[book - review] Cryptozoic (1967)

There's something that I think is essential when I'm reviewing a scifi book : its verisimilitude.
Obviously in a gender like Sci-Fi to work with feet strongly bound to earth or to not claim wonderful technological inventions or astounding evolutions would be nonsense, but I can't completely leave aside the fact that explanations should have a logic (within the book's microcosm) and a verisimilitude that the writer should have given to it.

And this is the biggest lack of this Aldiss' work.
The writer talks about mind trips, flowing of time and begin/end of the world by giving to us a really interesting theory on time itself but, other than being really extreme (a thing that it's not such an invalidating thing for scifi stuff) lay its basement on a lists of theories and conjectures that have the same stability of a cards castle built upon an awaken cat!

The book itself, although, is enough enjoyable but some paragraphs are a bit hard to follow, both for author's writing style and for the notions ("realistic", so based on our world like description of mental illnesses, or "imaginary", like those previously mentioned theories on time and stuff) they're filled with.
The characters are not badly described but none of them have that sparkle of genius that will keep it in your mind after the book's end.

[book - review] Enclave (Razorland book #1 - 2011)

This is a book about a world after an holocaust, with survivors that is now divided into tribes with different kinds (and levels) of societies ancient-style and with dangers that comes from mutations and violent behaviours.
All these things rang more than a bells in your mind?
Indeed, there are plenty of books that tells similar stories : some are good, many are fair, some are really bad.

Well, here we're talking about the first kind because Aguirre's post holocaust world is alive, deep and full of interesting stuff and situations.
The story caught me from the beginning, kept my eyes on the pages word after word, eager to discover what Deuce and her friends will face after the next corner, waiting to see how the things (and characters) will develop.
Talking about the characters... they are well and deeply defined but not still. They grow pages after pages, shaped by the events and absolutely well written by the author, most of the times with just few well chosen words.
Can't wait to go on with the series!

[movie - review] Cold Prey II (2008)

I saw recently the first one and found it really good so I was really after this one.
The big question in my mind was "which road the director will follow?".
To clarify, the first one ended in a way that was clearly an opener for a sequel, but what's left open was how the hell this would happen?
It would follow the path of Jason, creating an immortal killer? Or trying to create something more realistic?

I'm not here to say which way it has been followed here, it's enough to say that they have chosen correctly (for my tastes) and this second episode (at the moment it's a trilogy, still missing to see the third one) kept the great things that made me love the first one.

This time Jotunheimen is just a cumbersome presence and the Hotel has been replaced by an hospital... but the creepy feeling and the anguish is still high, thanks to the storyline and the great work made by building up atmosphere and sense of anticipation.

The plot isn't absolutely something so original but it's solid and even if you will surely guess so many things it won't disappoint you how the story unfolds itself.

The director of this sequel is Mats Stenberg (this is his first work) while the main actress is still Ingrid Bolsø Berdal and her performance is greater than before.

(gifs aren't mine)

[movie - review] Cold Prey (2006)

I love Scandinavia... I'm mad about their culture, history and mythology from when I was really a small kid.
And I've been in Norway, I've been on the Jotunheimen and I found everything simply awesome.

Recently I discovered also a really interesting and lively movies scene (Troll Hunter, Let The Right One In, Dead Snow... talking about the firsts that comes to my mind).
And now this Cold Prey.

A group of friends found themselves trapped in an old abandoned hotel after one of them had a bad accident with the snowboard... trapped because they're hunted by someone.

The white, cold and immense Jotunheimen is a perfect place for a thriller/horror like this the big, creepy hotel the movie is located. Both of the become main characters of the story.

Roar Uthaug and his teams of writers created a solid story (even if not that mind-blowing... you'll guess everything from about the start) and directs a movie where the tension is always high on level and where there's a balanced amount of violence and blood.
It's clear that the main inspiration behind the evil character comes from movies like Halloween (and its Michael Myers) and from Friday the 13th's Jason Voorhee. The hunter in Cold Prey is a good one, but there's no match at all against those two legendary horror icons, especially on the charisma level.

