Weeks Too Late: The Haunting (1999)

The Haunting. Directed by Jan de Bont & Written by David Self and Michael Tolkin.

Preconceptions: As I mentioned last week, I've been getting all Shirley Jackson'd up (well I was until a Feast with Dragons and Wine arrived in my mailbox, anyways) and had a hankering to see some of the movies based on her books. Fortunately, terrible high school classwork hadn't ruined many of her stories for me, so I was able to read the Haunting of Hill House with fresh eyes (many thanks to the internet's own Mal for reminding me to read this and quit being such a horror philistine). Quite a few of my favourite writers have ripped off (oh I'm sorry, been inspired by) this particular novella. It's no wonder. Really, if you haven't read it, pick it up. It's creepy and ridiculously influential on the way people write horror today. Given my enthusiasm for the story, I was excited to see the two movie versions. Typically, I do the usual read the book, see the original movie, then see the re-make, but I thought I'd shake it up a bit and see the later version first this time around. Plus, I thought there was a chance of seeing Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones make out (since he's obviously more her cup of tea than Owen Wilson, har-dee-har).

General Review: As usual, I'll try and keep any and all bitching about the movie not holding a candle to the book at a minimum. I will say that while I didn't mind some of the plot tweeks to make it a modern story, I did mind the subtlety and quiet creepiness being removed. Losing the sinister angles and adding scary babies was lame (though, I'll admit that frightening geometry is a favourite of mine and not something I'm sure can be done successfully in a movie).

The acting was...not good. With the exception of Liam Neeson, this was not a well seasoned cast. I've liked all of these guys in other roles, but their performances in this were about as dynamic as 80's sitcom actors. I guess, it can be chalked down to lack of experience, but really, who thought it would be a good idea to put this much inexperience in a multi-million dollar movie? Sure, Zeta-Jones was playing a shallow, surface character, but it felt less like she was playing and more like she was wandering on, delivering her lines and wandering off. Wilson was worse still, he mostly just yelled and flailed. Lili Taylor's (playing Nell, our haunted ingenue) quick changes between dreamy and purposeful were alright, but lost all punch when faced with the hollow responses of the rest of the cast. Ugh and let us not dwell on Bruce Dern and Marian Seldes (playing the housekeepers), Seldes certainly didn't sell my least favourite line of the book (you know the one I mean "in the night, in the dark"). Overall, the cast gave the Haunting the feel of a play that unwilling teens had been forced to put on, not something someone would pay to see.

The set was undeniably beautiful. It took elements from the book and probably Hell House (which cribbed lovingly from the Haunting of Hill House) and the Winchester Mansion. The house had more character than any of the people running around in it. It was Gothic, sprawling and imposing both outside and in. The rooms were ridiculously lush and decadent and a wonderful place for scary things to happen. But even this gorgeous construction had its faults. The carved art was too overtly unsettling by half. I found it difficult to suspend disbelief enough to accept that someone (even an evil millionaire) would want big carvings of dead and dying guys in the middle of their house. Sure, spooky is good, but that and the twirling mirror room with the organ grinder music were simply too much.

Speaking of simply too much: the music. The score was distracting and overpowering. It was constantly swelling or resting for just a moment so that it could swell again. Every time an actor was stumbling through some sort of emotion, the score saw fit to remind us what that was. Any time something frightening happened, it would roar "THIS IS SCARY!" at the audience, because ghosts trying to kill people isn't obvious enough. Jerry Goldsmith needed to tone it the hell down.

Some of the special effects were also pretty impressive. Sure, ten years leaves a few of them looking dated, but most were successfully ambitious and hold up well. The animated statues were particularly good. My favourite sequence, hands down, was in a scene where Taylor is looking at herself in a series of mirrors. One of the reflections smiles at her and then each one slightly alters her appearance as she walks past them. These were some of the only genuinely unsettling moments in the movie. Unfortunately, I can't seem to offer any praise in this review that isn't leavened with criticism. Our main ghost, Hugh Crain, looked crappy throughout. The design of the character certainly didn't help (a bit like a shaggier Cowardly Lion), but while most of the CG in this was graceful and fairly well integrated, he looked fake. I'm hardly a stickler for movies being identical to the books they're based on. Sometimes, the most enjoyable adaptations aren't the ones that copy the novel by rote, but rather take inspiration from source text. The Haunting didn't do either. It took bits of the story and then generally simplified and de-spooked the rest. There were very few things worth praising about this boring, poorly constructed pile. I can only hope that I did myself a favour by getting it out of the way and that I'm going to be blown away by the 1963 version.

