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:

1) Lawrence Waterhouse – A genius cryptographer with a knack for spotting patterns, who attended university with Alan Turing shortly before the second world war. When the Enigma code is cracked Lawrence’s main occupation is creating plausible reasons for why the British are able to anticipate the Nazi’s every move without revealing that they’ve cracked the code. He is almost incapable of viewing anything without breaking it down into patterns and systems, a unique approach that makes for some excellent chapters, with Lawrence’s decision that he needs to seduce and marry a specific woman based on how thoughts of her are impacting his work being a particular highlight.

2) Bobby Shaftoe – A former Marine in the second world war, left psychologically damaged by a major traumatic incident that leaves him unhinged enough to be the perfect man to carry out Lawrence’s plans. He is sent on bizarre missions deep into enemy territory that seemingly undermine the Allies or otherwise make no sense at all, but carries them all out without question. At one point his team smuggles barrels and crates full of waste – used cigarettes, old newspapers and even faecal matter – to an isolated building in Italy, so they can give the impression that spies have been there for months. The sheer insanity of the tasks he is assigned make for some of the more hilarious moments in the book.

3) Goto Dengo – An Imperial Soldier in the Japanese army during the second world war, who befriends Bobby after they get into a fight. He undergoes a major crisis of faith when he realises the undefeatable imperial army is losing the war, and his shock that the Americans would identify their weaknesses and find solutions is a wonderful moment. His is mostly a sad story due to his belief that his lack of faith in the Empire is a personal flaw, and after his unit is defeated he becomes so lost as he tries to find purpose again, before being assigned to a secret project that he doesn’t expect to survive.

4) Randy Waterhouse – The sole present-day main character, a talented programmer in several communications and internet projects around the Phillipines. His storyline draws upon all the others, connected through their descendants (Randy himself being Lawrence’s grandson), their friends and colleagues, or building upon their work. Aside from Goto he is the one who was most sure about his place in the world and his potential, only to have most of those preconceptions demonstrated to be spectacularly wrong. Where Goto is almost destroyed by this change Randy embraces it, finding he didn’t care about those things as much as he thought it did and welcoming the new choices available to him.

With multiple characters there’s always a danger that some will be considerably better than others, making a switch away from them frustrating, or creating a sense that the plot is dragging from the need to tell four largely separate stories at once. I never had that sense with Cryptonomicon. There was a little disappointment most times a character’s chapter came to an end, but that would be prove true with the next character, and on and on. All four characters are excellent, and those are only the viewpoint ones, as each is supported by an abundance of great characters.

It’s a surprisingly funny book and made me laugh out loud plenty of times. It’s also incredibly well written at points, as there were many times where I was genuinely impressed with what I’d just read and wanted to save those excerpts. Paragraphs like a description of the human body or the depression of the natives of Finland are either just marvellously written or also very funny. Even when Stephenson moves into detailed technical explanations of cryptographic concepts it’s still interesting. Cryptonomicon is a long book but is never dull, telling a fascinating story (or even multiple fascinating stories) with lots of excellent characters. I really enjoyed it.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Being the first novel it follows a fairly standard pattern to its opening chapters. Clarissa Fray is a normal teen girl in New York City, living a normal life of friends and school. At a club she witnesses a murder that nobody else seems able to see and clearly isn’t normal even for a murder, and soon her mother has disappeared and Clary is attacked by a strange monster. That leads to her being properly introduced to the paranormal world, which is where Cassandra Clare gets to branch out from convention a little more.

This is young adult fiction so obviously the story revolves around teens, making them the most important people in the world and making them essentially the equals of much older adults in terms of knowledge and skill, sent out on their own on missions of great importance. That’s all part of the territory so just has to be accepted, and is at least a little justified by the nature of the setting.

City of Bones avoids most of the notable criticisms that have been levelled at the Twilight series. Clary has her own goals and motivations that actually run counter to or undermine those of her new allies, and slaps somebody for taking a risk with her life instead of just being impressed by his daring. She doesn’t end up tagging along through coincidence and accidental connections, she’s significantly and personally involved in what is happening and essential to stopping the villain’s plans. Nor does she abandon her ‘mundane’ friend in favour of her new life, she makes a real effort to involve him.

Romance is another theme, and the teen focus means infatuations are given a lot of significance, enmities borne over shared affections. Indeed, for the majority of the book such things define Clary’s relationship with two of the other main characters. It makes sense within the setting though. In spite of all that’s happening Clary has still spent many years as a normal teen girl and still thinks and feels like one, her ‘female gaze’ causing her to notice things like the eyelashes and bone definition of the boys she spends her time with.

As the book progresses it’s easy to make certain obvious assumptions. These two will be the main love interests. This person loves that person but will probably end up with this other person. This person and that person will likely be revealed to be more closely connected than they realise at the moment. To Clare’s credit she doesn’t always go the obvious route and comes up with some genuinely surprising developments.

The story moves at a good pace, fleshing out the world while advancing the plot, save for one major detour that didn’t seem to serve any purpose beyond delaying the story and splitting the team for no reason (and considering the types of supernatural creatures involved it could almost be seen as pandering to the Twilight audience). It was retroactively made more significant thanks to later events, but still feels like a lot of time spent for little gain. That’s only one section though.

City of Bones is a fun novel with an interesting take on the supernatural world, pushing against expectations even as it follows a fairly comfortable path. It has some good characters and develops them well across the story, and I’m looking forward to reading the next entry in the series.

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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.

Filed under: Film, Opinions (Film) Tagged: 2010, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables ]]> http://bennysbumperblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/film-the-expendables/feed/ 0 thebenny The Expendables http://bennysbumperblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/film-ocean-waves/ http://bennysbumperblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/film-ocean-waves/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:00:20 +0000 Benny Wilkinson http://bennysbumperblog.wordpress.com/?p=3487 ]]>
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.

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.

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.

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