My Top Ten Dean Koontz Books

Happy 73rd Birthday To Dean Koontz.

I love Dean Koontz. Yeah, I’m a huge Stephen King fan but I’ve spent almost as many years obsessively reading Koontz books as well. I started reading King in my teens but was introduced to Koontz in my early 20s when a relative recommended him and let me borrow some of her books. I was immediately hooked.

I’ll always remember the very first Koontz books I read (The Funhouse was my first and then Whispers, The Servants Of Twilight & Dragon Tears). So each of these make it into my top ten but this may be partly because of the fond memories I have of reading my first Dean Koontz books. The Funhouse was admittedly cheesy & pulpy but it’ll always be special to me since it was my first. And I do love that sort of setting for stories (as you’ll see by my number one choice).

In looking up his books on Wikipedia for this list, I’ve now seen JUST how many books Koontz had written. Wow! His first novel was published in 1968 when he was 23. No wonder I can’t keep them all straight in my head. As so many involve similar supernatural stories & characters, there are some books where I honestly can’t remember if I’ve read them or not and some I know I read but can’t remember a thing about. I’ve listed everything after my top ten. As with Stephen King books, I do find it interesting that I remember some of the books I read 20 years ago more than some that I read more recently. Why is that?

Anyway! Dean Koontz books are a hell of a lot of fun and I recommend his stuff if you love supernatural stories (and horror and a bit of sci-fi). He also always writes very likable characters, which is important to me. And dogs! The guy loves dogs and you’ll find plenty in his books.

So here are My Top Ten Dean Koontz Books (at the moment). Counting down to my favorite…

10. TIE: Dragon Tears & The Servants Of Twilight
9. Whispers
8. The Funhouse
7. Strangers
6. Fear Nothing & Seize The Night (Moonlight Bay Series) (I could do with re-reading – think a 3rd in this series is coming out?)
5. Cold Fire
4. Lightning
3. Odd Thomas Series (I’ve read books 1 through 4 so far – the first is the best by FAR but the character is fantastic and I’ll definitely read them all)
2. Watchers
1. Twilight Eyes

Honorable Mentions:
Life Expectancy, Darkfall, Phantoms, Sole Survivor, Hideaway, Ticktock

More Honorable Mentions:
The Moonlit Mind, The Face, The Good Guy, The Darkest Evening Of The Year, One Door Away From Heaven, Dark Rivers Of The Heart, The Door To December, Mr. Murder

I Read But Didn’t Love:
From The Corner Of His Eye (was this the puking & pooping one??), False Memory, The Key To Midnight, Shadow Fires, Winter Moon, The Mask

Think I Read But Can’t Remember:
The Voice Of The Night, The House Of Thunder, Midnight, Strange Highways, Velocity, The Husband

Honestly Don’t Know If I Read:
Night Chills, The Face Of Fear, The Bad Place, Intensity

Some I think I Definitely Haven’t Read: (Christmas present ideas!) 😉
Frankenstein Series (I have the first book – should I make a start?), Makina Series, Jane Hawk Series, Demon Seed (but I’ve seen the movie), Shattered (I have this so I’ll read it soon), The Vision, The Eyes Of Darkness, Icebound, By The Light Of The Moon, The Taking, Your Heart Belongs To Me, Relentless, Breathless, What The Night Knows & Darkness Under The Sun, 77 Shadow Street, Wilderness, Innocence, The Neighbor, The City, Ashley Bell, Ricochet Joe (I have this – it’s an interactive Kindle book with moving images. Sounds interesting!)

By the way – Koontz has also used ten pen names & I’m now determined to find a copy of all his oldest & most obscure books. I’ve not even listed his most obscure. This dude has seriously pumped out loads of books! And I hope that continues for many more years. Happy Birthday, Dean Koontz!

My Top Ten Willem Dafoe Movies

Happy Birthday to Willem Dafoe, who is 62 tomorrow.

I have to admit that I’m not necessarily a huge fan of Dafoe. I think he’s a decent actor & has been in an interesting range of films but my main reason for even giving him much thought is probably because he’s one of so few actors from my home state. Why are there so few famous people from my state?!