Girl on...Movie? Action: Wir Sind Die Nacht

Wir Sind die Nacht (We are the Night) (2010)

Director: Dennis Gansel

Writers: Jan Berger, Dennis Gansel

  

My Thoughts:

My most devoted little sunflowers will probably know this, but just in case: yes, I'm actually studying vampires and doing my thesis on the most iconic vampire flick of all times.  What this means is that I’m more or less required to see at least every other new fang-banger movie (this is often torturous).  So when the opportunity presented itself for me to see Wir Sind die Nacht, a new German contribution to the ever-enlarging corpus of the bloodsucker tale, I couldn’t say no.  Now, I’m here to tell you all about it.

First, let me say that I am grateful that I’m bilingual (you didn’t know that, did you?) because it makes for a better movie-watching experience.  I always miss important visual clues when I’m reading subtitles (it’s why I go easy on the foreign films).  And sure, this particular movie wasn’t overly subtle, but it was pretty to look at, so I was glad not to have to read to follow along.

Second, don’t go into this expecting the resurrection of Nosferatu, because it’s not (nothing will ever equal Nosferatu).  What you can expect is a glitzy, blood-drenched debauch around Berlin with a touch of police drama, a bit of lesbianism, and a lot of vampires combusting as the sun rises (talk about canon! That’s how Count Orlok dies!  And if I’ve just spoiled the ending of a movie made in 1922 for you, you can go cry me a river, preferably one of blood). 

Introductory thoughts aside, let me take a step back and give you a quick run-down of the story.  Lena, a pickpocket and all-around little badass, steals money from a guy after he hits the ATM.  Little does she know that the cops are about to nab him, which results in the boys in blue chasing after her.  A handsome young police officer nearly catches her, but she punches him in the face, knees him in the balls and escapes.  For him, it’s love at first kick.  That night, a bedraggled Lena finds her way to an underground club operating beneath what looks like an abandoned amusement park and is there bitten by a blonde vampire lady.  She goes from being a nobody with nothing to a life of decadence and luxury – one of the first things Louise (the golden-locked bloodsucker mentioned above) gives her is a stolen Lamborghini.  Unsurprisingly, we follow the same plot points a lot of these types of transformation stories take - our newly turned vampire has problems accepting her need for blood (though, thankfully, she doesn't become another Louis) and she still has the hots for that pesky cop which is a no-no (all the male vampires have been killed, some by the female vampires – Nora [the quirky, fun-loving vampire of the coven] says they were too loud and stupid to be allowed to live).

It’s a straightforward plot and doesn’t add anything new to the fairly worn out vampire genre.  I think its strength lies in the characters (although these are also nothing new per se).  Okay, so I might have a soft spot for spunky misfit girl pickpockets with shaggy haircuts and piercings, but I really dug Lena (Karoline Herfurth, you might recognize her from Perfume), both pre- and post-transformation.  Something about the way she carried herself appealed to me.  The wonder at the world of the female vampires, their unabashed consumerism and then the slow dawning horror as she confronts the truth of their existence, were both well-done.  The vulnerability that Herfurth portrayed after Lena’s transformation was breath taking – the character went from unafraid and tough to frightened and fragile, as if turning into a vampire stripped away her personality and laid her bare and by the end she seems to regain a grip on who she is and what she wants.  Louise, the lady in charge, overpowers her and it isn’t until she stands up to her that Lena is able to accept her strength.  Oddly enough, the villainess is probably the least dynamic character in the whole movie.  She was flat and while there is an attempt to show that she acts from a place of deep loneliness it didn’t connect for me.  The other two vamps each have their moments of weakness that give a glimpse of their struggles and motivations, but Louise, despite some monologues about her feelings just doesn’t manage to make an emotional appeal.  She stays one dimensional, boring and unconvincing.

As far as what the story is doing with the vampire mythos, I can tell you that it’s not bringing anything new to the table.  Aside from the idea that the female vampires helped exterminate the males and now refuse to create new ones, everything remains true to canon.  Although, the only method of killing a vampire ever shown is them bursting into flames as the sun hits them, so who knows if the old stake to the heart would work.

