Reading: Cryptonomicon

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spread across two different time periods, the second world war and a present-day setting in line with the book’s release in the late nineties, Cryptonomicon is a fictionalised history of cryptography and also a modern techno-thriller. It’s told primarily from the viewpoints of four characters:

Film – Quick Thoughts: Tron: Legacy

Tron: Legacy, directed by Joseph Kosinski
Written by: Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde
My rating: 4 of 5

I watched this on Blu-ray. It’s not a perfect film by any means, Garrett Hedlund being a bit bland beside Jeff Bridges and Olivia Wilde (who are both excellent) as he’s pretty much a generic hero in absent-father Kirk mode, Sam’s arc is much less interesting and more predictable than Flynn’s or Quorra’s, Encom’s CEO and the board in general are a cliché evil corporation and I’m not convinced Clu’s plan was a good as he or Flynn thought it was.

Those things aside though I really did enjoy it. The Tron style looks lovely with modern CGI and in HD, they really did a good job with it. They’ve built the setting up into a full-fledged sci-fi universe now, which possibly takes something away from the original version of the setting but really makes it an interesting place. They’ve updated everything nicely for modern audiences (the games and lightcycles), there are plenty of good action sequences and I liked the soundtrack.

Film – Quick Thoughts: Lilya 4-Ever

Lilya 4-Ever, directed by Lukas Moodysson
Written by: Lukas Moodysson
Starring: Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharskiy
My rating: 4 of 5

My seventh film of 2012 was Lilya 4-Ever, recommended by a Russian friend who used to live in Estonia, where the film is set. It’s a very good film but really not a happy one, and reminds me of Grave of the Fireflies or 4 Months, 3 Weeks and Two Days. Lilya is used by pretty much everybody she trusts, always hopeful but always disappointed. Oksana Akinsjina and Artyom Bogucharskiy do great jobs with difficult roles.

Film – Quick Thoughts: Shoot ‘Em Up

Shoot ‘Em Up, directed by Michael Davis
Written by: Michael Davis
Starring: Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti and Monica Belluci
My rating: 4 of 5

I’ve seen this before and is still a lot of fun. Even from the title it’s clear they just wanted to make a big dumb action film, all over-the-top action and bad jokes, almost like a modern Commando. Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti are obviously enjoying themselves, the action almost never pauses and it’s all very flashy, mindless entertainment. I think it succeeds in its goals better than The Expendables does.

Reading: City of Bones

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Christmas Book Number: 10

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series has led to a huge surge in popularity for a certain kind of fantasy story, bookstores setting aside shelves purely for ‘dark romance’ or ‘vampire romance’ novels aimed at the young adult market, particularly girls. City of Bones falls into that general category and has a glowing recommendation on the cover from Meyer herself, which is almost guaranteed to deter people who (somewhat accurately) think of the Twilight series as a bad thing.

Film – Quick Thoughts: The Expendables

The Expendables, directed by Sylvester Stallone
Written by: Dave Callaham and Sylvester Stallone
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren and Eric Roberts
My rating: 3 of 5

My fifth film of 2012 was The Expendables on Blu-ray. The main draw is obviously the cast, a classic action star like Sylvester Stallone working alongside modern ones like Jet Li and Jason Statham, with Dolph Lundgren and Steve Austin in supporting roles. It’s the kind of film where Stallone is hanging out with his motorcycles when Mickey Rourke rides in, gives him a tattoo and sends him to meet with Bruce Willis, who offers a job to him or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Just having them all together, even briefly, makes the opening half hour lots of fun.

After that it becomes a fairly standard modern action movie and lots of the dialogue is pretty clunky, not just when it strays into difficult territory like the romance subplots but even just in the banter between the team. I enjoyed it but I don’t think it made the most of the cast it had.

Film – Quick Thoughts: Ocean Waves

Ocean Waves, directed by Tomomi Mochizuki
Written by: Saeko Himuro and Kaori Nakamura
Starring: Nobuo Tobita, Toshihiko Seki and Yoko Sakamoto
My rating: 3 of 5

Another Christmas present. According to the DVD it’s rarely been seen outside of Japan and hasn’t been released in the UK before. It’s by Studio Ghibli so there’s a certain high level of quality there by default and it’s a sweet little film, a tale of teenage friendship and romance. The way Taku looks out for Rikako particularly appealed to me, being generally friendly despite not knowing her very well.

