In which we revisit Rambo…

Some potential nightmare-inducing scenes aside, Son of Rambow is a really good family film.

Lee Carter, a miscreant at the local school, loves the film Rambo and is hell-bent on making his own movie in a similar vein in order to enter a film competition. Will Proudfoot is a highly sheltered yet wildly imaginative child of a strict religious household who gets excused from classes during documentaries and such because he is simply not allowed to watch television. Fate conspires to bring Lee and Will together, and Will’s viewing of Lee’s bootleg copy of Rambo provides inspiration for the underpinnings of a movie script that Lee really likes and decides to adopt, while also enlisting Will to be one of the principle actors. Will, ever curious and polite, half agrees and is half drug into this production to the growing dismay of Church leadership and his mother.

This plot was handled beautifully. There are a lot of genuine moments to be found here. It’s often humorous, yet also touches on the tests of the bonds of friendship and family. The nightmare scenes I mentioned initially are, in fact, Will’s nightmares from the film, so it may be worth screening first if you’re not sure how your kids will handle it. It’s a really fun movie with a lot of heart, and I’d highly recommend it!

Decidedly NOT for children would be the second installment in Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein series, Book Two: City of Night.

These books read pretty fast, don’t take themselves too seriously, yet provide a compelling and imaginative story that makes for a fairly enjoyable read. In this continuation, Victor Helios (aka. Frankenstein) has moved on to the newest iteration of “wife”, Erika 5, with hopes that this one won’t make the mistake of the last four and be anything less than perfect and obedient. His many other experiments – many of whom are out unnoticed in the general population – are starting to malfunction, and Deucalion, Victor’s first creation, is establishing a working relationship with a couple of New Orleans’ finest detectives with the intent of ending Victor.

Koontz has quite the imagination, and if you’re a fan of mystery/horror, this series might be worth checking out.

Race to Which Mountain?

That would be the Race to Witch Mountain.

If ya have kids, they’ll likely be entertained, but I cannot promise the same for you. If you can really let your mind go, you may enjoy it I suppose.

This is a reboot/reimagining/continuation or some such or the other of the old Witch Mountain movies of yore featuring that guy from Green Acres (aww c’mon…you’re not looking that up are you? It was Eddie Albert. For cryin’ out loud). I don’t remember much about the old movies, save that I found them creepy when I was a little kid. In retrospect, it could’ve been the cheezy special effects they used for the kids’ “super powers”. In this modern installment with full CGI goodness, we have a reformed law-breaker cab driver in Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who cracks wise, cracks heads, and is the randomly selected human helper of our two forlorn alien children. The alien children are mostly here for the chase scenes and to play straight-man for Johnson as they drive around looking for the plot while seeming to forget they have super powers until the most opportune moment to change their near-defeats to come-from-behind victories. Also, the alien boy from the original movies has a small part in this one, we get some Garry Marshall, and some sci-fi fan mockage. Oh, and yes, you can sneak in to one of the most secret and well guarded military facilities in the U.S. if you just remember to go in one of the publicized unguarded exhaust vents.

To my wife’s chagrin, all of this happens without Johnson removing his shirt even once.

We’re also treated to some awkward moments of Johnson trying to turn on the sap for scenes that are supposed to be emotional and stuff and, well, it kinda looked more like bowel distress. So far, he’s really more of a Scorpion King kind of guy.

The final verdict: if your kids talk you into renting this, fine, but do try and have other plans. Stretch out a toenail clipping session, read a book, nap, make balloon animals or something.

A couple of books

I recently read two books, neither of which was by Stephen King. That’s a start I suppose.

First up, at the recommendation of my sassy girlfriend (aka “my wife”, aka “my lady”), I read an interesting take on Frankenstein by Dean Koontz…a series starting out with Book One: Prodigal Son.

Koontz does some interesting things with the story here. Victor Frankenstein is living an unusually long life and has made his home in modern-day New Orleans. His first creation, Deucalion (aka Peter Boyle from Young Frankenstein), a much reformed monster, finds out this disturbing news whilst living in a Tibetan monastery (yes, this is quite the twist, but trust me, it works). Turns out our buddy Victor hasn’t had idle hands either. He’s working on the creation of a new master race with the intent of ultimately replacing humanity with his own People 2.0. There are a few problems surfacing with his plan, a couple of which are two hard working detectives on the local police force, as well as the returned Deucalion, bent on seeing the ultimate destruction of his creator.

So, does this idea even work? Yes. Yes it does. It’s a pretty enjoyable read, certainly an interesting take on an old story, the action moves the story right along, and it’s sprinkled with some good humor to boot. It can be a bit gruesome at times (it is Koontz after all), and we find that Victor is a real bastard. If that’s not off-putting, then I’d highly recommend this one. I’m working on book two as we speak. One oddity with this series is, it’s ultimately due to stretch out to nine books (or so I’ve read), yet calling it a series just isn’t cool enough I guess. It’s being referred to for some reason as three trilogies. Huh. 

Between Frankenstein books one and two, I squeezed in Dan Brown’s latest offering: The Lost Symbol.

In this installment, Brown gives the Catholics a breather and turns his attentions on the masterminds of many a conspiracy (if web theories are to be believed), the freemasons. If ever a group of people in history deserved to be exposed, to be thrashed thoroughly with the exposure of their bizarre rituals and secrets and… What? The masons aren’t really THAT kooky and bizarre? But, what about all of the symbols and D.C. and pyramids and stuff?!

Sorry. Got lost there for a second. In rather UN-dramatic fashion compared to the Catholic Church, the masons have calmly posted some informative information concerning this book on some websites, and I’d urge you to go take a gander after reading it. They’re not down on the book or anything like that, just calmly and rationally explaining where their truths differ from the book’s fictions.

For its part, the book isn’t hell bent on trashing the masons either, but merely uses Masonic legend and lore as a springboard for yet another wild tale of puzzle-solving in a race against certain evil and near-certain disaster. In typical Dan Brown fashion, this book starts out describing a woman with flawless Mediterranean skin, sexy bod, etc. I made a prediction based on his past books: that being that our hero Robert Langdon was going to nail her at the end. Seems to be his m.o. We’ll see how that comes out later.

So, what happens here? Langdon is summoned by a colleague and old friend to give a last-minute speech about his symbolology and stuff to which he agrees and flies hastily to D.C. When he arrives, things go horribly off the rails. An evil man comes into the plot intent on gaining access to the centuries-guarded “Ancient Mysteries” with Langdon’s forced secret-decoder-ring help, and for other reasons, the CIA is heavily involved too.

How does it compare to Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, you may ask. Well, I’m conflicted with how to rate this thing, but here’s the basic idea. It has some good plot twists, and for the most part is pretty engaging. So in that respect, it’s a good book. It’s also very similar to the other two in pacing and plot idea, and in that respect it feels a bit like madlibs, where we’ve selected “Masons” instead of “Catholics”, and “D.C.” instead of “Rome.” I liked it, but what felt a bit more original in the first two feels a bit more well worn in this installment. Your mileage may vary.

Now, for my one and only spoiler for this book. Read no further if you don’t want to find out the book’s real truth right now.

Langdon does not score on the hot chick this time.