You’ll notice that I’ve avoided talking about the police subplot so far, but I suppose I should address that pink elephant.  Handsome young police guy abuses his power some to track down Lena – which is totally not creepy right? And he gets assigned to a case that’s connected to the vampires after they initiate Lena into their life by taking her to some seedy brothel, selling her to a guy and then letting her beat the crap out of him.  Anyway, the vampires kill a bunch of people and then set them on fire and police guy is on the case!  So boring.  I guess the movie felt that Lena needed a male love-interest to balance out the decadence and debauchery of the female Coven, but it just felt forced (I know, I know, I'm getting dangerously close to Wren's anti-romance territory here, but I can't help it! It was bad!).  Slight spoilers of the end on the horizon! I think her coming to terms with her new lifestyle and rejecting it for its emptiness on her own would have been more profound – choosing a lonely existence away from the excess of Louise is a more powerful conclusion than defying what she’s been told and (probably) turning Tom into the first male vampire in however-many years (though it is very Underworld-y).  And they’ve passed like a cloud over the sun.

It might not be rewriting the genre, or reinvigorating a worn out monster, but Wir Sind die Nacht held my attention (okay, it wavered a little in some of the scenes with goody-two-shoes cop, but not much!) and left me with that buzzing excitement of having watched something enjoyable.  I think if you dig vampires, you might want to try to track this down.  I know it saw a limited release in theatres and I read somewhere that it’s available through “on-demand” cable services.  I assume that those are either dubbed or subtitled for the benefit of North American viewers.  Personally, I might have to see about convincing one of my European relations to send me a care-package with the DVD.

In closing, let me leave you with this thought: the most ridiculous (and awesome) moment of the movie was Charlotte tearing a page out of a book she was reading (blasphemy, I know) and then using it to slice someone’s throat – death by paper cut!  I might have “squee’d” and clapped my hands in an imitation of Wren when it happened.

Weeks Too Late: Mary And Max

Mary and Max. Directed & Written by Adam Elliot.

Preconceptions: Well having just read the Haunting of Hill House, I thought it might be nice to watch both of the movies (I remember the more recent one being extraordinarily clumsy, so that should be fun to review). But that would require the forethought of actually renting them. Look forward to that in the upcoming weeks, but for now, I went back to the tried and true method of flicking through instant Netflix. Fortunately for me, I found Mary and Max. This movie was created by the same writer/director who contributed Brother to one of my favourite short film fests, the Animation Show (2000). If you haven't seen the Animation Show, I highly recommend it. There are a lot of excellent short films to be found in the Show, but Brother stood out. It mixed funny and sad so deftly that it didn't confuse my easily side-tracked brain. Needless to say, I was excited to see that a full length film was available.

General Review: Oh dear, this is going to be another gushy review. While I'm not on my way out to join the Adam Elliot cult, I would certainly be willing to sign up for his creepy hand-made tracts. This had all the same joking sadness that I loved in Brother. Also, despite being substantially longer, Mary and Max didn't wear out its welcome.

A quick run down of the plot: Mary is an unpopular Australian girl who writes to an American at random to ask how babies are made. Max, the recipient of her letter, is an obese New

Yorker who has Asperger syndrome. Both of their stories are told throughletters they exchange. A slight warning, yes, the movie is clay-mation and chalk full of adorable animals, but it is highly inappropriate for children. It dallies heavily with sex and death. Wallace and Gromit this is not (or my much hated Gumby for that matter).

I loved the design sensibility of Mary and Max. The look of the characters was similar to Elliot's previous work, the button eyed, kind of ugly people and of course, the big eyed scrawny animals. Naturally, I loved those cute little horrors, but my enjoyment hardly ended there. The sepia tones in Mary's world

and the black and whites in Max's were beautiful. So were the rare touches of colour when either of them felt particularly elated. The animation of Mary was particularly good, while we do get some of her internal monologue from her letters to Max, they are substantially shorter than his. Most of what we get about her comes from her reactions to what she's experiencing. I can't think of many animated films (particularly clay-mation) that make me feel so close to the characters. Despite the distance that can be caused by unrealistic clay people dancing around, I felt as connected to them as if they were actors.

There was very little actual dialogue, most of the voice acting being via theletters and the narrator. In fact, the few times we do hear characters talking to each other it's almost jarring. Barry Humphries (as the narrator) wa

s excellent. He carried that feeling of God-like knowledge (and regret) wonderfully. And Hoffman's portrayal of the subdued joy and overwhelming anxiety and anger of Max was superb.

