Author Archives: bookshelfbattle

Jul 11 2014
2 Comments
Books, Comedy

Barely Political – Key of Awesome – The Anti List – Must Read Books for the Summer

I love the Key of Awesome. If you’ve yet to see it, it’s a hilarious youtube channel where the people over at barely political (which also has a youtube channel) produce some funny song parodies. They also do something called “The Anti List” where, well, they basically make funny lists. They just made one lampooning a bunch of bestselling books turned movies/tv. Check it out. While you’re at it, look for their video”Booty Jam” on youtube as that is, in my opinion, their funniest music parody video. Please support these guys, check them out on youtube, follow their channels, etc. They’re always hilarious and it’s great to see such funny independent comedy.

Here’s the Anti List on Books:

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Jul 06 2014
5 Comments
Movies, Not About Books

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull is a Red Hot Pile of Smelly Garbage

You may have noticed by now, that I’m a pretty kind reviewer. If I don’t like a book, movie, tv show, etc. I generally keep it to myself. After all, I haven’t produced a book, movie, tv show, etc. so who am I to criticize someone who has managed to turn their vision into a consumer product for a mass audience? If I like something, I’ll share it. If I hate it, I’ll keep it to myself.

But where I have to break that rule is with the movie, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. It’s on my mind right now because I’m watching the Indiana Jones Marathon on SpikeTV. SpikeTV, I doubt anyone from your network will ever read this, but if someone does, please remove Crystal Skull from any future Indy marathons. That film is a red hot pile of smelly garbage. Indy purists such as myself prefer to believe that it never happened.

In fact, rather than believe that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg decided to haphazardly slap together a pile of crap to cash in on the name brand of a long beloved film franchise, I instead prefer to believe either:

A) That this movie was the result of Lucas and Spielberg having simultaneous strokes, causing them to produce unintelligible rubbish.

B) That Shia LaBeouf had some kind of dirt on them

C) That the film was made not to entertain but to somehow subtely communicate coded messages about aliens to the world

D) That it was produced by a group of adults who had suffered through having to pay for their dumb kids to go to archaeology school because they saw Indiana Jones and thought that becoming an archaeologist would lead to untold adventures and world travels only to discover that it only leads to a career at Burger King and so they wanted to make the archeology profession look uncool.

I could go on all day about why this movie stinks worse than a pile of day old carp, but here are my big:

1) Aliens – I always enjoyed the Indy movies because of their supernatural elements. Yet, I did not like that aliens were such a big part of Crystal Skull. “But there was all kinds of unbelievable stuff in the first three Indy movies that were just as unbelievable as the idea that aliens exist!” you might argue.

True! And in fact, a topic for another time is that, while to date unproven, the idea of the existence of alien life on other planets is not all the unbelievable. However, in the first three films, there was the idea that if a man were to explore the deepest, darkest parts of the Earth, to study ancient books, tests, puzzles, etc. that he could uncover all kinds of supernatural mysteries. Believable or not, the first three movies are based on ancient cultural and religious ideas. In other words, finding a Holy Grail that grants the drinker holy life is about as believable (or unbelievable) as the existence of aliens, but hey, at least as kids many of us are indoctrinated into believing the bible, religion, etc. so the idea that an archaeologist could study old religious artifacts and legends and so on and unravel supernatural doings just seems awesome whereas having said archaeologist encounter aliens just seems like cheesy science fiction.

2) Failure to Take Itself Seriously – The Nazis provided the perfect villains for the earlier movies but, well, in case you fell asleep in history class, they were removed from power by the 1950’s so another source of villainy had to be found. Naturally, the Russians make for the perfect villains in a cold war era based movie, but the Russians in this movie just failed to be as scary as the Nazis of the other films.

On top of that, there was the scene where Indy gets launched out of a nuclear blast inside a fridge. Enough said.

3) Shia LaBeouf – Hey, he was great in the Transformers but I like to thing the offspring of Indy and Marion Ravenwood would be about 90 percent more awesome.

In conclusion, Indy 4 never happened. Indy 1-3 are the only Indy films that I recognize. There will never be a copy of Indy 4 on my shelf.

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Jul 04 2014
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Fourth of July, Holiday Book Reccomendations

Fourth of July Reads

Happy 4th of July from bookshelfbattle.com!

While you’re waiting for those hamburgers to cook, here are some patriotic book suggestions:

1. 1776, John Adams or pretty much anything by author David McCullough. In fact, if you’re too tipsy from knocking back cold ones at the barbecue, you could always watch John Adams on demand on HBO.

2. Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose – also available as a series on HBO.

3. Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell – Check out my review here.

4. No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Mark Owen. Again, if you’re still groggy from multiple cold one consumption, you can just watch Zero Dark Thirty Both provide interesting portrayals of the hunt for America’s most wanted and despised terrorist.

5. The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane

6. The Green Berets by Robin Moore. Beer? Yeah, that’s ok. They made an awesome classic movie based on the book starring John Wayne.

7. Anything by the late Tom Clancy, though if I had to choose one, it would be The Hunt for Red October Yes, there is a movie starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin, but ok, you might have a drinking problem.

8. The Fort by Bernard Cornwell – set during the American Revolution

9. 1775 by Kevin Phillips – about the year leading up to the American Revolution.

10. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, which provided the basis for the Lincoln movie starring Daniel Day Lewis.

These are just some of my recommendations, but is not an exhaustive list by any means. Did I miss one of your favorites? Feel free to share it in the comments below. Happy 4th!

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Jul 03 2014
4 Comments
Not About Books, TV

Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad

Yo Mr. White! This post has SPOILERS, bitch!!!

First thing to understand about showbiz people is that they are, in fact, businessmen (and women).

Imagine you open a yogurt store. For the first year or two, you suffer as you try to get it off the ground. Your yogurt stinks for awhile until you find the perfect recipe. Your workers stink until you find the right employees. Your location stinks until you find the right place. Eventually, you turn a profit and become successful. You want to reinvest your profits. What do you do? Do you start a banana stand? Open a pizza shop? A drycleaner store?

No, you go with what has worked for you – you open another yogurt stand.

And that’s why you see Fast and Furious 7, Transformers 4, Spiderman Reboot, Star Wars 7 and so on. Movies and TV shows cost money and the showbiz types want to put their money in tried and true products. That’s why somewhere in the world a fabulous heart wrenching movie script is lying in a drawer somewhere, never to be produced while 95 Jump Street will be out before you know it.

Better Call Saul is an upcoming spin off of the mega-hit show Breaking Bad, starring Walter White’s hilariously sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman, played Bob Odenkirk. On Breaking Bad, Saul provided much needed comic relief to an otherwise serious show, but can he carry a whole series on his own? I have my doubts, but then again, I don’t have any doubts about the people behind Breaking Bad so if they’re behind this, then I will be too.

The latest news is that the character of Walter White will appear on the show – that the show will take place before, during, and after Breaking Bad. I am worried that if the show tanks, it might devalue the whole Breaking Bad brand. Breaking Bad is a masterpiece – you don’t make a Mona Lisa Part II.

I suppose this is one of those things where we’ll just have to wait and see.

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Jul 02 2014
2 Comments
Comedy, Music, Writing

On Writing – Or “I Wish These Were My First Words”

A few posts ago, I went on a tangent – asking why do I bother to work so hard on my writing when America is easily satisfied by a song that goes, and I quote, “You know what to do with that big fat butt! Wiggle wiggle!”

Well, I suppose this next song is not as bad, but J. Lo’s “First Love” also makes me wonder if music writers are trying as hard as they could be.

Check out these lyrics:

I wish you were my first love
‘Cause if you were first
Baby there would have been no second, third or fourth love
Woah oh oh oh
I wish you were my first love
‘Cause if you were first
Baby there would have been no second, third or fourth love
– First Love, Jennifer Lopez

So, what was left on the cutting room floor? How about:

I wish you were my first love
‘Cause if you were first
Baby there would have been no second third or fourth love
Furthermore a fifth love would have been unlikely!
A sixth love would have been improbable!
A seventh, eighth, or ninth love would have been out of the question
And a tenth love would have been right out!
Don’t even get me started on the eleventh love
Yes, I can certainly count!

Yes, I even imagined how the sales pitch for this song went:

MUSIC EXECUTIVE: OK J Lo, pitch us your new song.

J LO: Ok, so this song, is essentially about time travel.

MUSIC EXECUTIVE: Whoa.

J LO: I’m singing to a guy who is currently my love.

MUSIC EXECUTIVE: Uh huh

J LO: And I’m explaining to him that had I met him first, I would not have dated three previous men.

MUSIC EXECUTIVE: So, wait, what are you saying?

J LO: That if things happen differently then other things also happen differently

MUSIC EXECUTIVE: Oh my God. Mind totally blown.

