Reading List: May

Another month, another bunch of books I've read, even though there have been more manga and graphic novels than novels this time. Let's see what we have, and how good it was...

Liberty Meadows, vol. 3: Summer of Love
After enjoying the secon volume of Frank Cho's animal sanctuary, I had to keep going. A terrific read!

Liberty Meadows, vol. 4: Cold, Cold Heart
And then I couldn't help myself, and I had to go for the last one… so far. I wish he was producing more Liberty Meadows instead of doing other stuff. Oh, well: we'll have to wait.

Depths of Madness
I already cursed this book's name here. Do yourselves a favor and don't ever read it.

Shanna, the She-Devil
All that Frank Cho goodness made me reread Shanna to continue enjoying his artwork. Shanna is mindless and fun, and the pictures are superb.

Remote, vol. 4
Detective Kurumi Ayaki is back and taking names. A cool series.

Season of the Witch
I already praised this excellent book here.

Remote, vol. 5
I needed my Kurumi and Himuro fix. This volume is a bit more risqué than the previous adventures.

Remote, vol. 6
The case that started in volume 5 ends here. A good read!

Starship Troopers
The book Nash was always telling me to read. Superior to the movie by leaps and bounds, this book by Robert Heinlein is very entertaining and dynamic, and Verhoeven's film did it a disservice.

Danger Girl: The Ultimate Collection
Again, I already told you about this incredible read here.

Remote, vol. 7
It's very interesting how Remote had a lot of fan service in the first four volumes, and then it escalated to the nudity in volumes 5 and 6. Then, there's a little bit more on volume seven (not as much as volumes five and six), and then there's nothing at all in the remaining three volumes of the series. Weird...

Remote, vol. 8
Kurumi continues to kick butt as her relationship with fiance Shingo and boss Himuro evolves and becomes more strained.

Remote, vol. 9
The last story arc, Marathon Girl, starts here, and it just caught me and wouldn't let me go.

Remote, vol. 10
The series comes to an end in this intense tenth volume. Of course, I won't reveal anything, but I guess it makes sense. You'll have to read it to figure out what I'm talking about.

Demasiada nieve alrededor
This book collects Javier Marías's articles from February 2005 'til February 2007. His prose is sublime, his moral values outstanding, and his reasoning and exposition nothing short of magnificent: un hombre cabal y sensato, as he would probably be glad to be described. And you can find all the wonderful articles in this book compiled on his website.

Orcos negros y lobo gris

Bueno como Hal dijo que queria ver más de mis creaciones aquí tenemos lo último pintado, tambien para el ejercito de mi primo, de orcos y goblins el músico y un soldado de la unidad de orcos negros, tengo que hacer una foto a toda la unidad por que es realmete espectacular, y no me refiero a como las he pintado yo, que eso es normalito, si no a las figuras en si, son chulisimas.

El hombre lobo tambien es de confrontation y les va a cortar el cuello a los pobres orcos que estan mirando para el lado equivocado.

Son de Confrontation una marca francesa que destaca por su calidad, no como los amigos de Warhammer que cada vez son más cutres.

Mejorando

Tras interminables horas de trabajo, aunque en realidad no es que haya sido para tanto, Sunny Jhanna, este vuestro blog de todos, es ahora un poco mejor que antes. La interfaz ha sufrido ligerísimos cambios, y, principalmente, todos los posts, antiguos y nuevos, han sido etiquetados minuciosamente para su mejor localización. Debido a ello hemos sufrido alguna que otra desgracia, aunque nuestro departamento de prevención y seguridad se ha puesto en marcha para que nunca más vuelva a ocurrir semejante incidente.

Gracias a estas reformas, ahora podemos descubrir con claridad de qué se habla en la soleada Jhanna. Hasta ayer, nuestro prolífico Finn5fel nos ha deleitado con exactamente 96 posts que dan muestra de su extensa y excelente producción artística, 18 de los cuales nos mostraron su Terra Inkognita, por no mencionar otros 24 con los que hemos ido descubriendo avances varios de su más reciente Decaying. 84 son, por otro lado, los posts que, de un modo u otro, tocan el séptimo arte, mientras que 65 han sido las veces que hemos hablado de comics y 39 las que lo hemos hecho de literatura. 28 han sido los posts con vídeos o links a ellos, de los cuales exactamente la mitad, 14, han sido los posts con Grandes Momentos en Pantalla hasta el momento, e incluso hemos visto 3 fotos con miniaturas pintadas por nuestro querido Nash (yo necesito más, satisfáceme).