As with all my actor top tens, these are ranked from my least favorite to favorite movie instead of by performance (Although, to be honest, number one is probably my favorite performance as well. He’s awesome in that!). So here are My Top Ten Willem Dafoe Movies:

*Updated July 2018 to add The Florida Project & Nymphomaniac: Vol II*

The Rest That I’ve Seen:

20. The English Patient (screw this movie)
19. Speed 2: Cruise Control
18. American Dreamz
17. American Psycho
16. Nymphomaniac: Vol. II
15. Cry-Baby
14. Born On The Fourth Of July
13. The Last Temptation Of Christ
12. Clear And Present Danger (barely remember it, to be honest)
11. Daybreakers

Top Ten:

10. TIE: The Fault In Our Stars & The Florida Project

9. Odd Thomas

8. The Spider-Man Movies

7. The Aviator

6. Streets Of Fire

5. Platoon

4. John Wick

3. The Hunger

2. eXistenZ

1. Finding Nemo

Honorable Mention:
Finding Dory, because it’s just a small cameo

Some Of The Many I’ve Not Seen:
To Live And Die In L.A., Mississippi Burning, Wild At Heart, Body Of Evidence, Basquiat, The Boondock Saints, Shadow Of The Vampire, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, Manderlay, Inside Man, Tales From Earthsea, Antichrist, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Cirque Du Freak, John Carter, The Grand Budapest Hotel

Happy 4th Blogiversary To Me

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving (or just a nice weekend if you’re not American). 🙂 As my blogiversary is so close to the end of the year, I always do a little recap of my year so far. This is post number 1,251 for me. Over all four years, I mean – that would be an insane amount for just one year. Still, I can’t believe I’ve put that many posts together! I should put as much effort into cleaning the house or something instead. (Ha! Won’t happen).

Okay – here’s my blog recap of 2016 (so far)…..

2016 POSTS

My Most Popular Post: It’s actually a page: My list of every movie I’ve watched in 2016 (ranked & rated, because I’m a loser). My top post is my double review of Turbo Kid & Space Station 76. That makes me happy! I loved the originality of both & SS76 is an underrated film that’s become a firm favorite of everything I’ve watched this year. The IPC’s Eric & I also had a chat on Twitter with a guy involved in the making of the film. I love when that happens! (This year, I also got comments on my blog from an actor in the great indie film Circle & an actress in David Cronenberg’s Shivers. Gotta love the Internet! What a crazy world.)

My Favorite Post: I really enjoy writing about films that make me think. I love when I’m still thinking about a movie days after seeing it & there were quite a few like that for me this year. So I loved reviewing Predestination, Circle, Nocturnal Animals & Arrival. I also loved reviewing Adrienne Shelly’s fantastic film Waitress, which deserves more recognition. She was a great talent & I wish we could’ve seen much more of her work.

2016 MOVIES WATCHED

Number watched: 109. Wow! How did that happen??

Watched In Cinema (My Top Five Favorites):
1. Room – 9/10
2. Arrival – 9/10
3. Sing Street – 8/10
4. The Girl With All The Gifts – 8/10
5. The Purge: Election Year – 7.5/10

Watched At Home (My Top Five Favorites):
1. In Your Eyes – 8/10
2. The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – 8/10
3. Natural Born Killers – 8/10
4. Space Station 76 – 7.5/10
5. Predestination – 7.5/10

TOP TEN LISTS

My Most Popular Top Ten List: Looks like it’s a tie between My Top Ten Diane Lane Movies & My Top Ten Keanu Reeves Movies. (FYI – I’ve now finally watched John Wick. Not sure if it would quite make the list…)

My Favorite Top Ten List: My favorite this year was probably when I grossed everyone out with My Top Ten Period Dramas. I also enjoyed making a list of My Top Ten Wooden Actors.

SEARCH TERMS

My Top Search Term: Odd Thomas. I’m actually bored with this being my top search term, all because that cute girl up there wears a pair of panties that leave very little to the imagination. Of course, I posted an image of the panties scene so I guess I only have myself to blame…. 😉

My Favorite Search Term: Not sure – maybe the searches for Forever Ambergris, my post about a Tales From The Crypt episode starring Steve Buscemi & Roger Daltrey. It’s one of my favorite posts I’ve ever done. Possibly because it’s one of a very small handful that I actually put some effort into. Ha!

