The Urban Pantheist

In which I review The Host, a Korean monster movie. Read it here!

Also, my brother posted a gag panel that appeals to those who love npr and ectoparasites--in other words, me.

The story behind my review:
The Host is a monster movie, about a giant animal mutated by toxic waste, that lives in the Han River in the heart of Seoul Korea. It's got the giant animal angle, the urban nature angle... how could I not love it? I was sure I was going to love this movie. But it strayed from its true cause, and spent way too much time on a red herring subplot about disease and government mismanagement. It didn't even get the government mismanagement part right (it was essentially the same as the UFO cover-up in Close Encounters, but more poorly thought out), and instead of building the tension (will the government's incompetence cause more lives to be lost??) it just dragged out the least interesting part of the movie.



On this day in 365 Urban Species: California poppy.

In this installment of Solylent Screen, I endured The Fountain, a piece of New Age claptrap about mortality and spirituality, starring Hugh Jackman as a successful conquistador, cancer researcher, and soap-bubble dwelling space Buddhist. If you liked and/or understood this attractive yet incomprehensible heiroglyph of a movie, please tell me wtf and/or why.

Go to Blood, Blade, and Thruster to read my review of The Sticky Fingers of Time.

This will seem somewhat random to many of my readers, but I'm now reviewing movies on a regular basis. What does this have to do with urban nature? Nada. But I figured some of you might dig my writing, regardless of subject, and I suspect many of you fall into the Sci-fi/Horror/Fantasy fan category (I understand this is now called "speculative fiction." So be it.)

My reviews are under the name "Soylent Screen," at the magazine "Blood, Blade, and Thruster." My first review is of "Hot Fuzz." Hope you like it!