Son varias las conclusiones que se pueden sacar de todo esto:

- La persona de la que más se habla aquí es... ¡sorpresa! ¡Scarlett Johansson con 9 posts!

- Empatados a 6 posts, por detrás de ella, George Lucas y Joss Whedon. Adivinad a cual de ellos hemos elogiado y a cual vilipendiado.

- Curiosamente, 11 han sido las ocasiones en que hemos tocado el tema pirata. Nada nos define mejor de lo que lo hace esta estadística.

- 2 han sido las entregas de London Calling, cuando tendrían que haber sido nueve. Lo siento. Sigo trabajando en ello.

- 20 son los posts clasificados como miscellaneous, sin incluir éste. Está claro: no se puede fabricar un post diario sin irse por las ramas alguna vez o decir alguna que otra tontería.

Por cierto, de 368 posts que llevamos hasta el momento, tan solo 71 no han sido escritos por nuestro bienamado Fel. Echad las cuentas para descubrir la razón de por qué el posteo diario sí es una realidad en Sunny Jhanna.

PD.- En efecto, el de la foto soy yo. Me decidí a hacer caso a Finn5fel, abrirme una cuenta en Photobucket y tener mi propio Meez. Y así me ha salido. Aunque no hay nada mejor que verle moverse, jejeje. Mi vivo-aunque-sobradamente-ficticio retrato.

Enanos y Draconianos

Este el último libro que he vuelto a leer después de acabar con toda mi lista de libros pendientes. He decidido volver a releer algunos de los libros que más me gustarón cuando era joven y decidi empezar por este.

En draconianos y enanos los buenos son los malos y los malos los buenos...bueno los malos son los protas y como pasa con los malos que son los protas terminas por cogerles cariño. Un concepto que pocas veces se ve los libros de fantasia, en el que siempre las razas de la luz...elfos, enanos y humanos suelen ser los protagonistas.

Es una novela muy diverdita donde se mezclan las situaciones comicas con pensamientos más profundos, como la extinción de una raza y el legado que dejan para la posteridad. Dirigidos por su firme comandante, un bozak llamado Kang, un grupo de draconianos supervivientes de la Guerra de la Lanza llega a las montañas Kharolis. Allí, en un pequeño valle, contruyen un pueblo en el que vivir en paz. Por desgracia, los Enanos de las Colinas también habitan el valle y durante 30 años se suceden los enfrentamientos entre ambos grupos. Ahora los enanos han encontrado el mapa de un inmenso tesoro, oculto en el reino subterráneo de Thorbadin y los draconianos han descubierto que para ellos ese tesoro vale más que todas las riquezas de Krynn. ¿Qué raza conseguirá quedarse con el tesoro y vivirá lo suficiente para disfrutarlo?.

Un libro genial por el que no pasan los años...lo malo es que en cinco horas te lo terminas. Tienen que poner ya el Ave Alicante-Barcelona o me voy a quedar sin libros pronto...

Extremely Entertaining

To keep with the alliterations and the book reviews, today we're going to talk about Season of the Witch. The only difference is that Thursday's book was cataclysmically retarded, and today's book is fantastic.
Season of the Witch, written by Natasha Mostert, tells the story of Gabriel, a hacker that is hired to find a guy that disappeared a few months ago. Without spoiling anything, I'll say that he soon finds himself suspecting two beautiful sisters. And I won't say anything else, cause I don't want to give too much away. I will say, however, that the story combines mystery, romance, magic, books, and the supernatural in a tremendously effective way that forces you to keep turning page after page after page.
So if you're interested in a compelling story with cool characters and wonderful prose, you should go ahead and buy this book. It truly was an amazing experience!

At Patience's End

I was going to see Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on Thursday evening, but I was too tired and, fearing I would have to struggle not to fall asleep, decided against it. Instead, I went to see it on Friday, and I think it's a good thing I did. Had I seen it on Thursday, I would have blamed myself for what I would have thought of the film. "Maybe I was too tired," I would have told myself. "You didn't enjoy it because you were falling asleep," I would have argued. "You'll like it better when you see it again," I would have claimed. But since I saw it on Friday with all my senses alert, there is no excuse: this film should be the last Pirates movie. Please.

At World's End is almost three hours long, and I have no problems with long movies, as long as they draw me into the universe they portray. However, I basically spent said three hours thinking "Now it's going to get better. Now it's going to be funny." It didn't get better, though. And maybe worst of all, it didn't get funny. It actually reminded me of its trailer quite a bit. When I first saw the trailer, I shrugged and thought "Well, I guess they're keeping the good stuff for later." Watching the movie, I had the exact same feeling. A shame there was no "later" after the movie was over.

