Review: Kill Your Darlings (2013)

“Some things, once you’ve loved them, become yours forever./And if you try to let them go… /They only circle back and return to you./They become part of who you are…”
– Allen Ginsberg

SYNOPSIS: A murder in 1944 draws together the great poets of the beat generation: Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs. – via IMDB

Kill Your Darlings is a good biographical drama. I remember when it came some people had written it off as slow and dull, so I eventually ended up putting this off for a while. Let me tell you, I am glad I finally got to it. I thought that it was a solid film that was well shot and studded with an exceptional cast that delivered fantastic performances all round. Dane DeHaan was mesmerising as Lucien Carr. Everything about him oozed a certain vulnerability, yet he was confident and was incredibly sensual. He exuded confidence, drew you in, made you fall in love with him too, yet have your illusions broken the same time as others. He really was perfectly cast. Daniel Radcliffe impressed me again, which is no surprise. Take him out of Harry Potter and he is amazing, I think he has some real talent. He was timid, afraid, intelligent, and soon he just grew into a whole different type of person with Lucien. Not in a bad way, either, it is just that he came out of his shell. It was good to see Michael C Hall in something again, I enjoy his work. Jack Huston played Jack Kerouac very well, I do quite like him as an actor and wish he was in more things. I am not the most clued up on the history involved with this, though it interested me enough to do some reading at some point. Maybe I was more fond of this due to liking literature, writing, thinking outside the box, all of that, and while it might not have been put together as well as it could have been and misses some things here and there, I had a good time watching this, and can recommend it, if not for the performances alone.

Review: Hot Summer Nights (2017)

“You can’t hold on to everything.”
– McKayla

SYNOPSIS: In the summer of 1991, a sheltered teenage boy comes of age during a wild summer he spends in Cape Cod getting rich from selling pot to gangsters, falling in love for the first time, partying and eventually realizing that he is in over his head. – via IMDB

So I moved this up on my watch list because I adore Timothée Chalamet and I also thoroughly enjoy Maika Monroe, so the talent alone had me like “hells yeah” on this. I had no preconceived ideas about Hot Summer Nights, I remember reading about it before it came and thinking to add it to my watch list because I liked the cast, and A24 has churned out some pretty good movies over the years, then I kind of forgot about it. But then I saw it again and I was like “oh yeah!”.

Hot Summer Nights is a mixed bag. It’s carried by amazing performances from the cast, and it looks great – the outfits of the time, the stylish way it’s shot, the colours, everything on that front works for it. I even like the soundtrack, though at times it just felt like someone wanted to cram as much nostalgic/relevant music of the time to set the scene, which sometimes kinda just dragged you out of the whole affair sometimes? Chalamet was (as expected), fantastic. Honestly. Maika Monroe, too, impressed me (as always), and the two of them just looked gorgeous together. Alex Roe (a newcomer for me) was solid, too. He doesn’t have the most extensive filmography and I am not sure why, I thought he was rather good. I really liked them all, and watching them all.

Where the movie is let down is the paper thin story. For reals. It could have been so much more, weaving a coming of age story into this summer and seeing how it would all come together. But that opportunity was wasted. Also, these guys grow their pot sales empire, but never really addresses the how. We are told it is happening, we see the money, but we don’t get anything more than that. It just leaves holes and questions. Thomas Jane, too, is underused in this.

Anyway, Hot Summer Nights is a decent watch. The performances alone are worth a look see, and it’s not a terrible movie. It just doesn’t have an awful lot of substance to it at the end of the day. Not your typical coming of age movie, but I liked it enough.

Review: Thirteen – Steve Cavanagh

Eddie Flynn #4

I received this book in exchange for an honest review. 

SYNOPSIS: They were Hollywood’s hottest power couple. They had the world at their feet. Now one of them is dead and Hollywood star Robert Solomon is charged with the brutal murder of his beautiful wife.

This is the celebrity murder trial of the century and the defence want one man on their team: con artist turned lawyer Eddie Flynn.

All the evidence points to Robert’s guilt, but as the trial begins a series of sinister incidents in the court room start to raise doubts in Eddie’s mind.

What if there’s more than one actor in the courtroom?

What if the killer isn’t on trial? What if the killer is on the jury? – via Goodreads

You know, this book impressed me because I really didn’t expect much from it at all. I did not know that it was a part of a series because it didn’t read like it was. Sure, references are made which will likely make way more sense if you have read the other books in the series, but did not stand out as an issue while reading, like you were missing something. Mentions of past actions or characters, etc. just felt like musings in the book, or indicators of how certain things came together, and it is rare that a book in a series can be read so successfully as a standalone.

