ThunderPeel2001

Books, books, books...

Recommended Posts

I get the feeling that there was a lot of bitterness from both Carpenter and O'Bannon.

In regards to The Thing, I think Carpenter was diretctly influenced by the 1950s monster movie The Thing from Another World; his movie is a fairly similar remake. Dark Star had more to do with Halloween, because it taught Carpenter that the scariest/most effective part of having a movie monster is not actually showing it on screen. Plus, Halloween was his first big movie after Dark Star.

Fun fact: the kids that Laurie Strode are babysitting in Halloween are actually watching The Thing from Another World on TV while Michael is running around murdering people. Carpenter really liked that movie.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That's cool. However, when it came time for the Dark Star Special Edition, it was Carpenter who refused to work with O'Bannon. Not the other way around. Why do you think it was from O'Bannon's side, too? Also, Dark Star was a comedy with zero scary moments (the alien was a beachball). I can't see how Halloween is remotely related.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To bring this whole discussion back to the thread topic (books), that Shock Value book I mentioned earlier heavily intimates that O'Bannon was jealous of Carpenter's runaway success with Halloween. While Carpenter was being talked about in the US, O'Bannon was in Europe, working an a movie adaptation of Dune that never got off the ground. That's where he met Giger, and the rest is...you know.

The whole beach-ball-as-the-monster in Dark Star is where Carpenter learned to not directly show the monster on screen; having a wide-angle shot of a beach ball would destroy any kind of tension/emotion/believability. I personally think that Carpenter ripped off Black Christmas when he made Halloween, but that's just an opinion and not really based in any fact (except the fact that both movies have really similar plots/bad guys).

Anyway, Shock Value is a great book. You should read it (and so should the person who originally requested film book recs---sorry!)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Got a lot of new books to read! All five A Song of Ice and Fire books, Platos Republic, Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Guns, Germs and Steel and lastly The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Gonna be great!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To bring this whole discussion back to the thread topic (books), that Shock Value book I mentioned earlier heavily intimates that O'Bannon was jealous of Carpenter's runaway success with Halloween. While Carpenter was being talked about in the US, O'Bannon was in Europe, working an a movie adaptation of Dune that never got off the ground. That's where he met Giger, and the rest is...you know.

The whole beach-ball-as-the-monster in Dark Star is where Carpenter learned to not directly show the monster on screen; having a wide-angle shot of a beach ball would destroy any kind of tension/emotion/believability. I personally think that Carpenter ripped off Black Christmas when he made Halloween, but that's just an opinion and not really based in any fact (except the fact that both movies have really similar plots/bad guys).

Anyway, Shock Value is a great book. You should read it (and so should the person who originally requested film book recs---sorry!)

I hadn't heard that! Very interesting. I'll check out that book. Still can't say I'm convinced by your beach ball/alien argument, though. It wasn't a "monster" in Dark Star, it was a joke. Here's a screengrab...

darkstar4.jpg

I'm fascinated by early Carpenter/O'Bannon.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have two different suggestions.

The first is the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which is a short but absorbing read. You don't need to know much context to hop right in. I could wax lyrical on how much I liked it and how much you need to read it, but I don't need to because this is Benjamin Franklin we are talking about.

The second is the Mistborn trilogy, by Brandson Sanderson. Whattaturnaround. It's fun, simplistic, and well thought-out. It's not A Song of Ice and Fire. It's not deep, or reflective, or particularly special. It starts slow, gets better, gets good, then addictive and fun. It's the closest thing to a video game I've ever seen a novel go. If I had to pitch it, I'd pitch it as thus: "Mistborn is Final Fantasy IX set in Morrowind, minus all the dark elves." If you need good escapist fiction, without heavy language, especially-three-dimensional characters but a very fun plot and story - lots of twists in this one - go for Mistborn.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
The first is the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which is a short but absorbing read. You don't need to know much context to hop right in. I could wax lyrical on how much I liked it and how much you need to read it, but I don't need to because this is Benjamin Franklin we are talking about.

