Feeding Your Soul

If it wasn’t for the hype, would I be reading this book? Strange way to start a blog but as I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think that I might have stopped reading all together if it wasn’t for the hype around it. 50 Shades of Grey is the story of Anastasia Steele, a recent college graduate who meets the elusive and dark Christian Grey after interviewing him for her roommate Kate. Christian Grey is immediately smitten with Anastasia as she is with him. He finds all kinds of ways to meet her and take her out – suck her in before he tells her who he is and what he wants. Anastasia gets pulled into the world of BDSM (bondage/discipline, domination/submission and sadism/masochism) to please Christian and be with him. From here it gets kinky or scary depending on your point of view. To me this book is not about the sex and dominant versus submissive. That’s not my cup of tea anyway. To me, this is about change – Anastasia changing to suit Christian and Christian having h

In every good book, movie, or television show there has to be an end.   No matter how much the fans scream for more or cry that they won’t see their beloved characters in print or on the big screen, no story can go on forever.   Not even one with vampires.   The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 brings the final tale of Bella, Edward and Jacob to a close in a way that not even the book did. Part 2 started off right where Part 1 ended – Bella waking up from her transformation into a vampire.   This first scene between Edward and Bella was emotional and sensual.   They were taking in each other for the first time and really feeling and sensing each other’s presence.   It had all of the heat and passion of a good sex scene.   It was more passionate and personal because for the first time Edward and Bella were the same – there was nothing keeping any part of themselves from each other. They could experience anything they wanted with each other.   Her transformation was seamless

With the release of The Dark Knight Rises on Blu-ray and DVD, the most iconic Batman trilogy according to some is coming to an end.   But the question remains is this the last trilogy for Batman or is this just another movie set to put up on the shelf, waiting for the next big director to come through and remake a classic. The Dark Knight Rises takes place 8 years after The Dark Knight – Batman has disappeared and Bruce Wayne is rumored to be a drunk, withdrawn man.   His company stands on the brink of bankruptcy after investing in a nuclear fusion project only to shut it down after learning that the reactor core could be weaponized.   Organized crime has been all but eradicated with the help of the death of Harvey Dent.   Commissioner Gordon almost confesses to what really happened to Harvey Dent but decides against it at the last minute then gets captured after a chase in the sewers by Bane and his minions.   All sorts of characters and plot lines return to the forefront includi

The One with the Football. Slapsgiving. The One with Chandler in a Box. Blitzgiving. The One with All the Thanksgiving.   A Deep-Fried Korean Thanksgiving.   Every year a sitcom or drama television show covers the ever eventful holiday of Thanksgiving. The most popular is probably Friends with everything from a family flag football tradition to a person in a box to Brad Pitt.   Friends did it all.   How I Met Your Mother took it even further with slaps, more slaps and a blitz bad luck charm.   Thanksgiving seems to bring out the funniest concoction of family and friend dynamics.   There is fighting, physical violence (albeit funny and ridiculous), romance and relationships rekindled.   Even Gilmore Girls had a Thanksgiving episode in season 3 where there was a Korean Thanksgiving, a Gilmore Thanksgiving and a deep-friend turkey Thanksgiving. They had it all in the little eccentric town of Stars Hollow.   What is it about turkey, stuffing mashed potatoes, gravy and pies that make te

Leaves are changing and temperatures are dropping.   Fall is in the air and it is nicely welcomed after a hot and grueling summer.   What is also nicely welcomed are all of the new series and seasons of your favorite and new television shows.   This year is very busy for this entertainment junkie – 17 shows both returning and new are slated for my viewing this year.   Below is the list of returning and new shows that will be watched for the next few months: How I Met Your Mother Revolution NCIS The New Normal Vegas Supernatural Chicago Fire Nashville Last Resort The Big Bang Theory Grey’s Anatomy Glee Made in Jersey Fringe Once Upon a Time Revenge 666 Park Avenue As you can see, my tastes run all over the spectrum.   There are 8 new series that I will be watching and one – The New Normal – has already grabbed my attention and my laughter. In a world where the definition of family is changing – and whether or not you like it doe