Film – Quick Thoughts: Mulholland Drive

Mulholland Drive, directed by David Lynch
Written by: David Lynch
Starring: Naomi Watts and Laura Harring
My rating: 5 of 5

It starts off seeming like a fairly straight mystery, the incredibly optimistic Betty finding a woman in her home who has no memory of what happened to her or who she is. They start piecing it all together and then of course the plot gets thoroughly Lynched, in the good, “leave it up to the viewer’s interpretation” way. Naomi Watts is fantastic in the film, and it’s really excellent in general.

Film – Quick Thoughts: Son of Rambow

Son of Rambow, directed by Garth Jennings
Written by: Garth Jennings
Starring: Bill Milner and Will Poulter
My rating: 3 of 5

My second film of the year was Son of Rambow, which is a weird film in some way. The story is just that two young boys team up to make a film together, which isn’t a problem in any way. To make it a problem they have to make one of the boys come from a very religious family who aren’t allowed to watch television or talk to people, so that just by doing this normal thing he is going against his family. The story also kind of wanders around a bit, spending lots of time on a French student that isn’t very funny or realistic and doesn’t really go anywhere.

It was okay and quite sweet in places, but it could have been a lot better.

Film – Quick Thoughts: District 9

District 9, directed by Neill Blomkamp
Written by: Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell
Starring: Sharlto Copley
My rating: 5 of 5

The first film I’ve watched in 2012. It’s as excellent as I remember. Wikus is a complicated character, as he’s not nice in the beginning and almost everything he does through the film is selfishly motivated, but it’s impossible not to feel sorry for him. He’s a low-level nobody promoted through family connections. Success is his to lose and he really, really loses it.

“Fookin’ prawns!”

-Wikus Van De Merwe

Reading: Relic

Relic by Douglas Preston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Book Number: 206

‘Far above Crichton’s Jurassic Park‘

‘Alien meets Jurassic Park‘

Both those quotes are on the book’s cover, which means anybody reading this book goes in with some lofty expectations. Jurassic Park was an excellent book and a great film, while Alien is a classic horror. The second quote is fairly accurate, the plot trapping a group of people in an isolated location to be picked off by what seems to be a dinosaur, though in this case it’s a New York museum with elaborate security measures rather than the island of Isla Nublar or the spaceship Nostromo.

Reading: Woken Furies

Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The third Takeshi Kovacs novel, and currently the final one. He’s come back to his home planet of Harlan’s World, and as the book begins he’s deeply entrenched in a personal quest of brutal, pointless vengeance. Things go awry and he’s stuck in a cheap synthetic sleeve and tagging along with a group of networked mercenaries, who spend their time fighting machine creatures on a continent completely overrun with them.

Reading: Broken Angels

Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Broken Angels is the second of the three Takeshi Kovacs novels, following Altered Carbon. Where that first book was a murder mystery (albeit it one where the victim was alive and hired the investigator and is suspected by the police to have killed himself), Broken Angels places Kovacs on a planet engaged in a major revolutionary war and sends him on a treasure hunt. It hammers home that this isn’t a series that follows one type of story or style, it’s a series that provides scenarios for Kovacs to rage against.

Reading: Altered Carbon

Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Book Number: 15

One of my favourite books, and the third time I’ve read it.

The book is set in the future, at a time when death itself has become something that can be managed and, if you have the money, avoided. Everybody has a chip in the base of their necks that saves their entire personality, and upon death it can be downloaded into a fresh body if you have the money (or connections who do), housed in a cheaper computer simulation or simply kept on file. Erasure (permanent deletion of a personality) is the ultimate punishment and used sparingly.

Reading: A Malady of Magicks

A Malady of Magicks by Craig Shaw Gardner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Book Number: 356

Maybe it’s unfair to compare this to Discworld, as despite both being humorous stories in fantasy settings there’s a very different tone here. Despite the occasional dip into parody Gardner mostly seems content with absurdity and wacky events, happy to undermine the drama by being silly and making a joke. Absurd humour just for the sake of being absurd doesn’t really appeal to me.