The story, as I mentioned, is dark. The two misfit main characters find each other, but never really find their place in the world. And the connection they share isn't always a positive influence. But unlike many slice of life depressing movies, this one also keeps a sense of the ridiculous to balance it out. I can't say enough about the strength of the writing.

I'm afraid that this is less one of my reviews and more one of my recommendations. As you may have noticed, I don't have much to critique. Mary and Max walks a very difficult line between depressingly bleak and gut bust-ingly hilarious. It's both tender hearted and mean spirited. As well as all this, it's a visual treat. This is one of the better movies I've seen in a while (Breillat aside) and I think you should see it.

Girl on Book Action: Guest Review - Shawn O'Rourke on City of Saints and Madmen

Introduction:  Once again, we are lucky to have a guest post written by our friend and fellow-blogger Shawn!  You might remember his previous review (if you don't you can find his Locke and Key review here) and I hope you've checked out his blog where he discusses issues surrounding the growing trend in books going digital (you can find that here).  Now, without further ado and to keep Shawn's time in his lovely dress to a minimum, read on for his review of Jeff Vandermeer's City of Saints and Madmen.

Enter Ambergris: A City You’ve Never Been To But You Will Recognize Immediately


“What can be said about Ambergris that has not already been said? Every minute section of the city, no matter how seemingly superfluous, has a complex, even devious, part to play in the communal life.”
    - Epigraph from City of Saints and Madmen
     

           It seems that when it comes to fiction there are three great mythological cities that dominate the imaginations of writers and readers alike. These metropolises, divided by the aesthetics of the time, are instantly recognizable to the point that an author doesn’t necessarily create them so much as tap into their mythos. These tropes have become so ubiquitous that with minimal effort the reader will intuitively fill in the blanks of the imagined geography and architecture

           The first of these cities is the sprawling city of the modern, personified most obviously with romanticized conglomerations of New York, San Francisco, Chicago – in other words, the cities of the always present now. The second and third cities are on opposite sides of the boundaries of speculative fiction; one in the distant future with the massive world cities of science fiction, while the other is dominated by the imagery and iconography of a mythologized past. It is the latter of these conurbations that seems to have ensnared the writer Jeff Vandermeer whose books, beginning with City of Saints and Madmen, invite readers to explore the city of Ambergris.

Ambergris is a port city with a dark past, built at the nexus point of silt-filled waters inhabited by giant squid, populated by artists, criminals, and religious fanatics, and haunted by a strange pervasive fungus and the mysterious remnants of the township’s former inhabitants, the murderous Mushroom Caps. It is a world that evokes images of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere meets early 19^th century New Orleans with just a dab of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth. This is not to say that Vandermeer’s work is somehow derivative or unoriginal. In fact, it is able to simultaneously strike an immediately recognizable chord with readers with its ghostly old city while at the same time telling a fabulously original story.

The book itself, part of the New Weird genre, is a collection of previously published works. These include short stories, letters, fictional histories with quotations from other fictitious sources and even an annotated bibliography, all concluding with a detailed appendix that links many of the pieces together. While reading the book one gets a sense of the rich grandeur of Vandemeer’s vision and appreciates his decision not to limit his exploration of Ambergris to just one style of prose.

Capitalizing on the slightly postmodern bend of the book, the author himself even makes and appearance as an inmate of an Ambergrisean(?) sanitarium where he is being treated for insanity. Apparently he believes that he is a writer from another world who invented the city and all of its inhabitants. This conceit – which might at first strike some readers as a little heavy handed and distracting – evolves into a fascinating exploration of the all-consuming power of a big idea, and further fuels the sense that Vandermeer did not so much create Ambergris but  reveal it. The writer trapped by his own creation, unable to break from its call, is an intriguing addition to Vandemeer’s exploration of the city and its history.

And it really cannot be underestimated just how much this book is completely about the city. The characters and plot are not the primary focus of Vandermeer’s attention; they are instead vehicles to provide the reader with a lens through which to explore this mysterious place. The history section – which is exactly that, a historical narrative on the founding of Ambergris written as if one were reading from a text book or academic journal complete with source citations – is probably the most engaging portion of the book.

I would highly recommend this book to any one interested in original works that blend genre boundaries, or fans of the magical realists. Ambergris gains much of its narrative strength from the reader being able to fill the creative space with their own sense of the great and strange old city, but it is a joyful collaboration between the reader and the author, who proves himself a capable steward of the mythology that he is drawing from. His guides through Ambergris have continued with the books, Shriek: An Afterword and Finch.