Here are my top search terms for the year so far:

2016 BOOKS READ

Number read: 12

My Top Five Favorites

1. The Colour Of Magic by Terry Pratchett
2. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
3. The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams by Stephen King
4. Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
5. TIE: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel & The End Of The World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker

Book I’m Currently Reading: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Tiny November Recap

Movies Watched:

1. Arrival – 9/10
2. Your Name – 8/10
3. Nocturnal Animals – 8/10
4. Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them – 6/10
5. Monster Hunter – 6/10
6. Sisters – 5/10

BLOG PLANS FOR DECEMBER

Upcoming December Movies:

First let’s have a look at some of the movies coming out in December that I’m hoping to see…

Hell Yes, I’m going to these:
Rogue One (tickets already booked) 🙂
Passengers
Moana
May go to if I have time:
The Edge Of Seventeen
Sully
Snowden
Will wait for Netflix:
I Am Not A Serial Killer
Monster Trucks
Collateral Beauty
Bleed For This
Ballerina

As for blog plans, December is obviously a very busy month for a lot of people and I can’t see having much time for blogging. I have two movies left to watch for my 2016 Blind Spot Series & I’ll kick myself if I don’t manage to do those after doing 10 of the 12 so far. So, I think watching those two is my main priority. I’ll review Rogue One, Passengers & Moana. And I’ll of course also do the usual end-of-the-year-lists in the final week of December since list-making is near the top of my list of favorite things to do! If there’s time, I hope to do a few more reviews of my favorite books this year since I’m behind on those.

Thanks To All Of You

I do apologize for the blogging thing having to take a backseat to the busy real-life stuff I have going on at the moment (Which I know is the way it should be anyway & I hope it’s the same for the rest of you). But I do miss you guys & reading your blogs! Even though I’m not around here as much, I still think about you and hope you’re all happy & watching fantastic movies. Thank you to those who still pop by sometimes & comment on my hastily-written meandering reviews despite my absence & my taking so long to reply to comments lately. But you know I always reply to every comment, even if I’m a little slow about it lately. I love chatting about movies with fellow film nerds. You guys are the best!

By the way – I highly recommend Arrival, Nocturnal Animals & Your Name, all of which I saw in the past couple of weeks. What a month for movies! I sometimes watch movies I don’t really care about just because I think they’ll be “bloggable” (especially horrors for October). I need to stop that. Powerful movies such as the above three help remind me why I started this blog in the first place. Quality over quantity from now on! I’m going to scale things way back in 2017 but I plan to still be here next year for a 5th blogiversary. Where else can I go to rave & bitch about films with like-minded people? 🙂

Oh yeah… Guess I better end with a music clip like I usually do on these recaps. Here’s a clip of one of the songs from this year’s Sing Street. I absolutely adored this film! Highly recommend it to all lovers of music from the Eighties. We need more feel-good movies like this to be made.

R.I.P. Anton Yelchin

I don’t really tend to do tribute posts but felt I should say a little something about Anton Yelchin as I really enjoyed his work as an actor. There are still quite a few films of his that I have yet to see but I first noticed him in Charlie Bartlett, a great film that deserved more recognition & his crazy character was to thank for making that film so enjoyable. I of course thought he was great as Chekov in Star Trek & Star Trek Into Darkness and it was cool seeing him in the adaptation of Odd Thomas, one of my favorite Dean Koontz books. But, of what I’ve seen, Charlie Bartlett is the one that really shows his unique talent. I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it. What a sad loss.

R.I.P. Anton Viktorovich Yelchin (March 11, 1989 – June 19, 2016)

My Blog’s January 2016 Stats

Happy February everyone! 🙂 Can you believe January is over?! Man, I hate January… Good Riddance!

I haven’t done one of these monthly “blog stats” posts in a while. I just always enjoy having a look at what posts got the most views and/or comments each month (usually not my favorite posts!). And, as always, I find the bizarre Search Terms amusing.