Seriously, all she does is count her loves. That’s it. All she does. I half-expect the Count from Sesame Street to come in on back up vocals. “One! One love! Ah ah ah!”

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Jul 02 2014
1 Comment
Not About Books, TV, Uncategorized

Fargo – Oh Hey, That’s a Really Good Show, Dontcha’ Know?

Are there SPOILERS ahead?

Oh yah’, you betcha’ young fella.’

I just finished the last episode of this season’s Fargo on FX. All I can say is, “Wow.”

When I first heard that a Fargo TV show was in the works, I hated the idea. The Fargo film is such a classic and so self-contained that it did not seem like it would be possible to improve onto it or add to it. If you haven’t seen it, you should. The movie follows a scheme by a wimpy, chronically disrespected car salesman played by William H. Macy to stage a fake kidnapping of his wife in order to extort money from his overbearing father-in-law. The kidnappers, one of them played by Steve Buscemi in what I recall to be one of the best performances of his early career, botch things up miserably and well, tragedy ensues. The evildoers are eventually rounded up by unlikely hero Margie, an exceptionally pregnant police officer. Throughout the movie, much fun is poked at the ways of the Northern Midwest, the overly polite manners of the people there, and their tendency to speak in pseudo-Scandanavian accents – “Oh yah,’ dontch’a know?”

Naturally, the Fargo TV series did capture some of the film’s themes. There’s a wimpy disrespected loser, Lester Nygaard, this time played by Martin Freeman. There’s a female police officer, played by Allison Tolman, but she doesn’t get pregnant until the end. Further homages to the film are made here and there, but for the most part, this is not an attempt to remake the movie so much as to tell another crime story set in the greater Fargo area.

The show becomes increasingly shocking – especially towards the end – the Las Vegas elevator scene and the scene where Lester sends his second wife into the shop, well, I’ll let you watch for yourself, but those scenes left my jaw scraping the floor.

I did worry that casting Key and Peele as two bumbling FBI agents might turn the whole show into a joke, but oddly enough, it did work.

Overall, a great show. FX continues to set the bar high in bringing quality entertainment.

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Jun 30 2014
7 Comments
Fantasy, Game of Thrones, TV Based on Books

Lady Stoneheart – Pros and Cons

OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING

The nerdosphere is aghast with fury at the news that Lady Stoneheart, a character in the Song of Ice and Firenovels will not be in the Game of Thrones TV series. As someone who has watched the series but not read the books, I’ll throw my two cents into the already chock full well of public opinion.

WHO IS LADY STONEHEART?

Novel readers will probably correct as I mangle this explanation, but here goes. After the Red Wedding, Catelyn’s body is dragged out of a river. The Brotherhood Without Banners brings her back to life as a zombie who can barely speak due to her throat having been cut. A shell of her former self, she basically becomes a new character – Lady Stoneheart. She travels the countryside on a quest for revenge, killing anyone whoever did the Stark family wrong.

Michelle Fairely, the actress who played Catelyn, recently announced that Lady Stonheart won’t be featured in the HBO series. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of that decision:

PROS – NO LADY STONEHEART IS GOOD

I’m not a book reader but I am a self-spoiler. Unable to wait to find out what happens next, I often check A Wiki of Ice and Fire. I’m like the dumb jock that doesn’t read the book but doesn’t want to fail so I read the cliff notes. Although, after self-spoiling the Red Wedding, the Purple Wedding, and Tyrion killing Tywin, I have pledged to not self-spoil anymore in the upcoming seasons.

When I self-spoiled the news that Cat becomes a zombie, I have to admit my first impression was, “Umm…really?” The Red Wedding was just such a powerful scene. George RR Martin weaves you into such a false sense of security. It really appears as though the Starks and Walder Frey have made up and are letting bygones be bygones. The wedding starts out as a joyous occasion, Robb’s uncle is happy to be marrying what appears to be Frey’s only attractive daughter (Sidebar had Frey let Robb know of her existence this whole mess could have been avoided). Then, out of nowhere, all Starks and Stark men in attendance are brutally executed. Quite an unexpected event. On the show, it was quite emotionally disturbing to see all hope drain out of Lady Catelyn’s face just before her throat is cut. That was some great acting on Fairely’s part.

So in some respects, I feel like it would be somewhat silly to say, “OK, Cat’s back as a zombie now!” Zombie Cat takes something away from that powerful Red Wedding scene. One of George RR’s ongoing themes in this story is that life is unfair – bad things often happen to good people, that you want the heroes to overcome but in real life, the heroes don’t always come out on top. So in some respects, Cat coming back to life takes away from the power of the Red Wedding scene.

