Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation DVD

The cover and the title make you think you're in for more than this movie delivers

Released in 2004.

As fans of Starship Troopers know, the very name Starship Troopers implies a galaxy-sweeping epic with lots of violence, gore, heroism, humor, drama and tons of big-budget special effects.

This one is limited to one location, his lots of gore but little in the humor, drama and big-budget special effects department.

One has to wonder at the thought processes in Hollywood. Starship Troopers was a big success. Sure, it was expensive, but it is also a regular staple on cable TV and it continues to sell well.

One would think that a Starship Troopers 2 would have been in the works for a long time - perhaps a final push to the bug home system. Instead, according to the director's commentary track, the special effects director of the original Starship Troopers came up with this simple, low-budget plot that he wanted to direct. Somehow sold it to the powers-that-be at Sony and they backed it, provided that he slash his already bare bones budget even more.

So, what do you get when you give Starship Troopers 2 a budget that is only 5% (yes - five percent!) the size of the original movie? A bad movie full of special effects tricks that you are most likely to see in 50s sci-fi cult classics. The movie's premise changes from being a war epic to being a haunted castle movie, a premise that the producers and director freely admit to on the director's track. They also admit to it being a "B movie" and that it was intentionally filmed to go straight to DVD. It is a poorly-lit movie. That was also intentional - poor lighting means that the movie's special effects can be of lesser quality. Unfortunately, one of Tippett's other compensations for a low budget is to add more blood to every scene in the last half of the movie. It gets silly after a while, rather than dramatic.

The movie is derivative of several other movies and TV shows including:

-Star Trek: TNG. Remember the plot that Picard uncovered in which aliens were physically inserting themselves into the brains of high-ranking members of Star Fleet? Well, I hate to write a spoiler, but...

X-Files. Same as a above

Aliens - there's a scene that just steals from the one in which the Paul Reiser character drops an alien into Ripley's sleeping quarters.

Alien - the dark sets with a creepy monster about.

John Carpenter's The Thing - the premise of being an outpost cut off from the rest of humanity while an alien takes people over one by one. The scene where the General is chased into the base steals from the one in which the dog in The Thing is chased to the Antarctic research lab by the helicopter.

Brenda Strong in both movies. The picture on the right is from
Starship Troopers 2.

Brenda Strong comes to this movie as a familiar face, but not as the same character. Her character in the original Troopers was a fleet captain who died a horrible death. In this one she is an army sergeant. No one is quite sure why they felt the need to have a face from the first movie but she does a good job and on the director's track they credit her with making this movie shoot a positive experience on a lot of levels. That makes it all the more bizarre that her name is not listed on the cover of the DVD or on the back cover credits. Too bad - her character was just about the closest thing that I found to believable in the whole movie.

I give this two stars rather than one because I found the director's/producer's track to be quite fascinating. Maybe it should only be watched with that track playing because it fails to deliver on the promise of the original in so many ways.

Reviewed on August 19, 2006.

This movie can be found on Amazon.com here: Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation.

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell

Good, but needed more detail

Published in 1996.

Thomas Sowell, a noted conservative thinker and a genuinely interesting person (I've heard him as a guest on a local radio station several times) writes an effective book against the actions of those whom he calls 'The Annointed.'  The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy is effective, but not a great work.

Who are The Annointed?

He uses the term in a sarcastic way here to illuminate those 'Teflon prophets' (he uses that term because some of them are still considered credible despite no evidence that their predictions have ever come true) that scream doom and gloom and offer the direst of predictions unless we immediately give them the power to save us - since we are too simple to see the problem for ourselves and take the actions needed to save ourselves.

Thomas Sowell

It does not necessarily need to be someone with world-shaking problems, like Paul Ehrlich and his population bomb theories(Sowell skewers him thoroughly), but it can be anyone who claims to see society as it really is - they have the Vision of the Annointed - and can take the proper steps to ensure that justice (in a cosmic sense) is accomplished. A great deal of the book concerns those that believe that society is to blame for crime, poverty, etc. and how they try to make adjustments in our criminal justice system and our welfare system to compensate. Rather than achieving a measure of compensation, Sowell powerfully argues that justice is compromised and the overall welfare of society is put at risk.

