This review contains spoilers, so don’t read on if you want to be completely surprised by everything that happens in The Golden City.

Way back in January, I reviewed The Dark River, the second book in a paranoid fantasy thriller series written by the mysterious author, John Twelve Hawks. Out of nowhere, several weeks ago, someone posted a comment in response to the review. The comment was from the author’s literary agency. I was offered a free copy of the third book in the series, The Golden City.

Wow! Being offered free goodies just for posting a review seemed too good to be true, and I wondered if it was a weird form of comment spam (or perhaps a ruse by the Tabula to get their clutches into me). However, it turned out to be genuine. I received a shiny new hard cover copy of The Golden City a few weeks ago. (Hopefully, writing about this clears me with the FTC.)

It took me a while to get started on the book, but once I did, I zipped through it in just a few days. This last book is consistently good, although it suffers from a few flaws, just as the first two books did.

Again, the MacGuffin – the threat of a Big Brother coming to control our lives – fails to inspire me with fear. The Big Brother organization here, the Tabula, would be fairly benign if all they did was spy on you all the time. But they don’t just do that – they also seem to be intent on killing the people who might expose them. This, it seems, is where the real danger lies – the fact that they’re an organization which thinks it’s OK to kill people to advance their cause. And since there are plenty of other organizations/people which are out to get you (terrorists, your average serial killer, and so on), I don’t see why the Tabula is touted as the greatest possible threat to all of mankind.

The entirety of Chapter 42 is a defense of the premise that the loss of privacy is the gravest possible threat, but reading it didn’t convince me. And I’m a pretty paranoid person! It seems to me that loss of privacy has its ups and downs, and humanity will learn to cope. Seriously, which is worse, the government snooping through your underwear drawer, or terrorists pointing your airplane at a skyscraper? Let’s face it, marketing agencies already know way more about us than we’d like – but does that alter our quality of life significantly?

Well, I already knew this was an issue from reading the two earlier books, and I was along for the ride. This book is just as fun as the first two, so if you enjoyed them, I think you will enjoy this one, as I did. If you enjoyed the Alias TV series, with its kickass strong female lead and its mish-mash of science fiction/fantasy paranoia, you’ll probably like this trilogy.

I don’t want to reveal too much, but here comes a spoiler: I have to mention that Maya’s pregnancy was way too jarring – one minute, she’s being rescued by Gabriel, the next she’s preggers, with nary a mention of hand-holding in between, let alone shagging. At least a few shy kisses were in order to prepare the reader.

One more thing: the series is described as a trilogy, but the book is open-ended enough that there could be another sequel. I’d be happy to read more, but I’m also happy with the trilogy as it is. Good entertainment value! If John Twelve Hawks writes anything else, I’ll definitely take a look.

Broken Windows is a moody piece about a group of annoyed, depressed, sullen, and self-absorbed people. The couple of characters that don’t fit that description are overshadowed by the moodiness and neuroticism of the others. Michael Gross’s character was a small bright spot, a guy trying to make the best of things in celebrating the life of his alcoholic father.

There are plenty of great, but downbeat, movies. This movie is downbeat, and just a drag.

With a name like “Californication”, you have to expect the series will contain a lot of sex, and so it does. So what, there’s a lot of sex on TV these days; look at The L Word or Queer as Folk, both of which portrayed numerous playful romps in the bedroom.

In contrast, the sex in Californication is mostly sad, or desperate, or mean. In some sense this makes the series a more effective drama. It starts out just a little bit titillating, but soon you realize the characters are horribly lonely, living shallow, meaningless lives. At least, that sure is the way it looked to me.

Despite that, there are drops of humor here and there which help to lighten the mood. And the way the characters are portrayed (written and acted) is much better than in your typical prime time soap opera. Their personalities are pretty consistent and complex (in contrast with their shallow and meaningless lives). This makes me curious to see if the quality continues into the second season.

The plot itself is not really my cup of tea: it’s about a writer (boring!) living in LA (more boring!) feeling sorry for himself (again!), and his pathetic attempts to regain the love of his life, with whom he has a tweener daughter. All very yawnsome, if it weren’t so well done.

There are a lot of problems with the movie Knowing. The worst bit, in my view, was the completely unbelievable conversion of the agnostic professor at the end of the movie. There were other gigantic plot holes, as well. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining couple of hours, and it even creeped me out a bit. I especially enjoyed the performance of Nicolas Cage, playing the quintessential dad, running after bad guys with a baseball bat.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is the story of two footloose women who travel to Barcelona for the summer and go through various relationship dramas. The scenery is gorgeous: beautiful Spanish cities, beautiful people, beautiful clothing and art. The script is good, the plot carries you along. So it’s worth watching.

To enjoy the movie, I had to get over some niggling annoyances. The two women are adults for whom money grows on trees. There’s never once a reference to how either one of them make their livelihood. In addition, they mainly seem to be appendages of the men in their lives. The movie focuses so strongly on the reactions of the women to these men that it starts to feel like a high school drama. This makes the characters rather flat. Finally, the women seem to be incredibly tolerant of Juan Antonio’s blatant objectification of them. He is attracted to them at first sight because they are model gorgeous. Well, that’s original! You’d think these two women would have had enough of that, by now, but apparently they are still easily seduced by someone with a shallow attraction based on appearances.

The movie is a fantasy. You have to do a good job of suspending disbelief if you want to enjoy it. It helps a lot that the setting is so beautiful, the acting is good, the plot is fresh. Too bad the characters are so unreal and superficial.

BTW did anyone else think that two of the actors in this movie bear a striking resemblance to two of the actors from Grey’s Anatomy? With his two-day beard, Javier Bardem resembles Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Denny Duquette from Grey’s) and Scarlett Johansson resembles Katherine Heigl (Izzie Stevens from Grey’s). Initially it felt like a bizarro universe spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy. I wonder if it was deliberate.

I’ve posted my review over at 43things. In a nutshell: the book is timely, but often couldn’t keep my interest.

I enjoy end-of-the-world science fiction, and I Am Legend was a great example of the genre. Perhaps I am biased, because I do love watching Will Smith do his thing. But this movie kept me alternately on the edge of my seat, and peeping out from under the covers. Very definitely worth watching!

I’ll watch anything by Luc Besson, based on good past experiences – The Fifth Element, The Big Blue, Leon: The Professional, La Femme Nikita, the list goes on. Angel-A has very little in common with those movies. There’s very little action. This is more a movie of self-discovery, and I found the plot somewhat simplistic. However, the acting is very good, and the characters are fun to watch. Paris, the city, plays a very nice role as well. So I’m glad I rented this, although it’s nothing like what I was expecting.

Funny how many bad reviews Cloverfield got here… The handheld camera action didn’t bother me at all – after a little while I hardly noticed it. Maybe that’s because I watched it on my PC at home. For the rest, it’s just a fun/creepy monster movie. It wasn’t too scary or too gory for me, I enjoyed it. I loved seeing all the great shots of NYC, too.

If you watch the DVD, be to sure to catch the “Clover Fun” special feature (bloopers).

Qui a tué Bambi? is just so-so. I’d give it a lower rating if it were American, just because I like watching French movies – the language and the setting made this bearable.

I was never scared. The heroine is perky, but most of the time seems to sleepwalk through what’s happening. The bad guy spent most of the movie wearing a scowl, looking peeved more than anything else. It’s a bit of a snooze.