As big a fan of James Patterson as I am, I’ve been quite disappointed with some of his latest efforts. The past few installments of the Alex Cross series have failed to impress me. The Maximum Ride series has gotten progressively worse. But, thankfully, the Women’s Murder Club series has managed to stay strong. I finished ‘7th Heaven‘ earlier today and I have to say I was pleased. While the Alex Cross series has been fading away, the Women’s Murder Club series has remained consistent. While some twists were anticipated, the story overall kept its suspense. I hope Patterson can keep it up.

James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series certainly had promise. I enjoyed the first installment, The Angel Experiment. Unfortunately, each installment got progressively worse… The latest of the series, The Final Warning, is by far the most disappointing.

The novels have followed the story of 14-year-old Maximum Ride, a human-bird hybrid girl and four others just like her, who are on the run after escaping from “The School” where they were created. It was established in the first novel that Max had been created for a purpose: to save the world. A cryptic voice in her head has guided her and her flock along the way as they fight for their lives in their quest to fulfill that mission. Until The Final Warning, what that mission was exactly, they did not know. Quite frankly, I don’t think James Patterson knew until he started writing The Final Warning, because the mission seems entirely anti-climactic. The series has had human-wolf hybrids and robots out to kill Max and flock, and hints of a decades-long global conspiracy involving genetic research with recombinant life forms. Sounds exciting and thrilling doesn’t it So what is Maximum Ride’s mission really about?

Global warming.

That’s right. The Final Warning takes Max and her flock to Antarctica to study penguins, and ultimately to Capitol Hill, where Max gives a speech to Congress, urging them to heed the alleged warning signs and to do something to slow down global warming.

Instead of tying up all the loose ends from the previous books of the series, Patterson seems to have gone on a tangent by making global warming the focus of the latest novel of the series. Patterson may think he’s doing a service by using his popular series to “educate” kids about global warming — but ultimately the story has suffered.

The Maximum Ride series seems to  be suffering from premature burnout. Patterson’s Alex Cross series started off very strong but started really going downhill with The Big Bad Wolf. After ready the most recent of the Alex Cross series, Double Cross, I felt that Patterson had taken the Alex Cross character as far as he could. Well, with Maximum Ride, he’s taken the series in the wrong direction and should stop. Unfortunately, despite the implication of the title, the ending implied there’s more coming.

And yes, I’m sure I’ll read it, but I can’t say I have high expectations for it.

This week, Starbucks made its exclusive Pike Place Roast available in all its locations. Starbucks is promoting the widespread availability of Pike Place Roast with rebranded cups featuring (temporarily, I assume) the original siren logo.

The original siren logo is slightly modified, however. The siren’s hair covers more than the true original logo, but, more importantly the circular band says “Fresh Roasted Coffee” instead of “Coffee • Tea • Spices.” Considering recently publicized problems Starbucks has had, the new emphasis on their coffee selection process and freshness is undoubtedly intended to address those issues. Starbucks suffers largely from an image problem. People who aren’t Starbucks regulars associate the coffee-chain with high-priced espresso drinks or coffee that is “too strong” for them. Starbucks is now attracting attention to their commitment to quality, fresh coffee by posting the “roasted on” date with with daily brews.

I’ve had the Pike Place Roast every day since it became available. And I have say it is one of my favorite roasts. I think Starbucks is on the right track to fixing it’s overall image problem. In fact, I would suggest they continue to not only emphasize their coffee selection processes and commitment to freshness, but also keep showcasing the original siren logo. Another aspect of their image is problem is the bleeding heart objections to big corporations, and the old logo doesn’t have the corporate look that the current logo does. Renewed attention to their roots can’t hurt and reminds consumers that Starbucks started small, and grew into something larger because it has a quality product.

Today I finished reading ‘Then We Came To The End‘ the debut novel from Joshua Ferris. It is the story of the employees at a Chicago ad agency in the late 1990’s when the economic bubble burst. Ferris ’s diverse cast of characters bring a realistic humor to the everyday mundanity of the office setting.

The most interesting aspect of the story is that it is told in the first person plural… an extremely effective way of making the omnipresent narrator feel as one of the characters in the book.