So first I’ll have a look at My Top Posts for January:

I’m happy that my top post by far was the one where I chose the 12 Blind Spot movies that I plan to (hopefully) watch & review throughout the year. I’m cutting back on blogging but that’s the one new project I’ve decided to attempt this year (and I’ve already watched two of them and reviewed one: An Education & Summer Wars).

I also got a scary number of hits on my very old Cast Of Labyrinth Then & Now post and my very short David Bowie tribute post. People do love a tribute post, I guess, as My Top Ten Alan Rickman Movies also got a lot of views. January was a sad month for celebrity losses. To be honest, I still can’t even really talk about Bowie without getting far more upset than I ever expected so let’s move on.

Since January is so depressing, I decided I’d go & watch that heartwarming Leonardo DiCaprio film with the big cuddly bear. I was surprised to see that my review for The Revenant got so many views. I apologize for not being able to take that review seriously! It was a very good movie and all that, but… You couldn’t drag me back for a second viewing.

There are two movies I really want to mention once more as I feel they deserve attention. I’ve already watched 14 movies in 2016 (is that excessive? well, it was January – it’s too cold to do anything else!). Anyway, of those 14 one is a new favorite while another is one of those very rare types of films that could, quite possibly, change someone’s life for the better (not mine, though – maybe if I’d seen it in any month other than cold & bleak January!!!).

The new favorite is a pretty obscure film called In Your Eyes, which did get quite a few views but not many comments as I suppose most people have never heard of it. I was therefore very happy when two bloggers gave it a watch because of my review and they both loved it too. It’s a surprisingly simple love story (rare for me – I’m not big on romance) about two people with a telepathic connection. It was written by Joss Whedon and it’s a good script with great characters and it just worked. For me, anyway… I’m now totally in love with the dude in it (Michael Stahl-David, in the above photo). *sigh*

The other movie, which isn’t high in my stats as I only just posted the review last Wednesday, is Room. I believe I told someone here that this is the type of movie that makes me wish I was a writer so I could put into words exactly how I felt about it. Well, I attempted to in my review but nothing I say could do it justice. Just…. Watch it. Please. If you’re a film lover, it’s one you need to see. I watched it last Tuesday and it’s still playing on my mind. It gives such a bizarre mixture of emotions – thinking about it now I don’t know whether to smile or burst into tears. It’s an extremely powerful film, probably more so than anything I’ve ever seen in my (many) years on this Earth.

Yikes. Let’s lighten the mood and look at My Top Search Terms for January:

Okay, pervy Googlers! Seriously – get over the girl in Odd Thomas in her panties and the girl in the short skirt in The Purge. And I’m sure all the boys DO love Mandy Lane nude scenes but you’ll find none on my blog (plus, I don’t actually remember a nude scene in that movie…).

I had no idea who the hell Ron Mlodzik was so I had to look him up. Looks like he was in David Cronenberg’s Shivers but I didn’t even mention his name in my review so I don’t know how that search led someone to my blog. Well, here you go – I think this is Ron Mlodzik?? That’s one way to clean glasses, I suppose:

I also had to look up Ken Duken to see who the heck he was. Oh – he was in the unexpectedly enjoyable Chalet Girl! I’m sorry to say I have no naked photos of him on this blog, though. It would certainly be better than nude photos of that Ron Mlodzik dude.

Finally, I’m happy that my post about the Steve Buscemi/Roger Daltrey episode of Tales From The Crypt (Forever Ambergris) got some hits as I had a lot of fun with that post.

I hope you all have a lovely February! It can’t be worse than January, right?! 🙂

My Blog’s September 2015 Stats

Happy October, everyone! 🙂 I’ll be back to posting horror-related stuff again tomorrow & for the rest of this month but I realized it’s the first Sunday of the month so it’s time to review my September blog stats.

Here are My Top Viewed Posts For September:

I was happy to see that My Top Ten Toilet Scenes In Movies was number one (better than a number “two”, eh?). 😉 I did that partly due to my old, most-viewed-ever post of My Top Ten Shower & Bath Scenes In Movies. Looks like it’s paid off – Googlers are clearly fascinated by movie scenes involving bathrooms! I’m moving onto sinks for another top ten list soon (seriously).

