Sassinak, by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon. Old school. I read this when I was much, much younger and remembered it as pretty good; reading it again, I suppose it makes sense that I did, as it seems to be written for a much younger audience - kind of a teenage girl's imaginings of her ideal self in a science fiction setting. In that sense, it does make for quick read, as the plot and writing is pleasantly simple and makes for a decent space opera. The one thing I'll note, however, is that it's been a while since I felt kind of objectified as a male because of the writing as a book (the previous time from a work used for comparison in my thesis research) - I'm not sure that the sexual references would be appropriate for a younger audience in one sense, but in another sense, the female characters in question are certainly assertive and confident and sure of their identities, so more power to them.

immortel, with Linda Hardy and Thomas Kretschmann. An Italian movie based on a French comic book. While that might sum it up right there, there really was quite a lot put into this very, very odd movie. First of all, the cinematography is randomly mixed between CGI and live acting, just as a warning to avoid the distraction of trying to figure out whether a different movie was mixed in during the editing. That being said, there is so much detail in everything from dialogue to backgrounds to physical appearances that it's distracting as well, in just trying to absorb it all; maybe the proper phrase is "rich in detail;" trick is, I think that's one of those things where it either gets one really into it, or puts the viewer off. And while the story seems almost nonsensically weird at first, I really do think there are some interesting issues brought up, notably what does it mean to be defined as human (or not), and what really is a deity.

Aliens Vs. Predator, with Sanaa Lathan and Lance Henriksen. I must note that I thought the Aliens Vs. Predator novels and the one Batman Vs. Predator one-shot comic were great, and well worth finding. The movie, on the other hand....not so much. It was okay. The pacing needed help. I liked the ending, though I thought it was obviously ripped from the previously mentioned other media. The effects were quite nice. The acting...not so much, but the Weyland references were quite amusing. I kind of wonder if the audience already being familiar with both monsters kind of detracts from it, in the sense that it's harder to identify with the characters who are supposed to be surprised.

"Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. They constantly defile the silence of the forests and the mountains and the sea. They bore through silent nature in every direction with their machines, for fear that the calm world might accuse them of their own emptiness. The urgency of their swift movement seems to ignore the tranquillity of nature by pretending to have a purpose. The loud plane seems for a moment to deny the reality of the clouds and of the sky, by its direction, its noise, and its pretended strength. The silence of the sky remains when the plane has gone. The tranquility of the clouds will remain when the plane has fallen apart. It is the silence of the world that is real. Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are the illusion." - Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island