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Ghostbusters 25th Anniversary; New Video Game, New Movie, but no new books?

Posted in books, Ghostbusters, movies, pop culture with tags books, Ghostbusters, Movie Novelizations, movies, pop culture on July 2, 2009 by Paxton

So, this year is the 25th Anniversary of the movie Ghostbusters. Released in 1984, it has become a comedy classic. There has been much buzz recently about the Ghostbusters franchise and several announcements and product releases that have got “Ghosties” (Ghostbusters fans) excited.

On June 16, the first Ghostbusters movie was released on Blu-Ray.

Also on June 16, a new video game called, appropriately, Ghostbusters: The Video Game was released for all the next generation console systems.

One of the things about this video game that excited fans of the movie was that it reunites most of the cast from the original movie for the first time since Ghostbusters II in 1989 (which was also released on June 16). Returning to voice their characters are Harold Ramis (Egon Spengler), Dan Ackroyd (Ray Stantz), Ernie Hudson (Winston Zedmore) and even Bill Murray (Peter Venkman). Also returning for the game are Annie Potts as Janine and William Atherton as Walter Peck. Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis turned down the opportunity to return to voice their characters.

Ramis and Ackroyd wrote the script for the game and they both said that they treated the development of this game as if they were making a new Ghostbusters movie. Judging by online reviews, that commitment shows in the game’s play and storyline. I look forward to playing it on the PS3.

Ghostbusters III

When the actors reunited to voice their characters for the game, Bill Murray was quoted as saying he had a great time re-visiting the character of Venkman and working with his friends Ramis and Ackroyd. He also said he would consider returning to the Ghostbusters franchise in a new movie. That was big news as Murray has continually said for years that he would never do another Ghostbusters movie after the studio made so many changes to Part 2 that it was no longer the movie he signed on to make. Needless to say, Ramis and Ackroyd are in active development of a new Ghostbusters movie. Hopefully, it happens, I would love to see the group back together again.

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Little Women Fight Club: Ways to make classic literature more AWESOME

Posted in books, Classic literature, humor with tags books, classic literature, humor, Photoshop on June 3, 2009 by Paxton

To completely misquote Ron Burgundy, “I love books. Books-y, books, books. Here it goes down, down into my belly.” Okay, the last half of that mis-quote didn’t make any sense, but you get the point, I love to read. You can check the ever changing I Just Read and I Am Reading book sections on my blog’s sidebar (over there —>)to see what I’m currently enjoying and what I just finished enjoying. I thought about including what books I have “on deck” ready to be read in that sidebar, but really, it’s a crap shoot what gets picked up to be read next. There’s no guarantee what I put there will, in fact, come next.

Anywho, sometimes I get on reading tangents where I want to knock out a few books that “the man” considers “classics”. Stuff I never got to read while in school, or something I did read in school that I remember liking, but don’t remember a thing about it. These are usually fun tangents and it’s allowed me to discover books like The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, which I never read in school, but is FANTASTIC (why the hell didn’t I read that in school?). However, there are some classics that I should read, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to read. Books by authors like Bronte, Joyce and Austen, while considered classics by “people in the know”, are considered flowery, boring and gay by “me”. If I fall asleep reading the synopsis on the back of the book, then there is little hope the ENTIRE book is going to keep my interest. So there was a whole section of classic literature that I avoided and I was fine with that. Until savant/genius/author Seth Graham-Smith decided he too thought classic literature needed a little help in being “less literary” and “more AWESOME”. Thusly was Pride & Prejudice & Zombies birthed upon our virgin world.

Graham-Smith infuses a subplot involving a battle with the undead into the literary classic thereby making it relevant to guys everywhere. I mean, what good is a literary classic if NO ONE wants to read it? Seriously. Besides, what is more romantic than fighting off an army of the undead? It’s okay if you can’t come up with an answer to that question, there isn’t an answer other than ‘NOTHING’.

So, I thought, in what other books would this work? The possibilities are endless. So I sat down at my desk at work….um, I mean the table at home, after I got off work….and came up with a few more twists on some boring classic literature books that would get me to read them. Come enjoy the awesome-ness with me.

Original Synopsis – Follows the lives of the four March sisters as they live, love and learn their way through life. It’s an allegorical novel that champions the strength of women during a time in America when women weren’t considered strong.

New More AWESOME Synopsis – The four March sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, are always fighting. One day, a fight promoter, James Lawrence, happens upon one of their more viscous fights and gets an idea. Guys everywhere would pay to see these ladies just go at it in an all out battle royal. Mr Lawrence talks to the girls’ father and, having recently lost a good amount of the family’s money, he agrees to let Mr Lawrence train the girls for a traveling “girl fight” festival. The promoter recruits a few other girls from the nearby area and trains them in boxing and Greco-Roman wrestling. The girls then tour the country side with Mr Lawrence, fighting in a 10 woman battle royal 6 nights a week. The story follows the girls across the country as they live in the festival caravan and fight, love and learn in various small towns across 19th century America. This new version also shows the strength of women…in revealing clothing…in non-sanctioned bloody cage matches. Movie rights are pending.