It’s cool that My Top Ten Number Movies was also one of my top viewed posts (SPOILER: 28 Days Later tops that list). And I’m liking that my mini-review trios are getting a good amount of comments from people (I did three chick flicks HERE & trashed Blue Ruin HERE to everyone’s annoyance (I seriously hated that movie).

And my review of Odd Thomas leads me to…

My Top Search Terms For September:

Ha! That’s hilarious. Apparently mentioning my top search terms each month has meant that I keep getting hits on those same search terms over & over again. So, thank you to Lucy Deakins being cute in The Great Outdoors, Alice Eve for being hot, Addison Timlin for the camel toe in Odd Thomas, and those Minions for being so darn cute. 🙂

Finally, thank you as always to YOU GUYS. The best thing about blogging is the chats we have about movies in the Comments. I wouldn’t have kept doing this so long without our chats. 🙂

Top Commenters:

New Followers:

My Blog’s July 2015 Stats

I’ve decided to do a little monthly blog stats review on the first Sunday of each month (at 2:00 pm as, apparently, this is the time & day when I get the most views). Really?! Huh. Weekends are always so dead on the blogs. Well, hello to all you Sunday blog readers! 🙂

Here are my July 2015 Blog Stats:

July gave me the highest number of views so far this year, which was surprising as summer on the blogs is always very quiet (in my two & a half years of experience at this blogging thing, anyway). I suppose I ended up posting quite a few things as I’ve been trying to manage my time better (but I’ve been too busy this week so have nothing prepared for this coming week yet!! Damn – I like to be at least a week ahead on scheduling posts!).

Anyway, here are My Top Posts for July:

It looks like my review of Minions is the winner this month. I knew it! Everyone loves those crazy minions! 🙂 I’m also happy to see that my nerdy Star Wars trip into London to see Secret Cinema’s The Empire Strikes Back got the second highest amount of views. As always, my post of My Top Ten Shower & Bath Scenes In Movies is still going strong. Seriously, I posted that in April of 2013 – that post is never going to die! Thank you, pervy Googlers. I’m also happy that my two posts of “mini-reviews” did well & got some great comments from you guys (the last one I did had reviews of Drugstore Cowboy, At Close Range & Slacker). I’m doing those to catch up as I’m way behind on reviewing what I’ve watched, but if I do it too often I’ll run out of movies to post about. 😉 I like how quick & easy they are and the good response they get, though, so I’ll try to do a couple each month.

My Top Search Terms for July:

It never ceases to amaze me to see that the majority of my top search terms are pervy. ALWAYS. I know that’s the same for everyone with a blog, though. The biggest ones here are the usual ones who get searched for on my blog every month: Alice Eve, Lucy Deakins, the girl (Addison Timlin) in the revealing panties in Odd Thomas, and Anna Kendrick in the shower in Pitch Perfect. I’m surprised at just how many people come here searching for Lucy Deakins. She wasn’t in many films but I think a lot of boys going through puberty really liked her in The Great Outdoors & I talked about her in my review of that movie (HERE). I also included a pervy gif – Sorry, Lucy Deakins. I absolutely loved her movie The Boy Who Could Fly but you young people reading this blog would hate it so don’t watch it! Here’s Lucy Deakins again for my Googlers:

I was very intrigued by the search term “Judie Aronson Feet” as I didn’t even know who the hell that was. Oh – that’s Hilly from Weird Science! I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention her feet in my review, though….

Finally, “They Live Movie Quotes” popped up on the 31st, I’m assuming right after the sad news of Roddy Piper’s death. They Live is a favorite movie of mine (and my very favorite John Carpenter movie). I haven’t yet reviewed it but did of course once post the bubblegum quote as it’s one of the all-time greatest movie quotes.