Okay, now that I have marvelled the ability of the novel as a standalone, let’s get to the story itself. It was quite an interesting one, though it does require you suspend reality altogether, otherwise you are going to have a bad time. The pacing is super fast, and the book barrels along, which makes for an entertaining and fast read. The plot is constantly twisting and turning (albeit predictably at times), it is still fun. There are also quite a few characters to like in here.

It was pretty cool to read about this crazypants killer, but the reality of the killer did not quite live up to my expectations completely, but then again, maybe that is just due to the “suspend belief” thing. I found Thirteen to be quite a solid book for the story it tells. I liked it enough that I would happily check out other books in the series at some point. I would definitely recommend Thirteen if you are looking for a fast paced, crazy thriller, as it will definitely deliver on those fronts.

Review: Rocketman (2019)

“Real love’s hard to come by. So you find a way to cope without it.”
– Elton John

SYNOPSIS: A musical fantasy about the fantastical human story of Elton John’s breakthrough years. – via IMDB

Well, this certainly wasn’t Bohemian Rhapsody. Not that I really expected that per se, because I did watch the preview and I wasn’t sold then, but I didn’t think it would be quite so… bland and generic?

Bryce Dallas Howard knocks it out of the park. Honestly, what a reprehensible character. Excellent. However, that does not detract from the fact that the characters were all incredibly one-dimensional. Taron Egerton and Jamie Bell both perform admirably in their roles, and are the only two with actual fleshed out characters. The costumes were really well designed, and really reminds you how Elton John was this larger than life character.

One thing that really got under my skin is how this movie squeezed these bizarre musical numbers in between everything, making the movie not flamboyant or musical enough to be a musical, but the musical numbers were jarring enough to yank you out of the narrative every single time, leaving you with the feeling that the movie couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be. I know some have praised the choice of it being a musical fantasy, but it just didn’t quite work for me.

Anyway, as you can tell, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this movie. It is not the worst thing you will ever sit down to watch, but it certainly feels like an extremely one-sided story. The music is really good, the performances are fine, but the movie is long and, ultimately, won’t really be remembered.

Review: Call Me By Your Name (2017)

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new.”
– Mr Perlman

SYNOPSIS: In 1980s Italy, a romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father’s research assistant. – via IMDB

I recently popped this on to watch – I remember when it came out, people raved about it, and I always said that I would get to it and then, you know, life. But then it was on Netflix and I had some chill time and I figured “why not?” and let me tell you, I had no idea what I was in for whatsoever.

Call Me By Your Name is a visually stunning movie. Honestly, it is just beautiful to look at, and it has the feeling of a memory, this charming look back into a summer in the eighties, and I loved that. It almost feels dreamy, and everything just seems to chilled and summery. The music also comes in and just vibes with everything going on. It is never too in your face, but totally the shaping the experience.

Then there is the main meat of the story, and that is (obviously) Elio and Oliver. You get swept up into this story, watching a young boy coming to terms with his blossoming sexuality, and an older research assistant of Elio’s father very much the object of desire. To watch the back and forth between Hammer and Chalamet is very rewarding. You see that while Elio comes across as very cultured and smart, there are still larges swathes of innocence for him. You also see that while Oliver is a confident young man, he, too, has struggles with his feelings towards Elio and the situation in general.

Michael Stuhlbarg is fantastic in this, and it is so lovely to watch him with his family and the relationship he has with his son. It is fantastic to watch his scenes, and I thought the family dynamics between mother, father, and son were wonderful.

Call Me By Your Name creates a beautifully sensual movie that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure. It is an emotional journey you undertake and enjoy throughout. This is a movie about first love, not just sexuality, and will resonate with many people. I highly recommend it, it is a beautiful watch and it has lingered with me after the fact. I have bought the book and audiobook already because I just need more of this!

Being Human (U.S.): Season 1 (2011)

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*

What I liked:

• Sally, Josh, and Aidan becoming so tight, especially after the guys initially tried to send Sally away.
• Tony helping Sally to be a more interesting ghost. This was quite amusing for me.

• Josh and Aidan’s struggle to be normal can be quite amusing at the best of times. Things work, and then they don’t, and then there are, of course, these insane complications. Makes for an interesting watch.
• Josh and Nora and their super quirky, strange relationship – it’s hilarious, and they really click quite well.

• Josh’s facial expressions are pure gold.
• The intricate relationship between Bishop and Aidan. You get glimpses of it throughout the season, and while you don’t get far too much depth from it, you get enough to know it’s actually quite good.
• This dinner scene, that went from amusing to hilarious (convince the family Josh is not a werewolf, let the vampire consume garlic, and wham, there we have it):

• Josh reconnecting with his family was also a good thing – the show didn’t drag it out for forever and six days, when it would have lost its impact.
• Sally’s death reveal – sheesh, that was some crazy stuff, but I think it was handled really well.

