Z/Web

Author: Robert Rodriguez

Director: Robert Rodriguez

This is the third film in the

After seeing the sequel, it was fun to see the original. Two very different movies. This one is almost claustrophobic in that there are only two teenage potential victims who spend the movie running from the creature, and the creature itself is hidden and mysterious most of the film. In this one, we think the creature’s an ordinary serial killer or something, as the two teens witness him dumping bodies in an old drain pipe and go to investigate, finding more than they bargained for. Interesting ideas. Certainly neither film is great, but they are amusing.

Author: Stephen Frey

This is a can’t-put-it-down kind of book, which is excellent. The story’s about a rich son who’s being forced out of the family despite the awesome work he’s done turning the family fortune into a hundred billion dollar hedge fund. The guy’s a hard drinker and supposedly the family’s worried he’ll be a liability to the number one son’s presidential bid. But later he finds out secrets that reveal the truth. Eventually we’ve got a huge conspiracy that goes all the way to the highest levels of the government, murder and intrigue, and great action. It’s a fun read.

However, there are a number of huge flaws in this book from a writing perspective. First, the main character, who has the drinking problem, is presented as a flawed hero: that’s realistic, but it comes across awkwardly, for we’re told about his drinking after the fact and we’re not privy to the inner demons that drive him to drink. The author struggles with this because he doesn’t want to alienate us from the hero, yet the hero needs some flaws. Unfortunately, the result is the flaws seem patched on, not genuinely part of his character. And even bigger flaw, a sin that is committed not once but twice in this novel, is the introduction of main characters half-way through the book. Now that in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, except in this case, both characters are supposedly extremely close to the hero. One is the hero’s best friend, the other the hero’s wife. Yet we don’t meet either until 200 pages into the book! That makes us immediately suspicious about the best friend (Who is this guy and why don’t we know if him if he’s such a good friend?), and wonder about the genuineness of the husband-wife relationship. That’s just poor writing. Still, the novel’s a fun, quick read, and it has a lot of excitement and suspense. I was disappointed by the ending: the dramatic reveal at the end was a bit of a tempest in a teapot (it was nothing more than a high tech twist of something from J. Edgar Hoover’s days), but that’s common in novels with so much setup. Frey does an excellent job of parsing information to us, piece by piece, in each chapter, revealing just enough to keep us starving for more. A good read.