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After wandering off to the Farmer's market to buy veggies, milk and fruit, I finished Michael Faber's Under the Skin which is a remarkable science fiction satire of a contemporary world gone a muck. It is flawed in places. But overall a good read and better than most. In some respects I prefer it to Philip K. Dick's somewhat nihilistic tour de force, The Three Stigmata of Palmer K. Eldritch.
The story is about Issery, a woman who works for Vess Industries. Her job is to roam the roads of Northern Scotland, picking up muscle bound male hitch-hikers - the hunkier the better, she passes anyone who is thin, too fat, tiny, or sickly, which is the vast majority. Through the first 100-154 pages, we aren't told exactly what Issery is or her nefarious purpose. Just the reasons she is doing it. Faber focuses more on the why in his novel and the psychology of his protagonist than the what, which is given in bits and pieces. I figured it within the first 50 pages, but I've also read and seen this story done before in various guises.
( vague spoilers )
Also watched Puss in Boots last night. It felt like a parody of Antonia Banderas and Salma Hayek's Richard Ricardo Westerns...ending with Once Upon a Time in Mexico meets Mother Goose by way of Jack in the Beanstalk.
I'm not, as you know, a fan of parody. It tends to bore me. I don't know why. It just does.
Shrek was entertaining for a bit, then it got old. Same with Puss in Boots...it was entertaining for a bit then it got old.
That said, even though I saw the twist coming a mile away, it is a mildly clever set-up.
Humpty Dumpty and Puss in Boots as brothers, with Humpty hunting the legendary Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. Banderas does the voice-over quite well, and was the only voice over actor I recognized. I couldn't tell is Kitty South-Paws was Salma Hayek or Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The animation was pretty much along the same lines as Shrek - good, not great.
Overall - fun movie in places, slow and plodding in others.
The story is about Issery, a woman who works for Vess Industries. Her job is to roam the roads of Northern Scotland, picking up muscle bound male hitch-hikers - the hunkier the better, she passes anyone who is thin, too fat, tiny, or sickly, which is the vast majority. Through the first 100-154 pages, we aren't told exactly what Issery is or her nefarious purpose. Just the reasons she is doing it. Faber focuses more on the why in his novel and the psychology of his protagonist than the what, which is given in bits and pieces. I figured it within the first 50 pages, but I've also read and seen this story done before in various guises.
( vague spoilers )
Also watched Puss in Boots last night. It felt like a parody of Antonia Banderas and Salma Hayek's Richard Ricardo Westerns...ending with Once Upon a Time in Mexico meets Mother Goose by way of Jack in the Beanstalk.
I'm not, as you know, a fan of parody. It tends to bore me. I don't know why. It just does.
Shrek was entertaining for a bit, then it got old. Same with Puss in Boots...it was entertaining for a bit then it got old.
That said, even though I saw the twist coming a mile away, it is a mildly clever set-up.
Humpty Dumpty and Puss in Boots as brothers, with Humpty hunting the legendary Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. Banderas does the voice-over quite well, and was the only voice over actor I recognized. I couldn't tell is Kitty South-Paws was Salma Hayek or Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The animation was pretty much along the same lines as Shrek - good, not great.
Overall - fun movie in places, slow and plodding in others.