Plus – overall, the HBO showrunners have done a great job so far so surely their judgment must be understood here. There must be some technical reason why they felt Lady Stoneheart would not play well on screen. As discussed in the nerdosphere, I don’t think it’s any kind of contract issue. I think they could get Fairely to come back and do it. If they couldn’t, well, the character is a zombie, so they could stick any old chump in zombie makeup.

I wonder if the issue is they just think that a Zombie Cat would just be too cheesey. They have this as-realistic-as-the-fantasy genre gets TV show and then all of a sudden they have this zombie version of one of their characters running around. Although I’ve never heard that explanation offered. Most of the explanations have been that they just could not fit her in because they want to do too much else and they only have 10 hours a year and can’t fit in every little detail…

CONS-NO LADY STONEHEART IS BAD

…but this isn’t a little detail! We want revenge for the Starks and without Lady Stoneheart, how does that happen? I agree that TV/Movies can’t always 100 percent mirror their book source material, but this is a big plot line to just overlook. Lady Stoneheart’s path of destruction causes a lot of ripples in the GoT world and it would seem like to not include her would be to have to constantly change the overall GoT storyline. Thus far, the showrunners have remained faithful to the books and that has yielded some powerful results in terms of viewership and show popularity. Admittedly, Lady Stoneheart seems like an unusual idea to me, but I haven’t read the books. I trust George RR’s judgment and writing abilities and I’m sure he took this unusual idea and ran with it in a powerful and amazing way that would be fantastic to watch unfold on screen.

In other words, my fear was Lady Stoneheart would be too much – “Grrr…argh..me zombie…me must kill Lannisters” but from what I hear, the character is much more moving and scary than that.

Plus, it’s not like the Red Wedding scene is taken away from that much. It’s not like she comes back and is all happy like “Hey, look at me, I’m Zombie Cat!” From what I hear, Lady Stoneheart is very sad and tortured – to the point where Cat would have been better off having been better off left dead.

FINAL RULING

How is this an extraneous character or plotline? It’s not like this is an issue where Tyrion wears blue shoes in the book but they make him wear red shoes in the TV. This is a major character in a major plotline. To take her away means the need to make many changes to the show to the point where it may become like True Blood where the show bears no resemblance to the source material whatsoever. While we can debate all day on source material deviations, I think we can all agree that in this case, remaining true to the source material has paid off for both HBO and the viewer.

With today’s make-up and CGI capabilities, I’m sure that an awesome looking Lady Stoneheart could be produced and surely a Zombie Cat on a revenge quest could make for riveting television. Ultimately, none of us run the show so this is like complaining into the wind, but I hope the HBO suits have not made a bad decision here.

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Jun 28 2014
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Monthly Wrap-Ups 2014, Previously on Bookshelf Battle

Previously on Bookshelf Battle… (June 2014 Wrap-Up)

In case you missed any of the booktastic goodness, here’s a rundown of what was produced from the Bookshelf Battle Command Center in June:

GAME OF THRONES

Obligatory Spoiler Warning

As the Red Woman might say, Sunday nights in June were dark and full of terrors. Literally. It was quite terrifying to see some of my favorite GoT characters kick the bucket. It’s a good thing that I didn’t bet on the fight between The Red Viper and The Mountain because I chose Oberyn and would have lost a lot of money, in addition to the lunch I lost when the Mountain took advantage of the Viper’s showboating. Don’t gloat, people. No one likes a sore winner…loser? Whatever.

My predictions for Tyrion’s future weren’t all that on point either, meaning when it comes to plotting strategy, I’m about as good as Cersei. (That’s not very good!)

While some lamented that the episode did nothing to move the story along, I for one enjoyed the Attack on Castle Black as it was amazing to me to see Summer Blockbuster special effects on a television show.

On the Season 4 Finale of Game of Thrones Brienne and the Hound went head to head on Westeros’ Ultimate Fighting Championships, Arya cashed in her coin for a trip to Bravos, no one expected the Stannis Inquisition, and Tywin had the Worst Father’s Day ever, although he did achieve his wish of ending up on…a throne. That joke never gets old.