At times it is hard to follow all the stories (comedic and tragic) and idiosyncrasies of all the individual characters, but they all are important parts of the novel, as they demonstrate that people are more than what they are when they are on the job.

‘Then We Came To The End‘ is a clever novel anyone who has worked in an office can relate to, and anyone hasn’t should read anyway.

I didn’t particularly want to see Strange Wilderness, but I have to admit I did go see it this weekend. And, while it had its funny moments it was a bad, pointless movie that gets you from start to finish with dirty jokes in various forms.

The plot was absurd and pointless, and so much of the story seemed gratuitous. Yes, I laughed, but I laughed more at ‘Superbad’ and ‘Knocked Up’ (both of which are significantly better movies) but just because I laughed doesn’t mean it was a good movie.

Last weekend I saw The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Reviews for the movie haven’t been stellar, but after seeing it, I have to say that it should be on your list of movies of see this year.

The movie’s strength comes not only from the performances of Nicholson and Freeman, but from a script that addresses the issue of terminal illness with appropriate amounts of humor and drama.

I heard mixed reviews about Cloverfield, including complaints that the handheld camerawork caused nausea, or that it was unconvincing that the character operating the camera would have the presence of mind to keep videotaping throughout the whole saga.

Well, I never got nauseous, and I thought they did a good job explaining the cameraman’s drive to keep videotaping in order “to document” what was happening because “people will want to know.”

Even if you’re not convinced, once look passed the issue of the handheld camera perspective, it’s exciting to watch, and I left the theatre wanting more. You can’t help wanting to know more. The movie is presented as videotape evidence recovered by the Department of Defense from Central Park following an attack on the city by some creature. It starts from the planning of a going away party Rob Hawkins, who is about to leave New York City for a job in Japan. The attack happens during the party and you follow him, his brother and his girlfriend, his best friend and another party attendee throughout the attack.

The virtual realtime experience of the attack is extraordinarily effective, as it was for The Blair Witch Project (which I haven’t seen but I’ve heard enough about). The interesting thing about Cloverfield is that it has been described as Godzilla meets The Blair Witch Project. Probably a very fair description, only, had Cloverfield been done more like a tradition action movie, it may not have done so well… Considering remakes of Godzilla and King Kong didn’t seem to do as well as hoped. They certainly weren’t memorable movies, and I can’t say I had a strong desire to see either of them. Cloverfield’s appeal had a lot to do with the presentation as a continuous story from the point of view of a character’s handheld camera.

All you are given in the movie is the “evidence” of the recovered videotape. So, while I was absolutely satisfied by the movie, I found myself wanting to know more about the aftermath: What was the creature that attacked New York? I’d like to believe that once Cloverfield is released on DVD there will some great bonus features explaining all the things we want to know about “what happened” that we weren’t going to find out in the movie, as it was presented.

Cloverfield is definitely worth seeing.

As a longtime fan of James Patterson’s Alex Cross series, I always look forward to the next book of the series, despite the fact that the last few have been somewhat disappointing. I was hoping for James Patterson to redeem himself in Double Cross after a rather unsatisfying previous attempt in Cross. Unfortunately, Double Cross lacked in thrills and suspense, and was horribly predictable.

Perhaps Patterson has taken the Alex Cross character as far as he can realistically take him with. If it truly is better to burn out than to fade away, then Alex Cross needs to go into retirement… soon. In the more recent additions to the series, I found myself more interested in the parts of the stories that revolved around his personal life, particularly the strains on Cross’s family with his work and lifestyle, and a custody battle with his ex-girlfriend over their toddler son. There was a noticeable absence in Double Cross his family, and it’s not as if the parts about the DC Audience Killer or Kyle Craig were so engrossing that we couldn’t be taken away from them for a few more brief moments. Cross’s family life gave a lot more depth to his character, and was complementary to the bigger story. In Double Cross, it felt more artificial and supplementary.

But the worst thing about it was the predictability. I had the killers’ identities figured out much sooner than I should have. And some aspects of the end with Kyle Craig I had faint ideas of how they would turn out as well.

