seriously, imagine Walken saying, "needs more anal probing"

Circus of the Damned, by Laurell Hamilton. Woo! Exciting. Anita Blake is my heroine. Kind of the silly-tshirt wearing of Gaby McAslan with the badassery of Buffy, but with the hardness of Cassie Suthorn. Though I agree about the Richard love interest, now, I get how she’s taken in by chemistry and attraction, but ditch him, Anita! I’m curious where Hamilton is going to go with the rookie animator/executioner – will he become badass, or die horribly? Lots of the usual twists and turns and original creatures and Blake’s calm tenaciousness, and the kind of ending where you go, how the hell could this possibly be resolved in anything but a horrible manner? And then it is resolved, in a way that’s horrible but still good. I did feel a bit jipped that some of the weight of that ending felt stolen, since it was exactly the same last trick as in the previous novel in the series, just much more bloody and violent. Oh, and Edward is interesting as a total sociopath interacting with relatively normal characters, it’s fascinating each time. And will she encounter the crazy-horny-scary lamia anymore? Probably so, as it was hired by Jean-Claude. If I didn’t have other novels I’m obligated to read first, I’d definitely go get the next book.

Communion, with Christopher Walken, and anal probing. Actually, I was disappointed there wasn't more anal probing. I can see how the film might be iconic in some ways (though it could have been iconic in different ways with more anal probing), and I can definitely tell how it’s autobiographical. You can see how the movie is mirroring scenes someone wrote about themselves. And in that, alas, I think it just gets self-indulgent; it doesn’t help that for much of the narrative the main character is something of a dick, and there’s less narrative, in truth, then a loose string of related experiences without an arc driving them. I think it would have been served, especially with the wonky special effects (though, points for attempting to use an alien blowup doll of sorts, I wonder if one could auction that off for fetish purposes), by limiting any need for special effects by doing it in an Asian horror movie style – less show and tell, more psychological tension and hinting. That also would have helped to take the movie from just randomly purposed and timed alien encounters, in that, in that horror style the purpose (which, granted, of the aliens is unknown) is less important than them just being creepy.


Olympic cheerleaders are so weird.