R.I.P. ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper

My Top Commenters & New Followers:

Thanks again to everyone who takes the time to comment on my posts. That’s the whole reason why I blog! I love discussing movies with you guys. 🙂 I think I’ve been a little better at visiting all your blogs this month too (that whole better time management thing) but I did have a hectic time this week so didn’t manage it… Sorry! I’ll be back soon! I totally don’t get the top commenters statistics, though. The numbers never really seem to change and you can’t look at them by month, year, etc. So I don’t know what the hell those numbers up above even mean but I believe those are the people I’ve seen the most lately. Hi, guys! *Hugs* lol

And hello to my new followers this month. I don’t always catch the new follower notifications so I’m sorry if I’ve missed following any of you back. (I’d hug you too but we don’t know each other well enough yet) 😉

That’s it! See you again next month with August’s stats. August?! Where has this year gone? Where has my LIFE gone?! When did I get so old?!?!?! Ugh.

Happy August, everyone. 🙂

Odd Thomas (2013) Review

Odd Thomas (2013)

Directed by Stephen Sommers

Based on Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Starring:
Anton Yelchin
Willem Dafoe
Addison Timlin
Nico Tortorella

Running time: 93 minutes

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
In a California desert town, a short-order cook with clairvoyant abilities encounters a mysterious man with a link to dark, threatening forces.

My Opinion:

Well, I have to use the word: This movie is certainly “odd”. It’s also not exactly “good”. However, I kind of liked it and am going to have some affection for it since I read A LOT of Dean Koontz books. Odd Thomas is one of his better books and certainly one of the best characters he’s created. Which is why I suppose there’s a load of Odd Thomas books now… When did that happen?! I only knew of three. I read the first two and bought the third (which I then lost and still can’t find anywhere – I need to find it so I can continue!). Anyway, the first book IS really good and this movie doesn’t capture how great the characters are but I appreciate that they made the effort. At least it sucks less than most the other truly awful Koontz adaptations.

I’ll be honest – if you’ve not read Odd Thomas, I don’t recommend this movie. If you’ve read it, I think you’ll at least enjoy seeing Odd Thomas (the character – it’s his actual name) onscreen and I did really like Anton Yelchin as Odd even though he’s not exactly what I’d pictured. I’ve liked Yelchin since the underrated Charlie Bartlett & think he has the right sort of quirkiness to play Odd. Addison Timlin was also good as his girlfriend Stormy Llewellyn and they had a very nice chemistry together, although they came nowhere near capturing the relationship as well as in the book (through no fault of their own – you’re just never going to get as much character development in a movie). The humor in the movie feels a little out of place and just doesn’t work the way it worked so well in the book. And then there’s the strange “supernatural” stuff… Well, it comes across as quite cheesy in the movie and, if you’ve not read the book, I think you might laugh at those bits. To be fair, I think it’s probably very hard to get a Dean Koontz movie “right” onscreen. Well, they’ve managed to make some Stephen King stories into excellent films but I suppose he’s more well known and those movies probably have a bigger budget. Odd Thomas feels like a made-for-TV Stephen King movie, basically. I watch EVERYTHING Stephen King-related and know there’s been some truly dodgy adaptations of his work but I still enjoy watching them. I felt exactly the same way watching Koontz’s Odd Thomas. By the way – I think the girl playing Odd’s girlfriend was truly adorable:

But I’m not sure how necessary THIS shot was:

Summary:

First of all, I highly recommend reading Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz if you at all like supernatural fiction with a bit of horror. He’s Stephen-King-lite. I have a strange relationship with Dean Koontz – his books are an “easy read” and I devour them then totally forget about them but, occasionally, I love one. My favorites are Twilight Eyes & Watchers but Odd Thomas would be close to the top of the list as well, especially as I think it’s one of Koontz’s finest endings for a story as well as one of the best characters he’s created. The movie handles the ending fairly well, which I was worried about them getting right. I think there are some changes from what I remember of the book but nothing that bothered me too much as it was more important to get the characters right and I think the movie did a decent enough job of achieving this. You’ll like it okay if you’ve read the book but you probably won’t if you haven’t (unless you’re not bothered by a low-budget sort of feel). Read the book. THEN watch the movie. Then read a few more Dean Koontz books. Then watch Charlie Bartlett.

My Rating: 6/10

I did it! I’ve managed to review movies based on books all week! I’ll attempt to do another tomorrow but at this point don’t have anything written yet. I may do Paperhouse – that was an “odd” film as well! Either that or The Spectacular Now… So far I’ve reviewed The Maze Runner & The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I & of course Odd Thomas. 🙂