You can hold up that fancy molding because I'm going to nail it!

I've been sort of thinking about stuff. Not like intellectually, but shifting the ol' brain box out of idle.

One of my favorite things in life is that "Nailed it!" feeling. I don't write much because I know I can't consistently produce things that hit with that kind of accuracy. The ironic part is that writing like bread baking is something that succeeds more often the more often you do it. Bread baking works better in kitchens that have had a lot of bread baked in them. Some of it is the experience of the baker, but even a complete novice does a lot better in a serious baker's kitchen. A lot of that is that yeast floats ambiently in the air and the kinds of yeasts available in a baker's kitchen are more conducive to baking. I think if you never write, the authorial equivalent of yeast is not as well adapted to the task.
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movie: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

It was a while ago that I read the book Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief. It was new, in hardcover, at the library and the second book wasn't available.

I thought it was okay as a book. There were some things which happened because the author needed them to happen. I call that, "Excuse me, your technique is showing."

When the movie came out, I was surprised. I'd thought it kind of a "meh." book. But it was well reviewed and I added it to the Netflix queue and grabbed it off the bottom when I wanted something light one weekend.

I thought the movie did a much better job of conveying the story than the book had. Honestly, I really did. There were fewer places the movie bogs down. But since the boggy bits were the foreshadowing in the book, the movie seemed even more so bizarrely random in plot events occurring for zero rational reason.

I'm not sure it's a compliment for something to be considered true to the book in regard to a failure. But the movie really was just like reading the book. It's completely chock full of these WTF moments where you keep blinking because that just makes no sense.

Now, considering that I liked this movie, let me get on with the parts that explain that. Firstly. And this was absolutely huge, Chris Columbus did not direct this movie the same way he directed the first or especially the second Harry Potter movie. Both of those were clipped so tightly in the editing and POV changes that it felt like the movie was directed by a ferret hopped up on crack and store-brand Red Bull. Percy Jackson (PJ from here on) was filmed and edited to look like a normal movie. It did not make me nauseatingly ill from the eye-whiplash and one can hear the ends of all the words in a conversation before the scene change. PJ is a movie for kids and adults don't need to be mainlining Pixy Stix while quadruple-patching No-Doz just to be able to keep up. That was way awesomely cool.

Second. I have a huge jones for stories that are "usually denigrated religions are fact". I love stories that have real Greek gods or real Norse gods. (I'm not hugely keen on the real Chinese gods ones. Nor the ones which make it crystal clear why those ancient religions deserved to be denigrated since everyone in the pantheon is a completely blocked anus.)

Third. I really like superhero movies.

So, overall, it was a pretty good interpretation of a book that had a lot of technical merit problems, but that book was something that was very likely to please me.