Movie Review – The Shape of Water

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Summary from IMDb

At a top-secret research facility in the 1960s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.

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The Shape of Water is a 2017 American fantasy drama directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Sally Hawkins as Elisa Esposito, a mute custodian who communicates through sign language. Her condition is possibly related to the mysterious scars on her neck she has had since infancy. The film apparently drew a lot of inspiration from del Toro’s childhood memories of seeing Creature from the Black Lagoon and wishing the creature’s romantic interest in co-star Julie Adams’s character worked out.

I had been wanting to see this movie for a while. It’s been out since late last year, yet it has only just gotten distribution in my neck of the woods due to a limited release. Perhaps it thanks to all the Oscar buzz the film is now getting that it came out here. Regardless I was grateful to finally be able to watch it. I was drawn in by its openly weird premise and how promising it looked. I didn’t just perceive it as a film about a woman falling in love with a fish-man, but a good film about a woman falling in love with a fish-man. With del Toro at the helm as director, writer, and producer I had a good feeling it wouldn’t disappoint.Read More »

Book Review – Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

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Summary

“What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that’s that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness, persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my laptop?” In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and history soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die.

Spook

Along with my love for horror I’ve always had a (sometimes terrified) fascination with the paranormal. This has felt somewhat contradictory to my secular upbringing, but it’s something that I simply haven’t been able to help. I can’t help but find videos or written accounts of the strange, otherworldly, or unknown alluring. But lately I’ve taken a greater interest in considering accounts of the paranormal more closely. It’s easy enough to be broadly skeptical and give the subject no time of day, but when I hear stories of ectoplasm spilling from a medium’s mouth, communicating with the other side, or children remembering past lives I want a more thorough examination of these incidents that lays all details bare. This is where Spook by Mary Roach comes in, a book that works to scientifically consider various studies of the afterlife to see what, if any, proof has ever truly been found.Read More »

Comic Book Review – Shiver by Junji Ito

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Summary

This volume includes nine of Junji Ito’s best short stories, as selected by the author himself and presented with accompanying notes and commentary. An arm peppered with tiny holes dangles from a sick girl’s window… After an idol hangs herself, balloons bearing faces appear in the sky, some even featuring your own face… An amateur film crew hires an extremely individualistic fashion model and faces a real bloody ending… An offering of nine fresh nightmares for the delight of horror fans.

Shiver

Shortly after I finished reading Uzumaki in October (my first experience with Junji Ito’s work) I was excited to learn that a new collection entitled Shiver would be releasing in North America in December. I’d heard a lot about his short stories being particularly good and was eager to get some firsthand experience with them. He’s been a manga artist/writer for a long time, yet as far as I have seen there is only one other book published in English that collects any of them that is also easy and/or inexpensive to get a copy of. Options are limited for now, but this was a great place to start regardless.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – 2018/02/07

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WWW Wednesday is a book meme run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m still reading 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, but unfortunately I have made no progress since last week. I will be pushing myself to get it finished by next week now, as I feel like I’ve officially lingered on it too long and I haven’t been reading chapters here and there like I want to be with a supplemental read.

MansSearchForMeaningI’ve started reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, the widely published memoir of the author’s time in a concentration camp and his psychological theory known as logotherapy, which asserts that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. This book came to my attention after watching a short biography of Frankl’s life and I picked up a copy last week. It’s an idea that resonates with some existing notions I have already and I’m eager to learn more about this subject.

Recently Finished

ShiverA day after last week’s post I finished reading Shiver by Junji Ito. All in all I liked the collection, though not as much as his longer form stuff. Some of them were just okay, naturally limited in how much they can develop by their length. Certain stories had absolutely captivating ideas, however, and one in particular is easily the most effective example of gross-out horror I have ever seen. It still makes me sick to think about. I will have a review up soon.

SpookI also finished reading Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach. I wasn’t as swept away with this book as I wanted to be, though I feel that had more to do with me than Roach’s writing. This book was a fascinating read, but due to its focus on science I had a harder time getting through it quickly and having fun with my time doing so as much as I do fiction. I should have a review of this up soon as well; if I manage my time correctly either Friday or Saturday.

