Watched, Read, Reviewed: March 2023

Happy April! Here’s what I watched in March. I managed to post reviews of all the movies already, so I’ve included the links to the full reviews. How fucking organised am I?! 🙂

MOVIES WATCHED IN MARCH (ranked best to worst):

– Elvis – Really enjoyed this despite it being a very flawed film. Austin Butler was fantastic (sad he didn’t win the Oscar), Tom Hanks was terrible, and I’m not an Elvis fan but it gave me more of an appreciation of him & how he was taken advantage of. – 7.5/10

– Fall – This was so dumb and so cheesy and so predictable and I enjoyed it so much more than the vast majority of films I’ve watched in the past year. It was exactly what I was expecting & wanting and you can guarantee I’ll watch the sequel just announced. Kind of loved it. – 7.5/10

– Where The Crawdads Sing – How is Marsh Girl less socially awkward than I am?! She’s also far too pretty & miraculously smart & of course learns how to read in a heartwarming montage & accomplishes far more in life than most of us ever will. But I liked her and I liked the nice boyfriend & the couple from the town who helped her and I liked the story & ending. One of the better films I’ve seen so far this year. – 7.5/10

– A Hard Day’s Night – I’m a huge music fan & absolutely love The Beatles. This was a lot of fun. I loved how much goofy fun John Lennon was having and Ringo Starr’s storyline was the best and his so-bad-it’s-good acting ended up being one of my favorite things about this. I want to watch everything else they did now. They seemed to be having a blast making this. – 7.5/10

– Cocaine Bear – I thoroughly enjoyed this. But it wasn’t good. I absolutely love horror comedy & this was unfortunately very weak in comparison to the really great movies we’ve had in this genre. It could’ve used a lot more comedy & stronger characters. But, dammit, I still got plenty of enjoyment out of seeing a bear high on cocaine. – 7/10

– Scream VI – I’d say this reboot (or requel if I must use that stupid word) has worked quite well for me and I think Scream 5 was a good introduction of the Scream series to a new generation of younger fans. At first, I was maybe enjoying this one a little more than number 5 and I liked the city setting (which they could have done SO much more with) but this one fell apart for me at the end. Overall, I think 5 was a stronger film but they’re both a good start to some new Scream films & I look forward to another. – 7/10

– Boston Strangler – Thought this was a bit too good for straight-to-streaming. I liked this far more than I was expecting despite it being the “murder” genre I don’t like. It may be because it didn’t dwell or linger too much on the murders and wasn’t too graphic. It was more from the viewpoint of these two female reporters trying to cover this story & of course encountering difficulties being women in that profession back in the 1960s. I liked that approach & liked this more than some films in this genre that feel far too exploitative when it comes to true crime with real victims. – 7/10

– Marcel The Shell With Shoes On – This was sweet & wholesome. Was expecting to love it but thought it was just okay. Of the Animated Oscar nominees this year, Pinocchio was definitely the best so I’m glad it won. – 7/10

– To Leslie – Am a bit baffled by the huge amount of celebrity praise for this as it’s a quite average “addiction movie” that we’ve seen many times. Think Andrea Riseborough was worthy of her Oscar nomination, though, as she did give a really good performance. She was especially good in the second half of the movie. Worth checking out for Riseborough and for the second half of the film, which ended up winning me over with a strong ending. – 7/10

– Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania – Enjoyed this but can see why plenty of people didn’t. I don’t mind the more “out there” & slightly weird MCU films but am assuming this one was just too weird for the more mainstream Marvel crowd. It’s a bit dumb but it’s saved by Paul Rudd being likeable as Ant-Man (as always) and Michelle Pfeiffer having a large role and being awesome (as always). She was great in this & my favorite thing about the film. I had some fun with it but it’s still feeling like they should’ve stopped after Endgame. – 6.5/10

– The Black Phone – Was desperate to see this as I’m a big fan of Joe Hill. Was disappointed with this film. While there were some things I really appreciated, such as the great performances from the two main child stars (Mason Thames & Madeleine McGraw) & Ethan Hawke’s creepy performance & masks, the film was just too slow & quite dull considering I thought it was a simple yet brilliant story. As I like the story & was impressed by the performances it was still worth the watch. – 6.5/10

– Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – I’ll just say that this movie starts out okay & I think the characters are very strong but I lost interest in the middle and the whole thing was just a bit messy. I’m just getting bored with these average MCU films. – 6.5/10

– Bodies Bodies Bodies – I did hate this & the extremely annoying characters at first but it kind of grew on me as the death toll mounted and I did really like how it ended. But these assholes were still just far too annoying. There’s not a chance in hell that I’d ever sit through this movie a second time. Entertaining enough for a one-off watch, though, and as I said I appreciated its ending. And I did think Maria Bakalova was pretty good. I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m finally too old for this shit. – 6/10

– Triangle Of Sadness – I now have a least favorite Best Picture nominee out of the six I’ve seen for this year. EEAAO was my previous least favorite so I’m feeling very out of touch as I can’t quite figure out what people saw in these. What am I missing? The rich people puke & shit all over the place and I didn’t really see what point the movie was trying to make. That rich people suck?! Like, duh. No shit. Whatever – I reviewed it in full at the link – 5.5/10

– Come True – I love a good obscure sci-fi film with an interesting concept so this sounded right up my alley. Soon realised that the “slow burn” mentioned in so many reviews was due to nothing happening until the very end. Which can be okay sometimes if that ending is amazing but this one was a let down. But I appreciate that films like this get made and I think this one shows some promise. Am sure it has some fans even though it didn’t really work for me. – 5.5/10

Movies Rewatched In March:

– Ghost – Had the urge to rewatch this one as I liked it a lot when it came out in high school & I have fond memories of seeing it on a double date. I think it holds up well & that Whoopi Goldberg is just fantastic in it. Still like the story in this movie a lot, the romance is good if you like that kind of thing, the baddie is oh so hateful, and Whoopi adds perfect comedic relief. They just don’t make such all-around entertaining films like this anymore. – 8/10

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS IN MARCH

Watched quite a few TV shows but doing horribly on reading books this year…

TV SHOWS WATCHED

– The Mandalorian: S3 E1-5 – The Grogu Show is back!!!! I don’t feel like reviewing this yet. Maybe when the series is fully finished. But, seriously, I only truly care about Grogu in all honesty. I love that adorable little dude with all my heart. Grogu trying to cuddle that Babu Frik species dude almost made my heart explode.

– The Last Of Us: S1 E8-9 – Enjoyed this show, despite it being a bit too The Walking Dead at times. Looking forward to the next one but, apparently, it’s going to be very different? So who knows. I know nothing whatsoever about the game. Gonna be hard to avoid spoilers before the next one comes out in however many years.

– South Park: S26 E1-6 – Not sure why we’ve missed a lot of South Park in recent years as we always enjoy it. Tend to watch an episode when we hear about a specific one that interests us. In this case it was The Worldwide Privacy Tour, which was great. Also thought the ChatGPT episode Deep Learning was pretty brilliant. Enjoying watching this show regularly again.

– Schitt’s Creek: S1 E1-11 – Wanted another half hour sitcom to replace my beloved new discovery of Community last year (which we still rewatch). This isn’t laugh-out-loud funny like Community & not one I’d ever rewatch in the same way & have favorite specific episodes of etc etc. But it’s an enjoyable enough watch and the characters are really growing on me. Almost done with season 1 already. It’s kind of a “leave it on in the background or while eating supper” show. Which sounds insulting but isn’t meant to be…

– Square Pegs: S1 E1 – Decided to rewatch another ’80s TV show pilot on YouTube. Been enjoying that as don’t see American TV reruns here (except for Friends & The Simpsons – holy shit, they’re always on). This was SO fucking ’80s. Valley girl speak, young Sarah Jessica Parker, pre-Lost Boys Jamie Gertz, and a performance from The Waitresses (they did the theme song too). Not a good show but still a fun bit of nostalgia.

– Bill Bailey: Larks In Transit – Loved this! Happy the hubby & I found this on services when looking for something to watch as we’ve always enjoyed Bailey’s wacky sense of humor & had a lot of fun going to one of his shows. For some reason I’ve never liked many comedians & don’t watch a lot of stand-up but Bailey always absolutely cracks me up. Such a brilliant musician and smart as hell as well. And hilariously nuts. Can see him not being for everyone, though. I’d maybe recommend him to you, Film Miasma. Not sure! But we both like Community… 🙂 Looks like this whole show is on YouTube here (but don’t know if it’ll play outside the U.K.)

BOOKS READ

I’m halfway through reading Watership Down by Richard Adams. Good but, man, that’s one long book about bunnies! So I’m taking a break & reading something lightweight now (from a new favorite author – C.J. Tudor) then will go back to the bunnies.

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

Maybe I’ll post some individual reviews again after putting them on Letterboxd. If I have the energy. Which is unlikely in my old age.

Upcoming Movies I Want To See:

I see that Nope, Resurrection & Piggy are all coming to one of my services end of April so I’m excited about that. And hoping to go see John Wick 4.

I normally end on some music from a movie I watched but I might as well post Bill Bailey’s Larks In Transit here as well while it’s still available. It’s full of great music anyway. Especially love his heavy metal while walking around his house… 🙂

Fall (2022), The Black Phone (2021), Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) & Come True (2020) Reviews

Four quickies today! One movie I thoroughly enjoyed, one I found disappointing, one full of the most annoying & hateful twats imaginable, and one that was sadly not very good despite the poster & plot synopsis sounding intriguing.

Fall (2022)

Directed by Scott Mann

Starring: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Mason Gooding, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Darrell Dennis

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
The film is about two women who climb a 2,000 foot (610 m) tall radio tower and become stranded at the top. Dumb bitches! (that dumb bitches part isn’t via Wikipedia – that’s via Me)

My Opinion:

This was so dumb and so cheesy and so predictable and I enjoyed it so much more than the vast majority of films I’ve watched in the past year. It was exactly what I was expecting & wanting and you can guarantee I’ll watch the sequel just announced. I have an intense fear of heights so knew I wouldn’t be watching this in the cinema but that I’d watch it on a little screen the second it showed up on services. I do love “how the hell are they gonna get out of this crazy predicament” films. Is there a name for this genre of film?! We need more of them. I want more. Any recommendations for similar films? I’ll watch them all!

Oh. And I just wanted to add that I LOVE Converse & have had a pair in most every color but I fell on my ass on some slightly slippery cobblestones once because Converse are slippery as fuck. Are they really the shoe of choice for expert climbers?! I’m guessing not. But what do I know? Other than the fact that climbing up a tower like this is probably not a good idea, of course.

My Rating: 7.5/10 (I enjoyed this so much I was tempted to give it an 8/10 but it’s not a “good” enough film for an 8)

The Black Phone (2021)

Directed by Scott Derrickson

Based on “The Black Phone” by Joe Hill

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, James Ransone

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
In the film, an abducted teenager (Thames) uses a mysterious telephone to communicate with the previous victims of his deranged captor (Hawke).

My Opinion:

Been desperate to see this as I’m a big fan of Joe Hill (and his father Stephen King, of course). Was disappointed with this film. While there were some things I really appreciated, such as the great performances from the two main child stars (Mason Thames & Madeleine McGraw – will be on the lookout for them in future projects), the film was just too slow & quite dull considering I thought it was a simple yet brilliant story. It was too obvious that it was a short story stretched into a film. Thought Ethan Hawke was effectively creepy & liked the mask.

The film just didn’t quite work and I can’t figure out exactly why as there are some great elements to it plus I always love a ‘70s or ‘80s setting. As I like the story a lot & was impressed by the performances it was certainly worth the watch. My expectations were maybe just too high as I was hoping to love this.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Directed by Halina Reijn

Starring: Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Myha’la Herrold, Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace, Pete Davidson

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
When a group of rich 20-somethings plan a hurricane party at a remote family mansion, a party game turns deadly in this fresh and funny look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very, very wrong.

My Opinion:

Mixed feelings on this. Admit I expected to hate it as I’d heard that the characters were hateful (and, my god, they sure as shit are) and I can’t stand movies filled with nothing but annoying assholes. But that sometimes works for horror as we get to see the fuckers die, right?

I did hate this at first but it kind of grew on me as the death toll mounted and I did really like how it ended. Plus I like shit that glows in the dark. So I initially gave this half a point more but then changed it back after thinking about the movie a bit more. Because, I’m sorry, these assholes were just far too annoying. There’s not a chance in hell that I’d ever sit through this movie a second time. Entertaining enough for a one-off watch, though, and as I said I appreciated its ending. And I did think Maria Bakalova was pretty good. I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m finally too old for this shit.

My Rating: 6/10

Come True (2020)

Directed by Anthony Scott Burns

Starring: Julia Sarah Stone, Landon Liboiron

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
The film plot follows a teenage runaway who takes part in a sleep study that becomes a nightmarish descent into the depths of her mind and a frightening examination of the power of dreams.

My Opinion:

I love a good obscure sci-fi film with an interesting concept so this sounded right up my alley. Plus the poster was cool. Soon realised that the “slow burn” mentioned in so many reviews was due to nothing happening until the very end. Which can be okay sometimes if that ending is amazing but this one was a let down. Sort of felt like this would’ve been better as a short film as it had a good look & mood but not enough story. But I appreciate that films like this get made and I think this one shows some promise. Am sure it has some fans even though it didn’t really work for me.

