The Greatest Book Your Never Going To Read

This is a friendly reminder this thing isn't all about movies. I love books, and I especially love the classics. But sometimes it feels like I'm a dying bred. I also feel that most of the popular books of today are just fluff. Don't get me wrong I like a good fluff piece but when someone tells me their favorite book is Twilight I feel genuine pity for that person.

This brings me to one of the greatest book you are NEVER going to read. Not because you can't or you shouldn't (actually your life will be ten times better if you do) but because most people today feel like a book with substance is just boring. This book you've probably never read is amazing!! But chances are your going to ignore it and miss out. Here's hoping I can change your mind. 

The reason I want to bring it to your attention is because this book started the genre that was a MAJOR source of popular sensationalism recently and yet was basically ignored by the general public. Twilight will rarely be mentioned in this blog but its here now because it like Blade, the Vampire Diaries, True Blood and Underworld and countless others are poor rip-offs of the greatest book your never gonna read. We would have none of those if Bram Stoker never gave us Dracula. It's an amazing gift people, and we've crapped all over the legacy.

Here's what your missing. The story starts with Jonathan Harker who is going to Transylvania to help a mysterious Count buy land in England and arrange for his move there. Yes, you know its Dracula, I know its Dracula but for 4 chapters Harker has no idea and the tension could be cut with a knife. We are left for a long time unaware if Harker escapes or dies but one thing is clear Dracula is coming to England. 

Next we are introduced to Harker's love interest Mina. Mina's best friend is Lucy. Ok all you Twihards who marvel at Stephanie Meyers "genius" I now introduce you to the REAL Bella. Lucy is a gorgeous woman who not only captures the attention of wealth Lord by the name of Arthur, and a Doctor by the name of John Seward but also, you guessed it the King of all vampires himself who wants Lucy to be one of his brides... sound familiar? Lucky for us neither Arthur or Seward have to rip their shirts off every ten seconds. Than, straight from Meyers plagiarism handbook, Lucy gets turned into a vampire. The difference? Bram Stoker realized vampires were supposed to be the bad guys. We seem to forget that fact.

Seward enlists a friend, Van Helsing (no he doesn't look anything like Wolverine, he's actually really old) to treat Lucy (before she becomes a vampire) because he can't explain the strange loss of blood that Lucy keeps having. Its Van Helsing that puts its together that its Dracula, but he takes his sweet time as we all bite our nails in anticipation. Its an amazing love story.... which is where I may lose the guys. To keep you around I'll let you know that Van Helsing than leads Arthur and Seward to cut off the head of Lucy and stick a stake through her heart. 

Why? Because in the real myths about vampires they didn't just suck blood and glitter in the sun, once they bite you, you belonged to Dracula. Once Seward and Arthur see their sweet innocent Lucy as a evil vindictive vampire they think only of redeeming her by killing the influence of the undead over her. NOW THAT IS WRITING PEOPLE!! After all that, Dracula sets his sights on Mina and the real drama begins.

 Just to warn you its all written as if from the characters journals and newspaper clippings to make it more authentic and its works! Also there is some old English cockney that may be hard to read. Just read it out loud and you'll be fine. Its an amazing story about love, honor, virtue and the battle of good and evil and. Wanna know how it ends? READ THE BOOK! You wont regret it. But like I said it is the greatest book you'll never read... or will you?

Need more proof? Sample this Stoker genius written about Mina "'She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist - and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so skeptical and selfish.'" Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Stephanie!

My Redtail Recompense

When I was a kid my dad was really into bird watching, no really bird watching. So I got him a bird watching video for Christmas when I was like 12 more as a joke but he loved it. The video was 30 minutes of, no not birds, but a guy from the 70's watching birds... and talking about it.

I owe anyone who reads this blog an apology. At the beginning of the year I recommended that people go see the movie Redtails. To be honest I would rather watch my dad's bird watching video on a loop for 24 hours rather then see this excuse for a movie ever again. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible to get my point across. The acting was terrible. I was hoping that Terrance Howard and Cuba Gooding would be able to carry it but while Howard is a great actor he's only got about 3 mins of airtime and Cuba is only seen putting a pipe in in his mouth over and over again. The rest of the acting was disgusting. To make it worse the voice-overs were ATROCIOUS!

Other than that; the plot: none, the score: terrible, the love story: straight out of screenwriting for dumb-dumbs, the action: WHERE WAS IT! AERIAL BATTLES SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR SAVING GRACE LUCAS!!, the drama: tried so hard... failed so bad, and when the main character died in the end I almost stood up and cheered. This movie was a disgrace to the Tuskegee Airman.

By way of apology I'd like to recommend an outstanding movie that sadly I underestimated. Introducing The Adventures of Tintin. 

I, like most of you probably, hadn't heard of Tintin before this. Man this movie reminded me how great Steven Spielberg can be. I dismissed it thinking it would be a cheesy kids movie but after giving it a chance I enjoyed every minute of it. This movie was like an animated version of Indiana Jones (old school, no Crystal Skull crap) but instead of a smooth fedora-wearing professor the main character is a baby-faced reporter with a white pooch side-kick (no worse than the blonde from Temple of Doom) If for nothing else rent this movie for the animation. Several times my wife and I mentioned how characters looked like real people. Not to mention John Williams made another epic soundtrack here. For a dollar at redbox I don't think you have much to lose here. It's exciting, entertaining, compelling and, for lack of better word, its just dang cool. Go check out Tintin today! Oh, and avoid Redtails like you would a Birdwatching tutorial.