What I didn’t like:

• Rebecca. This character just grated on me. So many of my complaints about this season come purely from her, and her antics.
• Ray, and how  he tried so hard to split Josh and Aidan apart when they are such besties.
• The camera work is a little sketchy at the best of times.
• Sally really can make everything about herself.
• Rebecca and Aidan being painted as this epic love story confused me. They were not that tight before she passed, they were not that tight after she was turned, but we are supposed to buy into them being each others everything? CONFUSED.

Rating:

The first time my husband and I watched this show (although the rewatches have just been me), we put it on as a filler something to play on the TV while we munched some junk food and chilled. What happened, however, was us burning through five episodes and getting to bed late (it was a weeknight) because we got hooked. I had it for a while but the premise just sounds absurd: “A vampire, a ghost, and a werewolf live together in an apartment and try to be normal”. It sounded so silly, and yet, when you watch it, it just works.

The show is so stupidly entertaining, but I can’t get enough of it, flaws and all. I think it is a crying shame that it was cancelled what with only four seasons. I know that this is based on a U.K. show of the same title, but that I have never watched. After this, I don’t know if I can ever watch it. This is actually quite a solid introductory season, and it has a smaller budget, sure, you can see this, but it never really detracts from the entertainment. I quite enjoy the characters, or I do, for the most part.

Sally, while she can be annoying and supremely self-centred, is also very sweet and exceptionally loyal. Then there is Josh, who is constantly overthinking things, but he is smart and quirky. Aidan brings up the last leg of this trio, and is the character I enjoy the most, because he is (so far) the most layered of the lot, but I suppose it is easier to create a more complicated character if they have been around for a few hundred years. Aidan is constantly sorting everything out for Josh and Sally where he can, being the loyal friend, pushing them to do more, to be more, always being supportive, but is also the one that gets the most flak if something goes wrong, which I really don’t think is fair. He is judged the harshest all the time, and expected to be perfect, when he is just a flawed individual.

Anyway, the show also has its share of superbly irritating characters – Rebecca and Marcus definitely top my list here. For one, Marcus was jealous and competitive and whiny, not to mention he did’t have a backbone. Then there was Rebecca. She was just some chick Aidan went out with one night, banged, and killed. Yes, that is bad, but then the show paints it like some epic love story when she comes back to life (thanks to Bishop) and all. I just didn’t get it. I could have bought into it if they just left it as a purely sexual thing, but they tried to force emotion into it the whole time and that was just awkward. Not to mention, she does super questionable things. The worst was when she turned Bernie, which crushed Aidan, who was forced to kill Bernie, and then Rebecca was all torn up like she had lost everything when she knew this kid all of one day? I don’t get it man!

The effects are a little dodgy, sometimes the pacing is a little off, but Being Human is packed with awkward humour, is tons of fun to follow, and has three great leads that carry this show really well, making it one heck of an entertaining watch, something I definitely didn’t initially believe it had any right to be.

Review: Dangerous Lady – Martina Cole

Maura Ryan #1

SYNOPSIS: No one thinks a seventeen-year-old girl can take on the hard men of London’s gangland, but it’s a mistake to underestimate Maura Ryan: she’s tough, clever and beautiful —and she’s determined that nothing will stand in her way. Which makes her one very dangerous lady.

Together, she and her brother Michael are unbeatable: the Queen and King of organised crime, they run the pubs and clubs, the prostitutes and pimps of the West End. With Maura masterminding it, they pull off an audacious gold bullion robbery and have much of the Establishment in their pockets.

But notoriety has its price. The police are determined to put Maura away once and for all —and not everyone in the family thinks that’s such a bad idea. When it comes to the crunch, Maura has to face the pain of lost love in her past —and the dangerous lady discovers her heart is not made entirely of stone. – via Goodreads

 

Oh man, I haven’t read these books since I was in high school, and I recently got a library card for the library down the road from me (amazing, first one I have had since I was a young girl). When I saw this on the shelf, I was like REREAD TIME! It had been so long that I remembered bits and pieces, and thought it was time to look at the overall whole again. So damn pleased I did.

Martina Cole usually writes about the gritty London underbelly, and I read a lot of her books in high school. They won’t be for everyone. However, I do feel that this book stands above her others (and I am not a huge fan of her work in general). It’s excellent. Dangerous Lady is a masterfully crafted affair. It is a whole family that rises above, takes over London, rules over an empire. You all know how I love my mobster style stories. This was no exception.

There are an abundance of characters littered throughout this book, but you never get lost and forget them, and I feel that that alone is masterfully crafted. Maura, too, is a fantastic character. She is a unique character, a strong woman, who rose higher than what society said she was allowed to for her era. She is complex, and remains so throughout. The relationship between her and Michael is really something, too, as those two are thick as thieves.

