Summer 2011 Part 1

Now that Summer for the year of 2011 is officially over, I am going to put together a review of what happened with me this summer...mostly the movies I saw (at the theater), the books I read (yes, I did read some books) and my improv involvement as well as some other odds and ins if I get to it. To make sure I get everything involved, I'm going back to mid May
MOVIES
The first "summer" movie I saw this year was THOR. At best, I would say it was OK...and to me, calling it OK is being nice. I didn't really care for it. Maybe I had to be a fan of the comic and I never read the comic. Maybe I should have known something about Nordic mythology. I really don't. When it comes down it, I just all around didn't care for the movie. I have been falling out of love wwith super hero movies for some time. Super heros have to be a certain way for me. I don't know. Anyway, for me, THOR was really underwhelming.

I have noticed that one thing that I do enjoy in super hero movies is when children are the super hero and they have cope with being different in a world they already struggle in anyway with school (high school or collage). So, countering the worst super hero movie I saw this summer with the best super hero movie I saw this summer was X-Men: First Class. Now, I loved this movie. I don't know if it's supposed to be a prequel or a reboot to the other X-Men movies or what. But I genuinly really liked this movie. Maybe it was the cast. Maybe it was the fact that it felt like an X-Men movie the way it should feel like (X-Men 3: The Last Stand was underwhelming...but maybe I should watch it again). But up to this time, X-Men: First Class was the best movie I had seen this year up to this time...but before was THOR and The Green Hornet...so as far as I was concerned, it didn't have much compatition.

The third movie I saw this summer was also a Part 3. It was Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. I thought it was really good. But then, I'm a little biased because it had Leanord Nimoy in it...and then went out of it's way to reference Star Trek almost every single chance it got. I also enjoied that a major part of the action took place in a city that I've been to before, Chicago, IL. Yeah, I don't get out much. Finally, though not exactly better than the first Transformers movie from 2007, it was better than Revenge Of The Fallen from 2009.

The last movie I saw this summer was ironicall also the last in a line of series and books: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2. I saw this the day it came out in IMAX 3-D. This movie was built up and, as far as I'm concerned, it delievered. There were some differences between the book and the movie (besides the fact that the book was not seperated up into 2 parts). But unlike Harry Potter and the Half-Assed Prince (yes, I was upset with the 6th movie) Deathly Hallows Part 2 had everyone rising up against the Death Eaters and had an all out battle between good and evil. This was one of the things that was going to piss me off if it was left out. Snape had some very significan memories and I was also going to be mad if that was left out. There were whole movements in the theory that Harry Potter should have died in the book. I was going to be mad if the director decided to go ahead and kill him off. About the only major deviation from the plot of the book was the lack of Dumbledore's history. Though this wasn't needed for the movie (even though they had led up to getting this information in Part 1), it's really the only thing that I was upset to see left out. Okay, well, not the only thing...some really minor character detail moments for Harry Potter. But overall I loved this movie so much...and I don't usually like seeing movies in 3-D.


BOOKS

I read a lot of books this summer. The first book was actually the first in a series of 3 books called The Hunger Games. Book 1, I mentioned in my top 5 purchases from Borders update. I won't say much more about it than Katniss is this girl who, along with a boy named Peeta, gets sent off to die (basically) in a reality type survival game show.

Catching Fire was the 2nd book in the series and also, the second one I read. Basically, in this book, a revolution is getting started. Katniss has to go back to the games. But the revolution actually starts in the games themselves. Since this is a seris book, I won't go into much more detail.

Mockingjay was the final book in the Hunger Games series. The Revolution is already in full swing and Katniss, though not the leader, basically becomes the mascot of the revolution. These books, though I can't say I really liked them and that I was happy with the way it ended, did leave an impression on me.

Next I read The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magicicans Nephew. You know, I never got much pleasure from reading when I was growing up. I just didn't. So I'm reading a lot of children and young adult fiction while in my upper 20s. This is the first Chronicles of Narnia books going in chronicallogical order...which is how I choose to read them. This book is really about the birth of Narnia and how the white witch wound up in power.

Next, I read The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. As mostly everyone knows, this is the Easter story told from a fairy tale land of Narnia point of view. I don't really need to go into more detail than that. I still have yet to read any of the oher Narnia books.

Next, in less than 2 hours time, I read a book called Werewolf Haiku. Over the course of 136 pages, the main character, a mailman, gets attacked by a dog(?) while on his route, turns into a werewolf, tries to court a young lady and gets into trouble with the law told through the 5-7-5 style format of Haiku...the entire story is writen in haiku. By the way, this isn't the only werewolf book I have. It's just the only one that tells it's story through poetry.

Finally, and also, about the time that Biblioclast did Hitchhicker's Guide To The Galaxy, I finally read the book So Long And Thanks For All The Fish. This is the 4th book in the Hitchhicker's Guide series in which Author meets a woman who fasinates him (not Trish...they had a falling out, apparently) and Ford Prefect goes looking for Author...and Author meets a rain god who, no matter where he goes, can't get away from the rain. After this book, it's part of the Ultimate Hitchhickere's Guide, so I also read the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe."

Anyway, that's all the books that I have read and finished. I've read on a few others but I haven't finished yet. I'm going to wind this entry down now. It's taken me a long time so everything else I wanted to mention will go in the entry Summer 2011 Part 2.