Love stories come in all shapes and sizes. Most of the ones I read are young adult novels. I read them because unlike adult novels, the love stories are pure and innocent. They aren’t looking for anything long term or even 6-months down the road. For the people involved, they are looking for instant gratification – which involves companionship, kissing, conversation something that I find lacks in some adult novels. Tiger’s Quest and Tiger’s Voyage are the middle 2 books of a four-part series focusing on Kelsey Hayes and her sudden pull into a 300-year-old curse to save 2 men from being tiger’s forever. And of course a love triangle that makes everyone’s head spin. Following the events of Tiger’s Curse Kelsey is back in Oregon trying to move on from Ren whom she believes she doesn’t deserve. She comes “home” to her own house, car, money all set up by Mr. Kadam for helping him and the tigers with their curse. He tells her that there is more to come but for now we can lay low. Sh

Whenever Hollywood makes trilogies, they have to tread very carefully. They want to extend the storyline to the exact point where the audience has gotten just enough and doesn’t need any more closure or information. If it goes past that point, the audience gets laden with too much information and loses interest to keep going back. If it stops short of that point, the audience feels gipped that they wasted all of this time without a significant end to the story. The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise stopped at the right point when it finished “At World’s End.” With “On Stranger Tides” it went way past that point and failed to find it again. In “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” the audience finds Jack Sparrow in quite the predicament. His first mate Gibbs tries to free him from the gallows but alas he is captured and brought before King George who has a new right hand man – Captain Barbosa. The King wants Jack to guide an expedition to locate the Fountain of Yout

It is an interesting topic – living forever.   We all have said at one point or another we want the fountain of youth to bless us with eternal beauty and life.   But what would living forever mean? You would see history happen right before your eyes – and see it written in history books for children to read during school.   If you had been living forever, you could have seen the curse start for the Red Sox in 1918 and then get broken in 2004.   And again in 2007.   But what it would it mean?   By living forever, you don’t like a day in your life. If you live forever, what makes tomorrow so special.   The people in District 12 have it better than the rich – they have to make very moment, every second count. In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, is set in 2161 where a genetic alteration has allowed humanity to stop aging past age 25.   But people are required to earn more time in order to stay alive past age 25 or their time runs out and they die.   Time is t

With the spring finales over, that means sun, sand and of course the summer TV series!   Over the past month, I have been watching the first 3 seasons of White Collar staring Matt Bomer who some might remember from a recent episode of Glee as Blaine’s older brother or from a departed too early show Traveler.   White Collar is centered around Neil Caffrey, an art thief who gets caught by FBI Agent Peter Burke and after lying in prison for a few years gets to come out early on one condition – he works for the FBI and has to wear a tracking anklet.   Neil gets into his fair share of sticky situations which lead him back to the question of who he is – is he an art thief masking as an FBI informant or is he an FBI informant masking as an art thief? In the first season, Neil is trying to find his long lost love Kate while Peter hides secrets about Kate and the past that they share.   The second season focuses on the aftermath of finding Kate and the relationship between Peter and Neil

Many could ride this off as an adult version of Twilight but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This book, story isn’t just about a girl falling for a vampire. This is a book about a witch who has been blinded by her parents, her aunts and everyone else in the magical community about who she is and what she can do – all saying for her own protection.   Even though that does turn out to be true, for anyone that would come as a shock that you were sheltered from who you are – sheltered from the truth. This first book in the series is about Diana and the search for her self.   Yes, she is attached to a vampire by the hip but the vampire doesn’t make her who she is – she is the only one that can do that.   I had an immediate reaction to Bella in Twilight and to Katniss in Hunger Games.   With Diana, there was no initial reaction of I liked her or didn’t like her. I was indifferent toward her and the same with Matthew.   With each new supernatural book I read, another element k

2012 Finales – Let the Summer of Speculation Begin! It is that time of year again when the flowers begin to bloom, leaves can be seen on all of the trees and our favorite shows end their season or series run and leave us with a summer full of speculation and theories that will not be satisfied until the new chapter in the story beings in the fall.   This year the shows that I have kept up with religiously have been Once Upon a Time, Glee, Revenge, Grey’s Anatomy and Fringe.   Let’s start with the first – Once Upon a Time. **SPOILERS ARE AHEAD – PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK** Once Upon a Time From the writers that brought us the best show on television – Lost – Once Upon a Time was taking a big risk by asking viewers to watch a show every Sunday night about the fairy tales that we grew up with.   The season finale was no exception; it introduced the Snow White sleeping potion, a fire-breathing dragon, (in 2 different realms), a kiss that can bring back the dead, and the possib

