Movie Review: National Treasure Book of Secrets

My wife and I went to see the recent Nicolas Cage sequel a couple days ago. If you haven't seen it yet, and you liked the first one, then I would definitely...

...go rent the first one and watch it again. See, the problem is that the whole movie I'm thinking, "I've seen this already". I liked the first National Treasure. I thought it caught the spirit of our nation and did a good job creating a mythos of the Masons and our founding fathers. The second movie didn't have that spirit. It was simply a rehash with a different fake legend.

Now, I'm not trying to hold the movies up to a high standard. I mean, they're little more than DaVinci Code light. You get all the conspiracy without the religious controversy. Of course its all made up, but still.

But the movie didn't have to suck. And suck it did, about an hour into the two hour movie my head was resting on my wife's shoulder in boredom, much the same posture I had watching Eragon. There is one thing, however, that I think would have helped the movie. The thing that got me interested in the first movie was the involvement of the Masons and how they hid symbols in many aspects of American history to provide a map to a treasure. This movie involved the KGC, a Southern extremist group that (in the movie at least) helped plot the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. After that, though, the KGC gets forgotten, in fact, I can't remember what the letters stand for. If the movie would have built on that group and given them a fictional history, maybe it would have been more engaging.

But too much was a cheap repeat. Even down to the part where the new treasure is illuminated using a torch to light a pathway of gas (which never seems to burn out).

Book of Secrets brings back all the main characters, Nicolas Cage as Ben Gates, John Voight as his father, Justin Bartha as his nerdy sidekick Riley Poole, Diane Kruger as Abigail Chase, and Harvey Keitel as FBI agent Sadusky. New additions are Helen Mirren as Cage's mother, and Ed Harris as the quasi-bad guy that gets redeemed at the end, kind of. Unfortunately the bad guy was no where near as good as Sean Bean in the last movie.

Book of Secrets does set up a third movie at the end, a movie I'll see on DVD, if at all. Book of Secrets is rated PG and is out in theaters now.

Book Review: The Historian

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova is a 656 page novel centering primarily on the history of Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler, or more commonly, Dracula.

The novel depicts three major searches for Dracula, starting with Bartholomew Rossi in the '30s, who shared his experiences with his protege, Paul, who searched with Rossi's estranged daughter, Helen, a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, in the '50s, who passed the legacy to his daughter in the '70s. The three narratives are each engaging and keep the story moving towards a wonderful climax.

Not a page is wasted in the story. The history of Vlad, both reality and legend, is given and would be found interesting to anyone interested in the subject. For those looking for a slasher story, you'll be disappointed. For anyone looking for an interesting and exciting look into the mythos of one of the most brutal figures in history, this is a good read.

Kostova's real talent is in description. I usually hate too much description in a novel, but she is so good at it that I found myself setting aside the novel to look up some of the towns she describes on the internet to see what they really look like. It made me want to actually get on a plane and visit some of the ancient cities, villages, and monasteries she mentions.


The Historian is the first novel for Elizabeth Kostova and is available in both hard and softcover. The hardcover is now available at Amazon for $7.99. Kostova graduated from Yale and has an MFA from the University of Michigan.

The movie rights to The Historian have been bought for a reported seven-figure deal (a dream for any writer) and is set for a 2010 release.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Fox is gearing up for the premiere of its new Terminator series, The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Of all the shows I started watching this season, I'm still watching...let's see...NCIS? And that's about it. Now, that's not for lack of entertainment from the other shows, its just because with my work schedule, taking care of the baby, my wife being in nursing school, and oh yeah, writing, I haven't had a lot of extra time. When you want to get something done bad enough, you have to cut some things. The thing that got cut was TV. I still watch it, but not as much.

But I am excited about this series. I've liked the Terminator movies so far, and I like Summer Glau, who plays the 'good' terminator. That said, it seems Fox screws up more shows than it gets right. Some of that is because it doesn't give them a good chance. Examples? Well, there was Drive that came out last summer. What show debuts in the summer on a prime time network? After four episodes, they axed it. Firefly is another good one. They were so excited about having Joss Whedon making a show for them they didn't really ask what it was about and how it would fit in the lineup. So, after the first few eps were shot, they decided the pilot wasn't exciting enough and that they should play the second episode first. I wonder if that left a lot of people wondering, who are these people and what are they doing?

So, as Fox gears up for its next cancellation in Terminator, I'm reluctant to get too excited. Sure, I like the franchise and I like the star, but should I get emotionally attached to any show on a network like Fox.

Well, I'll give it a shot anyway.


The first potential error I see is that the show has a two night debut, Sunday, January 13th at 8/7 central, and Monday, January 14th at 9/8 central. They should just have one, two-hour premiere instead of splitting the nights. That's another thing Fox does. They keep changing the night a show is on, sometimes with little or no notice, making the viewers really search to find their show. If they can keep the show on one night (and since 24 won't air this season because of the writer's strike, that may be possible), I think the show has a good chance. If they play around with the schedule like they usually do, then the show might have a harder time staying on.