Sowell has his favorite chew toys in this book, including Judge Brazelon (he has 12 entries in the Index) and a NY Times columnist (11 entries) and he does make his point. The nice thing about Sowell is that he criticizes based on policy rather than on a personal level, unlike such political writers as Coulter, Savage, Moore, and Franken.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell.

Reviewed on August 19, 2006.

The Soviet Turmoil (Fall of Communism) by Jeffrey Symynkywicz

A solid history of the Soviet Union

Published in 1997 by Dillon Press.

This small book (about 145 pages plus a large set of endnotes) provides a solid but short history of the Soviet Union.

The last half of The Soviet Turmoil concerns the last 2-3 years of the Soviet Union. It was written in 1997, which is still too close to the actual events of the USSR's collapse to get a proper perspective. Symynkywicz goes into too many details about Gorbachev and the men involved in the attempted coup(s) against him - it simply does not match the tone and pacing of the first half of the book. It would have been more appropriate to look at some of the other causes of the USSR's collapse, including economic pressures and world political pressures. However, it may be that many of these types of facts were still unavailable in 1997.

Good, simple history of the USSR and its downfall.

Final Grade: 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Soviet Turmoil (Fall of Communism) by Jeffrey Symynkywicz.

Reviewed on August 10, 2006.

To the Nines (Stephanie Plum, No. 9) by Janet Evanovich

I'm a big fan but this one was tedious

Published in 2003.

*My previous experiences with Stephanie Plum have all come in the form of audiobooks. Her wise cracking comments and first person narration of all of the antics of her family and neighbors make you feel like your riding along with her and your getting the inside scoop. I enjoyed them so much that when I had to switch cars at a moment's notice due to I car trouble I forgot my lunch in the old car but remembered to bring Stephanie Plum with me to the new car!

This time while reading To The Nines, I felt the whole thing had just became plodding and tedious. The bloom is off of this lilly as far as I am concerned. Unlike other formulaic novel series (such as Parker's Spenser series) this one does not hold up too much scrutiny for me. I keep wondering things like:

*How does Ranger pay for all of these fancy cars and employees when he is so busy working skip traces out of a third-rate bail bondsman's office in a medium-sized city?

*Is Stephanie ever going to get any better at this? It was cute at first, but now? C'mon!

*Are these characters ever going to develop? They stay in a perpetual holding pattern of bizarre behaviors that I found charming at first but now I want to meet new people or see some growth!

Final Grade: 3 stars out of 5 (I got to see old friends again - but it was not enough).

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: To the Nines (Stephanie Plum #9).

Reviewed on August 8, 2006.

Blue Screen (Sunny Randall) by Robert B. Parker

A quick, enjoyable read

Published in 2006.

I came across Blue Screen yesterday afternoon and I snapped it up immediately. I think that I have read through the entire Parker collection at this point and I immediately pick the newest one up as soon as I see it (I have been holding back on reading my last two Michener books since there will be no more ever written and once they're done...)

This is really a tale of two stories. One is a mystery and one is a bit of soap opera. The mystery part is pretty good but really comes off as a bit of a hodgepodge of Parker's enthusiasm for baseball, 'Get Shorty' and the Spenser book 'Back Story'.

Witty banter and familiar faces keep the story moving along. I have no idea if this story could stand alone or not. Probably not. If this might be your first foray into Sunny Randall, pick an older one first and than move to this one.

Robert B. Parker
(1932-2010)

The soap opera is the merging of the worlds of Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone. We could quibble and say that they were already in the same world, but Spenser, Stone and Randall have always interacted with the peripheral characters (Yes, I am saying Susan is a peripheral character) rather than with one another. The coming together of these two characters is interesting and, for once, the psychoanalysis sequences did not bother me too much - they seemed to have a purpose and Sunny actually moved (maybe even leaped) forward.

