Three short reviews

Since the League of Mullets will not be back until next week, they're currently in Oregon trying to score with lonely college coeds and drunken housewives, I'm going to give three short reviews of two movies and a book I just finished.

One of the nice things about getting free HBO/Cinemax on digital cable is being able to access the Premium On Demand channel. I'm watching all kinds of crazy movies that I wanted to see but would not fork over the filthy lucre to rent. Movies like this:

Loved it. I love funny horror/suspense movies and this one hit every nail on the head. The cast was perfect, the story was engaging, the horror was fun, and Elizabeth Banks is pretty easy on the eyes. I didn't expect to like this as much as I did but it was pure fun.

On the other hand this movie was just off the scale dumb, dumb in a good way but not near as good as Slither.

Everything was over the top, the acting, the effects, the props, everything. It seemed to me like they were trying a bit too hard to be clever and they missed the mark. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed most of it, except for the parts that were laugh out loud stupid. I dug Juliana Margulies, she's working that smoldering older Hispanic gal groove. Sam Jackson was fun in this movie but over all neither she or him could have saved it. It's no wonder it fizzled at the box office.

But one cannot watch stupid action and horror movies all the time. I started this book before we left for the beach and I finished it while we were there.

This is a fascinating book about two Canadian provinces that most Americans know little or nothing about, Newfoundland and Labrador. Gimlette, a British citizen, has a connection to these two provinces that you'll have to read the book to find out about, and he writes zippily about the time he spends there. He alternates between giving the history of the provinces with stories about his travels there, it's a technique he used in his previous book about Paraguay, which I also highly recommend. The stories about how the white settlers and government of Canada killed off and made dependants of the native peoples will break your heart, as will the stories and histories of some of the locals who still live there. If you're inclined to learn more about our neighbors to the north then I highly recommend you read this book, if you do you'll be highly entertained and you'll get more educated about Canada, eh.

Bottom line is Slither is wildly enjoyable, Snakes on a Plane fails to live up to it's hype, and Theatre of Fish is a damn fine book.