Remember, if you don't laugh at yourself, somebody else will do it for you

I just finished The Winter Queen. Holy fucking shit on a biscuit hell. So the ending was unexpected. That hard edge I said was running under the surface broke through at the end to rise off the page in an attempt to skewer the reader. It doesn't quite manage it because the romance is woefully underdeveloped but while that lessens the impact it doesn't entirely do away with it. It does make me want to get the next book out of the library to see what happens so well done, Akunin! Your ploy plot worked! It was a fun read, truly.

I finished watching a Korean vampire movie called Thirst. Woo the cinematography was quite stunning and the actors were impressive. A priest is infected with a vampire like virus when he volunteers as a test subject for a new vaccine. He tries to remain good in spite of his body's need for blood but finds it harder and harder as he also falls for and gets involved with an old friend's wife. Like Let the Right One in this movie gets back to vampire basics, showing them as parasites with an uncontrollable need. It could be disgusting at times and it really could have been edited down but there were a number of very intense and captivating scenes. I've got to check out some of this directors other stuff.

I'm also watching Antibodies, a German thriller. It's good although not great. The directing and acting are very nice but the story kind of meanders. Oh it has a specific purpose; the village cop wants to find out if the serial killer recently captured is the murderer of a local girl, but it sort of wanders away at points. It's also about this farmer/cop's own descent into darkness. The only problem I have is I don't understand where his problem is stemming from. Has he always had a dark side that just never came to his attention because there were no opportunities? Is the "big city" a corrupting influence? Is his own naivety working against him, leaving him unprepared to face and deal with real evil? I can understand that his eyes have been opened to new things and that the case has had an adverse effect on him. Plus the real killer is totally his son. I haven't even finished the movie yet and I can already tell you that. It's been obvious since the halfway point if not earlier. Well. I have like the way Michael (the cop) has dealt so far with the serial killer. He doesn't give much ground and only grudgingly. So it's a pretty decent movie.

Okay I just finished watching it. Okay, that was a nice twist. And hooray for the ending. The acting at the end was moving. My impressions would probably less disjointed if I actually watched movies through in one sitting but I get so antsy.

And I just finished watching Christian Bale in The Machinist. It was good at first and then it got really slow, and then it picked up and then it just became sort of disappointing. This guy hasn't slept in a year. Bale lost weight for the role and good God he looks unhealthy. He looks like a walking skeleton. And nobody attributes his abnormal behavior to this. Nor do I really understand the whole thing with the fish. Okay, maybe I do but it was very anticlimactic. The whole thing was. We start out watching him rolling a body into the water and it never delivers on that promise. Anyway, I suppose my response is, eh.