As has been the case for several books now, the book seems quite hefty when you pick it up. However, open it up and it reminds me of when a college student tries to pad the length of his paper by enlarging the margins and the font size. This book features large print, extra thick paper, lots of space between each line and full one inch margins. Each chapter also starts about 2/3 of the way down the page and there are 61 chapters, so that's a good way to stretch it out an extra 30 pages or so. Not that it makes any difference, but I wonder why they've done this. It weighs in at 306 pages and could have easily have been printed in a 200 page format without straining the eyes. This little one-day read is wider than most textbooks! This has to be more expensive, it adds to shipping costs and makes it harder for the stores to stock multiple copies...which seems counterproductive to me.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5 and it can be found on Amazon.com here: Blue Screen (Sunny Randall).

Reviewed on August 5, 2006.

The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle by Ray E. Boomhower

A strong, short biography of the correspondent who gave us the GI's "worm's eye view" of WWII

Published in 2006 by Indiana Historical Press.

Ernie Pyle (1900-1945) was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who wrote for Washington, D.C. and New York City newspapers before the war. But, he became a beloved figure due to his Pulitzer Prize-winning work during World War II, especially in the European Theater. As one of the soldiers quoted in this biography said, "He was...our spokesman. It was not that his column told us things we did not know or feel, but the fact that we knew you folks at home could read it, and get to know and understand."

The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle is published by the Indiana Historical Society Press because Pyle was originally from the small town of Dana, Indiana, near Terre Haute. The Indiana Historical Society has access to literally millions of Indiana-related historical photographs and that library of pictures is put to good use in this biography. Most of the photos aren't just the standard posed shots, but they show Pyle interacting with his favorite soldiers - the G.I. (Infantry). You can see his relaxed style and his curiosity about everything - including looking down the business end of a 155 mm gun, cooking on a Coleman stove in France, walking among the rubble of the hotel that he was in when a German shell hit it, talking with nurses, officers, and even washing his feet in his own helmet.

The book is actually intended to be a biography for advanced middle school students or high school students to read, but it is excellent for any student of World War II history, no matter his or her age. At the end of the text, 3 of his complete, unedited columns are re-printed, including the sparse and moving "The Death of Captain Waskow".

Strongly recommended.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Soldier's Friend: A Life of Ernie Pyle by Ray E. Boomhower

Reviewed on March 9, 2008.

Lost Light (Harry Bosch #9) (audiobook) by Michael Connelly

Tremendous. Unbelievably strong.

Published in 2003 by Hachette Audio.

Read by Len Cariou.

Duration: 19 hours, 37 minutes.

Unabridged.

Allow me a rare moment to gush over Lost Light by Michael Connelly. I've reviewed over 500 books and rarely do I gush, so please permit me this indulgence.

Harry Bosch has retired. He no longer has the power and the protection of the badge. He also no longer has the limits and restraints of a cop.

He is enticed to start investigating a case that he never solved and soon gets sucked into way more than he bargained for. Connelly leads us into the dark world of criminal conspiracies, police bureaucracy and the FBI counter-terrorism unit.

Len Cariou, the narrator, did such a strong job that I can honestly say that I have never heard a better job of narration, and maybe only one or two that equal his effort. Cariou is especially strong reading the part of Lawton Cross, a former LAPD detective who is a quadriplegic due to an injury sustained in a shootout. I know we have a fascination with assigning spoken word Grammies to politicians reading their own books lately, but I have to wonder how readers like Cariou get overlooked when they do this kind of quality work.

Michael Connelly

The FBI interview scene with Lawton Cross is so strong that when it ended I actually had to turn of my car's stereo and drive the last few minutes to work in silence. That kind of power in a piece of throwaway pulp fiction is appreciated.

Fun moments:

Harry Bosch at the computer trying to use a search engine. Maybe you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but Connelly made it entertaining, light and one of the pivotal moments of the book all at the same time.

Watch for a brief interaction with Robert Crais's Elvis Cole character. No words are exchanged, so you've got to pay close attention.

Bravo.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Lost Light by Michael Connelly.

Reviewed on March 11, 2008.