Babylon 5 4.13-4.22

Far too many spaceships died! I have become fond of them! Though I fear Farscape rather ruined me for other spaceships.

( spoilers )

Hmm...why don't I have any icons of Delenn, Ivanova or Lyta?

manhwa: Angel Diary Vol 10

Review at Manga Bookshelf.

movie: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Sometimes, I watch good movies. For whatever reason, I almost never post on them. This does not break that trend.

I went into this with the lowest possible expectations, and requested only a few things:

1. Sienna Miller shoots things.
2. Rachel Nichols shoots things.
3. They remain fully clothed and not be conveniently soaked through in their inevitable fight.
4. Men with swords.

It delivered on the above and not much else, save for bonus Dennis Quaid. Though that was kinda cancelled by how Channing Tatum loses anything resembling appeal the second he is no longer befuddledly crushing on Amanda Bynes.

It was painfully clichéd (as expected) and the massive Fail was evident as soon as a brunette was blonde in a flashback (Light/Dark woman complex much?) and I really hated being right on multiple fronts. And if they were going to randomly insert annoying romances, why couldn’t Baroness/Storm Shadow be one? At least that would have been entertaining.

It’s weird how it could so massively fail on virtually every level regarding gender and yet leave the characters themselves mostly appealing, despite “women are too pure and delicate to *spoiler* of their own free will” and “she’s the best there is, but always the first to go down (even if she does get right back up).” And it…non-white men probably talk more in any 10 minutes of the movie than in the entirety of most of this type of movie? But you still have “Good ninjas are white and evil ninjas are Korean…I mean Japanese!” and “The field leader is a black man and so he’s the one who does almost nothing! But drive!” And yet, I’m pretty sure they were patting themselves on the back for doing well with race and gender!

Mostly, it was entertainingly bad. And multiple steps up from Wolverine: Origins on most levels.

Also, the mad scientist looked like the ugly evil twin of Lucifer from Angel Sanctuary.

A Step From Heaven by An Na

This quasi-autobiographical book is about Young Ju Park, a Korean girl who immigrates to the U.S. when she’s 4. Thinking that “Mi Gook,” the Korean term for America, means that America is Heaven, she’s not prepared for the confusion, strangeness, and near-poverty that await her. The book focuses on the difficulties of being an immigrant being raised in two cultures at once, and faced with a parent who cannot adjust to the second culture.

Told in a series of first person, stream of consciousness vignettes, it’s very similar in theme and feel to Sandra Cisneros’s The House of Mango Street, which An Na confirms as an influence, and is the rare (for me) effective use of first person, present tense narration.

I warn, though, for domestic abuse, which is initially vague when Young Ju is too young to understand it, but becomes increasingly clear and explicit as the book continues, coming to a head when she’s in high school. Thankfully, this aspect doesn’t seem to be autobiographical, judging from An Na’s comments. Domestic abuse-both real and fictional-is always horrible, but becomes a little worse when you realize you’re reading someone’s memories.