I watch a lot of movies like this and sometimes find an absolute gem. This reminded me of a great obscure sci-fi film that did work for me that I’m always recommending & that absolutely no one I know has watched. If you like this kind of thing, check out The Frame (2014).

My Rating: 5.5/10

Watched, Read, Reviewed: March 2020

Hi all. Hope everyone is well & keeping safe.

I haven’t posted any of these monthly updates since February. Obviously, it all seems a bit pointless at the moment. I’m not watching many “new to me” films anyway since I seem to be sticking with movies I’ve already seen & know that I like or think the kid would like. I’ve still kept these monthly lists in my drafts, though, so I might as well catch up on posting them. I’ll keep my thoughts brief (I can’t remember much after five months anyway). Here’s what I watched & read back in March 2020…

MOVIES REVIEWED IN MARCH

– Onward – Last film I watched in the cinema. I reviewed it in full at the link. Enjoyed it but a weak entry from Pixar. – 7/10

MOVIES WATCHED IN MARCH (ranked best to worst)

– This Boy’s Life – Been wanting to check this out for years to see the performances from Robert De Niro & a young Leonardo DiCaprio. Actually didn’t know beforehand that it was about author Tobias Wolff (played by DiCaprio). I then thought “Oh, I read his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test!” But, never mind, that was written by Tom Wolfe. I know nothing about Tobias Wolff (except that his stepdad, played by De Niro, was a bit of an asshole). Well, they both delivered the expected good performances but biographical dramas have never really been my thing. It’s a good film but not one I’d watch again. – 7/10

– Four Flies On Grey Velvet (4 mosche di velluto grigio) – Was excited to see this Dario Argento film available on Amazon Prime as I’ve been wanting to explore more of the Italian giallo horror thing since finding Phenomena interesting then thinking Deep Red was pretty damn great. Was super disappointed that Four Flies was only available dubbed in English. Argh! I hate when films are dubbed. It’s distracting & definitely ruins the film but, meh – I was in lockdown so I watched it anyway. It’s certainly nowhere near the level of Deep Red or Suspiria. As usual, there was some imagery I liked (like that doll thing up there – I love a creepy doll thing & Argento clearly does too). Shit, I dunno – I remember almost nothing about this five months later whereas I remember all of Deep Red plus its brilliant score. At least the story was ALMOST coherent in Four Flies, which I can’t say for all of Argento’s stuff (especially Inferno, which is later in this list). It also had a truly silly but fun way in which the killer got discovered so I guess I’ll give it an extra point for that. But if you’re new to Argento just watch Deep Red, which is his most accessible film. – 6.5/10

– All The Bright Places – I liked this YA novel a lot. I admit I read waaaaaay too many YA books but this was definitely one of my favorites when it comes to the romance/drama side of the genre. It had very strong characters & it left me feeling emotionally drained in a way that many YA books don’t manage as so many of them feel a bit shallow. So I highly recommend the book to fans of YA along the lines of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, etc. The film adaptation, though? Meh. Disappointing. I didn’t feel they captured the characters at all, especially the boy & it was extremely important to get him right. You can feel his pain & desperation in the book but the film character left me a bit cold. To be fair, I don’t think this is the actor’s fault as he’s such a complex character that they never would have been able to bring to the screen in the same way. Overall, it’s an okay film so I’m sure people like it but I know just how good the book is so I’m hoping people will read the book first. Then, yes, it’s worth seeing the adaptation afterwards if you’re interested. – 6.5/10

– Dark Shadows – This was the ONLY Tim Burton-directed film I’d not seen so I finally checked it out. Ugh. I suppose I should update my Tim Burton Movie Rankings HERE but I’m too lazy at the moment. It’s probably second or third to last anyway. What a huge disappointment, especially after it started out okay. Then it all went to shit in the final third. I did enjoy the ensemble cast, though – I do love Michelle Pfeiffer & am happy that (I think?) we’re allowed to like Johnny Depp again (Are we?! Hard to keep track these days). Alice Cooper was also in this (as Alice Cooper). So, bonus points for that since I love Cooper (even though the cameo was stupid and felt forced into the story – it worked much better in Wayne’s World!). The story was just messy and the characters were hateful. Eva Green is sexy but her psycho slut character was just dumb. Meh. Whatever. I’ll give it an okay score since, as I said, it started out okay plus it had some style, as to be expected from Burton. And Alice Cooper is in it. – 6/10

– Inferno (1980) – Again, I was excited to see a Dario Argento film was going to be showing on TV on Film4. I don’t have a way to record anymore so, as it was the start of lockdown & everything was shit, I was determined to stay up to watch this at its 1:30am showtime. Not worth it!! Damn. First of all, this was ALSO dubbed. What? Why?? Let’s be honest – only proper film nerds are gonna watch foreign films in the middle of the night and film nerds want subtitles. So, again, this will have hurt my enjoyment of this one. When I mentioned that Four Flies was somewhat coherent (as far as Argento films go)? Inferno was an incoherent mess. I don’t know what the fuck was going on, but of course it didn’t help that I was exhausted & worried about viruses at that point (well, I still am now). Anyway – I don’t think anyone watches Italian horror for a good story so I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the imagery & bright red blood & supernatural weirdness. Again, there’s some good imagery in this one but not nearly enough to make up for how weak this movie is compared to Suspiria. Here’s a bit about it from Wikipedia: A thematic sequel to Suspiria (1977), the film is the second part of Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy, though it is the first in the trilogy to explore the idea of the Three Mothers. The long-delayed concluding entry, The Mother of Tears, was released in 2007. Yeah, so this is sort of a sequel to Suspiria. Too bad it sucks. But it doesn’t sound as bad as the third film! Released in 2007? I’ll skip that one. Give me good old Seventies/early Eighties horror. At least this one is worth a try if you like Argento’s style as it’s still almost a 70’s film but with a weird ass early 80’s prog score from Keith Emerson. But at least that gives it a cheese-factor that often works for me personally. I kind of hated yet liked the score – I think I’ll add it to my playlist now & I bet it grows on me along with all the other horror scores I like to have creepily playing in the background while I work from home. Give me a Goblin score instead, though! Goblin are a huge part of the reason for Deep Red & Suspiria being the superior Argento films I’ve seen so far. Watch those. Only watch Inferno if you absolutely love Suspiria and want another witchy Argento fix but go in with very low expectations. And don’t watch it dubbed. I’m just too broke to watch films in the way I prefer. – 6/10

Rewatched:

As I said above, a lot of the movies I’ve watched during lockdown have been ones I’ve already seen. Comfort movies, I guess. And some have been ones I’ve wanted to introduce my daughter to, like all the X-Men films (which she LOVED). I better point out that she’s not seen Logan, of course – too violent. I don’t have the energy to write too much about all the re-watches. If I happened to have reviewed them in full in the past, I’ll include the review link.

– Jaws – A classic. Still love it but not to the same degree that others my age do. You HAVE to admit it takes a while for this one to pick up. It only becomes truly great once the three guys go out on the boat together. From there, yes, it becomes a brilliant & iconic film. – 8/10

– The Hunger Games – I reviewed all but the first Hunger Games film in full as I started this blog just as the first one came out. I should try to review it in full some day as it’s the best of the four (although Catching Fire is very good too). I think these films get some very unfair treatment and it’s likely only because they are part of the YA genre. “Young Adult” is a dirty phrase to people who have become far too judgemental & seem to think art shouldn’t exist for anyone under 25. There’s awful YA & fantastic YA. These books are great reads and the films are very good adaptations while Jennifer Lawrence is perfect as Katniss. Okay, I didn’t like the final book but I think everyone felt the same way about that one. It was a disappointing conclusion. You can’t say it wasn’t well-written, though, and you certainly can’t accuse her of selling out to keep fans happy in the end. It’s a strong series & will be seen as a classic in its genre. And I say this as someone who has also read & loved Battle Royale & its film adaptation. The stories are very different, with The Hunger Games exploring some pretty complex political themes for stories aimed at such a young audience. I actually read Battle Royale after liking that adaptation so much as I wanted a more in-depth look into the reasons why they made those kids kill each other but unfortunately didn’t get much more of an explanation than you get in the movie. So don’t start talking shit about The Hunger Games. For this genre, it’s a very good series. If you don’t like the books or films, it may be because they weren’t written for you. It doesn’t make them bad and, as far as the films go, Lawrence acted her ass off and the characters were far more well-developed & empathetic than in many films – especially Woody Harrelson as Haymitch (why can’t we get his story as a prequel??). – 8/10

– Coming To America – Still think this is a pretty damn funny 80’s classic. They don’t make decent fun-but-dumb comedy anymore. Comedy movies are just plain dumb nowadays. – 7/10

– 50 First Dates – I’m Generation X so I’m not an Adam Sandler hater. It was cool for anyone younger than Gen X to hate Sandler until Uncut Gems. You know what? You’re not allowed to like him if you didn’t like him before Uncut Gems. You can’t suddenly claim him like you tried to claim Keanu Reeves. Reeves is ours and so is Sandler, whether he’s in a good movie or a bad one (and, yes, he’s been in some very BAD ones). Sandler was good in Uncut Gems but it was a thoroughly unenjoyable film. I just wanted it to finish (I really liked Good Time, though, FYI). Give me his “dumb” old comedies instead. The Wedding Singer is great and would probably be more universally loved had it starred someone else (maybe Paul Rudd? He seems acceptable to younger people). I also happen to think Big Daddy & 50 First Dates are good so these are my top three Sandler films. Admittedly, the rest start to go downhill but he’s still had more successful films than many actors, especially in the comedy genre, so he’s clearly doing something right. And I love Drew Barrymore as well & think they’re adorable together in this, The Wedding Singer, and even Blended. Drew is especially sweet in 50 First Dates – she elevates this one quite a bit & is the true star of this film. You keep making films, Adam! I’ll watch them. Even when they suck. Just drag Drew into them when you can – they turn out much better than the ones you do with Jennifer Aniston. – 7/10

– Click – Um, Click wasn’t as good. Its heart was in the right place (all about appreciating what you have in life & all that). But the comedy didn’t work as well & got too dumb at times. It also felt like it carried on for too long (too lazy to go check the runtime but it felt too long). However, Christopher Walken was a welcome kooky addition, as he is in everything he’s ever in. So I’ll give it an extra half a point for that. And also for the dog always humping that toy. Sometimes dumb comedy works, such as dogs predictably humping things. – 6/10

MUSIC, BOOKS, TV, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH

MUSIC LISTENED TO

– Joe Hisaishi – Dream Songs: The Essential Joe Hisaishi – What can I say? I ADORE Studio Ghibli. But I won’t go into that as I’ve gone on & on about Studio Ghibli so much on this blog. So of course I love this album as so much of it is the music he composed for Ghibli films. He’s a genius. He should be more well known (Well, he’s probably huge in Japan? What do I know!). Special shoutout especially to Hisaishi’s music for My Neighbor Totoro & Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind. Gorgeous. Also my two favorite Ghibli films. The music in a film is very important to me, so it’s probably not a coincidence that they have the best scores as well. He’s to Ghibli what Morricone is to Leone’s films (to me, at least). Perfection.

– Ice Nine Kills – The Silver Scream – This is a heavy metal album with each song being about a different horror film. It couldn’t be more perfect for me & my interests & this silly blog! I really like this album, although it’s heavier than the classic type of metal I tend to go for. I just wish I’d known about it last October when I did what will probably be my last ever October Horror Month on this blog. I don’t know if I’ll ever do a proper post on this blog again or if I’ll even post anything else at all after this but this album needs its own specific post. There’s too much to cover, as I’d like to discuss each song as well each of the movies the songs are dedicated to (many of them, such as A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Shining, The Crow & even the not-so-horror Edward Scissorhands being absolute favorite films of mine). So, I’ll make no promises but I’ll try to discuss this album in full sometime. Probably in October while everyone is watching horror movies. I recommend this album to heavy metal horror movie lovers. Thanks to the guy who recommended this album to me! It’s so me. (I thanked him in real life since he’s a real life person – I won’t pretend I discovered this album on my own).

BOOKS READ

– Dune by Frank Herbert – I started this at the beginning of lockdown as I obviously wanted to finally read it before the Denis Villeneuve adaptation. It took me several months to finish as I couldn’t concentrate. I did really like it – Life is just very distracting at the moment. I’ll write a bit about it in June’s roundup post, as I think that’s when I finished it.

TV SHOWS WATCHED

Like reading books, I’m also finding it hard to concentrate on TV shows at the moment. I’ve still watched only an episode or two of each of these.

– Locke & Key – Love Joe Hill’s books & especially his short story collections. Not read the graphic novel this is based on, however, but the story is intriguing. I’d like to read it first. So far, I’m liking the show but I find it far easier to watch a movie than to try to finish an entire series of something. How on earth do people manage to binge watch an entire show over a weekend?? I feel like I’m busier than I’ve ever been. I’m exhausted.

