Comic Book Review: The Walking Dead

I'm not going to lie - I never understood what the big deal was about comic books. Even though I watched the hell out of the Batman TV show with Adam West, I still thought it was all kind of stupid. Pop! Bam! Boom! Pow! WTF? I guess even at the age of seven I understood the concept of guilty pleasures.

I always thought that superheroes were kind of flat as characters. They don't really do anything other than their superhero stuff, and while protecting humankind is cool and important, I'd like to see some kind of character growth somewhere along the way. Yes, Clark loves Lois and it tears him up inside, but it always tears him up inside.  Yeah, it's fun the first few times, but after that, it's nauseating.

And seeing as how I didn't really have exposure to any comics other than the superhero variety, I didn't think there was anything out there for me. The Scott Pilgrim series changed my mind slightly, but The Walking Dead changed it completely. While I am a huge fan of some zombie related things, like Resident Evil video games and Zombieland, I'm not a certified freak like some people are. Geronimo suggested the series to me and reassured me that zombies weren't the main focus, which made me feel slightly better. While I resisted for a while, when I finally gave in I wondered why I had waited so long.

The Walking Dead is a post apocalyptic story concerning a few key characters, but mainly revolves around Rick Grimes, a former police officer. He becomes the unwilling leader and voice of morality and reason. But, as the story progresses, his idea of what is right and wrong begins to change as he fights to survive and protect the people he loves.

This story isn't about zombies. It's about people, and what happens to them when they are faced with unbelievable circumstances. My favorite thing about this series is that it feels absolutely real, like if the zombie apocalypse happened tomorrow, this is exactly what would go down. The writing is absolutely stellar, with twists, turns and moments that had me muttering under my breath and sometimes shouting, "Oh. My. God," as I read. In some ways, it feels like a soap opera, especially with some of the relationship dynamics. While that might seem like a turn off, don't let it be; soap operas have an amazing way of capturing human drama, and The Walking Dead is second to none in that department.

Characters are full developed, realized and flawed. It's exciting to read and wonder what they're going to do next, because so many times it's completely unexpected. What's also kind of neat is that you begin to understand some of the more cringe inducing choices they have to make as the situation grows more desperate. I really liked this aspect of the story because I'm pretty sure tough choices would be make more often than not.

If you like stories about human nature, you will love this. If you like well developed characters with real motivations who are constantly faced with hard choices, you will love this. If you like character driven plot, you'll love this. Basically, if you love all that is right with the world, you'll love this series. I've only read up to the 68th issue, and I believe there are eight or nine more I need to read to be caught up.

Added bonus: On October 31st, The Walking Dead TV series will be premiering on AMC. If they can preserve the drama and human emotion that's in the comics, I think it will be a hit. So, pick up the comics and set your DVRs. You can thank me later.

Something a Little Different

I haven't been posting here much because I've become involved in another writing venture. A dear friend of mine runs a blog called North Station Sports that covers news for the Boston Celtics, and I've just come on board as a member of the staff.

Any of you who know me know that I love sports, but for the most part I've refrained from writing about it here. I also enjoy being snarky, and I've carried that over to my opinion pieces on NSS. We have something for everyone there, even if you aren't a fan of the Celtics. The pieces are always well written, opinionated and sometimes controversial.

If you're the type of basketball fan who enjoys reading different slants on hot topics, this would be a fun site for you to check out.

So yeah. Hopefully I'll get back to posting soon. I have a half written review of Machete, which I really enjoyed, and I've been working on a review of The Walking Dead comic book series, which I never imagined I'd love so much. So stay tuned. I'll be back.

Cool Places: Woodstock Museum in Bethel Hill, NY

Over this past Labor Day weekend I had the pleasure of spending it with some friends at a lovely lake house in New York. This place was absolutely breathtaking. The night we got there I sat on the dock and looked up at the night sky, drinking in all the stars. There was a fine mist on the water and I felt like I was in an amazing dream. When I woke up the first morning, I went down to the dock and took this photo:

Beautiful, no? The weather was generally nice even if it did get cold at night. We had lots of sunshine and laughs and overall it was a great time. The only bad thing for me was that I had just come back from a vacation and didn't really need any rest, so I was a little antsy. When Sunday afternoon rolled around, a few of us decided that we needed to get out for a bit. After some poking around on my GPS, we decided to hit the Woodstock Museum in Bethel Hill, New York.

