Saturday, April 7, 2018

Review: Not My Father's Son

Not My Father's Son Not My Father's Son by Alan Cumming
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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Review: The Color Purple

The Color Purple The Color Purple by Alice Walker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



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Review: The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Review: The Immortalists

The Immortalists The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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Ready Player One: The Movie - NO SPOILERS I PROMISE

Let's face it, the book was better than the movie. However, I will concede that if you didn't read the book you would probably really enjoy the movie. In fact, you'd probably really like it.  I liked it, but I didn't love it.  I loved the book.

As an 80s child (I graduated high school in 1990) this book brought back so many memories. Things I had forgotten came back with force; video games, movies and music. As a side note, I bought the War Games movie on DVD right after reading this book.  I have most of the 80s music and video games. 

I went to this movie with my favorite movie critic (Trevor) and another voracious reader (Brittany). 
We had all read the book but felt we were far enough removed from the book that we would appreciate the movie. I last read it in 2016 and I tried really hard not to read this again when I heard about the movie.  I remember the 2 Deathly Hallows movies (that still hurts). I wasn't going to go through that again.

Trevor said it wasn't Spielberg enough and it could have been better.  I'll believe him because he knows Spielberg movies and I don't.  I wasn't sure exactly how they were going to do the virtual world vs. reality and I thought it was okay. I'm not well versed on avatars so I thought the avatar's were pretty well done. Art3mis was probably the closest to how I imagined the characters. He agreed it wasn't real close to the book but that it was okay on it's own. It was.

Brittany, who wasn't even around in the 80s (she's a youngun) liked it. She was the most positive about it. Maybe because she wasn't like me, searching for those youthful reminders.

And therein lies my overall disappointment but I realize that getting licenses for some of the 80s things that were mentioned in the book may have been the hangup. I had also heard/read that Spielberg didn't want to make this movie all about him (because he is featured pretty heavily in the book!). This is why, at the end of the movie, I was okay with it. I will definitely see it again. I'll probably buy the Blu-Ray.


Happy National Beer Day!



***I went to listen to Ernest Cline speak when Armada came out in Paperback (yes, I geeked out over an author!) and I fell a bit in love with him. His appearance at Flyleaf in Chapel Hill in April 2016 was spectacular. The whole time I was thinking, he gets me. He really gets me. Too bad he had his fiancee with him.***










By the way, I'm so 80s that most of the spaces after my periods are double spaced ;)