#RetroRecaps and other miscellany
The Wisconsin Film Festival has been an annual event in the city of Madison, Wisconsin for over 20 years. This year marks the 21st anniversary of the festival and the first year I volunteered with it for free movie tickets. These are the movies I saw and, briefly, my thoughts about them.
Out of pure coincidence, I picked up the two 2015 spy films from the library. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. follows two spies, one American and one Russian, as they team up to hunt down a nuclear bomb built by Italian Nazis. Kingsman The Secret Service follows a young man during his initiation into the superspy organization called Kingsman, which is disguised as a tailor shop in London.
Avengers: Infinity War is the latest release of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What started as a hope and a dream became a decade-long project that treated Hollywood superhero blockbusters like the comic books from which they are inspired. This, at long last, is the movie the previous 10 years have been building to. Did the movie hit its mark? I'd say the answer remains to be seen. Why? Because the story is incomplete.
If I could describe this movie in four words, it would be deliberate, curious, quiet, and cancerous.
Cyberpunk and noir go together like science fiction and western -- one genre can exist without the other, but they are stronger when they team up. Sadly, the list of cyberpunk visual entertainment is minimal: Ghost in the Shell (that entire franchise), Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049 and The Matrix trilogy are the only ones… Continue reading REVIEW: Altered Carbon
What I got was Written Off, a cute mystery novel by E. J. Copperman. The premise was out there but still fun: a mystery writer gets a call to consult on a missing persons case by her own fictional character. Attention-grabbing premise, don't you agree? And it's a mystery, which is out of my normal wheelhouse. Then again, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is also out of my wheelhouse but it is still my favorite book of all time. And so I gave it a go.
Here is part 2 of 2 posts detailing the books I stopped reading and recorded on Goodreads.
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is recommended for people who like military science fiction and people who enjoy analyzing the literature they read.
Star Wars: Kenobi is recommended to people who enjoy fun spins in the Star Wars franchise, people looking to start reading in the Star Wars Legends universe, and people who like the character Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The Air Awakens Quintet is recommended to people who enjoy feminist heroes and people who like ]romance elements trumping fantasy elements. Would give this book to someone as young as middle school-aged.
I watched this anime in a single day about three months ago and my poor journal caught the brunt of my disappointment. This is a more coherent essay born from the one I originally wrote.
Rebel Belle is recommended for people who already enjoy Young Adult fiction or people who would like a new twist to the same-old-same-old. Other books in the series include Miss Mayhem and Lady Renegades.
The Unincorporated Man is recommended to people who enjoyed 1984 and anything by Robert Heinlein. Other books in the series include The Unincorporated War, The Unincorporated Woman, and The Unincorporated Future.
Cowboy Bebop is highly recommended to old-school anime fans, novice anime watchers, and science fiction buffs of any kind.
Every once in a while, there is a story, piece of entertainment, what have you, that captures the attention of everyone except me. This piece of entertainment will be aligned with everything I enjoy in a story, but the premise is something I side-eye. And then I consume said piece of entertainment and BOOM. My… Continue reading Movie-Goers and Readers Stranded by Science and Sarcasm
If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw my feed littered with the hashtag #SerialKillerBoyfriends a few weeks ago. This is a reference to the ending of Hannibal Season 3 where it was confirmed, no room for questioning from what I heard, our two murderous heroes were totes in love. The fly fisherman and… Continue reading #SerialKillerBoyfriends: A Splatter of Thoughts on Hannibal Seasons 1 and 2
Synopsis: Fifteen years after Heaven's Fall, Princess Asseylum Vers Allusia visits Earth as a sign of goodwill between the empire of Vers and the remnants of Earth civilization. Her assassination sparks a war between the Earth and the Orbital Knights, warrior nobles of Vers who descend upon the Earth in their castles to lay siege… Continue reading Review: Alnoah.Zero
Synopsis: At the English estate of Downton in the south of England, the Earl of Grantham Robert Crawley wakes to the news of a sunken Titanic. Then he receives a telegram saying both his heirs, including his daughter Mary's fiance, went down with the ship. Lord Crawley and his family must scramble to find another heir, who… Continue reading Review: Downton Abbey
Synopsis: Nagate Tanikaze lives in the underbelly of the seed ship Sidonia with his grandfather. Having met no one else his entire life, Nagate spends his childhood training on an old garde simulator, learning everything he can about the gauna, an alien race that hunts humanity. When his grandfather dies, Nagate emerges from the underbelly to protect Sidonia from the alien… Continue reading Review: Knights of Sidonia
KT's Bookshelf 