Weeks Too Late: A Boy And His Dog

A Boy and His Dog. Directed & Written by L.Q. Jones (& possibly Alvy Moore, Wayne Cruseturner & Harlan Ellison).

Preconceptions: While I seriously considered subjecting you to another week of Catherine Breillat love-fest, I decided to give it a rest and watch something that had been on my list for a while. I have an abiding fondness for the post-apocalypse sci-fi movies of the 70's. They bring me right back to fond memories of my early teen years, endlessly watching this type of flick to the accompaniment of cheap pizza and Fireball. Yeah, yeah, they're a heavy handed bunch full of eye rolling social criticism and casual dismissal of women. But, with the feminist in me fully sated on French sex drama, I decided to take a few hours vacation from my sensibilities and enjoy a bit of the old Ultra-Violence.

General Review: My, my this did not disappoint in the dislike humans in general and women in specific, category. Before you pick this up, be aware that our main (human) character is a casual rapist and our leading lady is a self-serving, sexually manipulative skeeze. Sure, it's all done with a wink and a nudge and isn't meant to be taken entirely seriously, but yowza, even for the genre it's overt. It raised my eyebrow more than once, so don't say you weren't warned. Now, on to the plot (in case this particular cult film has slipped you by). Vic and his talking dog Blood (able to communicate with Vic due to some kind of future science and probably nuclear radiation) roam the wasteland looking for food and sex. Blood is particularly good at sniffing out women for our futuristic rapist. Vic, ahem, meets up with Quilla June who tricks him into following her "Downunder" to a bunker town deep below the surface. The Downunder-ers try to harvest Vic's sperm and Quilla attempts to use him to overthrow their government.

Despite my above warning, there were a lot of things to like about a Boy and His Dog (besides the rather tastelessly hilarious ending). While the time in the wasteland is the usual (Doctor Who-style) scrambling around in a quarry and warehouse, the Downunder is actually fairly creepy. The bleached out quality given to everything by the artificial lights, the strange mime make-up and clothes pulled from the set of Oklahoma! gave everything an effective surreal feeling. The scene where Vic is being marched through a parade was particularly good. He is pulled past these strangely done up people, with the camera jouncing along and everything is overexposed. It was jarring and claustrophobic.

It's also genuinely funny in parts. Blood's disgust in human sexuality and motivations had me giggling more than once. And while it didn't always successfully encompass that gallows humour so characteristic of bleak science fiction, it did manage it more than once.

My main complaint about this movie isn't its unapologetic misanthropy (though Jones and Ellison do seem to have it in for the species) it's the pacing. While I perked up in the Downunder sequences, the first forty minutes of this movie wander aimlessly. We watch Vic and Blood take in a porn flick, and see them search for food and shout at each other. We spend some time running from some ill defined post atomic creatures (or horrors, if you will). But until Vic follows Quilla into the bunker, there is no sense of story. Just because the characters are meandering around, doesn't mean that the movie should. A Boy and His Dog is a short movie based on a shorter story, but it felt way too long. In a movie that clocks in at only an hour and twenty minutes, I shouldn't have felt like twenty minutes could have been easily cut. It could have easily gotten in, made its point and left, but instead felt padded.

While a Boy and His Dog gave me the very bones of what I was looking for, it was an occasionally stylized 70's sci-fi, but nothing more. For all my earlier criticisms of these types of movies reaching beyond their grasp as far as social commentary goes, a Boy and His Dog didn't try. It didn't explore much beyond the idea that humans are jerks given half a chance. If you're a fan of the genre, it's worth the notch on your bedpost, but it isn't a film you'd want to bring out to meet your friends. Mostly, you'll just be waiting for it to be over so you can put in Logan's Run or Omega Man.

Girl on Book Action: A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

Aside: Here is your obligatory warning that there will be spoilers for A Game of Thrones throughout this review, because, well, I'm reviewing the second part of the series so it's inevitable that minor and major spoilers will occur.  If you care about these things and have not read the first book (or I suppose watched the show) you can read my thoughts on part one here, or Wren's review of the first episode of the show here.

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

ISBN: 0-553-57990-8

Blurb:

A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky.  And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns.  Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil and war.  It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night.  Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside.  Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts.  For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.

