Creating the Fantastic
I read some pretty strange fiction. It’s dark, it’s surreal, it’s gorgeous. Whenever I read something like Veniss Underground or The Etched City, I always wonder who could take such truly bizarre works of the imagination and create them visually. Who could bring such strange creatures and worlds to life in movies? Anyone? Until last night, I didn’t really know. Until last night, I hadn’t seen Hellboy II: The Golden Army.
I’ve decided that Guillermo del Toro can take anyone’s wildest dreams and bring them to life on the big screen. He takes cold CGI and gives it warmth and vibrance. His imagery is so absolutely outlandish, yet utterly believable. I guess I should have realized it after Pan’s Labyrinth, but I didn’t actually see that in its full theatrical glory. Also, there’s such a sharp contrast between Hellboy and Hellboy II, the former being a fun, but typical comic book movie and the latter being a simple yet elegant fairy tale with absolutely stunning visuals. With the right budget, I think del Toro could bring any world alive.
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Omnivoracious
I’m reading quite a lot lately, e-books always preferable to audio books. Unfortunately, many of the books I want to read most aren’t available as e-books, or even audio books. So, last week I started e-mailing my favorite authors to see about getting ahold of their works that aren’t currently available. One such author is Jeff VanderMeer, the fellow behind one of my top 5 favorite novels, Veniss Underground. Veniss is published in multiple e-book formats, but the same isn’t true of any of his other work. Well, it turns out that Jeff had already seen me on This American Life and was more than happy to send me City of Saints and Madmen and Shriek: An Afterword, his other two novels. He also asked if I might be interested in doing an interview with Omnivoracious, an Amazon.com book blog…
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