Benjamin Franklin is my favorite founding father. Can't believe I've never read this.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Is there anybody here that can read Norwegian that can tell me how to order a book from this website? There was a form on the page for the book, and I filled it out and got an email saying (i think) 'thanks for your order', but I haven't given them any money?? This is too hard for me.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Swedish here, they will most likely send a bill with your order. Although I'm not sure if you are able to order directly from them as there is no option to select county/ state etc, they are focusing solely on norwegian customers. You could write some more address information in the big box named "For øvrig vil jeg ha sagt at ..." (moreover, I want to say) or you could probably just call/ email them and they will fix it for you.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Cheers. the address box had spaces for zip code (post code) city and country, so I just slapped it all in there. Your right though, I'll send an email as well. Thanks for your help.

All this effort for a joke book. it is obscene. disgusting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm currently embroiled in a fairly scrofulous non fiction orgy at the minute. I've just polished off "mao" by Jung Chang and her husband ( 900 pages of abject misery ), The crisis of islam by Bernard Lewis which is a breezy polemic, and a good counterpoint to Edward Said and Last, and far from least, King leopold's ghost by Adam Hoschild (sp?) which is a beautifully researched, maddening and oddly relevant piece on the de facto genocide in the Belgian congo.

For something lighter in the midst of that, I read Martin Amis's Lionel asbo, which continues the unfortunate trend of Amis producing the greatest sentences in the english language and carefully weaving them into a pile of shit.

King leopolds ghost though.......get it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just finished reading Kraken by China Mieville. It was the first book I bought when I picked up my Kindle Fire and it took me until two days ago to finish it. I was completely captivated for the first third of it, but then it turns weird and it was hard for it to keep my attention until the end.

Two things happened while I was very slowly reading Kraken that shifted my view on it. Penny Arcade put out a strip about China Mieville while I was in the middle of reading Kraken and it more or less confirmed my thoughts of "Jesus there are a lot of crazy made up words that are never well explained." Secondly, I went to London so I had some knowledge of a few of the locations, making the story a bit more interesting any time one was mentioned.

This hasn't turned me off of China Mieville though and I'll probably read some of his other books in the future. Now I finally get to rip through The Sense of an Ending.

EDIT: I also downloaded a bunch of Sherlock Holmes novels off of Project Guttenberg in preparation for my flight to London, but I never read them. I need to get to that.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sherlock Holmes is fun.

It's hard for me to take Penny Arcade's insights into books seriously; Gabe doesn't read anything besides Star Wars novels and Tycho over-writes beyond the point of saturation. I find it a bit weird that people take this as this "geek authority". In fact, I find that whole "geek culture" thing weird, but let's not get into that. My point is that I've never taken Penny Arcade's opinion any more seriously than I've taken anyone else's, and I find it bemusing that others do.

I do have Perdido Street Station to delve into, though I suspect it'll be a few years before I actually read it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I finally finished The Diamond Age, and I've got very ambivalent feelings about it.

On one hand, the book features a significant amount of insufferable piles of exposition and jargon introduction (not unlike this). The first 80 pages are in that trend, and the last third dives back into that kind of content at random.

But on the other hand, when the author goes down to the characters, to explore the topics of education vs subversion, societal rules for the 2nd generation of that society or the contradiction and overlap between Confucianism and Victorianism ; it is very unique and interesting.

In those moments, the jargon and sci-fi elements prove themselves indispensable to explore thematics from angles that wouldn't be available otherwise; and for that, I would definitely recommend it.

But still, the jargon made my flesh crawls more than I wished. (Also, for some reason, the ending is abrupt and devoid of meaning)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just finished the disgraced Jonah lerher's "Imagine, how creativity works", which was interesting for numerous reasons. The scandal around the "making shit upisms" in the book highlights how the internet has made it impossible to get away with said making shit up ( shame lerher wasn't creative enough to imagine a scenario in which people would be obsessed with Bob Dylan, and be somewhat suspicious if some heretofore unheard of quotes appear to directly support a books central thesis).

Its a real shame, an interesting oddity from a prodigiously talented writer on neuroscience......who is also apparently a fucking idiot.

edit: paul theroux's travel book " the old patagonia express" and leonine man of the UK left Terry Eagleton's " the meaning of life" next.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I've just started reading The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of a Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, and so far it's a fantastic read. I've since heard it's been successful in the rest of Europe, but I just picked it up because the blurb on the back sounded interesting.