– The Storyteller – This is weird as shit! It’s a Jim Henson show from the late Eighties narrated by the brilliant John Hurt and I’d somehow never heard of it. I watched only one episode (Hans My Hedgehog). It was bizarre & creepy and I’m pretty sure it gave me nightmares that night. I’d forgotten I’d watched this. I want to see the rest.

– Parks & Recreation – Watched a couple episodes. It’s just okay? Am I the only person who doesn’t love TV shows from the last 20 years?

– The Creeps – Watched a few episodes of this Goosebumps-like show with the kid. I’m a lover of weird & bizarre stories, especially with a twist, and I’m always trying & failing to get her to also fall in love with things like The Twilight Zone. She liked this show okay. Think Black Mirror but for kids. But it’s not great. And it’s certainly no masterpiece like The Twilight Zone.

– Love, Death & Robots – Watched two or three episodes. Sounded like the EXACT thing the hubby & I would love (sci-fi & robots!!!). We weren’t impressed. And one episode was so over-the-top gory and unnecessarily sexual. Hubby said something along the lines of how it felt like it was made for horny 13-year-old boys (he’ll say I’ve misquoted him when he reads this). That’s accurate, though. Maybe the other episodes are better but what I’ve seen so far was a bit pathetic. How can they fuck up a show about robots?! Robots are awesome! Dammit.

BLOG PLANS FOR AUGUST

I’ll try to do a weekly post of my monthly roundups for April, May, June & July but I’m making no guarantees.

Upcoming Movies I Want To See (I made this list in February so I’m leaving it here for myself as I’ve still not seen even the ones that did get released. I can’t remember what half of these are now…):

The Invisible Man, Dark Waters, The Hunt, Swallow (looked interesting), VFW (what the heck is this?),The New Mutants (ha! will this ever see the light of day?), The Secret Garden, Trolls World Tour (oh god no – why is this listed?! the first one was bad enough), Antlers, Promising Young Woman (don’t remember this), Dream Horse (nor this), Proxima, Finding The Way Back (nor this), Antebellum (nor this), A Quiet Place Part II (still want to see this as really liked A Quiet Place)

Here’s Joe Hisaishi’s beautiful Path Of The Wind from My Neighbor Totoro:

My Top Ten Books Read In 2019

Happy 2020! Here’s the first of my 2019 Top Ten Lists that I’ll be posting every day through Friday. I’ve hidden this one on Sunday since no one gives a shit about books on my movie blog. One of my resolutions this year is to read more books (and more quality ones) and to watch fewer movies (at home). Dune is the main thing I plan on reading in 2020.

I only read ten books in 2019 anyway. Here are My Top Ten Books Read In 2019 (from my least favorite to my favorite):

10. The Knife Of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness – 2/5

9. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – 2.5/5

8. The Woman In The Window by A.J. Finn – 3/5

7. Shattered by Dean Koontz – 3/5

6. Elevation by Stephen King – 3/5

5. Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar – 3/5

4. The Rats by James Herbert – 3/5

3. The Institute by Stephen King – 3.5/5

2. Full Throttle by Joe Hill – 3.5/5

1. ‘-All You Zombies-‘ by Robert A. Heinlein – 4/5

Should a short story be number one? Fuck it – It’s my blog so I do what I want. FYI – my number one is the story that the fantastic movie Predestination is based on. I recommend the film to sci-fi fans.

These are the Top Ten lists I’ll be posting this week:

My Top Ten Books Read In 2019
My Top Anime Movies Watched In 2019
My IMDb Top 250 Movies Watched In 2019
My 2019 Blind Spot Movies: Ranked
My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2019
My Top Ten 2019 Movie Releases
My Top Ten Movies Of The Decade (2010-2019)

Watched, Read, Reviewed: December 2019

Happy January! Here’s the stuff I watched & read in December. I’ll soon post my Top Ten Of 2019 lists and then I’ll be taking a long break from blogging. I may only do these monthly roundup posts this year. Will see how I feel in a few months. One of my resolutions this year is to watch fewer movies (at home, anyway). I watch too much shit!

MOVIES IN DECEMBER 2019

MOVIES REVIEWED (ranked best to worst):

– Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker – 7.5/10
– Jumanji: The Next Level – 7.5/10
– Le Mans ’66 (Ford v Ferrari) – 7.5/10
– Knives Out – 7.5/10
– Five Feet Apart – 7.5/10
– Support The Girls – 6/10
– Marriage Story – 5.5/10
– The Knight Before Christmas – 5.5/10
– Destination Wedding – 5/10
– Brittany Runs A Marathon – 5/10

MOVIES WATCHED (ranked best to worst):

– El Topo – Been putting off watching this for years so finally watched it as part of my Blind Spot project. It’s as bizarre as I was expecting and I always appreciate that. I can’t say it’s exactly a good film but it’s certainly interesting. I’m glad I finally watched it. I may try to do mini-reviews of my 2019 Blind Spot movies when I publish my post of ratings & rankings for them all next week. – 7.5/10

– Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker – 7.5/10

– Jumanji: The Next Level – 7.5/10

– Le Mans ’66 (Ford v Ferrari) – 7.5/10

– Knives Out – 7.5/10

– In This Corner Of The World – This is a good anime movie which focuses on one young woman’s struggles during WWII Japan. Obviously, it’s a serious movie so it’s best to be in the right sort of mood if you watch it (certainly don’t do it as a double feature with Grave Of The Fireflies). I watched several anime movies in 2019 so may do a short post about all of them next week. – 7/10

– Paris, Texas – This was another Blind Spot choice of mine. It was good but a little disappointing, although I still love Harry Dean Stanton and he was fantastic in the film. Will try to post about it next week. – 7/10

– Five Feet Apart – 7.5/10

– Big Fish & Begonia – Another anime film but this one was more my type of thing (fantasy & weirdness instead of a dreary war drama). It wasn’t as good as In This Corner Of The World, although my enjoyment will have been hampered by having to watch a version dubbed in English as it’s all I had. I far prefer to see anime in its original language as it loses some of the magic when in English. This movie was fine. It doesn’t measure up to the Ghiblis, though, despite having a similar sort of fantastical story. But nothing measures up to Studio Ghibli… – 6.5/10

– Shoplifters – I was desperate to see this Japanese film after everyone raved over it in 2018 (along with Roma, Cold War, and Burning). I’ve now seen all but Burning & all have been a disappointment, although I liked Shoplifters okay. Roma was boring as hell. Maybe Burning will be the one I like?? Anyway – As I said, Shoplifters was okay but I can’t see the reason for such rave reviews. The young girl was cute and the young boy was good but, overall, the characters were weak and the movie didn’t make you care all that much about them (well, maybe the two youngest ones). I just expected a really emotional film from what I’d read so I was disappointed to not care about the characters much and to find the movie a little bit boring. Oh well. – 6.5/10

– Climax – So. I finally saw this “shocking film”. To be honest, it’s not as shocking Gaspar Noé’s Love & certainly sounds nowhere near as shocking as what I’ve read about Irreversible (I’ll never watch that). This was fine. It’s about a group of dancers who drink a spiked drink and they all start hallucinating and all either get very violent or horny. Everyone is pretty hateful, just like in Love. And everyone is pretty pretty. And young. Sofia Boutella is the only decent character – she was good in this. It’s not a long movie but felt like I was watching these people lose their minds for HOURS. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t like it either. Meh. At least it’s a memorable film. Far preferred it to Love, at least. – 6/10

– Thunder Road – This was an odd one. A very indie film (I’m not sure what movies fulfill the indie definition anymore) about a guy having a breakdown after the death of his mother and his marriage falling apart and a custody battle taking place. It starts with his mother’s funeral, which was good in a dark comedy sort of way as the guy makes an embarrassing mess of his speech. But the character was too unstable and a little too quirky-indie-weird and a bit too unlikeable to make me really give a shit. And his ex was a bitch. I did think people were pretty shitty to him, other than his cop partner, so I did feel a little sorry for him. It looks like the funeral bit was first a short film? That was probably decent as it was the best bit. I can see some people really liking this movie if they buy into the character but it just didn’t quite work for me as a film overall. The ending was good. If you watch it, bear in mind that it’s mostly a drama with some dark humor (I like dark humor). I can me see liking this guy in the right kind of movie, though. He does a good job and is nerdy-cute (Jim Cummings – he’s also the director & writer of the film). It looks like he has done a lot of short films. I can see him doing very well in bigger budget films playing similar characters, but in smaller roles. Such as “quirky best friend” or “quirky neighbor”. As a main character for the whole movie, he’s a bit too much to take. But Cummings is on the right track & I see he has a lot of upcoming projects. – 6/10

– How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – I can’t really review this as, in all honesty, we put it on to watch and then all fucked around on our phones the whole time so I missed a hell of a lot. But, hey – if it was really good I’d have paid more attention. It didn’t even keep the kid’s attention. I do think the Dragon films are probably the best from DreamWorks but I’m just not a DreamWorks fan. I’m a Disney & Pixar snob. I don’t even really like Shrek. I missed out on Abominable this year, though, and the family tell me that will easily be my favorite from DreamWorks as it’s much more my type of thing. Well, damn! I’ll check that out when I can. As for The Hidden World, I’ll give it an average rating since these movies are still better than most the stuff made by DreamWorks. And the ending was cute. The first film is just by far the best of the three. – 6/10

– Marriage Story – 5.5/10

– The Knight Before Christmas – 5.5/10

– Oldboy – Wow. Wow. I’ve been meaning to watch this for years as it’s in the IMDb Top 250 & has a very high rating. I fucking hated it. Maybe I’ll try to do a very short review next week when I do a post with all the Top 250 movies I watched this year. I’m giving it an extra half a point, though, for having the audacity to go with THAT horrific twist. Bloody hell. It took some balls to say “Fuck it – let’s do this sick fucking thing!”. And this movie was remade? Did they change that storyline?!? I fucking hope so. – 5/10

– Destination Wedding – 5/10

Re-Watched:

– Scrooged – I love this movie. It may be my favorite Christmas movie (although it rotates between my top five, depending on my mood). I’m a big fan of the Dickens story (Well, I’ve not actually read it 😉 ) and I love that there are so many adaptations of it. Scrooged is my favorite of the “alternative” modern adaptations. Murray is hilarious in it, although I’m starting to think he’s an asshole in movies too often. But I guess that’s why he’s so perfect in this role. I love that it’s also heartwarming without being over-the-top saccharine thanks to all the dark humor throughout it. Sometimes all the heartwarming Christmas movies can be a bit too much. Which is why I also love Christmas Vacation… (link below, as I’ve already reviewed that in full). I may prefer Christmas Vacation. Maybe I’ll flip them around. I can’t decide. “Shitter was full!” beats all of Scrooged. – 8.5/10

– National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – Love it. – 8.5/10

– Elf – I love this movie too. I think it’s one of the only Christmas movies from recent years to come anywhere near “Christmas classic” status. I still think of it as recent even though it’s going on 16 years old. WTF?! When did that happen?!?! It’s a NEW movie! Fuck. I’m old. I’m so so old. Anyway – Elf rules. Maybe I’ll give it a higher score someday. I just didn’t grow up with it like the others. It’s too NEW. But it’s funny as hell. And it’s adorable. I’ve probably seen at least part of it every Christmas for years now & it always makes me smile. Honestly, it’s as good as my ’80’s Christmas “classics”. I’m just a sucker for those since I was still a teen when those came out. Fuck. I’m so old. Okay, I’ve convinced myself to raise my score half a point to 8. It’s the newest Christmas classic. – 8/10

– Miss Congeniality – Watched both this & Legally Blonde with the kid recently & am loving re-visiting stuff like this with her as she gets older. Really enjoy both films and still love both Witherspoon & Bullock. Unfortunately, both movies haven’t aged as well as I was hoping. But they’re still fun. Silly but fun. We don’t really get these sort of “chick flicks” very often anymore. Where did this genre go? I like these (occasionally). Everything is too damn serious now. The world needs more lighthearted comedy! Before we all die in WWIII. – 6.5/10

– Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery – First, I have to say that I adore Mike Myers. I fully & with no shame admit that Wayne’s World is one of my all-time favorite movies. It’s fucking hilarious & doesn’t get enough credit. If I could hang out with two movie characters, it would probably be Wayne & Garth. Myers was always great at creating characters. Wayne is brilliant. And I realize I moaned about Shrek in this same post but Shrek himself is the best thing about Shrek – I just don’t like DreamWorks or the overall Shrek movies but Myers is great as always. Austin Powers is similar in that he’s a great creation but the movies themselves aren’t great. Same for Dr. Evil – a really good character in “just okay” movies. Hell, I even like Fat Bastard! He’s probably not for everyone, though. So, Mike Myers is what really makes the Austin Powers movies enjoyable. Okay, Myers and all the sexual innuendos. But I’ve never loved the Austin Powers movies as much as others seem to. Maybe it doesn’t help to very much NOT be a James Bond fan?? These movies are fun but Wayne’s World is my thing. – 6.5/10

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH

BOOKS READ

I finished all of Full Throttle by Joe Hill in December. It’s a collection of short stories and I love his (and his dad Stephen King’s) short story collections. This one was great but Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts collection was my favorite – that one was brilliant. I’ll try to review Full Throttle story by story at some point. – 3.5/5

TV SHOWS WATCHED

– Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas – I loved this!!! I’d never ever seen this 1977 Jim Henson short TV movie. My beloved Jim Henson Muppets in a TV special from my beloved Seventies?! I was pretty much guaranteed to love this. I’m so glad I finally got a chance to see it! It’s on Amazon Prime UK, FYI. It’s mostly Muppets you’ve never seen, although Kermit has a small part. But they’re Henson Muppets in every way and if you love The Muppets, you’ll love this. I highly recommend this if, like me, you never saw it as a kid. – 8.5/10

– Watchmen – Still halfway through watching these. Still can’t decide how I feel, although I’m enjoying watching something that’s far more interesting than most of the shit that gets made now. Will see how I feel after seeing them all and knowing if it has too much of an agenda.