***

My Thoughts:

Ah, yes, part two.  I really have a thing against part two of anything it appears (aside from the Lord of the Rings movies, though that has more to do with Karl Urban than the story, but I digress), because I’m not thrilled with this installment.  Now, that isn’t to say that I didn’t devour it, but it wasn’t a gleeful wolfing down of choice morsels, no, at times it was more like a forced-feeding (you can thank the hundred-thousand feasts in the book for all the food imagery, also, I’m hungry and putting off lunch to write this review).  After the first book, I wanted nothing more than to plunge ahead into the second, but I held off, now that I’ve read part two, I feel I need a break, that should tell you something.

So what hindered my full enjoyment?  For one, the plethora of points of view still bothers me and in this book, we find two new ones.  Theon and Davos.  I know why Martin introduces them, I see how they work in the story, but I just...didn’t care, especially about Davos.  Theon's attitude irritated me, but the part of the world we see through his eyes was at least interesting to me.  Every time the book switches to Bran I wanted to go have a nap instead of reading, even though some of the characters around him catch my interest (I’m thinking of Osha and the Reed twins).  Catelyn is still Catelyn, her hysteria and inability to use common sense haven't improved in this second book.  And while we don’t get her point of view, Cersei is becoming quite the contender for the “hysterical woman doing stupid things” trophy.  I won’t even bore you with my thoughts on “poor” Sansa and her continued insistence on the chivalry of knights, if she wasn’t so intent on her fairy tale (even though it’s come crashing down around her head) a whole lot of people might not have died in the first book.  We're supposed to hate her, right?  And speaking about irrational expectations and continuous moaning about things that will never be, let's turn back to Bran for a moment: his constant bewailing of the fact that he's crippled and can't be a knight like in the stories is getting old fast.  Him, Sansa, and their fairy tales.

I still like reading about Arya (she just gets more awesome despite all the horrible things that happen to her) and seeing Daenarys come into her own is great, too.  Here are two chicks who are going to rock the boat with a minimum of whining. Tyrion is kicking ass and taking names despite his stature and his ploys and scheming are a treat.  I think I looked forward to his sections the most.  And Jon Snow, well, he’s forlorn and tragic, stuck up in the frozen wastes.  I love the Night’s Watch and everything they get up to off in the land beyond the Wall.  I feel terribly sorry for him, all alone so much of the time with no one to love him and protect him. Erm. Anyway.  I still wish for Littlefinger as a point of view, because he is probably my favourite.  I’m also developing a fondness for The Hound.  Oh, and I almost forgot!  Jaqen H’ghar filled my heart with joy and there needs to be way more of him, like, an entire book devoted to his exploits.

Of course, it’s not all points of view and characters, there’s a war going on and all that.  Alas, alack, and well-a-day the war is a big disappointment.  Spoilers!!!  After all this setup, the two Baratheon brothers are defeated way too easily – we get all this mustering of forces and Stannis leaving Dragonstone (which is why we needed Davos) and then Renly gets killed with magic.  Fair enough and that was kinda cool, but the defeat of Stannis outside King’s Landing was, well, it felt...lame.  I hope that it serves as a lead up for something else, otherwise the introduction of Melisandre, her Lord of Light and various other religious/mystical elements was a waste of time (we could have been watching Arya fight branches).  The actual battle and Tyrion’s plans for it was great, but then it’s just...over and the Lannisters have won and it was just...too easy.  I was not pleased, not at all.  End spoilers!!!!

I understand that the overall purpose of this installment is to establish that the realm is descending into chaos.  By the end of the novel, I was thoroughly sick of nothing going right for anyone.  Nearly every decision, every action only led to further betrayal and devastation.  When things did go right, it always seemed to happen off-screen or as an aside.  There is a limit to many times I could feel upset about plans going awry, especially when some of the characters involved didn't even manage to raise my ire, much less my rapt interest.  If no one ever succeeds, the failures lose their impact.  After all this complaining, it might appear that I'm contradicting myself: claiming I like the books even though I'm tearing this one to itty-bitty shreds.  I assure you, the griping is a product of the richness of the world Martin presents and the amount of time I spend thinking about the characters and events of the novel.  It's complex enough that its easy to spend an awful lot of brain power thinking through it.  I still love the overarching ideas and the story that’s beginning to unfold, but I loved only parts of this book.  I’m hoping that the third one is a little more satisfying, whenever I decide to return to Westeros.