The Sarah Connor Chronicles stars:

Summer Glau as the terminator Cameron. Glau has starred on The 4400 (recently canceled) as Tess Doerner, The Unit as Crystal Burns, and Firefly/Serenity as River Tam.

Lena Headey as Sarah Connor. She played Queen Gorgo in 300 and Angelika in The Brothers Grimm.

Thomas Dekker plays John Connor. He was Zach on Heroes and Vincent on 7th Heaven.

Richard T Jones is James Ellison. His biggest role was probably Bruce Van Exel on Judging Amy.

Sometimes I Get Depressed

Yesterday I sat at the computer, looking to find all the publishers I could to submit my work to. I started on a website that listed publishers and found that a lot were way too small, didn't seem to want what I had written, or wanted an exclusive look at my manuscript for up to a year. Sorry. A year is a long time to wait for one publisher. So, I went back to look at agents and found that anyone I hadn't queried already looked like idiots. Then I went to Writer's Market and went through their publisher listings and found too few that would take submissions from un-agented writers. You have to have an agent to get a publisher, and you have to have been published to get an agent. But people break through, so what am I doing wrong?

I know precisely what I am doing wrong. I got frustrated and gave up. I had the same trouble when I took math classes in high school. I'd come across something that just didn't make sense, my heart would start beating, I'd bet frustrated, then angry, then pissed, then I'd just give up. Well, I can't do that with this. I can get frustrated and angry and pissed, but I can't give up. If this is seriously what I want to do with my life, then I need to make a serious go at it.

I realized, I don't have to do all this crap in one day. I have time. I have a future sugar momma that will take care of me for a while. So today I started going through my second novel to see what I wanted to put in the second draft. I quickly realized that while Cosette's Journey is rated PG (or maybe even G), Girl With Two Souls is going to get a firm PG-13 (assuming the literary world had content ratings). I like the story and its more fun to be creative. I'll come back to the submission thing in a day or a week and send out queries for Cosette's Journey, just not right now. And I have back up plans if things don't work. The blessing I have (which sometimes keeps me from sleeping well) is that my brain never stops working. I am ALWAYS thinking about something. Sometimes it stupid, but sometimes it evolves into and idea. And it works for creating new stories and for coming up with ways to sell and market my book. There are things I would like to try that would probably end up failing in the short term, but who knows? It some of them could have long term success. But I know one thing. I have to build a fan base, and I can't do that without getting my stories out there. And I can't get stories out if they're not written.

So, sometimes I get depressed. I think all writer's do. But Jim Butcher said on his website that one trick of getting published is not giving up. When another writer gets frustrated and gives up, you have to keep going. In January I'll have been writing seriously for two years. Some writers have gone ten years or longer before success. Some never get it. I don't want to end up like Christopher Paolini who got his Eragon and Eldest books published but has major failings as a writer. I want to earn my success. I want to grow as an author. I want fans to support me because what I've written is good, not because I'm a fad.

So, back to writing.

What I Got My Wife For Christmas

I had to order from ebay and I gave it to her the day it arrived. I was too excited to keep it under wraps for two weeks. It wasn't what she asked for but it was probably the best gift I could have given her. What was it? The UK version of the Harry Potter books, all in hardcover, with the adult covers.

So, no more Sorcerer's Stone, it's Philosopher's Stone, the way it was meant to be. The books are a bit shorter and thinner than the US versions, but that's to be expected. The illustrations have been removed (I've never been a fan of Mary Grandpre's artwork anyway) and the text is smaller. I told my wife that when she reads them, she has to take the jackets off to keep them safe, and that these books won't be leaned out. I've had too many books given out that I never got back.

Emily was very pleased, she couldn't believe I had gotten these for her. I wasn't expecting to either. I had a little extra money and had thought about getting her an iPod, which is pretty cool too, but this was the ultimate.

Writing Update:

My novel is done, finished, over. I'm done. I'm tired of looking at it. I'm tired of editing it. I'm tired of looking at the same words and phrases over and over again. That's not to say I don't like it, I like it a lot. But like Harry Potter, if I had read it five or six times over the course of two years, nitpicking over every detail, I'd be sick of it too.

I've written a new query letter and will start sending those out to publishers and I will most likely be promptly rejected, which is fine. The exciting thing is that I'm totally ready to start work again on my ghost novel. Now that I've perfected my editing process (or at least made it a little faster) I think I'll be able to get it ready for submission within a few editing passes, which should be quicker now.

This year I'll have New Year's resolutions that I'll be blogging about eventually. They're some good ones that I'm excited about. I'm not usually into resolutions because they're usually about something that you have no intention of doing. People want to lose weight, they want to stop smoking, they want to spend more time with their families when they really have to intention to commit to such a thing for more than a week or two. But these resolutions make sense, they're practical, and their along the lines of what I'm doing anyway, just maybe at a more accelerated pace now that I'm getting into a better routine.

Comments:

A few posts ago, Kathryn said this in my comments:

"I had some of the same problems with Magyk but the other books in the series get better and better. I also recently read a good one called The Tapestry. Its Harry Potter esque but with no borrowing and a different take on magic. Its pretty cool."

I decided to check out Tapestry on Amazon, and it looks pretty good. I added it to my wish list and maybe I'll actually read it at some point.