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Weekly Geeks 2009/19 — Happy Memorial Day

Posted in books, holiday, Weekly Geeks with tags books, holiday, Jimmy Buffet, Memorial Day, travel, Weekly Geeks on May 25, 2009 by Paxton

Weekly Geeks time everyone! This one is a holiday themed one (being as it’s Memorial Day). So, I guess, first things first:

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!

Now for the Weekly Geeks topic:

Again with Memorial Day Weekend here in the U.S. starting traditionally on Friday evening, it also is unofficially the start of summer. You’ve probably been asked this in other meme groups in which you participate, but do your reading habits change over the summer? Do you choose lighter fare? What do you enjoy to take to the beach, for example? What is the ultimate summer book? OR what are your favorite travel guides — official or unofficial guides? Again, an example, I think of Holidays In Hell by P.J. O’Rourke, of places I’d rather not vacation. Along those lines, where do you vacation? Any places you recommend or even don’t recommend?

My reading habits do not, in fact, change during the summer. The only times my reading habits change is during Halloween and Christmas, when I tend to read appropriately traditional books for the specific holiday. But Summer is just a continuation of my regular reading habits.

However, if I had to pick, what more “summery” reads I would recommend?

Jimmy Buffett wrote two great books that would work well for sitting on the beach, listening to the surf and reading. The first is a collection of stories called Tales From Margaritaville.

It’s a surprisingly fun and clever collection from a first time writer (Jimmy’s written several books since this one). I honestly did not expect to like it as much as I did. Which led me to read his second book, and his first attempt at a full length novel story, Where is Joe Merchant?

This is another, very casual, but very fun story I enjoyed from start to finish. It follows a group of people in search of rock star, Joe Merchant, who supposedly committed suicide many years ago but keeps popping up in tabloid headlines. Definitely a rollicking summer read.

Okay, how about travel guides? There is one in particular that my wife and I found extremely helpful on our trip to Paris in 2007. It had tons of information and several great suggestions of sites to see that we never would have found on our own. It was Rick Steves’ Paris.

If you ever plan on traveling anywhere in Europe, take a gander at all of the Rick Steves books. They are fantastic. I know if Steph and I ever make the trip to London or Rome, Rick Steves is the travel guide we will pick up.

So, I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day and enjoys the day off. We’ll be grilling burgers and brats for dinner. See you later this week.

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Weekly Geeks 2009-18 – Your Hometown in Literature

Posted in books, Weekly Geeks with tags Alabama, books, Fannie Flag, Fried Green Tomatoes, Irondale Cafe, movies, Weekly Geeks on May 18, 2009 by Paxton

Weekly Geeks time. I haven’t been able to do a Weekly Geeks for a few weeks now, partly because I’ve been busy and partly because the last few themes have not interested me. But the one this week looks good. Here it is:

Share your fun literary facts about the town or area where you live. You can talk about famous (or not so famous) authors who live there, novels that have been set in your area, or any other literary facts that you know about where you live. Feel free to embellish with pictures of places and/or authors, maps of the area, and fun facts about the authors.

Today, I won’t talk about where I currently live, Jacksonville, FL, I’m going to talk about my hometown, Birmingham, AL. I was born in Birmingham in 1974 and lived there until I was 31 years old when I had to move for a job. But I plan on going back to live there someday. Anywho, we do actually have a famous author that was born and still lives in Birmingham (at least part time). She is Fannie Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

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Weekly Geeks – 2009 – 10 – Worst book/movie adaptations

Posted in books, Jumper, movies, Weekly Geeks with tags books, movie review, movies, Weekly Geeks on March 17, 2009 by Paxton

Weekly Geeks has really been on a role lately with some very good topics. Last week was the favorite author quotes and this week they want you to discuss what, in my opinion, is the worst book-to-film adaptation ever. Here’s the challenge:

Worst movie adaptations: The recent release of Watchmen based on the graphic novel by Alan Moore got me thinking about what I thought were the worst movie adaptations of books. What book or books did a director or directors completely ruin in the adaptation(s) that you wish you could “unsee,” and why in your opinion, what made it or them so bad in contrast to the book or books?

This is an interesting topic because people can really get bent out of shape when their favorite books are supposedly done “wrong” on the big screen. To me, a book-to-film adaptation has to be taken as something completely on its own. The movie can be a good movie on it’s own merit, but also still adapt the source material poorly by changing the story or characters. To me, that’s still a win. If the movie makers take the source material and make an interesting movie, then I’m happy. I figure, if the movie is good, maybe it will entice people to check out the source material for themselves. That is a big win, because now more people will read the book and get the author’s original vision. But if the movie turns out, on its own, to be a bad movie, then you have people turning away from the original source, and that’s bad. So the question is really this; Is the movie bad, or is it just bad because you care so much about the source material you can’t separate the two? It’s the classic “chicken and the egg” syndrome.

So, having said this, I think, for me, the movie that is a poor adaptation of its source book, regardless of its merits as a movie, is Jumper.

I saw this movie without any knowledge of the book, or that there even was a book. I enjoyed the movie as a whole, even though there were flaws. Hayden Christensen isn’t great as the main character. He’s a little whiny and immature. I loved Jamie Bell’s character of Griffin and the entire concept of people born with the ability to Jump. So, overall, this was a good action movie with nice special effects. Then I find out it was based on a series of books. I was intrigued.

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