The story had potential in the beginning, but it just didn’t hold up to the end. If you’re a fan of the series, you have to read it just like I had to… but it just doesn’t measure up to his earlier efforts, such as Kiss The Girls or Cat & Mouse, two of my favorites in the series

Yesterday, I finished reading Richard Matheson’s original story, I Am Legend. I saw the movie last month, and liked it a lot. It didn’t take me long to buy the book it was based on — I was very much interested in comparing the two.

I bought the book at the airport last month and since read it in small portions during my commute home from work. In short, Richard Matheson’s original story and the latest film adaptation of it are very different in ways that just work to each version’s benefit.

In reading the book, I found that it was easier to feel the main character’s isolation than in the movie. The movie, for starters, was a lot shorter, and the main action took place over a shorter period of time. His isolation in the movie is softened by his companionship with his dog… Though his talking to mannequins was effective in demonstrating his desperation for contact. In the book, he does not have a dog (though one turns up late in the story) and rather than talking to mannequins, Neville resorts to heavy drinking.

The book goes into a lot detail about Robert Neville’s search for a cure to the plague, and you get a sense for his enormous amount of free time and his dedication as he struggles to not only deal with his virtual solitude, but with the horrors of the plague that took his family away, and ultimately let him to not only bury his wife, but kill her violently again when she returned from death.

In the book, he is not military doctor (as he is in the film) so his quest for a cure involves starting from the basics of medicine. As he builds up his knowledge from reading books on medicine and biology his understanding of the plague (and how to possibly cure it) increases.

In the book, the humans who weren’t killed by the plague (with the exception of Neville) became vampire-like zombies, who displayed similar weaknesses as vampires from popular legends (aversions to sunlight, crosses, and garlic) which may have been appropriate when the story was first published, but seemed a bit dated and uninspired to me. The genesis of the zombies in the movie (a mutated cure for cancer) was more appropriate for the present, and the vampire elements (except for the aversion to light) were not used.

Another thing that separates the movie from the book is that the movie had to have action that would bee effective for the medium given the opportunities that exist with special effects.

It’s hard to say too much about the differences and similarities between the book and the movie without giving away too much. In the end, I can say that I enjoyed them both, but I can’t say which I liked better. I liked the action and visuals of the movie, and the detail of the book. They both have their own strengths and weaknesses. Each were done at a particular time where certain themes or styles were appropriate.

Unlike my previous book/film comparison, there is no clear winner here. If you’re going to see the movie, read the book first. Both are worth enjoying.

Why did it take so long for Nirvana Unplugged In New York to be released on DVD? I have no idea. Perhaps the best performance that has ever come out of MTV’s Unplugged.

As a longtime fan of Nirvana, I remember anxiously
awaiting the CD release of Nirvana Unplugged In New York. For die-hard Nirvana fans, to own the uncut video of Nirvana Unplugged is something of equal significance. And the DVD is more than just the raw footage of the performance - though that would have been enough satisfy.

Included in the DVD as bonus material are Nirvana’s rehearsals for their Unplugged performance. Perhaps the most significant gem from the five songs from the rehearsal is “Pennyroyal Tea,” which was rehearsed as a band arrangement, with Pat Smear doing backup guitar and vocals, and tried again with Dave Grohl doing backup guitar as Pat did backup vocals. This was clearly not working, which explains why Kurt Cobain ended up performing the song entirely by himself for the actual performance.

Seeing the uncut performance offers a new glimpse of Nirvana’s rare acoustic concert. While most fans were familiar with the MTV broadcast and/or the album release, the raw footage offers more chatter between songs by the band, video of songs “Something In The Way” and “Oh, Me,” as well as some short comical cover of “Sweet Home Alabama.” Other comical moments occur throughout the DVD, including a call for requests where one fan yells “Rape Me,” to which Kurt replies “I don’t think MTV will let us play that,” an obvious reference to Nirvana’s appearance at the 1992 MTV Music Awards when he started playing the controversial song in protest, then switching to Lithium just before MTV was about to cut them off.

Even if you’re a fan who taped Nirvana’s Unplugged performance back when it was first broadcast, you’ll have to get this DVD. The old VHS tape recorded off the TV can officially take the backseat to this superior DVD loaded with all it’s goodies.