So, what became of my 50 books, 50 movies meme?
The year 2007 I read 34 books and watched 45 movies (well, 43, since I watched Stardust and Tekkon Kinkreet twice). I read less books than I thought I would, but I did read comics in addition to that - for example the entire Death Note saga (1-12). I also watched more TV series than movies.
My favorite books of the year were The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint, and Mr Simonelli, or The Fairy Widower from The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke. At first I thought that I didn't like the protagonist of
The Blue Girl (she really annoyed me in the first few chapters), but the story won me over. There's a ghost of a teenage boy, some fairies, and a good, surprising ending, different from the expected "the good & evil must fight now" norms.
Mr Simonelli included everything I liked in
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, mainly wit, charm, funny footnote stories and fairies that are full of themselves.
Fun and different reads were also Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill and Skullduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, although they both had some faults that left them from my favorites.
Heart-Shaped Box is a horror book, and it had enjoyable chilly moments, but there were also some disturbing scenes that I didn't like, which belongs to horror, of course, but I'm not that much into it still. Also, I couldn't quite bring myself to like the characters as much as I wanted.
Skullduggery Pleasant was great fun, and the title character was awesome, but in the end it leaned too much into solving problems by fighting. Action scenes are hard to pull off in books, so I think problems should be solved by some other way than describing fights/action in them. It works much better in movies, where you see the movement.
My favorite movies year 2007 were Enchanted (lovely, proper child-like fun) and Tekkon Kinkreet (the visuals, especially the city, and the friendship of the two boys shaded by Black's dark side). Close by came Stardust (come on, air pirates and witches and fun). The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (which I finally saw) and Hot Fuzz were also so much quirky fun!
A plus for this year comes from locating my childhood favorite Peau d'âne (Donkey Skin) from Amazon on DVD, and being able to re-watch it. The king wants to marry her own daughter? The two royal families have red and blue servants and horses? What is going on? All the songs are so catchy they stick to your head.
Let's hope I find more fun things to read and watch this coming year 2008! I also hope to draw more and finally find a decent job!
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