The Geeks Online
Reviews, Rants and Raves
Casting Call: The Hunger Games
Aug 26th
Just finished reading Mockingjay (review to come later) and couldn’t help but getting excited about The Hunger Games movie slated for release in 2011.
Here’s my cast:
Emma Watson as Katniss Everdeen
Fresh off Harry Potter, Watson has no roles slated and has even talked about giving up acting. But she’s everything I imagine in Katniss: pretty, but not super hot, young and fragile-looking, but an inner toughness. Also, Watson brings an A-list actress into the fold, which would give The Hunger Games instant credibility among sci-fi/fantasy fans and teenagers. (Of course she’d have to lose her British accent.)
More >The Geek’s Reading Habits – July Edition
Jul 28th
Recommendations for the Month:
- Audio: The Green Mile by Stephen King (Read by Frank Muller)
- Book: The Hunger Games and Catching Fire both by Suzanne Collins (Book three, Mockingjay comes out in August)
- A Game of Thrones (Book 1 of the A Song of Fire and Ice series)
- Wild Child and Other Stories by T.C. Boyle
- The Promise by Jonathan Alter
- Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer
- A Clash of Kings (Book 2 of the A Song of Fire and Ice series) by George R.R. Martin
- The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
- Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
- The Great Hunt (Book 2 of The Wheel of Time More >
When America Jumped the Shark
Jul 25th
Many people want to point at the explosion of Twitter as the moment our culture hit that narcissistic tipping point. But for anyone who has actually used Twitter knows that, for the most part, this social network is nothing more than a convenient RSS reader and trend checker. What’s in the news right now? Let me check Twitter. What’s happening at Comic-Con? Let me check Twitter. What are people watching right now? Let me check Twitter.
Yes, teenagers and Kim Kardashian still use Twitter to talk about their up-to-the-minute activities. (Damn it, Kim, I don’t give a rat’s ass how you More >
Book Review: Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Apr 9th
The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Hundreds of years in the future, what was once North America has disappeared, the dystopian society of Panem in its place. Surrounding Panem are 12 districts, each designated a specific task (District 12 mines coal, District 11 works farms, etc.). And each district is required to send two teenagers, one male and one female, to the “hunger games,” a yearly, fight-to-the-death televised event (think Stephen King’s The Running Man with teenagers) designed to not only entertain the grotesque citizens of Panem’s Capitol, but to remind the people of the districts that disobedience and rebellion will More >
Movie Review: Percy Jackson – The Lightning Thief
Feb 15th
Notable Stars: Logan Lerman, Brandon Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Pierce Brosnan, Uma Thurman, Sean Bean, Rosario Dawson, Kevin McKidd
Running Time: 119 minutes
In the post-Harry Potter world, there are of course going to be comparisons between that story and every teen sci-fi/fantasy movie that’s released. And for Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief, the comparisons poured in before the movie was released and kept pouring in.
… the obvious similarity of Percy Jackson to the Harry Potter movies inevitably makes it feel somewhat secondhand. – NY Times
Dutifully Potteresque it begins, and dutifully Potteresque it ends. – Globe and Mail
Has all the CGI sorcery of a More >
Flashes Before THEIR Eyes – A Lost Theory
Feb 12th
The key to season six of Lost occurred three seasons ago in the Desmond-centric “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” In that episode, Desmond travels back to his happy life with Penelope Widmore. But it’s not just any day that he travels back to. It’s the day that he has an appointment to see Charles Widmore and the day before he makes his decision to leave Penny, which, in turn, leads to his boat race and that to his being stranded on the Island.
Desmond’s mysterious appearance on Flight 815 has to be foreshadowing, or just a major clue, that the alternative timeline that the Losties More >
Quick Rant: Critics are Idiots
Feb 11th
With “The Lightning Thief” being released tonight at midnight, reviews are pouring in. “A cheap ‘Harry Potter’ ripoff” has been the general theme in the negative reviews.
“Harry Potter” is a ripoff of previous stories. And those previous stories Harry Potter ripped off from were probably ripped off from even earlier sources.
Comparisons between “Potter” and “Percy Jackson” are obvious. Three friends. A magical home location. But I’ve read both series and enjoyed them both (I listen to the entire “Potter” series once a year) and that’s really where the comparisons end.
If “Percy Jackson” ripped off any story, it’s those Greek myths More >
Lost: What Kate Does
Feb 9th
[Total spoilers ahead-Do not read until you have watched the episode]
Maybe it was just me, but I hated being picked last whenever I played basketball, or some type of team sport in school or at playgrounds or even at the local 24 Hour Fitness. Top two picks or else I’d get my feelings hurt. I wanted to be wanted.
It seems from tonight’s Lost episode, “What Kate Does,” as if Jacob and Reborn Locke (aka Man in Black) have made their first two selections in the all-out island war that has been looming for decades (or centuries or millennia): Jack and Sayid.
In the More >
Lost: LA X Parts 1 and 2
Feb 3rd
[Total spoilers ahead-Do not read until you have watched the episode]
Lost season six starts where season five ended with Juliet banging on an atomic bomb in hopes destroying the island so that flight 815 never crashes, but also so that she can wake up safe in bed in Miami never having been recruited by the Dharma Initiative. The bomb goes off, and the screen goes white. The next scene is of Jack sitting on Oceanic 815, which is the same scene that has been shown time and again on Lost of flight attendant Cindy slipping Jack another bottle of vodka. Then More >
Apple iPad: Cool, Not 'Revolutionary'…Yet
Jan 27th
While I think the new Apple iPad has potential to be a “revolutionary” device, as Steve Jobs claimed at this morning’s announcement of the new tablet computer, I don’t think it’s as impressive as the expectations. It’s definitely not as revolutionary as the iPhone, or the iPod before that.
But I do see it as a really cool device with three great uses for the average Joe or Jane:
- As a textbook reader. If this device is designed properly for the college student, textbooks will be fully integrated. McGraw-Hill CEO Frank Lyman hinted at this possibility yesterday.
From the LA Times:
“Lyman’s bottom line: More >