– Parks & Recreation – Wanted a short, lightweight comedy to stick on every once in a while. I’ve watched maybe 4 episodes now? So far, this fits the bill. It’s funny but a bit forgettable. It’s not a show where I’d re-watch any episodes after seeing them. I hear Joy from Inside Out the entire time I’m watching it, though. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I adore that movie.

BLOG PLANS FOR JANUARY

As I said, I’m going to take a break from blogging after posting all my 2019 Top Ten lists. I want to watch far fewer movies at home, more movies in the cinema (I need to make use of my Unlimited card), and read more quality books (main priority for 2020 is to finally read Dune).

I just don’t want to spend much time blogging or tweeting anymore. It’s kind of depressing. Especially Twitter, which is full of angry people moaning and is only good these days for Baby Yoda gifs (which I would happily watch 24/7). But I may still do these monthly roundup posts because my head might explode if I never ever blather on & on about movies anymore. No one at work talks to me and I certainly can’t talk about some of the non-mainstream stuff I watch with boring, normal, real-life people anyway. “Hey, colleagues! How was your weekend? I watched El Topo!”. This is why I have no real-life friends. So thank you for still being here, Internet weirdos! Feel free to talk to me about movies or share Baby Yoda gifs. WWIII may be on the way but it’s okay as we’ve reached the pinnacle of cuteness with Baby Yoda. It’s all downhill from here.

January Movies I Want To See If The World Hasn’t Ended:

– Jojo Rabbit – Seen it. It was just… Okay?

– The Gentlemen – Whatever. But Henry Golding is in it & he’s adorable.

– 1917 – Suppose I should watch this as it’s the most likely Best Picture Oscar contender, right? But I always have to force myself to watch war movies.

– Bombshell – Meh. Again, may watch it for the likely Oscar nominations but I’m not that bothered.

– Bad Boys For Life – May be an okay popcorn movie but I won’t cry if I miss it.

– Waves – Looks depressing?

– Weathering With You – Hell yeah! It’s anime and actually getting some UK cinema showings!!! My ticket is already booked. From the same director who did Your Name.

– The Turning – Oh man, I seriously need to read that The Turn Of The Screw story. Off to the library I go!

– The Lighthouse – Can’t wait to see if this is “indie good” or “indie pretentious bore”.

– Richard Jewell – Interested in the story but will probably wait for Netflix.

– A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood – Finally coming out in the UK. Will check this one out.

– Queen & Slim – Maybe. If a showtime works out, but I bet it’ll disappear from cinemas quickly.

– The Rhythm Section – Looks intriguing but also looks like it could be good or very bad. I was going to read the book last year. Guess I should have.

As we got the final movie in the Star Wars Skywalker Saga in December, let’s celebrate the absolute genius of John Williams. Here’s Rey’s theme, which is my favorite piece from this trilogy.

Watched, Read, Reviewed: November 2019

Happy New Year, everyone!

I never did my November Roundup post. So just to complete my 2019 posts, here’s what I watched & read in November 2019. I’ll try to post my December Roundup within the next few days. I’ll then do my 2019 Top Ten Lists next week before taking a blog break for 2020.

NOVEMBER 2019 MOVIES

MOVIES REVIEWED (ranked best to worst):

– Judy – 7.5/10
– Hustlers – 7.5/10
– Joker – 7.5/10
– The Farewell – 7.5/10
– Frozen 2 – 7/10
– I Am Mother – 7/10
– Terminator: Dark Fate – 6.5/10
– Last Christmas – 6.5/10

MOVIES WATCHED (ranked best to worst):

– Miss Hokusai – I really enjoyed this anime film about Katsushika Ōi, artist & daughter of critically acclaimed artist Katsushika Hokusai (famous for The Great Wave off Kanagawa). The film has lovely animation and strong characters. I’ll try to review it at some point as it’s probably my favorite non-Ghibli anime that I’ve watched recently. – 7.5/10

– Frozen 2 – 7/10

– 3 Idiots – I didn’t manage to watch all my 2019 Blind Spot movies but did watch 12 movies for my IMDb project. This is one of them so I’ll do a short post with all 12 sometime. I enjoyed this but don’t think it’s Top 250 material, although the second half is much better than the first. – 7/10

– Last Christmas – 6.5/10

– Support The Girls – 6/10

– Locke – This was surprisingly boring. I remember being annoyed at missing out on this one in the cinema as it got really good reviews. It’s Tom Hardy in a car talking on the phone the whole time. It may have been better if he didn’t have some weird ass accent through the whole thing (maybe that’s how he really talks? Ha! Dunno). Anyway, it wasn’t terrible but it certainly wasn’t great and the character was a bit hateful, which sucks when he’s the only damn character in the movie. But I give them credit for managing to make a whole movie about a guy driving in his car… – 6/10

– Brittany Runs A Marathon – 5/10

Re-Watched:

– Planes, Trains & Automobiles – Thanksgiving classic! Finally watched this with the kid as I have to make sure she sees some of the American traditions, etc. Think she liked it but it’s still a slightly more grownup comedy. The ending still makes me feel a little weepy. Loved John Candy (and of course John Hughes). 😦 – 7.5/10

– Legally Blonde – I’m obviously revisiting films with the kid as she gets older. She liked this one (and a new one is coming out this year??). I’ll always be a fan of Reese Witherspoon & she’s adorable as shit in Legally Blonde. Jennifer Coolidge is also as funny as always. The movie is silly but it’s fun and has a decent message. – 6.5/10

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS

BOOKS READ

I read The Institute by Stephen King & half of Full Throttle by Joe Hill. Full Throttle is a short story collection, including two stories he wrote with his father (one being In The Tall Grass, which I reviewed HERE). I love both King & son Hill’s short story collections so I slightly preferred Hill’s collection to The Institute. But I of course very much enjoyed both and will read everything either of them write. I was unfortunately quite disappointed with the recent King book The Outsider so was very happy to get a better novel this time (even if the story is extremely familiar Stephen King territory). I may try to review these in full at some point (or at least Full Throttle as I like to discuss each story). – 3.5/5 (for both)

TV SHOWS WATCHED

None, as usual lately. However, I did manage to finally watch some stuff in December and am halfway through Watchmen. Not sure how I feel about that one yet.

MUSIC POSTS

I did a music post in November for the first time in years! Here are My Top Ten Red Hot Chili Peppers Songs.

BLOG PLANS FOR DECEMBER

My plan was to catch up on reviewing December movie releases & preparing my Year End Top Ten lists. But I haven’t yet & it’s now 2020. Oops. At least I caught up on reviewing most 2019 movies.

December Movies I Wanted To See:

I did see a couple. Links are below.

– Jumanji: The Next Level – Saw it. Kind of loved it.

– Black Christmas – Now kind of wish I hadn’t missed this as reviews are SO bad but they seem to be from people not liking the politics of this version? So I’d like to judge it for myself.

– Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker – Saw it. Wanted to love it more.

– Cats – HA! Think I dodged a bullet missing out on this one.

– Spies In Disguise – Forgot about this one. Think I can live without it.

– Little Women – I’m weirdly not bothered about this one now that it’s out. There have been so many adaptations already. I’m also not on the Greta Gerwig bandwagon with everyone else. Plus, Emma Watson is in this. Can’t stand her.

Here’s a trailer for Miss Hokusai. I recommend it if you’re an anime fan.

Watched, Read, Reviewed: October 2019

Happy (middle of) November! As I did October Horror Month again this year, I only reviewed horror movies in October. However, I did watch some non-horror throughout the month as well. As most of my horror reviews were reposts & reblogs, I’m only listing those below that I reviewed for the first time in October. (The Princess Switch feels very out of place in this list!)

MOVIES IN OCTOBER

MOVIES REVIEWED (ranked best to worst):

– Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) – 8/10
– Doctor Sleep – 8/10
– Ready Or Not – 7/10
– Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil – 7/10
– Zombieland: Double Tap – 7/10
– The Legacy – 6/10
– The Addams Family – 6/10
– Shocker – 5.5/10
– The Stuff – 5/10
– In The Tall Grass – 4/10

MOVIES WATCHED (ranked best to worst):

– Yojimbo – I bought an Akira Kurosawa boxset years ago and have been meaning to get around to watching more of his work as I love what I’ve seen so far. Ikiru & Rashômon are brilliant and Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. Yojimbo is also in the IMDb Top 250 so I might review it as part of my Top 250 Project. I was hoping to instead devote a couple of weeks to Akira Kurosawa on my blog but I think my blogathon days are over. I really enjoyed Yojimbo, even though I’d already seen the same story in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful Of Dollars. Which, apparently, didn’t originally credit Kurosawa & the other writer Ryūzō Kikushima. Naughty! (There was a lawsuit). Anyway, both films are great as the story is so damn good. I of course have to go with Yojimbo as it’s definitely the superior film but can see why it was made into a spaghetti western since the story was just as perfect in that setting. I highly recommend Kurosawa’s films to anyone who hasn’t seen any. Maybe I’ll manage to review his movies someday but I sure I wouldn’t be able to do them justice. – 8/10

– Doctor Sleep – 8/10

– The Great Adventure Of Horus, Prince Of The Sun (aka The Little Norse Prince) – As this is sort of a pre-Studio Ghibli film, I’ll try to do a full review of it at some point. I adore Studio Ghibli. This was made by Ghibli co-founders Isao Takahata (director) & Hayao Miyazaki (scene design & key animation). It’s a much older film, released in 1968 (17 years before the founding of Ghibli). However, it certainly shows the beginnings of the Ghibli style and has some of that great magical fantasy vibe that Miyazaki perfected in his Ghibli years. It’s not perfect but I enjoyed it and would say I liked it more than some of the non-Ghibli anime I’ve tried. I guess I just love Miyazaki’s style. The characters aren’t as strong as in Ghibli movies and it doesn’t have the beautiful weirdness of the Ghiblis but it’s a promising start and a fun story. – 7.5/10

– Judy – 7.5/10

– Joker – 7.5/10

– Ready Or Not – 7/10

– Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil – 7/10

– Zombieland: Double Tap – 7/10

– Terminator: Dark Fate – 6.5/10

– The Princess Switch – This was fine. My daughter had watched & liked it so I agreed to watch it with her one night. It’s a wholesome chick flick that’s predictable as F*^K but it won’t do anyone any harm. My daughter was amazed when I predicted the ending within the first ten minutes. Poor kid – I told her that her mom just watches many movies so tends to know how these sort of plots go. She probably thinks I’m a pain in the ass. Anyway, I sort of liked this predictable cheese. We all need some predictable cheese sometimes. And I’m not gonna lie – I’m SO going to be watching The Princess Switch: Switched Again when that comes out. And if there’s a surprise ending that I don’t predict within the first ten minutes, I’ll want my money back. – 6.5/10

– The Addams Family – 6/10

– The Legacy – 6/10

– Shocker – 5.5/10

– The Stuff – 5/10

– In The Tall Grass – 4/10

Re-Watched:

– Wayne’s World – I’m not going to do a mini-review for this movie. If I ever do review this, it needs a full post. This movie is and always will be an all-time favorite of mine. It speaks to me. It’s from my era, set close to where I grew up, I love the same music they do, I knew people exactly like Wayne & Garth, and it’s one of very few movies that I truly find funny. Okay – and I am the female equivalent of Garth Algar. I was a metal-loving, socially awkward nerd who could never talk to my crushes. I had similar hair. And I still wear Converse at all times (well, outside of work). This is the movie that I quote more than any other. I think it’s brilliant and if you badmouth it, you’re on my Shitlist and we can’t be friends. Anyway – I watched this once again the other day as my daughter loves it. She also loves Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. YES! Believe me – she doesn’t just humor me as she dislikes plenty of favorites from my teenage years. I take it as proof that these two films are timeless classics. Yes, I’m serious. Wayne’s World is a comedy classic. It deserves more love. – 9/10

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH

BOOKS READ

– The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt – Holy SHIT it’s never taken me so long to finish a book. It took months. What a slog. To be honest, it’s a good book. I suppose. At least, the story itself was good. It just honestly didn’t need to be so long. I wouldn’t have minded if the characters were more likeable but, after THAT many pages, you’d think you’d connect with or at least care about the main character. I can’t say that I cared although I did feel a little sorry for him & what he’d been through. His time in Las Vegas especially dragged. Good god. Luckily his friend Boris was highly entertaining, which helped keep me going along with wanting to find out what the hell was gonna happen with The Goldfinch painting. Apparently the movie was boring as hell too according to reviews. That’s a shame, as I think there’s enough content here to make a decent film. – 3/5

– In The Tall Grass by Stephen King & Joe Hill – 2/5

Currently Reading The Institute by Stephen King – I’m really enjoying this one so far. I’ll probably be finished by the time this posts so I’ll review it soon.

