Tag Archives: mel brooks

Book Review of “Minecraft: The Island” (2017)

the island

© James Pyles

If you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

Minecraft: The Island (2017) isn’t a book I’d choose to read. My wife actually read it to our grandson three times when he was much younger and more into the game. Now my eight-year-old granddaughter loves Minecraft.

Some background. When my grandson was about five or six, we started playing “the game.” It started out as teasing each other. He’d make up a character and say it was doing something to my character to which my character would respond. A very simple, adversarial, totally verbal, roleplaying game.

Eventually, it became more sophisticated, kind of like Dungeon and Dragons, but with only two players and no dice, just our imaginations. The games were largely centered on his interests at the time, which included Minecraft. It also included whatever he was watching or reading. I’d add my virtual two cents worth and plug in anything from my imagination and childhood.

His sister wanted to play with us, but there’s a six-year age gap between the two of them and she was too young.

Our games ended up fueling about two-and-a-half years of stories on my blog (you can still look them up) as well as my first two published short stories. It was loads of fun.

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Gene Wilder Dead at 83

wilder

Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein (1974)

Not the sort of thing I normally write about here, but Wilder was an incredible comic talent. I became most aware of Wilder through two films, Blazing Saddles (1974) and Young Frankenstein (1974), both directed by Mel Brooks. I suppose the latter film somewhat justifies me posting my thoughts about Wilder here since it was adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein.

Oddly enough, of all the film adaptations of Shelley’s novel over the years (decades), Brooks’ depiction is the most faithful to the book in terms of plot (Okay, loosely faithful).

I love trivia, so I’ll share some. The lab equipment seen in “Young Frankenstein” was the same equipment in the 1931 film directed by James Whale, who also directed The Invisible Man (1933) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Of course, none of that has to do with Wilder.

I realize that everybody and their pet snake Reggie will be blogging and otherwise bombarding social media about Wilder’s death for the next few days to a week, so my one small voice adds little.

Still, he’s responsible for making me laugh, which is increasingly necessary in this rather grim world we live in, so I’m grateful. I own both “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein” as DVDs, so I may need to devote some time to watching them again.

Thanks for a life devoted to making people laugh, Gene. You’re the best.

You can read a more proper obituary at Variety.