Snakes are just like serial killers!

Ben and I were watching TV the other night and had the choice between What not to Wear and Anacondas.. and we (obviously) chose the bad snake movie! After 2 hours of really bad CGI snakeness, I had an epiphany: giant snakes are just like serial killers!

Snake and Serial Killer Similarities:

1) Both big (yucky) snakes and scary people with knives single out those movie characters stupid enough to go anywhere alone. Do not enter the dark garage, the jungle, or the whatever and expect to escape unscathed.

2) There is always a teaser scene.. always. When two people do something seemingly stupid (see above), the music starts getting scary and you think the whatever (snake/killer) is about to attack. Wrong! The two people did not break the alone rule and are thus safe.. for now.

3) Being in a relationship and or having sex usually dooms you to death. If you are the female lead it's likely that you will be terrorized post-sex, but probably end up surviving. Think Neve Campbell in Scream and JLo in Anacondas. Sucks to be the friends in relationships.. they all die.

4) The lead character is a woman. Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure there are a few exceptions..but generally speaking!), but somehow it's always a woman who is the intended victim. Serial killers tend to be more selective, but snakes also have an uncanny knack for eating all of the bit characters and leaving at least one terrorized girl behind.


5) Both giant snakes and crazy killers are really hard to kill. You can shoot them, light them on fire, stab them or all of the above and they're more than likely to survive and either kill one of your remaining friends or at least scare you when they suddenly rear up and look scary. Then you can kill them for real.

The Host broke the rules!

I liked the host until the last few minutes..it had lots of silly shots of the giant squid, it had plenty of people being eaten and really bad dubbing. Sadly, the director missed the memo about who dies in a disaster movie because he killed off the main character and she was NOT annoying! It is OK when they kill off really stupid or irritating main characters, but this guy killed off a super brave little girl. I was totally down when the grandfather was killed off.. it was kind of like Bruce Willis biting it in Armeggedon-it was heroic and sad but not totally unexpected. There was no good reason to kill off the little girl though, and made me sad at the end of the movie. She didn't break any of the rules (swimming alone, having sex, being really obnoxious) and now I don't like The Host as much as I did for the first 118 minutes. :(

The Host (movie)

I hadn't really planned on blogging about two Host titled items back to back, but I just finished the book the other day and the movie came in the mail this afternoon! Clearly it was meant to be!


Normally I love animal/monster related disaster movies, but I have to admit I'm a little nervous about The Host because I heard it was scary! I'm hoping for B-movie scary, not nightmare inducing..but I guess we'll see! Considering the film begins in a morgue, I'm thinking maybe I'm in for a scary night..scratch that, it's really poorly dubbed. That makes everything funny.

Thoughts so far:
1) They should not have shown the monster this early on. It's only a few minutes in to the movie and it's already wreaking havoc at the waterfront in Seoul. I'm all for early action (ie carnage) at the hands of some yucky mutant squid, but it ruins the fun a little to see how fake it looks.

2) Squids do not fly, and I doubt even mutated ones would have wings. Thus, the huge mutated creature should not be doing something that looks like flying, because that's just silly.

3) The sister, Nam J00 totally kicks butt. Her father dies, her brother is being held by crazy doctors and she still goes after the monster with a bow and arrow. She ends up flying through the air but I'd give her an 'A' for effort.

4) There's a weird vibe with the Americans. Even though the movie was made by a S. Korean, it portrays a lot of the characters are being bumbling and useless. The Americans have to step in and spread chemicals, help with the quarantine and then act very sneaky and scary. The American doctor admits there is no virus, and then straps Gang-du father onto a table for brain surgery. It's also an American doctor who (potentially) created the monster by having his lab partner dump all those chemicals into the river. Hmmmm..

5) The monster regurgitates bones into the sewer pit where Hyun-seo and a little boy are hiding. Ewwww. It reminded me of the scene in that really bad Treat William movie, except I think I was actually less grossed out this time. At least this scene just had bones and no blood and guts.

The Host (book)

I just finished reading The Host by Stephanie Meyers. She's a nice Mormon women who wrote her first three books about a vampire and his human girlfriend. As a total sci-fi geek, I loved her Twilight books and was excited when I found out her first 'adult' novel was coming out this summer.