Movies show you how. Books show you why.   With any movie adaptation of a widely popular book, the filmmakers will inevitably not please every movie-goer.   But this movie-goer was very impressed and thoroughly enjoyed the movie adaptation of The Hunger Games.   The movie hit 95% of the major points in the book so it flowed very well and kept me watching and wondering what was going to happen next.   Even though I knew what was going to happen next, it was exciting to see it happen on screen and see my imagination come to life. The 5% that did not match with the book I will get into later. For now, let’s dwell on the positive and exciting parts of the movie. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson were wonderful. Lawrence looked as if she had been studying the book intently to before Katniss.   Hutcherson has grown as an actor. In this movie, he was able to change from the boy-next door to the one people should watch out for in the arena in a split second. He made me believe in him

My next two reviews are both on movies that are harsh and in your face. Breaking Dawn Part 1 puts everything right in front of you no matter what the scene is about, and it isn’t afraid. With the “Twilight” series books so popular among all age groups and facets of life, there were some very hard to imagine and grotesque scenes in the book that to put on screen made them even worse. This blogger was not prepared for the birthing scene – I forgot out painful and bloody it was. Bella deteriorating over time was for lack of a better word grotesque and very hard to watch. The scene where she breaks her back and her knees right before the baby comes was the worst part. I had to look away. But this book isn’t all peachy keen – it is dark and this moment in her life was the darkest it had ever been. It makes sense that the moment right before she is to become this amazing, beautiful being would be dark and mad and gross. The progress was a little slow in places but if you had read the b

Katniss returns to the districts after the events that transpired in the Quarter Quell. She returns not to District 12 since as Gale told her no longer exists but to District 13 which unbeknownst to everyone in Panem expect the Capitol has been living and thriving all along. Now more than ever, her thoughts are jumbled, what she believes is changing everyday and the one person she needs the most is sitting in the Capitol, being tortured for information about her. She comes to the breaking point and beyond and this is a fight for her survival as much as the rest of Panem. I don’t want to go into too much detail about the book because I do not want to give anything away. What I have written below does highlight a few aspects of the book that I have to mention to get my point across so if you do not want to be spoiled, do not keep reading. You have been warned. I couldn’t read fast enough. I wanted to keep reading and find out what happened to everyone. I will admit that I wanted t

What do you get when you take a CEO of a consumer product company and 2 CIA spies vying for her attention? War. In the new movie This Means War starring Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine 2 CIA operatives fall for the same girl and the comedy that ensues is spectacular. Comedy movies like this one is all about happiness.  Happiness - depending on one’s state of mind when the read the word, could make one smile, cry or even want to throw something.   Happiness is something that I have been lacking in the past week and when I think back to the last time I was happy in the past week (besides scoring my hockey team’s winning goal with 8.6 seconds left!) it was when I went to see this movie.   It was hysterical. I found myself laughing harder than I have laughed at a movie in a long time. It might have been because I was in a movie theater with other people besides my fiancée but I like to think that the movie really was that funny.   I can’t wait to watch it again when it comes out because

Here we go again – back into the arena our heroine goes but this time all the rules have changed. And some that she isn’t even aware of yet. Catching Fire picks up a few months after the events of Hunger Games where Peeta left Katniss standing on the train platform after he realized that her “feelings” in the games was all a rouse to keep her alive. Katniss goes on about what life has been like since their return, what it has done to her family, herself, and her relationship with Gale who was shown to be introduced as her cousin instead of friend (the capitol didn’t want a love triangle to form).   She comes home one day to find President Snow in her new Victor’s Village house waiting for a private chat.   What happens boils Katniss’ blood – he full out threatens the lives of her family, Gale and everyone she holds dear if she does not make everyone believe that she is truly in love with Peeta. There are possible uprisings that could happen and he doesn’t want a little girl to be th

Luce just saw an apparition of herself get shot by a supposed friend.   She saw her chance to give herself answers and she took it. Little did she know what she would be running into – or through since she was the one who stepped through the Announcer and into her past lives with Daniel.   At the end of Torment , Luce had stepped through the Announcer in order to find the answers that Daniel and Cam and all of the other angels weren’t giving her.   Daniel got scared and stepped through after her, along with her friends from Shoreline.   She finds friends, enemies and always Daniel no matter what century she turns up in.   All she knows is that there has to be one lifetime that will tell her everything she needs to know about the curse and the love between Daniel and herself. But the question she hasn’t asked herself is she ready for everything that her past lives will entail? Especially when it kills her? I enjoyed this book just as much as the first one. There was finality to it that