Reading Next

TheLordoftheRingsI don’t know if I’ll regret this decision, but I’ve decided to move forward on starting The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien once I’ve finished up with 45 Master Characters. Specifically this means I will be starting The Fellowship of the Ring, as I expect I will not want to read through all three books as one without some other books to space things out a little. Who knows, though, maybe I’ll love it or enjoy it enough to power through as much as I can in a short amount of time. Either way, I look forward to finally striking the book off my to-read list after so long.

Podcast Series Review – It Makes A Sound Season One

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Summary

When was the last time you were struck by the EXTRAORDINARY in your life? What wonders are you forgetting to look for? Do you remember how things used to sound? Do you remember the music that first cracked you open and revealed to you the infinite possibilities of the universe?

Do you remember Wim Faros?

Deirdre Gardner remembers. She knows that the extraordinary once tread upon the green fairways of this now abandoned Golf Course Community, and she is determined to make Rosemary Hills come back to life with the sound of music.

It Makes A Sound is a nine-episode serialized fiction podcast about the quest to restore what is missing, and to revive the sound of a generation.

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It Makes A Sound is a fiction podcast produced by Night Vale Presents. It is written and co-directed by Jacquelyn Landgraf, and co-directed by Anya Saffir. The show features Landgraf as Deirdre Gardner along with the voices of Annie Golden, Nate Weida, Melissa Mahoney, and Siobhan Fallon. The story follows Deirdre, who has found a cassette tape in the attic of her childhood home, which has recorded on it the first ever concert performed by Wim Faros, a young musician she idolized in her youth. Inspired by the wave of nostalgia from her discovery, she begins broadcasting an amateur radio show to inspire everyone else to remember Whim Faros and — once she manages to find a working tape player — share the music of “The Attic Tape” itself.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – 2018/01/31

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WWW Wednesday is a book meme run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

45MasterCharactersProgress has slowed a little on 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt, but I have finished reading through all of the female archetypes. It’s certainly been a valuable resource, giving me a lot to think about as well as some new ideas. I will likely ramp up my progress on the book soon so that I’m not taking too long getting through it. The archetypes are interesting, but I especially want to get to plotting character journeys and their differences.

SpookI’m a little over halfway through Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach. I had wanted to have the book finished by now, but as it turns out scientific nonfiction isn’t as easy to digest as quickly as fiction for me. Regardless, I’m enjoying the book a lot. At first the sense of humour didn’t really work for me, but I have come to enjoy it as I’ve gotten further along. Roach’s work is quite thorough and really insightful. It’s astounding what science used to take seriously.

ShiverI’ve also been reading Shiver by Junji Ito, collecting nine of the author’s best short stories, as selected by the man himself, spanning his entire career as a manga creator. The art is harrowing as expected, while the stories themselves have a very Tales from the Crypt feeling that I’m enjoying a lot, though not as much as his longer stuff.

Recently Finished

Nothing for this week, though I’ve got a good feeling at least two of the three books above will be included here next week.

Reading Next

TheLordoftheRingsIt’s hard to say what I’ll be getting to next. I definitely want to read Godzilla in Hell soon, which is a conceptually delightful comic book that I came across recently. The title says it all. Hopefully the actual book lives up to how in love I am with the idea. Otherwise, I’m considering starting one of the longer books I added to my physical to-read list for the year. One possibility is The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I’ve had all three books collected into one for many years, but have never touched the series. Maybe I’ll get a start on that finally, since I could put it down guilt free while I’m between “books” within the collection. We’ll see.

New Books & Novel Discoveries (Jan. 2018)

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As I said in a previous post, I want to start doing some general blogging about books — writing that isn’t formally reviewing books or sharing what I’ve been reading and plan to read next. I’m frequently acquiring and discovering new books (populating a To-Read list on Goodreads that I suspect will never deplete faster than titles are added) and thought it would be fun to give myself a platform to talk a bit about those.

I’ve also been mentally prepping myself more and more for making creative writing a regular exercise. I need to write stories, my state of mind is just weighing me down significantly. Once such writing gets going, I’d like to use posts like these to hold myself a little more accountable to making progress, as well as sharing some of the progress I’ve made. I’m hopeful I will have a better drive to make good on plans I declare more publicly, rather than something I privately think about doing.