TV SHOWS WATCHED

Er, The Walking Dead has started up again. I watched an episode. Or did I watch two? Hard to keep track since nothing ever happens in this fucking show anymore. I know I need a new show to watch but don’t have the time to devote to anything new. What I miss are half hour sitcoms. Why don’t they make sitcoms these days?! I watch worthy enough films – I want lightweight TV so I can switch off my brain. But NOT reality bullshit. A good old sitcom like Seinfeld. Or Friends. Yeah, I like Friends – I’m not one of these anti-Friends snobs! Anyone have any recommendations??

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

November already?! Shit. I’m not ready for Christmas. It’ll be a quiet month on the blog as I’ll be too busy to do many posts. I’ll try to do a post for my 7-year blogiversary at the end of the month.

November Releases I May Want To See: (wow – a lot coming out!)

– Brittany Runs A Marathon – Meh. Definitely one to wait for on Netflix.

– The Aeronauts – This one looks… Odd. As in, it may be brilliant or it may be a steaming pile of shit. Can’t call it from the trailer.

– Midway – War stuff. I’ll probably wait for Netflix. Never a favorite genre of mine, although I’ve loved a few war movies.

– The Good Liar – Oh, this looks exciting from the trailer! I do love Helen Mirren & Ian McKellen. Proper ACTORS! Want to see this. (It’s out now. Damn – reviews aren’t good).

– Luce – Don’t know much about this. Looks like it may be another one to wait for on Netflix.

– Driven – Another one I don’t know anything about. Meh.

– Le Mans ’66 – Is this seriously called Ford v Ferrari in America?? That’s a better name. Doesn’t really look like my type of thing but the trailer does look good. Want to see this.

– Last Christmas – I’m not a big girly movie girl but do enjoy these kind of films when they’re decent. Plus this has the hot husband from A Simple Favor & Crazy Rich Asians. I’d be a liar if I said I had no interest in seeing this. Looks fun. (This is out now too and also has bad reviews. Damn!!)

– Little Monsters – Another zombie comedy horror?? I’ll definitely watch this as it’s a sub genre I really enjoy. Sad to see the reviews aren’t the best.

– The Report – I’m sure this will be decent but these kind of dramas are SO not my thing. I tend to only watch them if they end up being nominated for lots of Oscars.

– Frozen II – Oh, I’ll definitely go to this. I happily admit that I still think Frozen is great. My daughter is getting to the age where she’s pretending she has no interest in going to see Frozen II. Think she’s slowly changing her mind…

– Greener Grass – And another I know nothing about. I need to watch some trailers. It says it’s a comedy so, who knows? I hate most modern comedies.

– 21 Bridges – Cop drama? Again, not really my thing. Will see what reviews are like.

– Judy & Punch – Maybe a Netflix watch.

– Ophelia – Again, one for Netflix but would like to check out Daisy Ridley’s performance.

– Knives Out – This is the one I’m most looking forward to in November. Hope it’s great! Love the star power in it.

– Charlie’s Angels – Meh. May wait for Netflix. Give me Drew Barrymore instead!

– Jay And Silent Bob Reboot – I’m middle-aged. I’ll of course watch this Kevin Smith film.

– The Nightingale – A horror from the director of the brilliant The Babadook?? DEFINITELY want to see this.

I’ll end this post with with Judy Garland singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. I thought Judy was a great film and I’m very glad I watched it.

In The Tall Grass (2019) Review

In The Tall Grass (2019)

Directed by Vincenzo Natali

Based on In the Tall Grass by Stephen King & Joe Hill

Starring: Harrison Gilbertson, Laysla De Oliveira, Avery Whitted, Will Buie Jr, Rachel Wilson, Patrick Wilson, Tiffany Helm

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
After hearing a young boy’s cry for help, a sister and brother venture into a vast field of tall grass in Kansas but soon discover there may be no way out… and that something evil lurks within.

My Opinion:

I reviewed this Joe Hill & Stephen King short story earlier today (review HERE). They’re my favorite authors and I read and watch all things Stephen King-related so I of course had to check this out. Well, the short story is certainly never going to be a favorite story of mine from either writer. It has the movie beat, though. I know there have been some godawful King movie adaptations and In The Tall Grass is unfortunately one of the bad ones.

I suspected that it would go all wrong. This is a very short story so I knew they’d have to add stuff to stretch it out into a 1 hour 41 minute movie. Making shit up rarely works and the additional stuff they added was stupid as shit. Here’s what they added (SPOILERS):

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The boyfriend, who isn’t in the story AT ALL (don’t think he was really even mentioned) and that TIME LOOP BULLSHIT. WTF was with the time travel shit?! That’s not in the story! Also… that “happy” ending. Why? Can people not have unhappy endings anymore?? The movie adaptation started out fine and seemed to be following the story pretty closely. Then the boyfriend showed up and started bouncing around in time and they all found each other in the tall grass. What?! A main part of the story is that THEY CAN’T FIND EACH OTHER IN THE GRASS even when it sounds like they’re right next to each other!!!

Why, of all the stories to adapt, did they choose this one? And why, of all the additional things they could’ve added to this movie, did they decide to go with time loop shit? It was ridiculous and made zero sense. They took a pretty straightforward creepy story and turned it into a silly, incoherent mess. The characters also had zero development, which was pretty amazing considering the 40ish page story managed to do okay with the brother and sister but the hour and a half film left you knowing nothing about them. The acting was also dreadful, especially from the guy playing the brother and Patrick Wilson (but I’ve always found him a bore). The icky stuff that turned me off of the book was in this too but not really focused on (and undone with time loop bullshit anyway). Hill and King have SO many absolutely brilliant short stories. Why someone took a fairly bad one and decided to make it a thousand times worse by changing it so much is beyond me.

My Rating: 4/10

I need to add this to my ranked list of all Stephen King Movie Adaptations. It’s probably third from the bottom (out of 45). I’m seeing Doctor Sleep tomorrow. Hoping it’s MUCH better than this!

I’ll try to review Doctor Sleep tomorrow but, if I don’t have time, I do already have my review of Dario Argento’s Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) scheduled to post as this year’s Halloween review. I liked it a lot, which makes up for all the bad horrors I watched this year.

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King & In The Tall Grass by Joe Hill & Stephen King (Book Reviews)

With Doctor Sleep coming out tomorrow, I thought I’d repost my mini-review of the book. I have my ticket booked for the film and cannot WAIT to see it! It looks fantastic in the trailer. I probably won’t have time but I’m seeing it early afternoon so I’ll try to review it late tomorrow (it seems pointless to not review it on Halloween).

I’ve also done a very quick review of King & son Hill’s short story In The Tall Grass. My review of that Netflix film will be posted later today.

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

What It’s About: (via Amazon)
Years ago, the haunting of the Overlook Hotel nearly broke young Dan Torrance’s sanity, as his paranormal gift known as “the shining” opened a door straight into hell. And even though Dan is all grown up, the ghosts of the Overlook—and his father’s legacy of alcoholism and violence—kept him drifting aimlessly for most of his life. Now, Dan has finally found some order in the chaos by working in a local hospice, earning the nickname “Doctor Sleep” by secretly using his special abilities to comfort the dying and prepare them for the afterlife. But when he unexpectedly meets twelve-year-old Abra Stone—who possesses an even more powerful manifestation of the shining—the two find their lives in sudden jeopardy at the hands of the ageless and murderous nomadic tribe known as the True Knot, reigniting Dan’s own demons and summoning him to battle for this young girl’s soul and survival…

My Thoughts:

I gave some very brief thoughts on this book when I did a post of My Top Books Read In 2014 HERE. Here’s what I said:

Of course Doctor Sleep was going to be my favorite book read in 2014. No, it’s not as good as The Shining but I think it’s a decent enough sequel. I liked re-visiting characters from The Shining and liked the main girl, Abra, and her relationship with Danny. I also thought the “villains” (The True Knot) were very effective, especially their leader Rose the Hat.

This was the first book I read in 2014 so I finished it quite a while ago. I of course thoroughly enjoyed it while reading it but it’s already fading from my memory a bit as it just didn’t grab me in the way other King books have. I’m not sure why. It’s good but I think King has written better books in recent years. I think 11/22/63 is a better book overall plus I possibly enjoyed Duma Key slightly more than Doctor Sleep, although I’m sure I’m very much in the minority there. I also had a lot of fun with the book Joyland (check it out – it never gets mentioned!).

Doctor Sleep is certainly one of King’s better books overall but it’s probably not quite up there with my very favorites although I was hoping it would be. I’ve given it some thought and The Dead Zone is possibly my favorite King book although I also love Salem’s Lot, The Long Walk, The Shining, and The Green Mile plus I love his short story collections (almost more than his full novels sometimes). It would possibly be a big favorite except for one bit I really don’t like in it (I think everyone knows the bit I mean). Night Shift was the first thing of his that I read and that’s what got me hooked. I’m sure you all wanted to know my Stephen King history, right??

My Rating: 4/5

**Since posting the above mini- review in 2014, I’ve done a full ranked list of every Stephen King book I’ve read HERE.

In The Tall Grass by Joe Hill & Stephen King

What It’s About:
A brother and his pregnant sister go into a field of tall grass after hearing a kid’s cries for help. Then some fucked up supernatural shit happens because this was written by Stephen King & his son.

My Thoughts:

I clearly love Stephen King and am very happy that his son’s stories are almost as enjoyable as his father’s. I’ve maybe even preferred some of Hill’s writing, especially his short stories in the 20th Century Ghosts collection. As I loved that collection so much, I was very excited when his newest collection, Full Throttle, came out a few weeks ago. I’ve only read In The Tall Grass so far so I could then watch the Netflix adaptation. Well, I hope the rest of the stories are better than this one. At least it was short!

How could a collaboration between my two favorite authors go so wrong? It starts out great (as do most of their stories). It was eerie and I love how King manages to make everyday things so creepy. He’s made fields scary, for fucks sake! I’m never going into corn or grass ever again! Which is fine since I hate nature.

Now, I adore King and he’s one of my favorite people in the world and I want him to write hundreds of more books so that I never run out of Stephen King material to read. The same goes for Hill now as well. But every once in a while, although not very often, I think “this dude may be a little messed up.” There aren’t really any stories of his that I’ve truly disliked but some have been a little too gross or certain things have gone a bit too far for me. The group thing in It. The graphic rape in The Library Policeman, The Outsider & Under The Dome. The overall weirdness of The Lawnmower Man (nothing too gross there – just weird as shit from what I remember?). Hill also creeped me the hell out with a short story called Best New Horror, which was very disturbing but showed his skill at writing full-on horror. Well, I can add In The Tall Grass to the list of stories that went a bit too far for me personally.

To be fair, this felt very much like a King story so I didn’t hate it. The setting was good (I’m a rural girl so always appreciate the rural settings) but it was a shame we didn’t get to know anything about that church and the small surrounding community as the story was so short (I think around 40 pages?). I did very much appreciate the supernatural centerpiece to the story but we find out very little about that as well. We also don’t spend enough time with the slightly incestuous brother and sister to really care what will happen to them in the tall grass from which it seems they can never escape. Like most Hill (and especially King) stories, it just fizzles out at the end. Well, except for that super gross bit! As much as I love their writing, I do find many of their endings a little disappointing. In this case, as it’s a short story, I didn’t mind the loose ends so much as it added to the mysteriousness of the field. I just wish it had been a bit less… Icky.

My Rating: 2/5

**I’ll review the Netflix adaptation later today. FYI – It’s a dreadful mess and the short story is far better…

My Top Ten Books Read In 2018

I’ll be posting all my 2018 Year End Top Ten Lists the rest of this week. I’m starting off with My Top Ten Books (And Short Stories) Read In 2018. I even managed to review them all, making this a very quick & easy post! Links to the reviews are below.

And as always, my “Top Tens” are often full lists of all I’ve seen, read, etc. I read 19 stories so I’ve ranked all 19. Here we go!

Nineteen – Eleven

19. The Grownup by Gillian Flynn – 2.5/5
18. You Were Never Really Here by Jonathan Ames – 3/5
17. Every Day by David Levithan – 3/5
16. Odd Hours by Dean Koontz – 3/5
15. Laurie by Stephen King – 3/5
14. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn – 3/5
13. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby – 3/5
12. They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera – 3/5
11. The Loneliest Girl In The Universe by Lauren James – 3/5

Top Ten

10. The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon – 3/5
9. The Outsider by Stephen King – 3/5
8. Brother Odd by Dean Koontz – 3.5/10
7. Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli – 4/5
6. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve – 4/5
5. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell – 4/5
4. Bird Box by Josh Malerman – 4/5
3. Strange Weather by Joe Hill: Stories 1 & 2, Stories 3 & 4 – 4/5
2. Ghastle And Yule by Josh Malerman – 4.5/5
1. The Masque Of The Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe – 4.5/5

See you tomorrow with My Ranked Blind Spot Movies Of 2018. 🙂

Happy 6th Blogiversary To Me

I seriously thought I’d quit this blogging thing once I hit my five year anniversary. Well, shit – I’m still lingering a year later. Sorry – I think you’re stuck with me! I enjoy this online movie diary. I may not post as many full-length reviews anymore but I’m obsessed with keeping lists so I’ll continue my monthly roundup posts.

