Summer is here in full force in Texas, with highs in the 90s and overnight “lows” in the 70s. We had a nice thunderstorm on Friday or Saturday evening, but it’s definitely A/C season. I received an e-mail from one of my coworkers on Sunday saying that a motor in the A/C had burned out spectacularly (he described my office as “ground zero” for the smoke event) and because of the holiday they still haven’t been able to fix the cooler. By noon, they promise, hopefully. It’s not too bad yet, but it’s going to get uncomfortable before much longer. The whole building isn’t affected, just our corridor, so I can wander the halls in search of relief.
It was hard to get up at 5 a.m. this morning after a few days of lying in. I did a little work over the weekend. Mostly it was getting a very long CD column ready for submission. It’s not as long as some of the first ones I wrote when Bob Morrish was the editor, back in 2001, but it’s longer than any of my recent columns, mostly due to the interview with Tullio Dobner. I told Norman Prentiss that if he was running short of room we could push the interview off to issue 66. Haven’t heard back yet whether that will happen.
A couple of nice new reviews of When the Night Comes Down. First, Nick Cato’s review and then Dark Scribe’s review appeared yesterday. Everyone has been very kind to us so far.
I finished and reviewed Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith this weekend. It’s o-kay, but not great. I was really irked by too many scenes that seemed to be narrative that turned out to be just dreams. The first time was acceptable. The next three or four weren’t. I moved on to Drink the Tea by Thomas Kaufman, which is a light noir (gris?) detective novel set in D.C. I’m not entirely sure about this one yet. Everything seems too tightly woven, but it may be that something will be revealed that explains why so much is interconnected.
We went to see Iron Man 2 on Saturday afternoon. The theater was full for this 1:40 p.m. showing, but it was in one of the smaller venues in the megaplex. I liked it. Robert Downey, Jr. is a credible wealthy megalomaniac asshole whose heart is in the right place even if his mouth needs reining in at times. Mickey Rourke was excellent, too. The only part I thought felt out of place was Scarlett Johansson’s overlong martial arts display, which was essentially the lengthy setup for a brief punchline. Truly, I wanted to see an Iron Man movie, not a shoe-horned in Avengers mash-up. I liked the relationship between Pepper and Romanoff–it was only when she went all kung fu for what felt like five minutes that I minded her presence in the film. Yes, we sat through the credits for the teaser tacked on at the end.
From the trailers, I am sort of looking forward to Super 8, but I think The A Team could be fun. I never watched the TV series, but the movie looks like a good mindless action film.
FlashForward came to its unfortunate cliffhanger ending on Thursday. How the hell does anyone plant bombs on every floor of the FBI headquarters without getting caught? The series had its problems over its limited run, with too many secondary plots that diluted the main thrust of the story to no advantage, but it really seemed to be finding its feet near the end, and the finale was pretty strong, logic holes notwithstanding. And now we’ll never get to find out what it all meant–why the bad guys created the blackouts when they’ve clearly been able to hop forward in time for years without causing any disturbances. What the new flashforwards herald, and whether the ultimate date really did mean the end of everything. Ah, well.
Breaking Bad has its strong moments and its questionable ones. The entire first 30 minutes of last week’s show falls into the latter category. But this week was mostly strong. Walt’s supper meeting with Gustavo was a riddle wrapped in an enigma, as it remains unclear what “mistakes” he was alluding to. Skyler’s intervention in the money laundering business takes her one step farther off the straight and narrow–and clearly, her dealings as an accountant with her errant lover has given her some credible experience. And this year’s chain of coincidence emerges as we discover that the brother of Jesse’s new girlfriend was the little boy who shot Combo last year. Based on the previews, it looks like we’re in for a heckuva final two episodes.
Only four episodes remain of Matt Smith’s first season as Doctor Who. This week,