It all starts on the one-hundredth birthday of Allan Karlsson. Sitting quietly in his room in an old people's home, he is waiting for the party he-never-wanted-anyway to begin. The mayor is going to be there. The press is going to be there. But, as it turns out, Allan is not...Slowly but surely Allan climbs out of his bedroom window, into the flowerbed (in his slippers) and makes his getaway. And so begins his picaresque and unlikely journey involving criminals, several murders, a suitcase full of cash, and incompetent police. As his escapades unfold, we learn something of Allan's earlier life in which - remarkably - he helped to make the atom bomb, became friends with American presidents, Russian tyrants, and Chinese leaders, and was a participant behind the scenes in many key events of the twentieth century. Already a huge bestseller across Europe, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared is a fun, feel-good book for all ages.

I haven't gone through the entire thread so forgive me if I'm mentioning titles already talked about, but I thought I'd share a couple of favourites/recommendations.

I think fans of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams might enjoy the Thursday Next/Bookworld series of novels by Jasper Fford. They're just delightfully daft and full of originality.

Company of Liars and The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland are a couple of excellent historical thrillers, set in the 14th century, and they do a great job of creating a dark, difficult world full of fear, and faith vs. superstition.

Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold is a mystery/thriller set in 1920s California, which I really love for the backdrop of theatrical stage magic.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Can I read Company of Liars without a solid knowledge of history?

Certainly. It might help to know a little about the Middle Ages, the Black Death, and geography of the North of England; but I wouldn't say there's any absolute pre-requisite knowledge.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Certainly. It might help to know a little about the Middle Ages, the Black Death, and geography of the North of England; but I wouldn't say there's any absolute pre-requisite knowledge.

Ooh, so this is set in the north of England around the 1360 truce in the wake of the plague? Officially fifty percent more interested in this now.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Seemed topical, so I picked up First Man, the authorized biography of Neil Armstrong.

Armstrong as a public figure was a bit of a cipher; certainly not motivated by fame or the desire to express himself. These are not usually the kinds of people that biographies are written about.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, after reading that book, Armstrong as a public figure is quite an oddity.

After this crash, Neil Armstrong is in his office an hour later quietly doing paperwork. A coworker (who wasn't present for the crash, burst into his office. "Neil, you were in a crash? What happened?" Armstrong thought for a moment and said calmly "Yeah, I lost control and had to bail out of the thing." And that was all you heard about it from him. Years later, when interviewed for the biography, Armstrong remembers being somewhat depressed about losing the machine. And that's it.

I also learned that Armstrong was teamed up with Buzz Aldrin because most of the other Astronauts found Buzz to be aggravating. And that when it became clear that Aldrin and Armstrong would have a chance to land on the Moon, Armstrong was chosen to have the first steps mostly so that needy, neurotic, addictive Aldrin would not have the historical focus.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is a random request, but does anyone know any good books on film history? Specifically French New Wave, but I'd be down for anything, really. My only caveat is that I don't want anything that is too broad (e.g. a general history of Hollywood).

Popular or academic?

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the major crossover work of film history. It tells the story of the New Hollywood Generation as a sort of modern-day epic. It's a bit soapy, but a great read.

Also, randomly from my bookshelf - The Undeclared War by David (Lord) Puttnam. A history of the rivalry between Europe and USA for control over the cinematic medium, and how Hollywood won out.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah, after reading that book, Armstrong as a public figure is quite an oddity.

After this crash, Neil Armstrong is in his office an hour later quietly doing paperwork. A coworker (who wasn't present for the crash, burst into his office. "Neil, you were in a crash? What happened?" Armstrong thought for a moment and said calmly "Yeah, I lost control and had to bail out of the thing." And that was all you heard about it from him. Years later, when interviewed for the biography, Armstrong remembers being somewhat depressed about losing the machine. And that's it.

I also learned that Armstrong was teamed up with Buzz Aldrin because most of the other Astronauts found Buzz to be aggravating. And that when it became clear that Aldrin and Armstrong would have a chance to land on the Moon, Armstrong was chosen to have the first steps mostly so that needy, neurotic, addictive Aldrin would not have the historical focus.

Sounds like a robot!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the major crossover work of film history. It tells the story of the New Hollywood Generation as a sort of modern-day epic. It's a bit soapy, but a great read.

Hey, get your own recommendation!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This is a random request, but does anyone know any good books on film history? Specifically French New Wave, but I'd be down for anything, really. My only caveat is that I don't want anything that is too broad (e.g. a general history of Hollywood).

If you or anyone else is interested in the genre of the western: http://www.amazon.com/The-Invention-Western-Film-Cultural/dp/0521555817

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now