BOOK REVIEWS

A Light Between Oceans - being guarded by Robocop

A Light Between Oceans – being guarded by Robocop

Oh right – this is a book review blog. Australian Author M.L. Stedman managed to crack my manly exterior and allow a tear or two to shake loose with her riveting yet heartbreaking page turner The Light Between Oceans. After a boat containing a dead man and a live baby washes up on their tiny island, a lighthouse keeping couple decides to toss the dead man in a ditch and raise the baby as their own. I applauded the author for her ability to display the mental gymnastics that people put themselves through in order to convince themselves what they are doing is right when in fact, it is very wrong. I feel like we can all agree that the moral of the story is – don’t trust your kids around lighthouse keepers. Or Australians.

Master Chief - standing guard over Redshirts

Master Chief – standing guard over Redshirts

After Stedman made me cry (it’s ok, it happens to the best of us now and then), I was ready to laugh so I cracked open Redshirts by Sci-Fi author John Scalzi. This Star Trek parody delivered laughs at warp speed. A group of new Redshirts – aka the intergalactic lackies who do the grunt work for a space ship’s main officers, quickly learn that their reason for existence is to take the beatings, lazer blasts, monster attacks, and other abuse so that the officers can remain unscathed.

VARIOUS AND SUNDRY RAMBLINGS

To round out the month,I asked why the heck are those vampires so popular? Seemed like a good discussion topic since this is the final season of the HBO series True Blood. The series is based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries Series by Charlaine Harris, and my post provides a reading list of her novels in order, in case anyone is interested in reading the books that formed the basis for the Sookie-Bill-Eric love triangle. Actually, if you add Alcide, it would be a quadrangle. Wait a minute! A quadrangle? Isn’t that just a square? OK so they form a love square.

I urged readers to donate to Levar Burton/Geordi LaForge’s Kickstarter campaign to bring back Reading Rainbow. Please donate. He needs your support. Much has been said about his success as Reading Rainbow host, but people always forget that he was one of the finest engineers to ever serve Star Fleet. He rarely gave Capt. Picard any guff about fixing the star ship engines. He ran circles around Scotty. Capt. Kirk would always be like, “Scotty, we need warp speed in thirty seconds or the Klingons will kill us” and Scotty would be all like, “Damn’ it Cap’n the best I can do is get the wharp drive half-fixed by next Thursday!” Geordi, on the other hand, now there was a dude that got stuff done – even though he was blind! Well, he did have that special visor.

By the way, if you haven’t heard yet, Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame has pledged to match donations up to a million, so please get crack-a-lackin’ with the donations to this good cause. And as one of the three people who both saw AND enjoyed MacFarlane’s A Million Ways to Die in the Old West, I’d like to thank him.

Transformers 4 arrived at the box office Friday and I speculated as to whether Mark Wahlberg will reprise some of his past roles in this new blockbuster in a parody trailer script.

Last but not least, after hearing the song, “Wiggle Wiggle” for the millionth time on the radio, and being left unsure whether to be disturbed because they keep playing it, or relieved because they’re finally switching it up a little bit and playing a song other than “Let it Go” or “Because I’m Happy,” I asked the question as to why I bother slaving over my writing when America is easily pleased by lyrics about butts. You know what to do with those big fat words!

STUFF I NEVER GOT AROUND TO

With so many books engaged in fisticuffs over a coveted spot on my bookshelf, there where two things I forgot to mention:

  • 24-Live Another Day – I’m glad this show is back on the air. It’s nice to see William Devane has found something better to do than those damn daytime “Buy Gold” commercials. He’s really been stealing the show this season. Great to see Michelle Fairley back on TV as well.
  • No Lady Stoneheart – (Obligatory Spoiler Warning) – Actually, do I need to give a spoiler warning? Lady Stoneheart, a character from the Game of Thrones books, will not be in the Game of Thrones series. So, I guess if you never read the books and only watched the series, then this is not a spoiler for you since you were never going to see her on the show anyway. You can’t spoil something that won’t happen. Because if a tree was going to fall in the forest, but then it doesn’t, it doesn’t spoil. Alright, I’m going cross-eyed thinking about this. Anyway, there’s been a lot of chatter about this controversy. I do understand that TV shows can’t remain true to every little last detail in the book. Sometimes I’ll hear someone say something like, “This show stinks because on page 302 of chapter 40 book three Tyrion had on a pair of green shoes but on the show he wears blue shoes!” and I just want to yell, “Shut up, Nerd!” But I get why this makes people upset. I never read the books, but this seems like a big plot point to gloss over. A Zombie Catelyn running around Westeros exacting copious amounts of revenge? How does that not make for great television?