Normally I wouldn't include just a classic sci-fi book, because they are not all disaster related. This book, however, fits in perfectly! Without giving away all of the juicy details, it's kind of like a grown up version of Animorphs, without the weird teenagers who can change into different animals. I know that doesn't make much sense, but both books are set in the US where an alien species has taken over by using human beings as hosts. Unlike Animorphs, Meyers' book creates a much more interesting host/invader dynamic. The invaders are a parasitic species that survives by implanting themselves in the heads of human beings and taking over full neural and emotional control. They retain the memories of the person, but they are their own new entity. The parasitic species call themselves souls, and see themselves as the saviours of humanity because they are peaceful and community minded. When they take over the earth, they stop all violence and create a world that is harmonious. There are a handful of survivors (parasite free humans) who see this invasion as nothing less than full scale genocide and go underground to escape detection and annihilation. I decided this book fell under the disaster related category because there is plenty of paranoia inducing situations and lots of hiding and living totally off the grid. One of the main characters (Jeb) states at one point that he knew that something hinky was going on in the world when all of the convicts and pedophiles started turning themselves in to authorities. Think of the crazy gun guy (married to Reba!) in Tremors, and you kind of get an image of Jeb. He already had shelters ready for some type of apocalypse, and when the invasion kicked into high gear he fled with a small group of friends and family members. After reading about his (I know it's fictional!) set-up, I had a sudden urge to learn more about hydroponics, and living underground. While I might start doing a little research into using mirrors as a light source, I'm otherwise going to try and keep my slightly nutty interest at bay.

The book gets really interesting when a soul is put into the body of a girl named Melanie, and finds herself unable to totally overpower the original host. Melanie remains a force in her head, and all sorts of complications ensue. Although the book ultimately gets a little sappy--both the soul and the host are in love with the same man--I thought Meyers' managed to convey some interesting things about humanity and relationships.

Ultimately, I think she took the easy way out in the book. When both Wanda (the soul) and Melanie (the host) fall in love with different men Meyers' could have used this story as a discourse on human sexuality. Without being graphic or inappropriate, she could have chosen to have her characters involve themselves in a complicated intersecting relationship. It's her book and she wanted to make it neater and easier than that.. but it would have been interesting!


ps. this post is entitled The Host (book) because I also requested The Host (the movie!) from blockbuster. I'm sure there will be a similar post coming soon..

Gluten Free Dessert!

One of my favorite places to look for recipes is the food blog raspberryeggplant, written by a woman named Roopa in Baltimore. She has a great recipe for key lime pie (or tartlets) which is just phenomenal. I've made it a few times, but since my boss is gluten free I usually make it with a few changes.
I'm re-posting her recipe here, and explaining the changes I usually make to make it gluten free. I would add pictures, but someone (my brother and sister!) ate all of the aforementioned tartlets before I thought to take any pictures. Next time I make them, I'll come back and post some pictures to go along with the recipe. You can find the full original recipe at raspberryeggplant, so I'll just talk about the crust here! Normally you would mix 10 finely crushed graham crackers with 5 tablespoons butter. To make it gluten free, you have 2 options:

1) You can use finely crushed nuts such as almonds or walnuts and mix them with butter. You then follow the rest of the recipe, but know that the nuts will not conform to the shape of the cupcake tin in the same way that graham crackers. Even after you bake the nuts for a few minutes, they will not form a real crust. After you pour the custard mixture into the cooled put the whole muffin pan into the freezer. Otherwise the tartlets will not hold their shape, and will turn into mush when you try to get them out of the tins. If you leave the tarts in the freezer for a few hours you will be able to use the removal method mentioned in the original recipe (hot towels, turn over etc)!

2) The other option is to buy pre-made gluten free cookies instead of graham crackers. I've tried using gluten free cookies once, and it was semi-successful. You can pretty much follow the original recipe if you use the cookies, but they're usually really sweet. I used plain shortbread cookies I found at the store, but the tarts were overwhelmed by the cookie taste. I'm going to keep looking for other gluten free cookies, but for now I suggest using tactic #1!