All of actors performed at a really good rate. Between them, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (that will be in Chernobyl Diaries) and Tomas Alf Larsen, already in Troll Hunter.

[movie - review] Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

It was 1986, and i was 10yo... I can still remember when the news struck on tvs and newspapers. How they were talking about what happened, about the radioactive cloud that could hit everywhere, the poor people that have died and the ones who will die soon because of radiations.
Probably 10 years isn't enough to fully understand the magnitude of a disaster like this one, surely not right away but it have left a strong footprint on the time being.
With the passing of time Chernobyl never completely faded away from our minds (i guess it did from who's in the control room, but that's another story) and stories, legends started to blooming over the years.
Let's face it : the place,it's history,all those voices around it,the secrecy that seems to cover everything, is like a wake-up call for the imagination of people and horror history is full of stories where mutations, holocausts and the fall of society is builded up on some nuclear mayhem and Chernobyl fed them well enough.
Without going too back in time I can easily remember a good first person shooter located there (S.T.A.L.K.E.R.) and now this movie, that tells us the story of six tourists (plus a local guide) on an extreme tour in the city of Pripyat, where workers of Chernobyl's reactor used to live and that has been left in great hurry, leaving everything behind and changing it into a ghost town.Obviously things turns into nightmare (it's an horror movie!) and our heroes should fight to survive.

Bradley Parker (at his first try behind the camera after have worked as digital artist in movie like Fight Club, xXx and Lake Placid) direct a movie where, at least, not too many gender stereotypes are presents, apart the dualism good brother (Jesse McCartney/Chris best known as singer but with some movies and tv series in his story, like Greek) and bad unstable brother (Jonathan Sadowski/Paul tv-movies face but that also has been in 2009 Nispel's Friday the 13th) but that lacks where a movie with a location like that MUST have its strongest point : atmosphere, eerie sick suffocating atmosphere!
The attempt to build it up over the first part of the movie fails for the most, so the rest of it suffers for that ... and for the fact that things seems to happen a bit too quickly or, better, not enough things happen before the end is upon us (that is too much easily predicted too).

The faulty direction is also the reason why the characters seems so flat even if decently performed by the cast.
Between them we can find Ingrid Bolsø Berdal (Cold Prey I/II ,movies that clearly Bradley Parker missed, because they're full with a shitload of things his movie lacks), Nathan Phillips (Snakes on a plane, Wolf Creek) and a couple of actors more accustomed to tv series (Devin Kelley - The Chicago Code) or as character actor (Dimitri Diatchenko - bad russian guy in some movies or tv series episodes) but blame isn't theirs to share, they all did a pretty decent work on screen.
Closing, this is surely a missed chances to create a good flicks and all the blame is on the director and his writers, but I can also say that i saw many worst movies around and that you can find some amusement too here.
Giving it a try won't hurt.
(gifs aren't mine)

[movie - review] Antiviral (2012)

Some little spoilers are present

Is it the single sick mind that rot society from the inside?
Or is society itself that is sick, and infects every single one of us on different levels, as a virus can infect someone while being inactive on some others?

While society is driven by few people (the Powerful) it's sure as hell that all of us are conditioned by it and many also crave to be as the people who society put on covers, on the big screens.

So there are people that dress exactly like their idols, who change the colour of their hair, start drinking something because the star advertises it on tv. There are people who undergoes surgery to become like the star who they're worshipping.
Obviously over the entire history of cinema many directors filmed their personal manifest of complaint and Brandon Cronenberg did the same with this one.

In the movie society has reach a sick level of mass-media mania : people goes to clinic to have injected the same illness their favourite stars have... Even worst, they want to eat meat grown up from celebrities cells!

Within this sick sad world a young seller, working for one of the biggest company in the business, fell finally into it's own mania, driving the whole society to the ultimate madness...

Brandon Cronenberg, obviously son of David, filmed a slow movie (it reminded me the rhythm of his dad's Spider) but not boring, far from that. The aseptic look of some scene well contrasts the dirty things people are doing it it.

Fantastic performances by the main actor Caleb Landry Jones (X-Men : First Class, The Last Exorcism) and a short part also for the great Malcom McDowell (I really need to state some of his works?!)