That does it for this month on http://www.bookshelfbattle.com – where the book reviews are always awesome, and yet, the book reviewer somehow manages to stay humble about it.

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Jun 28 2014
3 Comments
Writing

On Writing – or “You Know What to do With Those Big Fat Words!”

Happy Friday, Bookshelf Battlers.

Bookshelf Battle Guy here, coming to you from you from the Bookshelf Battle Forward Operating Base.

No book review tonight. Rather, I have a tirade to go on.

As writers, and let’s face it, we’re all bloggers because we are aspiring writers, we all have a downfall – that one issue, that little personal hiccup that stands between us and putting pen to paper. For me, it’s self-criticism. I write, and write, and write some more. Then I read it and become my own personal critic, not just any critic, but Roger Ebert on Steroids (RIP).

“So unoriginal! So unbelievable! So unrealistic! Surely, you can do better! Crumple that up! Throw it away! Try it again!”

Defeated, I take a break, turn on the radio, and hear:

“YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THAT BIG FAT BUTT! WIGGLE WIGGLE!

In case you’ve been living under a rock, one of the top hit songs out nowadays is “Wiggle, Wiggle” by Jason Derulo. It’s an ode to derrieres, a modern day Baby Got Back if you will, though I hate to insult Sir Mix-a-Lot, because at least he brought some energy and enthusiasm to his infamous soliloquy.

Seriously, that’s pretty much how the song goes. “You know what to do with that big fat butt! Wiggle, wiggle!” Then he goes on to compare said posterior to two planets, a ham sandwich, a trunk, a basketball slam dunk, and so on. Then Snoop Dogg lays down some beats. Just as The Rock is the savior of failed action movie franchises (Fast and Furious, GI Joe, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Snoop Dogg is the rejuvenator of rap songs. Just ask Gangnam Style Psy.

I’m sorry, but it just bugs me. Here I am, as many of you are, slaving over a computer screen, trying to pour my heart and soul out into a coherent volume, to weave the ideas lurking in my mind into a readable text format, and the greatest song of our day is:

“YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THAT BIG FAT BUTT! WIGGLE WIGGLE!

Honestly, this is how the Roman Empire ended. It was once the world’s cultural center, till some minstrel started singing, “Thou knowest what to do with thine enormous posterior!”

And come on, you all know how the sales pitch meeting for this song went down:

RECORD EXECUTIVE: Jason, so good to see you. So what’s your new song about?

JASON: It’s about butts.

RECORD EXECUTIVE: Really? I’m intrigued! What about them?

JASON: How they’re big and how I like it when they wiggle.

RECORD EXECUTIVE: Someone brought their A game today! Tell me more.

JASON: See, there’s this chick. And she has a big butt. And I figure, instinctively, she knows what to do with her big butt.

RECORD EXECUTIVE: What does she do? Oh my God, I’m on the edge of my seat here.

JASON: Alright, check this out. She wiggles it.

RECORD EXECUTIVE: She wiggles it!

JASON: Wiggle, wiggle.

RECORD EXECUTIVE: Sold! Son, I want to be in the wiggly butt business!

Oh well, that’s all I had to complain about. I shall now retire to my nerd cave, to produce more crumpled pieces of writing that will apparently never live up to society’s very high “Wiggle your fat butt” standard.

The sad part is – it’s actually a catchy tune. “You know what to do with that…” Damn it. Great, now it’s stuck in my head.

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Jun 26 2014
2 Comments
Fantasy, Game of Thrones, TV About Books

The Red Woman is Full of Crap

Season 4 of Game of Thrones was full of reveals and game changing moments aplenty.

One reveal lost in the shuffle was Lady Melisandre admitting that her “power” was pretty much a bunch of crap. In Episode 7 of Season 4, the Red Woman tells Stannis’ wife, Selyse Florent:

“Most of these potions and viles are lies. Deceptions to make men think they witnesses our lord’s power. Once they step into the light they will see the light for what it is – a trick that made them see the truth.” – Lady Melisandre

She then goes on to explain how her potions trick people – how she has a potion that can make fire jump into the air, that she has a potion that can drive men wild with lust, etc. In other words, she has now powers at all – she’s either drugging people or dazzling them with fancy pyrotechnics.

It’s understandable if you missed it. It was a small part of the show and her bare tucas was flapping in the breeze the entire time she was speaking.

Only confusing thing is she must have at least some power – after all, we all remember how she gave birth to that smoke monster in ridiculously unnecessary graphic detail.

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