I'm a media addict. Mind you, I'm not the type of person who has the TV, an MP3 player, and a video game on all at the same time because I don't own an MP3 player. I live for good movies and good books and I play too many video games. I temper this with lots of books, mostly comics lately but I have a thing for good biographies or historical non-fiction.
I don't think I have much patience for novels anymore but one I'm trying to read is Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind. I'm not even a full chapter in but I like what I've read so far. The prose isn't purple but the story starts out immediately. They say that this book has lots of subplots and that the subplots have subplots (subsubplots?) so I'm a little concerned that it might get too convoluted but so far the book feels much less pretentious than the title indicates. Strangely enough, Zafon originally wrote the book in Spanish but even though he lives in Californ he didn't do the translation himself.
The last good movies I saw were The Godfather (first time), Fargo (first time seeing the whole thing from start to finish without commercials), and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children which it seems that everyone already has a bootleg copy of. I was good however and waited all this time to rent it. I even had a geek out with the rental clerk.
The Godfather and Fargo are as good as people say although I'm not convinced that The Godfather is the best movie ever made. I'm one for anti-heroes but not villainous protagonists so that didn't make me comepletely keen on it. Fargo was good too but the gore wasn't so appealing and the nature of its narrative, while novel, didn't lend itself to the sort of dramatic oomph that I normally like.
Final Fantasy wasn't all that great but it was fun to look at which gets big points with me. And everyone came back so that was fun. However, it felt less like a movie and more like a pilot episode for a TV show. Indeed it was a pilot for the new Final Fantasy VII games and, hopefully, a full on sequel. I'm just glad that Square Enix is going to bring the game back. It's nice to have a hero with an established gender and actual clothing.
But I'm not really looking to any Final Fantasy games so much as the ULTIMATE fantasy game. Unfortunately the word on my baby, Spore, is that it won't be out this fall but instead it's going to be held off until February of 2007. That's too long! I'm beginning to wish Maxis hadn't made that prototype version for GDC 2005 because that made everyone think the game would be out in the fall of 2005.
Let this be a lesson to you all: Don't go around making big announcements until you know you'll have something to show for it. Otherwise I'll be crabby with you.
By the way: Yes, I italicize titles. You got a problem with that?
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