As it’s so close to the end of the year, I’ll do what I always do for my anniversary posts & just do a short roundup of my favorite things I’ve watched & read so far this year. That means lists! So here are My Top Tens for 2018 so far (and likely to change order by the end of the year as I’m totally indecisive).

My Top Ten Books (& Short Stories) Read This Year:

10. The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon – 3/5
9. The Outsider by Stephen King – 3/5
8. Brother Odd by Dean Koontz – 3.5/10
7. Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli – 4/5
6. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve – 4/5
5. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell – 4/5
4. Bird Box by Josh Malerman – 4/5
3. Strange Weather by Joe Hill: Stories 1 & 2, Stories 3 & 4 – 4/5
2. Ghastle And Yule by Josh Malerman – 4.5/5
1. The Masque Of The Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe – 4.5/5

A quick comment on the ones I’ve just finished & not yet reviewed: I really enjoyed Bird Box by Josh Malerman. It has been made into a Netflix movie starring Sandra Bullock but the trailer looks rubbish (it looks like too much has been changed). I recommend the book to horror fans, especially if you liked A Quiet Place. And I got a nice surprise as the UK version of the book has a bonus story called Ghastle And Yule. I loved this!! If you’re a lover of films, and especially if you’re a lover of classic horror films & filmmaking, I highly recommend finding a copy of this story about two rival horror filmmakers. I loved it so much that I tweeted the author & got a nice reply. It’s great having these kind of exchanges with authors, filmmakers & actors whose work you appreciate.

My Top Ten Movies Seen At Home This Year:

10. TIE: Fist Of Fury – 7.5/10 & The Handmaiden – 7.5/10
9. 5 Centimetres Per Second – 7.5/10
8. The Garden Of Words – 7.5/10
7. War For The Planet Of The Apes – 8/10
6. Interstella 5555: The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem – 7.5/10
5. Mary And The Witch’s Flower – 7.5/10
4. Colossal – 8/10
3. Metropolis – 8/10
2. Splendor In The Grass – 8/10
1. Enter The Dragon – 8.5/10

A quick comment on these: I’m clearly enjoying exploring more anime as so many are in my top ten (I’ve watched loads of movies this year – the full list is HERE). And I certainly didn’t expect a martial arts film to easily be my number one so far (Bruce Lee kicks ass!). I’ll say that the Blind Spot project is worth doing each year as most of them end up being in my top ten. So far, my top three are all Blind Spot choices of mine.

My Top Ten 2018 UK Movie Releases Seen This Year:

10. Darkest Hour – 7.5/10
9. Ready Player One – 7.5/10
8. Mandy – 7.5/10
7. Avengers: Infinity War – 8/10
6. The Shape Of Water – 8/10
5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri – 8/10
4. Solo: A Star Wars Story – 8/10
3. A Quiet Place – 8/10
2. A Star Is Born – 8/10
1. I, Tonya – 8/10

A quick comment on these: I always go by UK release date so I, Tonya makes this list. It’s still my favorite, although I wouldn’t say it’s the “best” film on the list. I’ve just always been fascinated by the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan story and the movie was entertaining as hell. Plus I love dark comedy/drama. “Best” film is probably A Star Is Born. Cooper & Gaga are brilliant. Not sure if it’ll stay in second place, though. Straight drama isn’t really my thing and I probably enjoyed some others on this list a bit more. I do have the urge to move Mandy way up the list but I’m not sure why. I’m not sure if I even liked it all that much! But it’s weird and trippy and crazy as shit and looks good and sounds good and is maybe a little bit pretentious. It’s so my type of thing.

Thanks to everyone who still reads my occasional posts and my annoying lists. I do appreciate it!

I usually end these posts with a music clip so I’ll go with Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger from the thoroughly entertaining anime Interstella 5555: The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem:

Watched, Read, Reviewed: August 2018

Happy October! Holy shit – I truly don’t know where this year has gone. I’m obviously way behind on this monthly roundup. I figured I better post this one quick before I post my September roundup. So here’s the crap I reviewed & watched in August! Well, it wasn’t all crap. Actually, most of it was good for a change.

MOVIES THIS MONTH

MOVIES REVIEWED (ranked best to worst):

• Incredibles 2 – 7.5/10
• Hotel Artemis – 7.5/10
• Ant-Man And The Wasp – 7/10
• The Secret Of Marrowbone – 7/10
• Tag – 7/10
• The Meg – 7/10
• Christopher Robin – 7/10
• Skyscraper – 6.5/10

MOVIES WATCHED (ranked best to worst):

• Splendor In The Grass – I’m cheating a little and doing this as a 2018 Blind Spot choice, although it’s not on the list as I was planning on adding it to my 2019 choices. But it happened to be on TV so I watched it and kind of loved it. I’ll do a full Blind Spot review of it sometime soon. – 8/10

• Ant-Man And The Wasp – 7/10

• The Meg – 7/10

• Christopher Robin – 7/10

• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation – I’m not a huge fan of the Mission: Impossible films although I do think they’re pretty great for this genre. Spy thrillers just aren’t really my thing. I’ve not seen them all (think I missed Ghost Protocol and maybe the second movie). I watched this in preparation for Fallout (oops – I missed it!) and I feel sort of the same about this one as I do the others even though I thought it was a strong film and probably the best I’ve seen so far. I just think I won’t remember much of it a year from now. Sorry! For me, the best thing about it by far was Rebecca Ferguson. She was great. Sexy & kick-ass but also feminine. Girl crush! I love characters like that. Preferred her to Cruise… – 7/10

• The Ritual – Still not sure about this horror film. For the most part, I think I liked it. It was atmospheric and genuinely creepy at times (I rarely find horror movies scary in any way). The conflict between this group of friends due to something that happens at the beginning worked quite well with the story later on of the presence in the forest and the way it brings out hidden resentment. The thing that will make people love this or hate this is the ending. The movie changes and becomes a much different film from the Blair Witch type of beginning and this won’t work for everyone. I didn’t mind the ending but preferred the more mysterious, less in-your-face start to the film. – 6/10

• We Bought A Zoo – This was a bit disappointing coming from Cameron Crowe. He’s never going to live up to the brilliant Say Anything! I actually don’t know what to say about this movie. It was “nice”. It was inoffensive. Unfortunately, it was completely forgettable. The acting was perfectly fine, I guess. Meh. I need Crowe to give me another Lloyd Dobler… – 6/10

• Kingsman: The Golden Circle – This was disappointing as well. I quite liked the first film (despite the anal sex joke – whaaaat?!). The sequel went too overboard for me – it was far too silly in a way that didn’t work like it did in the first film. Plus the lack of Samuel L. Jackson definitely hurts this film. Who doesn’t love Jackson?! Julianne Moore was clearly having fun with her outrageous character but that didn’t really work either. However, I loved Elton John. I’ve never loved Elton John. He was hilarious. No one in this movie was having as much fun as he was. – 6/10

• Zathura: A Space Adventure – Wow. I’d never seen this but it’s kind of bad. The first Jumanji film, though flawed and very dated now, is fun. I can see why it has its fans amongst people who were kids when it came out (I don’t love it – I was way too old). But I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle. Zathura looks pretty terrible and feels very low budget, the older brother is fucking hateful, and what was the point of Kristen Stewart’s character? Talk about not letting the female character get any screen time. I was bored and didn’t care what would happen to these annoying characters. Oh, and my kid was bored too. But she loves Jumanji… – 5/10

• Re-Watch: Big Fish – Been watching all the age-appropriate Tim Burton movies with the kid & enjoyed seeing this again as I’d not watched it since going to it in 2003. The kid really liked it and I still feel the same: it’s sweet and lovely but definitely not my favorite Burton. I’ll always prefer his style in films such as Edward Scissorhands and A Nightmare Before Christmas. – 7.5/10

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH

BOOKS READ (ranked best to worst)

• Strange Weather by Joe Hill (Aloft & Rain) – I reviewed the first two stories in this four story collection last month. Here’s the final two:

Story 3: Aloft – Definitely the most original story in this book! Probably one of the more original stories I’ve read in quite a while, actually. I really enjoyed this one. It’s the least “Stephen King-like” and I loved its non-horror weirdness. I don’t know how to talk about it without spoilers, though. It’s about… a cloud. Yeah. I think you’re best knowing no more than that beforehand if you read this book. It’s a fun story and I think I’ve preferred Hill’s short story collections to his full-length novels so far (I highly recommend his 20th Century Ghosts collection if you’re a fan of his or of his father Stephen King). – 4/5

Story 4: Rain – Definitely my least favorite story in this book, which was disappointing as it was a great (fucked-up) concept. In this story, thunderstorms in various parts of America suddenly start “raining” down sharp needles which rip those unfortunate enough to be caught outside in it to shreds. It started out promising but got too silly with the addition of a cult and then gave us an even more ridiculous ending. Damn. But I still liked it okay since, as I said, it was a good concept. I just wish the story had ended differently or maybe had more believable characters. – 2.5/5

• The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon – I keep saying I need to stop reading these YA books. I can’t help it. I need light, easy reads in between my horror, supernatural, sci-fi, apocalyptic & dystopian stuff! I have to pretend to be girly sometimes. I read this as I really liked Nicola Yoon’s book Everything, Everything. It’s not as strong as that one and the girl definitely isn’t as likeable but it’s a good romance if you like that mushy YA sort of stuff. The story itself is okay (but, again, far less interesting than that in Everything, Everything). It follows a girl & a boy who meet on the day the girl is due to be deported from America as she’s an illegal immigrant. As I said, the girl is borderline unlikeable. She’s not totally hateful – she’s just a bit cold & standoffish. Come to think of it, she reminds me of me… Ha! Shit. Maybe that’s why I could somewhat relate to her. The boy is loveable as shit, though. I was like “just fall in love with him already, bitch!”. His character made the novel much more enjoyable and they had great chemistry. I’m sure they’ll definitely make this into a movie. Oh, yep! Just looked it up. It’s listed on IMDb with a 2019 release. Hollywood is so fucking predictable. – 3/5

Currently Reading: The Outsider by Stephen King & Nightflyers And Other Stories by George R.R. Martin

TV SHOWS WATCHED

I’m still not really watching any TV other than Game Of Thrones & Stranger Things when they’re on so I don’t know why I have a TV section. I’m definitely giving up on The Walking Dead when that starts up again – it’s way too shit now! People think I watch a lot of movies but they’re each one & a half to two hours long. I look at people who binge watch entire seasons of TV in a weekend and think “how the fuck do you have the time?!”. But I did finish watching Sharp Objects since I really liked the book and love Amy Adams. She was fantastic in it and perfect for the role. The show was quite faithful to the book and I thought it was a far better adaptation than Big Little Lies.

I do need to get back to watching Black Mirror – That’s more my type of thing. I’ve watched all but the last series. I’m also a little curious about Maniac on Netflix. Anyone seen that?? It looks like I could either love it or hate it since Emma Stone has the potential to get on my nerves at times. But it’s from the guy who co-wrote the screenplay for It last year, which I freaking loved…

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

This update is so late that the coming month is now October. Unfortunately, I can’t do my usual Halloween Horror Month this year where I post nothing but horror movie reviews & top tens. I don’t have the time (or energy!). It’s a shame as I’ve always enjoyed doing that. I did watch a lot of horror films in the past year, however, so at the very least I may do one or two posts with super brief reviews of those.

As for September cinema releases, here are the ones I managed to see and some I missed. I’ll try to do full reviews of these.

Ones I Saw:

• A Simple Favor – Needed to waste a couple of hours & went in with zero expectations. Enjoyed the shit out of this one. – 7.5/10

• The House With A Clock In Its Walls – Fun. Love having “scary” family films to watch with the kid but thought Goosebumps was better. – 7/10

• American Animals – Decent film but I was a little underwhelmed considering the true story is quite interesting yet the film managed to make it somewhat boring. – 6.5/10

• The Nun – Meh. Better than those stupid Annabelle movies, at least. – 5.5/10

Some I Missed:

• The Predator – I’m glad. The hubby saw it expecting it to be bad but was shocked at just HOW bad it was.

• Crazy Rich Asians – Romantic comedy isn’t my thing but the reviews are good so I’ll watch it on Netflix.

• King Of Thieves – Am disappointed by the bad reviews as I’ve wanted them to make a movie of this starring Michael Caine ever since the real heist happened. It’s obvious but perfect casting.

Here’s Elton John fucking people up in Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Spoilers, obviously. But the movie is a bit shit anyway.

