"Nine Stories" by J.D. Salinger

I've read three of J.D. Salinger's books:

1. "The Catcher in the Rye"
2. "Franny and Zooey"
3. "Nine Stories"

This is the first one I enjoyed.

1. The characters did not annoy me as his other ones have done.
2. My friends that enjoyed his novels felt as though he captured the essence of what it was like to grow up. I could not relate to Holden, Franny or Zooey in anyway. I thought they were whiny people. The characters in each of the nine stories captured me. For once I wanted to know what happened to them. I thought their lives beautiful and tragic and heart-warming. However, I am still not a fan of Salinger's. I am not inclined to pick up another one of his books. I read this one as part of a reading challenge and to go to a bookstore to look specifically for his novels is not going to happen.
3. Since it was a Salinger book I was not excited to read it. This helped me be pleasantly surprised when I read it.
4. The stories themselves are well-written stories. They all have something special about them. All the characters add something to the story and the imagery is gorgeous. The first one left me shocked for a while after I read it. I wanted to know more about the artist going through his "blue period" about Lee and the girl with the green eyes. I especially wanted to know about Esme and her wish for a story with squalor.

I recommend these stories!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxVRPbhtxRg

Fantastic Four (2015)

This is the first Fantastic Four film I have seen. I know. I'm way behind the times. I am too young to remember anything before the 2005 adaptation of the film, and that particular adaptation came out at a time in my life when I couldn't care less about which heroes were kicking butt. This may be why my thoughts on this film are not as harsh as everyone else's seem to be. This film does have flaws. Many flaws. The backstory occurs for the first two thirds of the film and the last third is dedicated to an entirely dull climax. Even so I didn't find the film to be terrible. Is it the best superhero film out there? Not by a long shot, but if I'm totally bored on a plane ride and they decide to screen this film I would consider watching it.

I will warn you now: SPOILER ALERT! I will be talking about this film in detail. 

I absolutely adore Miles Teller. He has become one of my favorite actors and I look forward to his performances. However, I do have to disagree with this casting. My knowledge about anything that originates in comics or graphic novels is limited, but I do know that Reed Richards is meant to be older. All the characters are supposed to be older, actually. I wasn't sure how I felt about Miles Teller as Reed Richards simply because I'm an avid reader. I expect the films I watch to be as true to the original source material. I know especially with comics/graphic novels liberties are taken, but I feel as though at least the characters should stay true to the way they were written. Anyway, that's me being picky.

We are introduced to Reed at the start of the film as a fifth-grader. He is incredibly intelligent and of course no one understands him until he meets Ben Grimm. Ben is a poor kid that lives in a house located on the family's junkyard. He is beaten by his brother and that's all we are shown of his life. We see Ben still living there while Reed finds success, but nothing is ever mentioned about his upbringing ever again.

In the fifth grade, Reed builds a teleporter. He can send the items to another place, but he can't bring them back. Fast forward seven years. Reed and Ben (Jamie Bell) have built another teleporter and this one can successfully send items and bring them back. One of the judges is Reed's fifth grade teacher. He was a bully then and he is a bully now. He disqualifies Reed because he doesn't like him, but thankfully Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey) and his daughter Sue (Kate Mara) are there to save the day. They too, have been doing inter dimensional travel, but they can't figure out how to bring the items they send out back. It seems they need Reed's help. They give him a full scholarship to the Baxter Foundation and off he goes.

Dr. Storm also hires Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) which in this case I would not have minded if they had deviated from the source material because seriously why would you trust someone named Victor Von Doom? His name should have been Victor Van Dame and then changed his name to Dr. Doom (or something like that). Anyway, right from the start he is a moody person that doesn't work well with other people. He has a thing for Sue and after he sees her and Reed hitting it off he tells Reed to do his job and be professional. This sets up a pointless love triangle as this goes nowhere.

Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) is Dr. Storm's biological son and is extremely troubled for whatever reason. He believes his dad pays more attention to Sue than to him and rebels by racing cars. We are introduced to the character at such an event. During the race his motor catches fire and he crashes. As a result, his car gets taken away and if he wants it back he has to work on the teleporter as well. Again, I did not agree with the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm because of the source material, but I have to applaud Hollywood anytime it has a diverse cast. However, Fantastic Four gets half an applause because while it does have Michael B. Jordan as one of the leads, he is the troubled child and his sister is the straight-edge academic one. 