The Golden Compass - You Will Go to HELL If You Watch This Movie!

Or at least the first hour will seem like it.

The great thing about this movie was that it stayed true to the books. That's also the bad thing. A lot of the content in each book is pretty boring. The overall plot is okay, but its really the characters that carry each story.

Compass is a star-studded movie, but despite Bond stars Daniel Craig and Eva Green, along with superstar Nicole Kidman, I found myself leaning my head on my wife's shoulder several times. It wasn't until Sam Elliott arrived on scene playing a Texas aeronaut (I love Elliott), and Ian McKellan voicing the bear warrior Iorek Byrnison (the man's voice alone is compelling) showed up that the movie started to pick up.

The fight scene with the bears was great (they kept the part where one bear's jaw gets slapped off by the other), and the final battle in the arctic circle was pretty good too. But by the end, there was little to compel someone to wait for the sequel.

There are several other stars that were underused, such as Freddie Highmore, whose voice as Lyra's Daemon Pan was weak; Christopher Lee as an evil church leader; and Kristin Scott Thomas who voiced a character I don't remember from either book or novel.

Despite the controversy, there was no God bashing. The 'church' as represented in the movie truly is evil but is not named as anything but the Magisterium. I know there are several Christian groups trying to keep people from watching the movie, but its obvious they didn't watch it for themselves. The issue in this movie is the ideal of free will. I admit the other books can be pretty controversial, but the movie itself was pretty tame. If tame means boring.

One bright light was the introduction of 13-year-old Dakota Blue Richards as main character Lyra. She couldn't carry the movie herself, but she shouldn't have had to. What impressed me most was her facial expressions and being dead on in her acting. I remember rewatching the early Harry Potter movies before the actors knew how to act. It was awkward and sometimes silly, though the actors progressed. Richards didn't seem to struggle on screen and I hope she gets more chances to show her talent. She's not as pretty as Emma Watson, but with time I think she can grow up into a good actress.

As of this post, Golden Compass has only brought in about $25 million, a disappointing number for a movie that cost $200 million. My wife and I went to see it at the discount theater and only spent $4 a piece, and I wouldn't have spent more. The scenery is beautiful, but that's not enough to justify the standard ticket price of $9. I won't hold my breath for a sequel.

Magyk, by Angie Sage

Update.
I finished the last major update of my novel, Book of the Dragons. I'm toying with a new title as the current one seems more like a book with pictures of dragons or something like that. The one in my head now is Cosette's Story, but that doesn't sound like it's fantasy. So Cosette's Journey came up too. But would a guy read a book with a girl's name in the title? Me, for one. But I'm a rare breed.

But, back to the novel itself. What I'm doing now is performing searches of certain words that should be cut. I've noticed that I start a lot of sentences with the word 'well', as in "Well, I don't know what we should do", when "I don't know what we should do" would work perfectly. When I noticed I wrote this way, I also noticed I sometimes talk this way. I also start a lot of sentences with the word 'so'. This wouldn't be as much as a problem if this was simply a character quirk, but I do it to all my characters. So, some of those are getting cut :)

After that I'll write a new query letter and start querying publisher. At the same time I'll be able to move on to my other novel, The Girl With Two Souls, which is still in first draft mode.

Review.
Tonight I finished Magyk, by Angie Sage. It is the first book in the Septimus Heap series and is targeted to kids 9+.

First I want to share the things that just annoyed the crap out of me while reading, then I can be nicer later.

• There are a lot of run-on sentences
• Character names are used repeatedly when a pronoun would work
• The point of view (the person we see the story through) shifts way too much, often in the same paragraph
• Sometimes the point of view is seen through the family dog, a couple of times it came from a bug. There's a scene near the beginning where a lot of the characters are falling down a garbage chute. During this scene we go into the minds of everyone falling and what they think about it, including the dog. This leads to many pages of falling when I just wish they'd hit the ground so we can get on with it.
• Any word having to do with Magyk is capitalized and in bold
• Important phrases are capitalized or in italics

The author started as an illustrator and wrote children's books (like toddler, children) and it seems she has no confidence in the intelligence of her reader. Maybe its my fault because I'm an adult reading a children's novel, but I've read Harry Potter.

And so has this author. There are several parallels to Harry Potter and a little too much borrowing. I almost threw the book at the wall when I ran into a character named Trelawney, but I was at work and that's not a good thing to do.

Beyond all of that, the writing seemed to mature by the end. I liked the climax, and once I got past the things that annoyed me, I realized that the book was pretty entertaining. The thing I fear is that with a good book deal, and the books getting a movie contract the author won't mature. I could be wrong and hope I am (the fourth book in the series, Queste, comes out in April)

The question is, all in all, are these books worth reading. If you can put aside the irritations (and maybe I'm just more critical now that I have to edit my own work) then this book is pretty good. There's magic and adventure and mystery and lost identities and even one plot twist that I didn't see coming until nearer the end. For 8 bucks I'd say its worth it.

The next book on my list is The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova's modern tale of Dracula. It's a 642 page behemeth that I've been wanting to sink my teeth into for a while (lame pun intended).