Oct 23 2005

The Devil in the White City

Category: Books — velveetahead @ 1:08 pm

The Devil in the White City
Author: Erik Larson

True story behind the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with the focus on two very different men during that time. One is the architect Daniel H. Burnham who designed and supervised the construction of the World’s Fair. The other is H.H. Holmes, the first U.S. serial killer who posed as a doctor and murdered mostly young women in his World’s Fair Hotel.

It took me quite a while to read this book. I was reading it while I was taking the bus to and from work last summer and then didn’t read it until I started taking the bus again this past summer. It was a fairly quick read when I was reading it, but it wasn’t a “can’t put down” book. It was well written in the way I felt like I was reading fiction and then I would remind myself that I was reading a true story. It helped explain why there were gaps in some of the serial killer story. It didn’t go into gruesome details since they really couldn’t get inside the killer’s head. He lied until the day he died.

At the beginning of the story, I was always sad when the focused switched from the serial killer to the fair since the beginning of the planning for the World’s Fair was sometimes boring. The writing was as exciting as describing organizes and designing a World Fair can be, so it could have been a lot worse. Then more than half way through the story, the Fair became more interesting. It was cool to read about the Fair opening, people attending, all the new things that people saw, etc. The serial killer story became more erratic. The narrative didn’t flow as well as it did in the beginning, but that could have been due to the lack of information of what actually happened.

Then when the Fair came to a close, it seemed like a natural end to that part of the story. The serial killer part seemed to wrap up a little too suddenly after moving at a certain pace the rest of the story.

I’m not sure how much of this was related to the book and the way it was written and how much was related to reading half of it last summer and then reading the last half this summer.

Oct 16 2005

Serenity

Category: 2005,Movies,Reviews — velveetahead @ 9:12 pm

Cowboy space opera about a ragtag crew flying through the outskirts of space picking up odd jobs and trying to stay away from The Alliance that is after one of their passengers, River. Based on the tv series, Firefly.

The film is just like a big extended episode of Firefly, which isn’t a bad thing. The series was cancelled too soon, so it is nice to see more of it. One thing about tv series that try to continue on as a film series sometimes just don’t capture the same flair of the series, such as the X-Files movie. This one captured all the same sense of humor and adventure that was present in the series, but it was on a higher scale and bigger screen. It was funny that there was an exciting open sequence and then the credits started, just like in a tv show.

The movie answered some questions that were left unanswered from the series ending too soon. It had some surprises that weren’t expected, but made total sense if you know the series. One doesn’t have to watch the series to follow the movie though. All the back stories can be picked up on quickly and any explanations are made without being too repetitive for those that did watch the series.

It was amusing to see how all the actors have changed in two years with some being skinnier and others filling out more, and all of them with slightly different haircuts. It was nice to see them all again. All of the cast had excellent chemistry on the show and that was still around two years later. The movie did give a sense of closure and also left an opening for more. And I do hope there is more.

Rating: A-