Watched, Read, Reviewed: July 2018

I’m not finding much time for blogging at the moment but I’ll still try to do these monthly updates (over halfway through the next month!). I only managed to review one movie in July, although I did see quite a few in the cinema. I’ll try to review those over the next few weeks. And at some point I’ll manage to reply to comments too! Sorry I’ve not been around for those…

MOVIES THIS MONTH

MOVIES REVIEWED (ranked best to worst):

• The First Purge – 6.5/10

MOVIES WATCHED (ranked best to worst):

• Incredibles 2 – Will review in full – 7.5/10

• The Light Between Oceans – I’m not sure why I stuck this on as it didn’t look like my type of thing (Oh yeah… because Michael Fassbender is hot). I thought it was very good and Alicia Vikander & Rachel Weisz were especially great at conveying the emotions involved in motherhood. It was easy to feel bad for both sides, even knowing that one was very much in the wrong. Good movie but probably more for women/mothers/grown-ups. – 7.5/10

• Hotel Artemis – I’ll review this in full as well. Liked it much more than I expected to. – 7.5/10

• The Secret Of Marrowbone – Will review this too. I thought it was a solid psychological horror compared to most the horror crap out there these days. – 7/10

• Charade – I figured it was time to check out another Audrey Hepburn film after watching Roman Holiday a while back. I preferred this one, which I didn’t realize was going to be a bit of a comedic spoof of Alfred Hitchcock-type films. Hepburn & Cary Grant were adorable together, it had a great Henry Mancini score, and the opening titles were fantastic (I thought they were done by Saul Bass as they looked like Hitchcock titles but looked it up & they were done by Maurice Binder, who did titles for James Bond films). I wanted to like this movie more than I did, though. It does deserve a higher rating than I’m giving it. I think I’m just not normally a fan of the 60’s “screwball” comedies and prefer a full-on Hitchcock suspense film to the mix of genres in Charade. I can see why this would have its fans, though – it’s a fun movie with that great 60’s look and very iconic stars. – 7/10

• Tag – I’ll review this as well. Love that this is based on a real group of guys. – 7/10

• The First Purge – 6.5/10

• Say When (aka Laggies) – I’ve said on here before that Keira Knightley annoys the hell out of me, so I’m not entirely sure why I keep watching her movies. I suppose it’s because she does “chick flicks” that suck less than most of them do plus the hubby will let me watch them alone. I enjoyed this one (despite it being Knightley!). It’s about a twentysomething who needs to grow up & do something with her life and, hell, I think most of us can relate to that (even if, like me, you’re almost double her age). It’s not the greatest film ever but I liked it as I could somewhat relate to it plus Sam Rockwell was great as the quirky dad of Knightley’s new teenage friend (Chloe Moretz). Actually, Rockwell was the best thing about this… he made up for Knightley. – 6.5/10

• Happy Death Day – I was really annoyed that I missed this in the cinema last year as it sounded like a fun horror in the slightly-cheesy 80’s slasher style I’ll always have affection for (since I’m old). But the movie was a disappointment, although it’s enjoyable enough for an hour and a half of your time. I just think I won’t remember a thing about it in a few years. The biggest problem was probably that the main character was a hateful bitch, so it was hard to care if she’d ever be able to stop her murder from happening. Yeah, she changes at the end (as to be expected – the whole point is that she needs to be a better person), but… Meh. I think my expectations were just too high. This concept was obviously done so well in Groundhog Day that nothing that’s tried to use that same idea has worked as well. If you want a non-horror teen movie with the same idea, I enjoyed Before I Fall slightly more than this one. And if you want a modern horror comedy with a cheesy 80’s thing going on, The Final Girls was better than this one as well. – 6.5/10

• Skyscraper – I’ll review this. So cheesy! – 6.5/10

• Call Me By Your Name – I was sooooo looking forward to this one and really annoyed that I didn’t have the opportunity to see it before the Oscars. But I found it a bit boring? And I didn’t care about or like the characters in the slightest. Not sure why? The acting was fine. But the only real enjoyment I got out of this was loving the Psychedelic Furs song in it and thinking that Italy looks fucking gorgeous and how much I’d love to be living the life of these rich fuckers in 1980’s Italy. Actually, I think that’s the reason I couldn’t relate to this – not the fact that it’s a male romance but that I really can’t relate to their extravagant lifestyle. Did they do any work?! I want that life. I couldn’t truly feel sorry for Chalamet when he got to live such a privileged life. Plus, the romance was more lust than love. I didn’t feel a true connection between them despite Chalamet & Hammer both giving good performances. I just didn’t feel their heartbreak. Sorry! And that peach bit was gross. – 6.5/10

• Elle – Umm. Not sure how I felt about this. I thought it was gonna be a good “revenge” drama but it’s not as straightforward as that. Stupid me should’ve looked at the director first – I’d have known what I was getting into with a Paul Verhoeven film! Well, Isabelle Huppert was fantastic so I can see why she was nominated for an Oscar for this performance. She’s 65 now?! She’s sexy as hell (I can say that without being creepy since I’m female). The subject matter (rape) is certainly uncomfortable, though. Don’t watch if you’re overly sensitive. – 6.5/10

• Force Majeure – This was disappointing, especially as it had good reviews. The story revolves around an avalanche (that doesn’t end up hurting anyone) and the way the husband/father of a family of four has the instinct to run away from the danger instead of trying to protect his wife & kids. It’s listed as a comedy drama for some reason so I was expecting some good dark humour but it’s really just a straightforward drama. The acting is fine but it’s hard to really like anyone involved despite family problems being relatable to everyone. The movie is overlong and slightly boring as very little happens. – 6.5/10

• The Incredible Hulk – I’ve now finally seen the only current MCU film I’d not yet seen! Damn – I guess I better update My Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie Ranking. Well, I’m in no hurry since this one certainly isn’t my favorite. It’s possibly in last place, although it’s not as bad as I was expecting. It’s just a little boring and felt somewhat pointless? Meh. Norton and Tyler were fine but we all see Ruffalo as the Hulk now anyway. I did like a couple of nods to the TV series, though, since I’m old & watched that show… – 6/10

• A Ghost Story – What a load of pretentious twaddle. I was all prepared to like this, too, since I like Rooney Mara for some reason (even though she displays zero emotion in everything I’ve ever seen her in). To be fair, I can appreciate what this story was trying to achieve (does life have meaning or will we all just die and fade away and be forgotten blah blah blah). It’s actually quite a depressing film but do we really need to be reminded that life sucks, especially with the current state of the world?? Here’s my Twitter “tweet review” of this movie: Well. That was tedious. #AGhostStory ✨🏠👫🎹🎧🚗 💢 💀👻🙍🏻‍♀️🥧👩‍👧‍👦👻🍽💢😱🏚🏗🏙👩🏼‍🌾👻💀💀💀🏠👫👻👻📜🕳✨ – 6/10

• Tromeo & Juliet – I’d seen most of Tromeo & Juliet in the past but decided to finally watch it all in, like, solidarity with James Gunn. Or something like that. He wrote this. It’s a fucking Troma film. Anyone who has seen a Troma film knows that the whole damn point is that they’re in extremely poor taste. They’re bad movies that are meant to be bad movies. And this one is as dreadful as the rest. No… Wait. To be fair, it’s quite well written for a Troma film. I still “like” The Toxic Avenger the most but Tromeo & Juliet has more memorable moments than most Troma films. I suppose it’s a masterpiece when compared to other movies from this studio. Here’s an image of the infamous penis monster in the film. You’re welcome. (And the next Guardians Of The Galaxy movie better not suck now. I love those films!) – 5/10

• Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me – A couple of years ago, I spent a week reviewing Adrienne Shelly films after loving her own film Waitress and wanting to explore her older (and very indie) work as an actress. As I say, her old films are the very definition of indie and not easy to get a hold of so, when this one popped up on Amazon Prime in the UK, I watched it immediately. It’s… not good. But Shelly is as adorable and charming as always. I really wish she’d made it bigger in films much better than this one. But, in a way, I suppose that would have ruined some of that mysterious indie charm that she had? Anyway, I suppose this isn’t the worst low budget film I’ve ever seen but it tries too hard to be quirky. Sean Young plays batshit crazy the same way she always does and the Adult film star playing Shelly’s sister is truly hateful (but she’s meant to be so she plays the role well, I guess). I’d have hated the movie if it hadn’t been for Shelly and her love interest (played by Max Parrish) having good chemistry and being pretty likable. – 5/10

• Tooth Fairy – Okay, my kid seems to have a thing for The Rock so we’re encouraging that and letting her watch the more family-friendly films of his. Yeah. Um. This one is pretty bad. I know it’s aimed at kids, but… Yikes. This is why I’m such a big fan of family films that are actually decent and manage to entertain people of all ages. Kids aren’t stupid – they know when a movie, like this one, is just a little too dumb. I’m glad Dwayne Johnson is doing better stuff now! By the way – the brilliant Julie Andrews is in this. Why, Julie? Why?!?!? – 4/10

• The Snowman – What the FUCK was this?! How was this so bad?? Okay, I read and kind of enjoyed the book (review HERE) although it’s not the greatest and maybe a little cheesy. But they seriously could have made a decent film from the material. This movie was just… embarrassing. I’m sort of embarrassed that I still watched it despite the bad reviews. Trust the reviews. Maybe read the book if you think it sounds like a decent story. They changed quite a few things anyway (not for the better). Why did they start with this story anyway since it’s not the first book in a series involving this detective (played by Fassbender). I’m still annoyed I read the book assuming it was a one-off or at least the first book since a movie was being made of it. I’m not even going to start on Val Kilmer’s performance in this film. I don’t have the energy… – 4/10

• The Emoji Movie – It’s as bad as you’ve heard. Okay – I can’t “review” this as I got too annoyed and ended up playing around on my phone the whole time. At home, by the way – people who play around on their phones in the cinema deserve severe punishment. Such as being forced to watch The Emoji Movie... – 3.5/10

BOOKS, TV, MUSIC, MISCELLANEOUS THIS MONTH

BOOKS READ (ranked best to worst)

• Strange Weather by Joe Hill (Snapshot & Loaded) – Oh I love Joe Hill. I’m starting to almost love his work as much as his dad’s (Stephen King). But maybe that’s because it’s becoming more & more like reading a King story… Hell, I won’t complain at that. I want another Stephen King! To be fair, Hill’s stories feel more “fresh” in some ways as they’re more modern. I’m also a sucker for the stuff he references as we’re clearly a similar age with similar pop culture tastes. This is a book of four novellas and I read these first two stories in July (I’ve finished the rest now – will talk about them in my August Roundup).

Story One: Snapshot – I really liked this story – it’s maybe my favorite of the four (and, admittedly, the most King-like). I think it’s possibly also the shortest but I love a short story when it’s a good one. As always, I love a great concept and this (as well as Aloft) has a great one. Basically, a mysterious camera seems to “steal” the memories of those whose photos are taken with it. And I’ll leave it at that – I’ve already given away too much. I love supernatural weirdness. – 4/5

Story Two: Loaded – This was a really good story about various people and how guns have been a part of their lives (and how they bring them all together at the end). Knowing how vocal King & Hill are on Twitter, I think I know how they feel about America’s ridiculous gun obsession. I didn’t find this story preachy, though – it’s told in a straightforward way and it’s scary how believable it is. Because it’s the same damn story we hear coming from America every day and what those outside of the U.S. can’t understand. WELL! Fuck all that. It pisses me off. This is why I prefer supernatural stories about memory-stealing cameras! Good job, though, Hill – this was very well-written and your scariest story yet. Please go back to writing about weird things that I know probably won’t actually kill me or anyone I know… – 4/5

• They Both Die At The End by Adam Silvera – I have to stop reading YA books. I can’t help it… they’re easy reads! And usually enjoyable. This one is pretty good. As usual, I read it because I liked the concept (it’s set in a world where everyone receives a call on the last day of their lives to tell them that they’ll die within the next 24 hours). Obviously, the book is about living our lives to their fullest as we never know if each day may be our last. The story follows two strangers: teenage boys who receive the call & meet each other (through the “Last Friend” app) and decide to spend their last day on earth together. It’s pretty heartbreaking but I can’t say I really connected with the characters. I liked how their personalities were so different, though, as the more outgoing boy tries to bring the other boy, who has always been afraid of living, out of his shell for just one day. – 3/5

Currently Reading: The Sun Is Also A Star by Nicola Yoon (oops. YA again)

TV SHOWS WATCHED (ranked best to worst)

• Sharp Objects – I really liked this book by Gillian Flynn and its throughly fucked-up characters. When I found out that Amy Adams would star in the TV adaptation, I was thrilled (love her!!). And then I was thrilled when they cast It’s Sophia Lillis to play the young version of the character. Perfection! They look so damn alike. It’s ridiculous that Chastain is playing her in the next It film. PAH! They look nothing alike. It should be Adams! Anyway – Adams is brilliant in this. As is Lillis, but that’s a much smaller part. As is Patricia Clarkson. As is everyone. So far, the show has been quite faithful to the book. I’m liking this adaptation far more than Big Little Lies, which made changes from the book which I really didn’t like (like making Witherspoon unfaithful!). Looking forward to seeing the rest of this & seeing everyone’s reaction to the ending…

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

No plans – I probably won’t post much. Well, I already haven’t… the month is almost over! I’ll try to catch up on reviewing cinema releases I’ve seen.

