I attended Barry Eisler's book release at Kepler's in Menlo Park last Thursday. The Last Assassin is the fifth book in his six-book John Rain series. I wasn't going to mention it until I finished reading the novel, but with a stack of unread library books accumulating dust (and potential late fees) at home, I have no idea when that will be. June would be nice. July is more likely.

One reason why the books remain unread is that I watched two baseball movies on Friday and Saturday. The first was Eight Men Out, a film about the Black Sox scandal where players from the unstoppable Chicago White Sox took money from gamblers to lose the 1919 World Series. The second was Billy Crystal's 61*, the story of Roger Maris' and Mickey Mantle's 1961 pursuit of Babe Ruth's single season home run record. I want to write more about both films, but feel rather pressed for time now, so I'll just say I enjoyed them.

Another reason I didn't read is that I saw X-Men: The Last Stand on Sunday. I went in with high hopes, but came out rather disappointed. From the previews, I thought the film had potential. A government-funded laboratory announces a "cure" for the mutant gene. At the same time, Jean Grey (a.k.a. The Phoenix) returns. What happens next? Well, to me, what happened next was a muddled mess. If the two plotlines were dance partners, they were stepping all over each other's toes. They didn't move well together and actually seemed to hinder one another. Certain elements that worked in the previous installments seemed diluted in this one: the rivalry between Charles Xavier and Magneto, the love triangle involving Jean Grey, Cyclops and Wolverine. Even the tension between the government and mutants seemed watered down. And at times, it felt as though events unfolded a specific way, not for the sake of the story, but for the sake of showing off mutant abilities.