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Review: The Marine
Mark's Rating: 1.75 out of 5 stars
Friday, Ariesna and I were originally planning on having guests over. When we found out they were all canceling due to the weather; we hit up the video store and got a couple of movies. When we got home, the first one we watched was The Marine. I'd selected it because I remembered the trailers leading me to believe it would be a fun action flick. However after watching it, I have to declare it to be a steaming flaming pile of poo. From weak fight sequences to bad acting, this movie embodies the worst hackneyed and cliched parts of every C-movie action flick ever to be made. That being said if one watches this movie, thinking of it more like a parody of the genre (e.g. in the vein of Scary Movie) then it can be enjoyable. I spent the vast majority of the film's 91 minutes laughing as cliche after cliche was perpetrated on the screen. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this film to any one; though it could make the basis of a good drinking game (every one takes a shot for every cliche used in the film). However one would have to be careful with such a game to avoid getting alcohol poisoning!
Wooosh!
Just so some other poor slob doesn't have to be the last person on the Internet to post a link to it....
Those crazy cats at EepyBird.com took 101 liters of Diet Coke & 523 Mentos and rather than throwing some sort of god-awful party with it; they came up with a much more original idea. With those humble ingredients, they recreated the famous Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas, NV. Oh and as a quick warning to anybody tempted to drink the leftovers of such an experment; DON'T. From the reactions of the EepyBird guys, I'd say it makes motor oil taste good. 
Sometimes you feel like a nut….
To borrow "snarkism", somebody deserves a tasty, tasty biscut for today's bit of hilarity over at Gossamer Commons.
If you do not regularly follow the strip; Malachite saved Keith from a Barghast by summoning forth Apokoryfoma. She's a Neriad and the Viceroy of the Cul-de-Sac. She also happens to be Malachite's ex-girlfriend. *laugh* If that were not bad enough by her code Keith is now required to make some sort of sacrifice to her, as a token of gratitude for saving him. Unfortunately, he's not exactly overburned with resources at the moment and offers up a candy bar. Today's strip is Appie's reaction. Greg Holkan's art and Eric Burns' one line of text in this strip blend beautifully. Malachite's reaction in the background of the strip is particularly worth paying attention to. 
Why I Read?
A friend of mine recently asked if other people had similar reactions when reading a good book. Since this site has been heavier on the brainless fluff of late; I decided to answer the question here rather than in her comments.
When I've got a really good book in my paws, -- mind you this is only for a REALLY GOOD book! -- I'll start reading and won't notice the passage of time until either:
A. My bloodsugar has dropped from not eating in 8 hours.
B. It's suddenly four in the morning and my eyes are tired so the words on the page start looking insanely small.
With a book that catches me like that, my head is totally in the book. People in real life can try talking to me, but they'll get grunts for answers (at best). When my favorite character1 is happy, I'm happy. When they're running through forests; I can hear leaves rustling and feel the branches drag across my face as I dash through the trees.
The last time I really felt this way about a book was when I first read the book that I'm currently reading, Ghosts in the Snow by Tamara Siler Jones. A friend of ours had gotten her hands on an early (review?) copy of the book and recommended it to my wife & I. Ariesna sat down and read the entire book while we were at the friend's house that night. I think I managed to wait until we bought a copy of our own to read it, but once I did I started to get really angry.
I need to pause a moment here to explain about how I generally enjoy my entertainments. If the book/movie/whatever has even a reasonably decent story; then I'll suspend my disbelief and just enjoy it without analyzing it. This is particularly true on my first experience with the book/movie/whatever.
And what exactly does that have to do with getting angry while reading Ghosts in the Snow? Ghosts is a mystery story with a fantasical setting and I was getting attached to one of the characters. This character happened to be a suspect in multiple murders and some of the clues in the book seemed to be pointing to him being the killer. The thought of this being true was making me too angry to continue reading. Eventually, I had to ask my wife if he was the killer because I was so upset about it that I wouldn't be able to finish the book if he was. She told me he wasn't but not who the killer was (at my request) and I was able to finish the book.
It's for moments like those that I read.
1 This will usually be a supporting character. Why? Because the main characters tend to get all the glory while somebody else is doing more to accomplish the goal (e.g. Sam vs. Frodo).
Pukka’s Links of the Week
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