Your Thoughts Exactly

The first part of the question is who am I more in love with? The thirty year old African-American gunslinger with no legs or the 15 year old witch?

Wait this blog isn't about my platonic (yea right) women fantasies. Its to help you readers organize your thoughts through listening to my sophisticated opinions. So I'll give you two, one on the Harry Potter III, and one on Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah.

Harry Potter III has gotten better reviews then its predecessors, and it might be a better movie, but it left me dissatified. The kids are growing up, and the actors and characters are more human. Major problem though: The third book is where J.K. Rowling took off and turned the series from classic children's lit to classic popular literature. When you read the books, you go along with Harry, Ron, and Hermione through the entire year. You can't recapture that in a 2 hour picture. Of course, this problem will only get worse as the movie directors have to go from cutting 400 page books into two hours to having to cutting 700 page books. In this installment, they had to skip over so much stuff, (like winning the house quidditch cup! and where the fuck was Cho Chang?) and rush through the rest till the end. So the plot twist at the end feels totally contrived, as does the relationship Harry builds with Lupin, which is the key to the book. The last half hour was good though, and credit goes to the actors, especially Daniel Radcliffe, who was much more likable as our little hero. Of course, Emma Watson totally outshined him, and as Ben Helms rightly pointed out, will soon be taking over from the Olson twins as queen for the perverted lovers of underage girls crowd. (of which I am most certainly not a member.)

So that's one disapointment for the Marmaniac. Luckily Stephen King stepped up to the plate for Dark Tower 6. Like Stuart said, King got back to what made the first three books so good, straight storytelling, good action sequences, great characters. Susannah dominates this book, and in many way the entire series has now transformed from Roland's story to Eddie and Susannah's story (since it let's King keep Roland mysterious, even through 6 books.) She was at her schizophrenic best. What didn't I like about this book? Let's put it this way, J.K. Rowling probably won't be introducing herself as a major character and god-like figure in Harry Potter VI, as King has chosen to do. To King, when you read this, I say Watch Out! By doing this you are threatening to ruin the entire series. Also, I wish there had been a few more surprise sthat I thought came totally out of left field, as happened routinely in the first three. King inserting himself into the book was probably his idea of a surprise, but it just didn't cut it.
The book has a great cliffhanger ending, and I can't wait to find out what happens in the last book, which comes out in September. It will, as Stu said, make or break the series. But no matter, for the tower is closer.

So who am I more in love with? Well Susannah's taken, although Ron is moving in on Hermione (total garbage, Harry should be all over that shit.) Susannah is also a sistah, which gives her bonus points, but Hermione has the English accent. On the other hand, Susannah could call me "sugar." What it comes down to, is would you rather have your girl be a gunslinger or a witch? I'll take witch thank you very much, a gunslinger would be too likely to kill me.

Verdict: HP 3: You'll probably like the movie better if you haven't read the books. Grade: 3 out of 5 stars
DT 6: Excellent book, but don't even think of reading it if you haven't read the first 5. DO NOT go buy the first 5 however, go get them from the library or borrow them from a friend. Lord knows King doesn't need the royalties since this book cost me 60 FUCKING DOLLARS. Greedy ass bastard. Grade: 92/100, the third best Dark Tower book after 2 and 3.