I was really excited to check it out because I had grown up with a lot of music from that era. When we were kids my father would always play Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Santana; Credence Clearwater Revival and many others. I have lots of fond memories of rides for ice cream and to Harveys Lake for some Grotto Pizza all set to a sixties soundtrack.

On our way to the museum, we stumbled upon the local Harvest Festival. It was a mixture of arts, crafts, live music and food. There was also an alpaca festival going on so we got to check out some of the lovely clothing made from their wool. The place was jammed and it made me happy because I really like to see local people supporting their community and the arts.

After we hung out there for a while, we headed over to the museum. For some reason I thought the museum was going to be a hole in the wall, but the site is actually a very big place. Check it out here:  http://www.bethelwoodscenter.org/. The museum itself is curated incredibly well; it had all kinds of clothing, albums, tickets and maps that the police used to try to control the crowd of 500,000 who poured into the tiny town of Bethel Hill.

It was cool to see how they used the technology of the 21st century to try to recreate the sixties vibe. They had a Volkswagen bus that you could sit in, which is cool, but what was even more awesome was that the windshield was actually a video screen that showed a short about how people traveled to Woodstock. There was an iMax theater with bean bag chairs that was meant to give the viewer the sense of what it was like to be in the crowd over those three days. They also had some videoes that explained the culture at that time, and they were pretty interesting.

Unfortunately, photography wasn't allowed in the museum, and I didn't get a chance to take pictures of any of the grounds, but I can tell you that it was awe inspiring and breath taking. The museum is super cheap to get in, and even if it were more expensive it's totally worth the trip. I'm already making plans to return because I feel like there's so much more to see.

Book Review: Mockingjay and My Inability to Not be Feminist

Oh Susan Collins, let me count the reasons why I want to punch thee. While I think she had an awesome idea for the Hunger Game Series, I cannot for the life of me figure out why she decided to squander her efforts. The concept is great - children fighting to the death to honor the district from where they came. It features a main female character, Katniss, who is strong willed, not afraid to admit her faults and is accountable for her actions. The backdrop is a post apocalyptic United States, and it is being controlled by a nearly totalitarian government, and Katniss is the key to bringing it all down. Think all of this sounds cool? Yeah?

Well guess what. It's lamesauce. Why, do you ask?

Because it's just another Twilightesque novel where the main female character is basically completely driven by her desires for boys/men. I completely despair over this. Katniss has so many opportunities to do so many wonderful things but yet she is often preoccupied with her friend Gale and Peeta, the boy who fell in love with her for no apparent reason at all. I was hoping that Katniss would kind of grow up in this installment, and while she does in some sense, for the most part she is still the loopy teenage girl who is a slave to her hormones.

I'm not saying that romance or love shouldn't be a part of literature for young readers. That isn't the case. Many of us have learned a lot from our relationships and in some ways it makes us who we are. I object to the unhealthy relationships that are presented in a lot of young adult novels. Love should not hurt. Love should not make you feel as though your life is in danger. Your boyfriend or girlfriend should not look to you to tell them who they are. You shouldn't play games with people's emotions. All of these things are kind of at play here. I actually found myself shaking the book at certain points because it was so frustrating for me to read these things and think about the audience consuming it.

I do like that Katniss, although completely unwillingly, does become a symbol of hope to people who are completely despondent. My only problem with this is that she is absolutely manipulated the entire time by the leaders of the revolution. She bends to their will at almost every turn. Even when she thinks she's tricking them, she isn't; everyone already knows what she's going to do before she does it. I also don't like that she almost never has consequences for her actions. She is driven by her anger to the point where it becomes self-destructive. She is irrational and selfish. At the end of the book, I found myself not really caring what happened to her - the death knell for any main character.

