The end of any series is a tricky thing. On the one hand, you're glad that it's all coming to an end and you look forward to the resolution of all the different plot threads that have been gathering steam for the past few chapters. Then again, part of you feels bad that it's all going to be over soon and you'll have to find another series of books to follow or perhaps even another author entirely. It really depends on the situation and thus such periods are difficult times to map out.This series was been quite the enjoyable experience for me - one that I might even return to some time in the future. Maybe it's just because I had pretty low expectations of these books when I started or other factors entirely, but in the end I have to admit I really came to appreciate these books. Collins did a pretty great job of putting things all together and in such a manner that was accessible to younger audiences without alienating older ones.
And after following the various characters across two different books, naturally it was time for everything to come together in one big finale. And Collins really decided to push the limits of where this book could go by taking us out of the comfortable pattern of the past books into explored territory.
It's admirable how there are movie makers who are trying to innovate existing movie genres. Thus we have those attempts to try alternative spins on your typical mega monster movie or looking for new perspectives to take in a science fiction story. This kind of behavior is generally a good thing since it means people are actually trying to exercise their creative energies instead of just sticking to an established concept and switching some of the names around. 
franchise and their support for the 
As much as I'm an out and proud gay man, it doesn't mean that all of the "classic" gay stereotypes apply to me, as if often the case with stereotypes in general. Sure, I love musical theater and I'll ogle a go-go boy while at the club. However there are some aspects of "traditional" gay culture that I don't necessarily subscribe to, I also have nothing against them. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.
since I respect the artistic goals of the designers but don't expect me to get on board with shows like 
since the models annoy me to death and too much Tyra makes my head hurt.
Book to movie translations are a very mixed bag. While I don't think it's a bad idea to create movies of this sort, I do recognize that it's a major undertaking that will test any director. Plus if the studio doesn't invest the necessary resources to allow for the book's original vision to be fully realized, then there are bound to be problems.
More and more I feel that the superhero TV show genre is cursed. It's very, very rare now that a new superhero-themed TV show manages to get anywhere far and this 2010 US TV season has been especially brutal on the genre. First there was the quick death of The Cape and recently this show received the axe as well.
Sometime back my Mom asked me to check out the 
series of books to determine if it was any good. We normally got into little reading ventures like this as part of her efforts to figure out if these were books that my younger brother could read (and seriously if they were any good). We had done this previously with 
books and then this series followed.
There's something about trilogies that seems all nice and neat for movies. When you start going beyond the third installment, it more often than not results in increasingly bad stories and principal actors associated with the franchise dropping out in order to prioritize other projects.
, but that's just me. The initial buzz had 
When you think of 
after all. But with Ghibli, I've enjoyed every single release. But hey, there are still quite a number of them that I still need to get around to watching them.
We all have our reasons for watching the 
Like many other geeks, I spent a good part of my younger years playing the collectible card game known as 
The whole notion of civilization surviving a some major catastrophe in the future is a common enough setting in science fiction novels. As much as a lot of science fiction writers try to be utopian in their approach to things, there are also a lot of writers who think the worst of the human race. Or there are those who choose to express their believe in the resilience of the human spirit by pitting us against such apocalyptic scenarios in order to see how we will prevail.
While I've always been big on the Transformers my love for robots never quite extended into a love for all machines in general. I can appreciate the ridiculous complexities of Rube Goldberg types of mechanical wonders but I never appreciated plain old cars. I loved my Transformers figures but I wasn't too keen on receiving 
It's funny how it's typically the movies that I love the most that tend to have not yet appeared here on the Geeky Guide. I suppose it's a natural consequence of the fact that I watched a lot of these movies or read whichever book well before the Geeky Guide ever existed. And thus I just sort of assume that I've done my homework and written about it since I love the darn movie or book so much. But clearly that's not always the case and there remain to be quite a number of key items that have slipped through the cracks.
The works of 
Movies are great things. In the span of 1-2 hours, a creative team is able to come together to tell a great story through the combination of spoken lines, great visuals and all those other elements. In some ways it's like a poem - you only have so much time to tell a particular story. And that's brilliant in itself.
. And funnily enough, it also took the promptings and encouragement of my mother for me to finally get one of my own. Yes, she has one as well - it's a family thing.
I've made reference to what I've termed as the "Post-
It's always interesting to note how movies tend to come in sets. It's like that once the project gets the green light, another studio will catch wind of this and will rush a similar project. Thus you get the fluff piece 
versus the more serious depiction that was 
. Or there was the rather neurotic 
in contrast to the lighter and much more popular 
. The list goes on and on. And this doesn't count the very deliberate efforts by studios like 
, "I was just trying to be a good mother."
I'm eternally thankful to my partner for introducing me to 
A lot of TV shows get very limited test runs in order to minimize the risks of the studio while still allowing new blood into the line-up. Such tests have yielded some pretty great shows but at the same time they've also killed a number of them prematurely.
We recently bought ourselves a 
as a sort of second anniversary gift for us to share, which is pretty cool. As much as we already have a lot of fun with our PS3, annoyingly enough there are console-specific titles that we can't get unless we jump to that platform. So staying with the 
, hence 
Every now and then I try to venture out of my comfort zone of science fiction and fantasy books in order to try and discover new authors that might strike my fancy. Sometimes I base it off the synopsis on the back of the cover. Sometimes I select titles based on how reviewers compare them to books that I already like. Any yes, sometimes I go by the title of the book alone.
mainly because I expected a comical book with animals as metaphorical characters or something. Of course I was totally wrong and it turned out to be a very serious survival piece quite literally about how a young boy survives being stranded on a lifeboat with wild animals. Not very happy stuff, but it was still a good read.
In recent years superhero movies have become quite the staple in Hollywood. I guess to some extent it does feel like a no-brainer - take a pre-established character with a rich library of stories and adventures plus an existing fan base and turn it into a movie. Ensure you have one or two big name stars with a lot of money in your special effects budget and market the thing like crazy and boon - you get a minimum risk investment in terms of a movie with a higher potential for profits. While initial forays into the comic book world weren't necessarily as successful, the turn of the century has resulted in some pretty good movies, thus further egging on Hollywood to make more and take advantage of the perceived opportunity.
So I'm gay and I like musicals - something that is arguably one of my most prominent / redundant Obviously Gay Trait (OGT) in 
parlance. Good grief, a lot of you probably haven't even seen that movie!