs that everyone raves about where you get a humongous burrito for under five bucks. I’ll have to see about making that my new restaurant. I’m sure you are really waiting for that report.
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Okay, the movie was pretty kick butt. Non stop action. But that is all it was, a summer popcorn mega-hit movie. All flash with no substance. I felt it was the weakest story of all four films in the franchise. Oh, I enjoyed myself. I didn’t feel like I wasted money ( unlike at the casino ). It was $5.50 to get in and $9.00 for a large combo of popcorn, drink and candy. Although it was only “large” since I’d already eaten most of the day’s calories two hours previously. I had a fun time, treated myself to two luxuries in one day. But if this is what they are going to churn out now, best to say goodbye to the series. This could have been any action/sci-fi flick. And let me tell you, this certainly was no post-apocalypse film. Yeh, right, like after a nuclear war there are going to be enough fuel, spare parts and ammunition to keep a fleet of helicopters and jets flying for the resistance to use. Please. I can see the use of a nuclear sub for the resistance leaders to use as their HQ, it has a nuke reactor that can run for years. But where does the unlimited supplies of everything come from? Including food. In the first Terminator they are seen eating out of old cans and catching rats for meat. That was a bit more realistic than the current well fed bodies ( with perfect dental work ) flying jets around. Firing thousands of rounds of ammo each fire fight. Reese, over in LA, is living off coyote meat. Yet once he joins the resistance there seems to be unlimited food no one has to work at getting. And plenty of gas to go around. Still fresh after almost two decades. Well, they had all that. But the one thing that seemed to be lacking were razors. No one shaved. You can keep that M-16 firing forever but no one has any safety razors left. It was there not because the writers thought about those things but because it looked cool to have a three day beard. Not a beard, mind you. Then they wouldn’t look all cool hosing down evil machines with Santa Claus guns ( the magical guns that never run out of ammunition because we get to wish it to be true ).
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On Friday I got another batch of books in. One was “Summer Of The Apocalypse” by James Van Pelt. Now, before I bitch a little bit about this, let me make one thing clear. This was a damn fine book. It was very well written. More importantly, it was so good I read it non-stop for five hours. Well, obviously, I had to get up to go to the little boys room and heat up a can of slop for dinner. But I read that book from the time I got home to an hour after my regular bed time. Very few books are that interesting. Now, having said that, there are a few problems. One, the damn thing was $17. Out-friggin-ragous. That is why it took me a year before I finally decided to get it. $17 for a 250 page book. I know what you are saying, Dakin’s book was $12 and it was under seventy pages. Okay, first of all, I don’t know if I care for your attitude. Secondly, mine is instructional and will save you far more than the cost. Third, you can buy the e-book for only three bucks. Forth, my pages were shrunk in font size so it wouldn’t cost you even more. Fifth, just buy my book, would you? www.bisonpress.com
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$17 is a lot to pay for a fiction book. I spent almost that much on “One Second After”, but at least that was hard back and another hundred pages. And it was useful for beginner preppers. “Summer” is pretty worthless for anything other than pure entertainment ( although, as I said, it does that damn well ). It is full of clichés from all the other end of the world fiction books that I can’t imagine it would help anyone prepare for or envision life after the collapse. Basically, plague wipes out everyone and one of the survivors takes a road trip sixty years later. The chapters rotate between now and back then during the die off. Just off the top of my head there are elements of “Postman”, “The Stand”, “The Scarlet Plague” and the movie “Panic In The Year Zero”. As a fiction book, outstanding. As a post-apocalypse book, mediocre.
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