The two main male characters aren't all that great either. Gale and Peeta are both pretty bad examples of men and how they should be. Gale does everything for Katniss and willingly puts up with her abuse because he loves and cares about her. Peeta is the same way in a sense, but he's much more sensitive than Gale. So basically Katniss uses and abuses them as she sees fit because she knows they will both come crawling back to her. Really? Is this appropriate in any sense?

Another thing I took issue with was the absolutely over the top emotional reactions to nearly everything. It was annoying by the time I reached the end. There was also an undercurrent of suicide throughout the entire series, which I thought was highly inappropriate. Oh, life isn't going your way? Why don't you just kill yourself? Absolutely unacceptable.

I read an interview where Collins said that her whole idea behind the book was reality television, and how everything is cut and manipulated to look like something it might not be. She also said that she wanted to show how we are experiencing life differently because of television. I thought this was a cool place for her to write from. I also understand that her audience is a bunch of kids who are going through a lot of physical, emotional and psychological changes and that they love to read this kind of stuff. I just think that she could have done the relationship thing in a different way.

Movie Review: The Expendables and Bonus Stallone Love

Sylvester Stallone is the only celebrity I care about. I have mad love for the guy, and he has served as an inspiration to me and my writing ever since I can remember. Lots of people love to talk lots of smack about how he's so terrible at everything, but dude wrote Rocky in three days. He created one of the best characters ever in three days. THREE DAYS!

Yes, the man has been nominated for thirty Razzies and has won ten. He fully acknowledges that he's made some crappy films, and yeah, he has. But he's Stallone. The guy never gives up. In fact, the quote from Rocky Balboa pretty much sums him up (to me anyway), "I'd rather do something I love badly than to feel bad about not doing something I love."

I feel like if you're a creative person, you're going to need to have this kind of attitude. Not everyone is going to love everything you do all of the time (except when the person doing is Stallone and the everyone is me). I've pretty much accepted that I'm going to get knocked down and rejected when I put my work out there, and I'm all right with that. And once again, Sly says it pretty well: "No one likes to fail at anything, but I believe I'm a better person for it. I learned life's lessons. You're given certain gifts and that's what you should try to be."

Word.

Now onto the review. I rarely go to the movies at night, nonetheless on an opening night, but my husband wanted to go and I jumped on board. I had been watching the previews for The Expendables for over a year and I was all about it just for the cast alone: Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Mickey Rourke. I just remember seeing their name scrolling across my screen and thinking, "Wow, this is going to be the best movie ever."

It wasn't the best movie ever, but it wasn't bad. While I usually like the schlocky tough guy dialogue, a good 75% of the film was The Expendables trying to convince themselves that they weren't bad people because they had spent most of their adult lives as mercenaries. It was a little more emo than I expected, and there was one scene in particular where Tool (Mickey Rourke) begins to cry as he recounts an old tale. A little shocking.

I did enjoy the father figure role that Stallone played in this movie. Barney, Stallone's character, was a tough guy with a soft and just side, which he played very well. Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) was also a very complex character who while not being a mercenary was busy trying to reconcile his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. Stallone and Statham were actually incredible on screen together, making for one of the best drive-bys ever. Statham also had an incredible scene at a basketball court. Stallone definitely showed Statham a lot of love when he gave him that role.

The supporting cast was also pretty good, except for Eric Roberts, who played the worst evil guy ever. He was like a cartoon, and at times he was actually painful to watch. Not good. I enjoyed Terry Crews as Hale Ceasar, a dude who loves him some big guns. Jet Li was pretty fun too. Dolph Lundgren was a little silly but he played the crazy/angry/scorned role pretty well. (But really, how much can we expect from this guy?)

The movie ends in a big, over the top way that I loved. The fight choreography was awesome, the explosions were huge, and the energy was fantastic. I did enjoy the movie overall and think that if you're a fan of action movies, you'd enjoy this. There are a lot of really good things about the film and I think they're enough to outweigh the few bad things. Check it out.