The writing flows smoothly and the way the plot is presented and how time advances throughout the novel to tell the story of the Ryan family is good, too. It just fits. You cannot help but be drawn into this world, and it comes across and gritty, dangerous, and wholly believable. It just draws you in. The book doesn’t have a whole lot of twists, but that is alright. This is more of a family drama that comes to power and just overall great to read, especially when you take into consideration how old Cole was when she wrote this.

Overall Dangerous Lady is an absolutely absorbing read, has a great story and an array of characters and situations that will keep you hooked and it just barrels along. I loved every second of it and highly recommend this.

Review: Oldboy (2013)

“I’ve been thinking about it for the last twenty years.”
– Joe Doucett

SYNOPSIS: Obsessed with vengeance, a man sets out to find out why he was kidnapped and locked into solitary confinement for twenty years without reason. – via IMDB

Okay, so, unpopular opinion time! I liked this rendition of Oldboy. I have seen the original, but I was not enamoured. True story. I thought this one was pretty entertaining, so I thought that one had to be better (it’s all you ever hear when this comes up), and I did not think this was the case.

Oldboy was relatively well constructed. I thought that Josh Brolin did a good job playing Joe. His transformation was touching. He was such a damned twat in the beginning, I could not stand him. He had nothing good or positive going for him, and I had no pity for him. I just thought him a world class loser. His imprisonment was also quite intense. Initially I was just like oh whatever, but later it became terribly sad.

Joe’s spiral into some insanity was heartbreaking, how the loneliness got to him, brought him to his knees, and how he had to cope. The rat scene (and if you have seen this you will know what I am talking about) was just rough. Sure, there were holes in this film, too (a big one for me – planning his escape for the very day he was going to be let out, anyhow), but if you don’t focus on the issues too much and just watch the movie, the story it tells is quite good.

Anyway, Oldboy definitely has some issues, but it is not the worst thing you will ever watch. I thought it came together well as was a decent watch. Far better than the original, if you ask me

Review: Sully: Miracle on the Hudson (2016)

“Everything is unprecedented until it happens for the first time.”
– Chesley “Sully” Sullengerger

SYNOPSIS: The story of Chesley Sullenberger, an American pilot who became a hero after landing his damaged plane on the Hudson River in order to save the flight’s passengers and crew. – via IMDB

So chilling around the other day, I decided it was time to watch this. Obviously I know the story, but not in too much depth or anything like that, so figured this would be a good yardstick. Plus, Tom Hanks. I think he’s fantastic and would watch him in anything.

I didn’t think Sully was the greatest movie ever, but I did think that what Captain Sullenberger did that day was truly amazing. As the movie points out, you only ever see bad news nowadays, so to see a success story is always nice. Tom Hanks was excellent, as always, and was well worth watching. Aaron Eckhart, too, was solid and played well alongside Hanks. Comparing the actual photos at the end of the movie to what Eastwood delivered, too, is good, because it looked exactly like what had happened.

Sully is a quick watch, and so never overstays its welcome. It tells the story and gets you involved with the investigation into that fateful flight, and it is interesting to see how the investigation was going, and how it ultimately turned around. I don’t necessarily know if I will ever go back to watch Sully, but it was a decent watch with a strong cast and was done well.

Review: The Chalk Man – C.J. Tudor

SYNOPSIS: None of us ever agreed on the exact beginning.

Was it when we started drawing the chalk figures, or when they started to appear on their own?

Was it the terrible accident?

Or when they found the first body? – via Goodreads

So my extreme book hangover following The Infernal Device trilogy left me confused and lost. I was floundering when Luke recommended I check out The Chalk Man. As I am one who takes suggestion seriously, I rooted around my Kindle until I found it again and set out to see what it was all about, as I remember rave reviews for it and a lot of advertising for it when it was originally released.

The Chalk Man reads very easily. It is slow paced and uses this to set up a pretty damn creepy vibe; it’s hopeless and damning and draws you in. It is not necessarily a scary book, and not the most fascinating, yet it keeps you going the whole way through. The story juggles two timelines, and this is one of those times were both timelines were handled well. There was not too much of the one or too little of the other. They trundled along neatly and it all worked out.

I don’t feel that the book featured an awful lot of likeable characters though. Okay, so maybe none. They all sucked, and reading about the constant alcoholism was also a little much at times. The story gives its secrets up bit by bit, and it works. The book was insanely bigged up here from the marketing and all, so I was a little wary that it might fall flat, but this was not the case. Okay, so maybe not the most amazing book ever as it was proclaimed to be or anything, but I had no regrets checking it out. I had a good time reading it. I liked how easy it was to read and how engaging the story was, even though at times it was a little predictable.

I think that The Chalk Man is also really well written, especially when you find out after the fact that this is a debut novel. I will certainly be keeping my eyes peeled for more of Tudor’s work, and I can recommend this for a read. While I might not be as hyped for this as some were, it is definitely worth a read. Thanks for the recommendation Luke!