Johnny, Reed Sue and Victor complete the teleporter. They send a chimp to the other dimension and it returns unharmed. The four of them are excited to be the next to go into this other dimension, but Dr. Allen (Tim Blake Nelson) tells them they won't be going. He is going to bring in NASA to help explore this unknown world. 

The boys are incredibly upset by this and they begin to rant under the influence of alcohol that everyone remembers the people who walked in space, but no one remembers the people that made it possible for them to go there in the first place.

They decide to travel to the other dimension before anyone notices they have done so. Reed calls up Ben (remember him?) and asks him to join them. The boys suit up, get in the teleporter and go off into the other dimension. 

They explore this other planet and see that some sort of green liquid runs through it. The liquid is at the bottom of a canyon and all but Johnny decide to get up close and investigate it. When Victor comes in contact with it all hell breaks loose. The boys run back and start climbing back up the canyon. In the process, Victor loses his grip and plunges to his death below. Ben, Johnny and Reed make it back to the teleporter, but they can't get it to go back to earth. Sue, who discovered what they did, proceeds to help them. She finally gets the teleporter to work, but not before the boys have come in contact with the liquid. Ben is also bombarded by rocks and Johnny begins to be burned alive in the process. The teleporter makes it back to earth, but it explodes in the lab and it is in the explosion that Sue comes into contact with the liquid.

Reed briefly wakes up in the burning lab when he hears Ben calling for help. He is pinned under debris, but he needs to help his friend. He begins to crawl toward Ben's voice, but when turns he sees his legs are stretched out longer than humanly possible. He faints. We are transported to Area 57. The four of them are all under observation. Reed has his limbs stretched out as far as they can be in his observation room, Johnny is one fire, Sue is slipping in and out of visibility and Ben looks like a pile of rocks.

From his room, Reed hears Ben calling for him. He gets out of his restraints by shrinking back to his normal size. He crawls through an air vent to Ben's room and is shocked at what he sees. At that moment the alarm goes off and he leaves right before promising Ben that he would be back. Of course, Ben feels abandoned.

Now that they have these incredible powers Dr. Allen offers them up as military weapons. As long as they cooperate, the Baxter Foundation will try to rebuild the teleporter in order to find a cure for them back in the other dimension.

Fast forward a year later. The Thing is now the military's prized weapon. Johnny and Sue have been working hard on gaining full control of their powers. Johnny is now eager and ready to be deployed. Sue is upset that he wants to go out into battle. Everyone blames Reed for abandoning them.

They have to find him though, if they want the teleporter to work. Apparently, Reed is the only one who is able to get it to do what it's supposed to do.

No government officials have been able to find Reed. They have found traces of him here and there, but not an actual location. They call in Sue to help and she, unlike the others, is able to find him.

They send Ben to bring Reed back to Area 57. 

Reed fixes the teleporter and they send some people over to the other dimension to investigate. While there, they come across a person limping towards them. It's Victor, alive and well after all. His suit has morphed into his body and the green liquid runs through him. They rush to bring him back to earth which as it turns out, is a terrible idea.

Dr. Doom has the ability to control things with his mind and he goes on a killing rampage. He starts off with Dr. Allen, then unnamed Area 57 employees and finally Dr. Storm.

Dr. Doom returns to his planet, but not before opening a wormhole meant to destroy planet earth. Our heroes follow him and the most anti-climactic battle happens. Seriously. They try to attack him individually and fail. They work as a team and succeed. That's it. This is the battle the film has built up to and it lasts all of five minutes. Dr. Doom has got to be the lamest villain I have ever seen! A team of friends and I could have taken him. I mean, this really upset me. The moment he was knocked off his pedestal, I knew the battle was almost over and that happened pretty much as soon as they got there. Ugh, moving on.

They return to earth. The government offers them a military deal which they decline. They ask for their own lab and it is granted to them. They freak out at their new facilities and decide they need a name for themselves. The film ends before Reed can offer up his great idea. 

That's the film. I decided to write it out in case any one didn't want to watch the actual thing. It's silly and the ending battle is increasingly frustrating, but even then this is not the worst super hero film I have seen and it is certainly more entertaining than other films out there (I'm looking at you Chernobyl Diaries!).