Anyway, onto the books!Read More »

Book Review – Star Wars: A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller

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Summary

Ever since the Jedi were marked for death and forced to flee Coruscant, Kanan Jarrus has devoted himself to staying alive rather than serving the Force. Wandering the galaxy alone, from one anonymous job to another, he avoids trouble—especially with the Empire—at all costs. So when he discovers a deadly conflict brewing between ruthless Imperial forces and desperate revolutionaries, he’s not about to get caught in the crossfire. Then the brutal death of a friend at the Empire’s hands forces the ex-Jedi to make a choice: bow down to fear, or stand up and fight.

But Jarrus won’t be fighting alone. Unlikely allies, including a bomb-throwing radical, a former Imperial surveillance agent, a vengeful security officer, and the mysterious Hera Syndulla—an agent provocateur with motives of her own—team up with Jarrus to challenge the Empire. As a crisis of apocalyptic proportions unfolds on the planet Gorse, they must stand together against one of the Empire’s most fearsome enforcers—for the sake of a world and its people.

StarWarsANewDawn

A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, released September 2, 2014, was the first Star Wars novel published as a part of Disney’s new canon for the franchise. It is also said to be the first narrative product of Lucasfilm Story Group, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd. founded in 2013 with the responsibility of determining all Star Wars Canon. The novel serves as a prequel for the television series Star Wars Rebels, featuring two of the lead characters Kanan and Hera, telling the story of how they first met six years prior to the series.

To be honest, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to reading this book. On my laundry list of new Star Wars novels to read it ranked pretty low in terms of my enthusiasm. There was nothing inherently wrong with it, only I had no meaningful investment in the Rebels series. So, I was not particularly attracted to the idea of diving into its prequel. What I failed to consider, however, was that a novel like this might be precisely what I’ve been looking for.Read More »

Podcast Series Review – Within the Wires Season Two

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Summary

The hit audio drama Within the Wires returns with a new story told through found audio from an alternate universe. Season two, “Museum Audio Tours,” tells its story in the guise of ten audio museum guides. Over the course of a decade of worldwide exhibitions, these walkthroughs unravel the complex story of a mysterious disappearance of an artist’s mentor.

WithinTheWiresS2

Within the Wires season two is a fiction podcast produced by Night Vale Presents, written by Jeffrey Cranor and Janina Matthewson, and starring Rima Te Wiata as Roimata Mangakāhia. The first episode of this season released on September 5, 2017, and concluded with episode 10 on January 9, 2018. I may not write about fiction podcasts very often, but I continue to be a big fan of the medium. I love that audio-only storytelling is returning in such a way, distinct from audio books, their creators doing much more with the format to tell their stories.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – 2018/01/24

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WWW Wednesday is a book meme run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

45MasterCharactersI’m still slowly making my way through 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. I haven’t made as much progress as I wanted to, but I really wanted to get some other things finished instead. I’m still in the midst of female archetypes, a continuously useful section. I’m finding I might have to blend elements from different models together. These archetypes are meant to be a foundation from which you build up characters, so I’m hoping mixing and matching elements that could work together won’t complicate things too much. Regardless, there’s still much for me to work out, so we’ll see.

Recently Finished

StarWarsANewDawnMere minutes before starting to write this post I finished reading A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller, the Star Wars novel following Kanan Jarrus and Hera Syndulla from Star Wars Rebels in their first adventure together. Maybe it was because I was pushing myself to get through it a bit too much, but I found it to be much longer than it likely needed to be. At times the drawn out, continual action felt tiresome. Despite this, I think it is one of the best of the new canon novels I have read thus far. My review will probably be up by Friday.

Reading Next

SpookAfter a lot of thought, I’ve decided my next book will by Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach. It’s a book I was able to secure a copy of a few months ago after having been on my radar for a little while. It’s a nonfiction, humorous look at ghosts and life after death from a scientific perspective. I’m an atheist (secular humanist if you want to get specific), but I’ve never been able to help a fascination with the paranormal. Taking a look at the subject from this perspective was hard to resist once I’d come across it and I look forward to digging into it over the next week.