Muse's Whim

I finally went to see A Good Day to Die Hard. I was excited to see this movie because I thought that Live Free Die Hard was really good. All I can say now is that the Die Hard franchise should have stopped with Live Free Die Hard. I don't usually rail on movies because I think that most movies have at least some redeemable qualities. While A Good Day to Die Hard does have some crazy action sequences, especially the ones with the helicopter, and Bruce Willis delivers classic John McClane moments, these qualities were not enough to redeem the complete lack of a cohesive driving plot. In A Good Day, it was nice to see John McClane's kids all grown up and what they are doing with their lives, but I didn't feel any specific chemistry with the actor who played Jack McClane. I thought that the character arcs for Jack and John were completely predictable - I knew Jack was going to forgive his dad by the end of the movie. In Live Free, Willis had much more chemistry with Justin Lo...

Second bucket list review, somewhat belated but better late than never. Richard LaGravenese wrote and directed this adaptation of the first book of the Beautiful Creatures series written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. The movie stars relative newcomers Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert as main characters Ethan Wate and Lena Duchannes respectively. The supporting roles are cast with real powerhouses - Jeremy Irons as Macon Ravenwood, Viola Davis as Amma, Emmy Rossum as Ridley Duchannes, and Emma Thompson as Sarafine. The story takes place in a tiny town called Gatlin, South Carolina. Gatlin has a Civil War battle in its past and is populated with what seems to be mostly lower middle class, God-fearing folks who know everything about their neighbors including that the founding family, the Ravenwoods, are really witches. This fact puts Lena Duchannes, Macon Ravenwood's niece, in a position of ridicule as town outcast. This position would be hard enough for an adult but for a ...

The time has finally arrived - my review of the first movie on my 20 Movies of 2013 "bucket list" (which is what I'm going to call it from now on) - Warm Bodies! :) My husband and I had planned to see Warm Bodies on Valentine's Day after dinner. However, we only gave ourselves an hour and a half to eat before our movie started, and our restaurant was so packed that we had an hour and fifteen minute wait. Needless to say, we missed the show that night, so we watched it the next day at our local theatre. My overall impression of the movie was ... I liked it a lot. The actors were well-cast in their respective roles, especially the main character R played by Nicholas Hoult. Hoult portrays a conflicted zombie so well, and my favorite part is *spoiler alert* when he eats the brains of the boyfriend Perry and sees for himself what he has become. Also, I think that Rob Corddry gave an excellent performance as M. His transformation from zombie to human is almost as he...

So it's that time of year again - time to make resolutions. Most people will have abandoned their quests by mid February, but I'm hoping that I will stay true to mine this year because at least one of them could mean the completion of a lifelong dream. As you may have guessed, I have more than one resolution - in fact, I have two. The first may be obvious; I think the second may be a little less so. First New Year's Resolution It is my intention to spend some time everyday working on my novel, Gayle . This could mean hours of time, or just 15-20 minutes. It will depend on inspiration of course. It could also mean actually writing, or it could be anything from editing, plot mapping, or just spitballing ideas for the plot or characters off of my husband. As long as I do something each day to further the story of Gayle then I have achieved my goal. Second New Year's Resolution Many people who know me know that I am a bit of a movie junkie. I love nothing more th...

I am now an official fan of Game of Thrones - in book form and the HBO series. While I am a bit ashamed that I watched the series before I read the books, I am not ashamed that I like both. I'm nearly done now with Clash of Kings , and I am really impressed with Martin's writing. I think the characters are really well-rounded even though there are so many of them, and that the wealth of individual stories weave together into such a rich and vibrant tapestry that I can't put it down. I think the world of Westeros and The Free Cities is well wrought, and I like that Martin didn't rely on a lot of exposition at the beginning to familiarize readers with the world - we were simply placed in the world and got to know it's differences as we got to know the characters. At the point that I am, I have to say I'm rooting for Daenerys to come back to Westeros and win her throne back to stop all the infighting amongst The Seven Kingdoms, but I also really like all the Stark ...

I know everyone is talking about this issue, and I know it's been a week basically so I'm a little late to the subject. But I watch a show on Hulu called Spoilers with Kevin Smith. It's a weekly online only show where Kevin Smith takes an audience to see a movie together and then brings them back to do the Spoiler show where they talk about how they felt about that movie. The people in the audience aren't critics; they're normal people who like movies and have opinions. In the most recent episode, Kevin Smith talked about how this most recent episode was supposed to be his favorite because he knew that he was going to see The Dark Knight Rises, and he had been looking forward to it for so long. When the tragedy hit, the people at Spoilers were at a loss as to what to do because the show is normally very upbeat, excited, even silly sometimes about the movies that they see and obviously that wouldn't be appropriate. So Kevin and his people decided to still go see ...

I must think of this blog as a journal, because I do the same thing with journals. I start off with a gung-ho attitude, the best of intentions to write on a regular basis and to put my thoughts to paper.  Then in a few months my entries are fewer and farther between until I feel that I have to write an apology entry for going so long without writing. The sad part of that is, it's a journal - no one is reading it but me, so who am I apologizing to? I wrote an apology post on this blog as well, but let's be honest, with two followers, no one cares that I'm not posting regularly here either. I would feel more worried that I'm not making the commitment to writing on my blog, except for the fact that the reason I'm not writing here is because I'm actually writing a lot more often on my novel. I'm almost to the point where I can plug in some scenes from the short story, and when I do, I'll have over fifty pages written and five chapters done. I'm actually ...