Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Monday Book Pick: The Martian

Monday, December 14th, 2015

The Martian by Andy Weir

A fun SciFi adventure read. By adventure, I mean someone else in a huge amount of trouble, very far away from me. Quick summary, astronaut Mark Watney gets left on Mars when his team has to leave Mars in a large hurry because a really big sandstorm is about to tip over their ascent vehicle. He’s injured on the way to the ascent vehicle, knocked out with his bio monitor destroyed. So it looks like he’s dead to the rest of the team. Watney’s challenge is to survive long enough to be noticed, and then rescued. This reminded me of a Heinlein juvenile, which is a good thing. A fun and engaging read.

Monday Book Pick Archive

 

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Sunday SciFi: John Carter

Sunday, March 11th, 2012

Saw John Carter last night, in 3D on an IMax screen.

Excellent adventure flick by one of the early masters of the genre, Edgar Rice Burroughs.  It was based on the first of the John Carter of Mars books, A Princess of Mars.  It was written 95 years ago (1917), so it’s in the public domain.  You can download it from the Gutenberg site or get the Kindle version for free.

The show was completely sold out and the audience was a mix of young and old, including a lot of families.  Glad I saw on the big screen.

Update: Ed Morrissey reviewed John Carter and gave it a thumbs up as well.

John Carter has plenty of surprises and edge-of-the-seat action all the way to the very end.  It won’t win a nomination for Best Picture, but as a fun adventure and popcorn movie, it’s terrific and smarter than most, especially this time of year.  Don’t be surprised at the end if you’d like another trip to Mars very soon.

John Carter is rated PG-13, with a lot of violence, some of it quite bloody (even if the blood might be another color at times) and very intense.  It has no foul language or nudity — a few skimpy outfits for Collins, but nothing one wouldn’t have seen on a Xena: Warrior Princess episode.

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Friday B-Movie Pick: Princess of Mars

Friday, March 19th, 2010

Princess of Mars

A deliciously low budget adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs classic. Updated a bit, John Carter is no longer a Civil War veteran (from the losing side), but a Marine in Afghanistan. Traci Lords was the “name” actor in this flick, but poorly cast as Dejah Thoris, the Princess of Helium. The movie was shot on an obvious shoestring budget and was shot in an amazing short time. Just 12 days to shoot a SciFi adventure story by one of the classic writers of the genre. Ya, the acting was bad, the script so-so, and the Tharks only have two arms. Still, not too shabby for the budget they had. I’m betting most Hollywood “indies” couldn’t pull off a feature film with the time and budget constrants this crew had to work with.

Friday B-Move Archive

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John Carter of Mars film still in the works

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

A film version of “A Princess of Mars”, the first in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series has been listed  on IMDB since 2005.

It’s still listed as  in pre-production, with the latest in release dates as 2012. There are also some cast listings.  The most interesting is Willem Dafoe as the Green Martian King Tars Tarkas.

As I said before, this film could be amazingly cool or a fiasco of epic proportions. With William Dafoe on board, I’m leaning more toward amazingly cool.

If the four armed Green Martians look sufficently cool, this could be a plus toward getting David Weber & John Ringo‘s March Upcountry made into a film.  That would be a good thing.

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