Amazon gave me my own store.

http://www.amazon.com/F.-Paul-Wilson/e/B000AP9H7M

I'm doing my part in these cash-strapped times: To start off the new year right, here are new bargain-priced ($4.99) editions of a pair of medical thrillers from my backlist.

Implant is straightforward suspense with an intriguing anti-villain (sort of the opposite of an anti-hero). The often snarky Kirkus Reviews said it "features an attractive and well-spoken villain whose warped take on things is understandable, if not justified...A terrific story." If you don't like politicians, you'll enjoy watching a number of them sent off to that Great Filibuster in the Sky via a method as insidious as it is ingenious. More reviews and synopses here.

Deep as the Marrow - libertarians love this novel. It's more of a political thriller, involving the fallout from the president's decision to call off the war on drugs and legalize the damn stuff. A character named Poppy stole the show and has generated more mail than anyone outside of Repairman Jack. The Associated Press called it "Truly inspired in conception and perfect in execution." (This is one time you can believe AP.) More reviews and synopses here.

Has anyone checked out this movie with Ryan Reynolds? It's pretty good and you get to see a different style of Ryan. You can see him do an intense sort of look very well in a couple scenes which will be great for jack. And in the movie he pulls off some funny scenes more with facial looks and actions rather than funny lines in most of his other movies.

Since discovering the use of Netflix through my XBOX 360 I have found myself watching many movies that would never appeal to me...simply because they are free.

Seed is one of these movies.

I think that any movie made by Uwe Bolle needs to have a disclaimer in the beginning that the film you are about to see will be an incomprehensible mess made by a director/screenwriter with no discernable talent.

Much to my shock, SEED did begin with a warning. It said the film was based on a true story and that it contained horrific scenes of anmial torture and urged viewrs to go to the PETA website for more information on the footage they were witnessing.

No sooner did this warning disappear that my screen was flooded with a montage of video of complete and horrific scenes of animals being tortured. It was horrific and damn near made me cry...no joke. The worst part was that Uwe inserted this footage for shock value only as it served to purpose to move the story forward. It was an assualt on the viewer simply to shock them.

why didn't Uwe insert scenes of the death camps as well? would that have crossed the line?

From the opening scenes we are treated to a horribly filmed and terribly acted dream sequence where a serial killer (Seed, his last name) is on a bus and kills a baby by picking it up and slamming it into a hand rail.

Then the film degrades (Yes...degrades...these first scenes were appraenty the pinnacle of the film) into a mess of non-linear storytelling (though I am sure this was not on purpose), horrible camerawork, and botched executions.

Seed has been captured and attempted to be executed twice...if they try a third time and fail he gets set free. The warden and arresting officer as well as a few select others pronounce the still breathing Seed dead and bury him alive.

Seed wakes up, digs himself out of his grave a`la Uma Thurman in Kill Bill volume 2 and exacts revenge by going on another killing spree that targets not only those who wronged him but anyone he wishes including a poor woman who gets bludgeoned to death with a hammer/hatchet. The scene is meant to be horrifying but comes across cartoonish all the while taking itself seriously.

Uwe needs to be stopped. How in the world does this talentless hack keep getting money to make films? Every film he has made has been a box office disaster (House of the Dead, In the Name the King, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne...) his filmography reads like an epic fail list yet people still give him work.

I am waging a one man war on stopping Uwe...I don't know how but I will bring an end to him...

so a lot of my friends and family are asking about the repairman jack/adversary series of books, and i dont think i could do them justice just by explaining them. problem is, i dont know which order to recommend reading them in. id like to preserve all the suspense that i experienced when i first read these series all those years ago, so i dont want to mess this up. any suggestions?

Or are critics just idiots?

Before I went to see this movie, I'd heard reviews say that the movie cleverly conceals what is really going on.

CRITICS HAVE NO BRAINS!!!

It's pretty damn obvious what's going on and why. So what's the point of making it sound like the movie is cryptic? It's so screamingly freakingly obvious what Will Smith's character is doing and why. Who can't put together organ donations and flashbacks of a horrible wreck and figure it out? Not to mention the movie begins with Will Smith callng 911 to report his own suicide. Duh...

It's not complex at all. I wish that reviews would be a tad bit more accurate.

These rankings are based on number of tickets sold and adjusted for inflation. Some surprises.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm

From "A Boy Named Charlie Brown". I don't recall the peanuts being this violent, but I guess it was. Funny stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKxXAwBRuVo

Trailer.

Oh, wow.

Okay, here's how it's played:

1) Name 1 film adaptation which is worse than the source material (novel, play, graphic novel, video game, tv series - remakes of other movies don't count).

2) Name 1 film adaptation that is as good as the source material - i.e., both the source and film are great in their own right.

3) Name 1 film adaptation that is actually superior to the source material.

You can't name a film that has already been named. Discussion is encouraged.

I'll start off:

1) The Keep (naturally).
2) A Clockwork Orange
3) The Parallax View - boring mish-mash of a novel, pretty interesting paranoid conspiracy film.

Pick up your #2 pencils and begin.