Fragmented Marketing: Making Owls Appealing
"From the Director of 300 and Watchmen" isn't an ideal tagline for a PG-rated movie aimed at kids.
Reviews of books, comics, movies, and other random stuff.
Review: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers My rating: 5 of 5 stars In ZEITOUN, Dave Eggers does an excellent job of weaving Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun's compelling backstories and Katrina experiences together, shaded by post-9/11 xenophobia, and delivers a powerful documentary of what will most likely be looked back upon by history as one of this country's most tragic eras/errors. In its final pages, I was most struck by the proverbial banality of evil and the limited resiliency of the human spirit. When I first heard about this book, I fully expected to be infuriated after reading it, but it simply left…
On Inception, The Passage, and Writing in The Obama Era
The weakness of “It’s all a dream” — why we hate that, why we feel cheated when narratively anything is revealed to be all a dream — is that you’ve just asked me to spend so much time and emotional capital investing in the stakes of this, and you’ve now swept it away with the most anti-narrative structuralism that doesn’t have anything to substitute in its place. It’s laughing at you for even taking it seriously. You don’t want to feel like a victim of the narrative, and I don’t think Christopher Nolan would do that.
Inception’s Dileep Rao Answers All Your Questions About Inception
Nuanced, brainy and thought-provoking, Christopher Nolan’s provocative sci-fi masterpiece (yeah, I said it) isn’t your typical formulaic summer blockbuster. Even its car chases, gun fights, explosions and special effects wizardry exist on a whole ‘nother level, raised by the sheer audacity of Nolan’s demanding that moviegoers sit still, pay close attention and think hard about what they’re seeing for 2.5 hours rather than be spoon-fed the usual red/blue pablum Hollywood spews out like clockwork from their “me, too” factories.
There’s no filler, no empty calories, no short cuts, no opportune pee breaks; Nolan packs something worthwhile into every second of screen time, and you blink at your own risk. It’s an action movie for intelligent adults who are tired of being treated like teenagers, and it will stick with you long after, whether you loved it or not.
It’s also a call-to-action of sorts for writers and publishers. Or could be, if they’re listening.
Reading Is Fun(damental)
“A man practices the art of adventure when he breaks the chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books, traveling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and adopting new viewpoints”
Wilfred Peterson (via dhammza)
At the beginning of the year I made several resolutions, one of which I was reasonably sure I’d be able to stick to since it simply involved reading and I’ve always been an avid reader. It was resolution-worthy, though, because I haven’t been reading nearly as much as I used to over the past few years, for a number of reasons, mostly work-related.
My intention was to go both genre- and format-hopping — one print, one eBook — and write reviews for whatever I read, but to-date I’ve only read one eBook, the entertaining steampunk anthology, The Shadow Conspiracy, and despite having downloaded several free eBooks and samples on the iPad’s major ereading apps, I’ve yet to read another.
Despite the inexplicable lure of the $149 WiFi-only Nook, for now, when it comes to long-form reading, I’m still a hardcore print guy.
Killer iPad Apps: ComiXology
It's been two weeks since Steve Jobs' "magical and revolutionary" device officially went from fascinating Rorschach test to tangible consumer appliance, and while some of the hype around it being the savior of book, magazine and newspaper publishing has thankfully died down, there's no debating that Apple's App Store has had a significant impact on how we value and consume digital content. That impact will likely increase with the introduction of the iPad, and it's especially noteworthy for publishers who are looking to iBooks and the "agency model" to counter Amazon's pegging $9.99 as the benchmark for eBooks. Savvy…
Playing with the Kindle, Playing with the Future
A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of eBooks or eReaders, but there’s no question they’re growing in popularity… at least amongst technology companies. While the hype coming out of last week’s Consumer Electronics Show was so over-the-top it’s difficult to take any of these new devices seriously, it does make you appreciate a bit more the huge advantages Amazon has with its Kindle.
Publishing Perspectives’ editor Edward Nawotka stirred up some controversy last week with his opinion that the current breed of eReaders were good enough, noting, “My septuagenarian mother is delighted with her first-generation Kindle.”
My thirty-something wife – an avid reader, elementary school teacher and generally a late-adopter – also enjoys her Kindle (a birthday gift from me in November 2008), mainly to read books she’s either unfamiliar with or unwilling to buy in hardcover. But it’s not going to become her primary reading option any time soon. Among her criticisms are the limited selection of books she wants to read; inelegant navigation and annotation functionality; and, in her words, “Everyone talks about portability, but what’s more portable than a book?”
Dialect of a Skirt by Erica Miriam Fabri
Erica is a great poet, one whose work I’ve had the pleasure of publishing in Spindle; she’s also a friend, so take my recommendation (and criticism) with a grain of salt. Generally speaking, I prefer my poetry a la carte or in thematic anthologies; I’m not a fan of individual collections of poetry unless a poet has a significant body of work that can be editorially curated with an unbiased eye. Erica Miriam Fabri’s Dialect of a Skirt (Hanging Loose Press, 2009) is a welcome exception to my rule; while arguably 10-15 pages longer than necessary, it’s an engaging collection…