Since this is a spoiler-free review (as we always do in Sunny Jhanna), there are many things I can't talk about, but I can say that several characters from previous installments don't have the screen time I would have liked them to have, while some others spend way too much time on screen. That is one thing I didn't like, but the main problem was that I didn't care for the story. Just like in the previous films, there is crossing and double-crossing, but the term "double-crossing" is a gross understatement when applied to this movie: there're so many double-, triple-, and quadruple-crossings that you decide not to care and just go along. You start not caring who's working with who, and who's against who. And then, characters you don't care at all jump to the fore, and the combination of story you don't care for and characters you don't care about either proves deadly. To sum this point up, At World's End -just like Davey Jones, and unlike the two previous films- has no heart: it's just an empty shell that leaves you indifferent.

The second problem, and related to this lack of heart, is the lack of audacity. The first two movies left me open-mouthed, unable to believe the audacity of the visuals, the stunts, and the crazy situations the characters found themselves in. I couldn't get my head around how somebody would have the courage and the sheer nerve to come up with outrageous ideas like those, put them in film, and make them work (undead pirates swordfighting, the famous rolling wheel, Jack's escape from the native islanders). But all of a sudden, the movie makers decided to get serious and conservative, and thus At World's End has no such scenes, not even one. Everything feels dull, repetitive; it has a nasty smell of been there, done that --and when they did it the first time it was much better. There is no sense or feeling of exhilarating, rioutous adventure. Instead, we get a story relentlessly and clumsily plodding forward, trying to get the job done and make it work. But it doesn't.

Finally, the third and maybe worst problem is that At World's End is just not fun (or funny). I laughed out loud with Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest. The dialogue was witty, the situations hilarious, the surprises fun and exciting. With At World's End, I laughed out loud once in three hours. I won't say the other jokes and comedic moments fell flat, but I just smiled or chuckled, somewhat amused, instead of roaring with the laughter that possessed me while watching the first two films. And don't even get me started on the monkey: I could have killed that little bastard every time he was onscreen.

I thought the best thing in the movie was Davey Jones, not only because he looks cool, but because of his acting and his subplot (the only compelling one). And he was still affected by not enough time on screen and way too many other things going on. Every time he showed up I kept thinking "Now it's going to get better." And it did, for as little time as Captain Squid was the main focus of attention. But that was too little.

Being nitpicky, the five endings were sort of anticlimatic. It seems The Return of the King made it okay for movies to have a gazillion "final scenes", and if Spiderman 3 wasn't enough proof of that, At World's End gives us another chance to wonder "Why didn't they stop there?" And since we're talking about endings, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies always have a hidden scene after the credits, so stick around to see this one: it certainly is the most relevant out of the three.

So no heart, no audacity, no comedy, no compelling story, not enough Davey Jones. Heck, not even the music was as good as it had been before! All these ingredients make for a dull movie that seems even worse because of its length. I was hoping I would go see it three times like I did with Curse and Chest, but, as it happens, once was more than enough. Before it opened, I was rooting for it to break Spiderman 3's records -which it got by breaking Dead Man's Chest's-, but now that I've seen both, Spiderman 3 is a much better movie, so I'm not sure what I want now. Well, as a matter of fact, I do: I want them to stop making Pirates movies, something I never thought I would say. The first two were fantastic, truly terrific films. This one is sort of okay at best, and that's being generous. Maybe if it had been the first movie, I would have been somewhat impressed. But after seeing the first two, this is just a half-assed attempt at… what? Making more money? Finishing the trilogy? Giving us more Sparrow than we can stand? Boring the audience? In that, they succeeded.

If I Were Two-Faced, Would I Be Wearing This One?

Since the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean saga airs today in the USA, and Fel is reviewing it tomorrow in the way of a very much expected spoiler-free post, it just feels right today to talk about the other Bruckheimer/Disney most famous franchise.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets will air on December this year, and its spectacular teaser trailer can be seen right now on the net. The original National Treasure was, if not an excellent movie, at least good enough for me. So I’m definitely going to see this sequel, and now that I know a little bit more about it, more than ever.
The thing is, NT: Book of Secrets has it all to fully surpass its predecessor. The original cast is back again, and, beside all those old faces, this time we’ll also be able to enjoy the acting skills of venerated masters such as Harvey Keitel, Ed Harris and Helen Mirren. Only because of that, if I were you I would take a look at it. And if that isn’t enough guarantee, there's one more thing: this time the screenplay has been written by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio. Yes, yes, the two screenwriters behind the Zorro franchise, the first Shrek and, again, those Pirates movies.