Upcoming Movies I Want To See:

As I said, the month is almost over but these are the August releases I want/wanted to see…

• Ant-Man And The Wasp – Saw it. Really enjoyed it. Will try to review it.

• Mission: Impossible – Fallout – I actually just watched Rogue Nation in preparation but have decided I now don’t have the energy for this film as it’s so long… Netflix!

• The Meg – But only at a “cheap” cinema. Not a film I wanna see at full price!

• Christopher Robin – Looks cute. Will probably go to this.

• The Darkest Minds – More fucking Dystopian YA?! I love Dystopian YA. Anyone know if this is okay for a mature 9-year-old who knows Tooth Fairy is shit?

• BlacKkKlansman – Anyone know if this is okay for a 9-year-old? HA! Just kidding!!!! Oh shit. I forgot you can’t joke online! People will realize that was a joke, right????? Anyway – I want to see this.

• The Happytime Murders – Hmm. I don’t know. I’m not sure about this one. But I did love Avenue Q…

• Upgrade – Like the sound of this one but it may be a “wait for Netflix” type of thing.

• Searching – See same comment as for Upgrade…

Now check out these awesome Charade titles and the fantastic Love My Way by The Psychedelic Furs from back in the old days when music didn’t suck ass like it all does now…

My Top Ten Books Read In 2017

I read quite a few books in 2017. Well, I read 27. Which is a lot for me as my focus is obviously on movies. A lot of what I read were books that I knew had movie adaptations coming out soon and I’ll probably try to do the same in 2018. I wasn’t great about reviewing all that I read but I’ll catch up on reviewing some of these before their movies come out.

So, counting down to my Top Ten, here are all the books that I read in 2017 ranked from my least favorite to my favorite:

27-21

27. Tape by Steven Camden
26. The Sisters by Claire Douglas
25. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
24. I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh
23. If I Stay by Gayle Forman
22. The Circle by Dave Eggers
21. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Top Twenty

20. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
19. The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
18. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
17. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
16. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
15. Finders Keepers by Stephen King
14. The Dinner by Herman Koch
13. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
12. Blaze by Stephen King
11. The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

Top Ten

10. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

9. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

8. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

7. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

6. End Of Watch by Stephen King

5. Murder On The Orient Express by Agatha Christie

4. Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

3. All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

2. The Fireman by Joe Hill

1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Currently Reading: Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King & Owen King.

See you tomorrow with my list of My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2017 (movies released prior to 2017 in the UK). Then I’ll finish on Friday with My Top Ten 2017 Movies (based on UK release date).

My Top Ten Books Read In 2016

Welcome to Day Two of my annoying End-Of-Year Lists! Today I’m ranking the thirteen books that I read in 2016 (but it’s still a Top Ten as I didn’t really like the bottom three very much). As always, I rank things according to my own personal taste. For example, number 13 is a far better & more well-written book than 12 or 11 – I just enjoyed 12 & 11 slightly more. I’m also quite proud that I somehow managed to review them all (poorly, though – I suck at book reviews even more than movie reviews) so I’ve included the links to what I said about each.

So now, counting down to my very favorite, these are all the books that I read in 2016:

Three Not-So-Great:

13. Straight White Male by John Niven

12. The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

11. The Death Cure by James Dashner

Top Ten Much-Better-Ones:

10. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

9. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

8. Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

7. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

6. The End Of The World Running Club by Adrian J. Walker

5. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

4. Mr Mercedes by Stephen King

3. The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

2. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

1. The Colour Of Magic by Terry Pratchett

Can I just say that, while I highly recommend at least my top seven, I want to give a special mention to Joe Hill’s 20th Century Ghosts. I’ve now read several of his books after wanting to find out if he was as good as his father (Stephen King). I’ve really enjoyed all his books so far but, finally, 20th Century Ghosts is one that I really loved. As with all short story collections, some stories are much stronger than others. But the best ones are fantastic!

**See you for two more end-of-year lists over the next two days. Tomorrow I’ll be posting a list of My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2016 then will end on Friday with My Top Ten Movies Released In 2016 (going by UK release dates). 🙂

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (Book Review)

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (short story collection)

What It’s About: (via Amazon)

Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . .

Francis was human once, but now he’s an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .

John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .

Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of ’77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds. . . .

The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. . . .

My Thoughts:

I absolutely loved this short story collection from Joe Hill. I’ve read several Joe Hill books now & commented on my review for Heart-Shaped Box that, while I’m really enjoying his books, they still weren’t quite living up to his father’s (Stephen King – my favorite author). But I was determined that one day I’d read a Joe Hill book that I really do love. I’d say that 20th Century Ghosts is finally the one!

This collection is fantastic and the very best stories live up to King’s short stories. What was also great was that there were plenty that weren’t even within the horror genre, including some with brilliantly original ideas (such as in the story Pop Art – I’ve never read anything quite like that one). So I’ll review this one in the same way I reviewed his dad’s short story collection The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams – I’ll give a very brief opinion on each story then an overall rating & what my five favorite stories were. So here we go!

My Quick Thoughts On Each Story:

Best New Horror:

Yikes. This one was genuinely disturbing and one for true lovers of “horror”. I was a little worried, as this was the first story, that the rest of them would be as horrific (which wasn’t the case at all). But this is a brilliant piece of writing & one of the stories that I know I’ll remember the most from this collection years from now. Atmospheric & creepy, this story shows that Hill can write very effective horror.

20th Century Ghost:

I ADORED this story. I can tell you right now that this was my favorite but, of course, it was likely to be as it involved something very dear to me: a love of movies. I won’t get into details on the story to avoid spoilers but, as the title may suggest, it’s about a ghost haunting a movie theater. This story is perfect. I loved it so much! And what a relief to read this one, which made my heart happy, after the thoroughly disturbing one that started the book…

Pop Art:

Wow. This story is truly brilliant and utterly unique. It’s about a boy named Art. And he may pop. Why? Because he’s inflatable. This is some good shit. How is Joe Hill not a household name after writing this one?? Well, maybe it’s too weird for the mainstream but those who appreciate something a bit left of center may love this one.

You Will Hear The Locust Sing:

Another piece of amazing writing, this is Hill’s ode to Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Not my personal favorite but admittedly one of the better stories in this novel overall.

Abraham’s Boys:

Again, not a personal favorite of mine but this was an intriguing alternative take on vampire-hunter Van Helsing’s life.

Better Than Home:

This was a beautiful story about a loving father & son relationship. I can’t say I really related to it, especially as there’s a lot of baseball talk (Hill & his father clearly love baseball) but it’s a sweet & not overly-sentimental story I’m sure a lot of people would like.

The Black Phone:

A very King-like story about a kidnapped boy & the mysterious phone in the basement where he’s being kept. Loved the supernatural vibe. Fans of Hill’s dad will like this one.

In The Rundown:

A good story about a late teen/early twentysomething(?) boy beat down by life and about a woman going to desperate measures. But I have to admit I had to grab the book just now to remind me what this one was about so it’s clearly not one that stuck with me.

The Cape:

Definitely one of the strongest stories in the book, I thoroughly enjoyed this story of two brothers and a magic cape that allows one of them to fly. And I loved the turn the story took at the end. Another one that really displays Hill’s storytelling talent.

Last Breath:

A very short story but, again, a truly original & unique idea. I’d love to see this one & a few others adapted for some kind of anthology film/TV show. This story would work really well on screen.

Dead-Wood:

This is another one where I just had to refresh my memory. Didn’t take long as it’s only just over one page! A good, weird little story that actually reminds me of a Tales Of The Unexpected episode I saw once involving plants “screaming”. Man I loved that show. I guess it’s a bit like The Happening too, though. Ugh – Sorry! I didn’t mean to compare that movie to Hill’s work. Hill’s work is much better…

The Widow’s Breakfast:

Another lovely story that doesn’t fall at all within the horror genre, this is about a kind widow & a homeless man in the 1930s. I easily remembered this one – I preferred it to the father/son story in Better Than Home. But both are great for non-horror lovers.

Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead:

Joe Hill, you’re truly after my heart with your choices of settings in these stories! First we had the brilliant movie theater ghost story then, with this one, we have a “love story” on the set of George A. Romero’s 1978 Dawn Of The Dead! An all-time favorite film of mine (and by far the best zombie flick ever)!!! Loved this story. Loved it! Hill & I clearly like the same sort of stuff. Other than baseball…

My Father’s Mask:

A bizarre story with a fantastic vibe. Sort of made me think of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut for some strange reason. But, like, a good version of that…

Voluntary Committal:

BRILLIANT story! The best in this book (and also my favorite alongside 20th Century Ghost, which has a slight edge for me only because it’s movie-related). I always feel bad comparing Hill to King but, yes, this one is very King-like and King’s fans will love it. It’s my favorite sort of story – one with a supernatural edge and very strong writing. I’d hazard a guess that this story is the favorite of most who read this collection. After this story and the four others I’ve listed below, I’m now indeed a firm fan of Joe Hill’s writing.

Scheherazade’s Typewriter:

A sneaky little story hidden within the Acknowledgments at the end of the book. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that… It’s meant to be a surprise! Well, don’t miss out on this fun 3-page story – it’s well worth your time. As is this entire book. Fantastic work from Joe Hill! Now I can’t wait to read my new copy of The Fireman.

My Overall Rating For 20th Century Ghosts: 4.5/5

My Top Five Stories (in book appearance order):

– 20th Century Ghost
– Pop Art
– The Cape
– Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead
– Voluntary Committal

**Hope you all have a great weekend and, for those who celebrate it, a very Merry Christmas! I’ll be back next week with a review of my final Blind Spot Movie (Akira), followed by four end-of-year lists of my favorite books & movies this year. I love end-of-year lists!!!! Hope to see all of yours too. 🙂

My Blog’s August 2016 Recap

Happy September, everyone! I know I say this same sort of thing every month but I’m serious this time: When the hell did it suddenly become September?! Ahh… Back to school, after school clubs, no holidays & having no life. Not that I have a life any other month of the year anyway. Oh, and then it’ll be winter & I’ll moan even more. God I hate winter. Oh wow – I’m sounding so positive! Here’s a recap of what I posted in August…

POSTS

My Most Popular Post: Stranger Things Poster Art By Kyle Lambert. Holy shitballs – people love Stranger Things! I had a lot of comments on this post. I didn’t say much other than that I was watching it & that I liked the above artwork by artist Kyle Lambert. I did really enjoy the show & I want to see more. The hype was a bit much, though, and the “1980s” thing felt too forced sometimes. But, hell, I adore that decade so I’m not going to complain about that too much.

My Favorite Post: The Legend Of Billie Jean, Less Than Zero & Private School “80’s Quickie Movie Reviews” Post. Speaking of the 1980s, my favorite post was probably the one with my three short reviews of movies from my favorite decade. I’ll always love discussing & reminiscing about movies from this time period, even though I’m pretty much on my own when I do. This post got 5 comments & hardly any views. Ha! Don’t care – I’ll never stop posting about movies that no one under 35 has seen. (Btw – there were boobs in that post. Maybe it’ll get some views now…) 😉

*Baby Dory is one of the most adorable things ever

MOVIES REVIEWED

My Most Popular Movie Review: Finding Dory

All Movies Reviewed (ranked best to worst):
The Legend Of Billie Jean
Pete’s Dragon
Finding Dory
The Book Thief
Lights Out
Swallows And Amazons
Less Than Zero
Paper Towns
Private School

MOVIES WATCHED

In Cinema (ranked best to worst):
Pete’s Dragon
Lights Out
Swallows And Amazons

At Home (ranked best to worst):
Carol
The Good Dinosaur
Fright Night (2011)
The Invitation
Pan

TOP TEN LISTS

– Top Ten Celebrities With Color Names
– Top Ten Madonna Songs
– Top Ten Christian Slater Movies
– Top Ten Tim Burton Movies

SEARCH TERMS

My Top Search Term: “Jennifer Connelly white top”. The pervy Googlers strike again! Okay, there’s the photo of said white top above. Various versions of this search term come up a lot – the photo is from the rather bad film Career Opportunities, which I reviewed HERE for my John Hughes Blogathon. The post also contains a pervy gif of Connelly suggestively riding a toy horse while wearing said white top. I apologize – I clearly encouraged the pervy Googlers with that post…

My Favorite Search Term: “film mit killer penis”. It’s my favorite this month because WTF is that? I can usually figure out why a search term brought someone to my blog but, nope, not this time. Were they trying to type “film WITH killer penis“? If so, I’m still pretty sure I haven’t written about a movie with a killer penis. Were they searching for the Tromeo & Juliet penis monster from my Class Of Nuke ‘Em High review? Eh. Maybe.

Here are my top search terms for the month:

BOOKS

I kept it in the King family with my selection of books in August!

Book I Reviewed: The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

Book I Finished Reading: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King

Book I Started Reading: 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH

August was the first month where I didn’t manage to watch or review anything from my 2016 Blind Spot list. Too busy. Oh well – I promise I’ll still do 12 by the end of the year. I realized that I put three horror movies on my list so I plan to post reviews of all three in October (including Phenomena, starring Jennifer Connelly once again in a white top!). I’ll probably post the missing Blind Spot review in November. You all told me last month that it should be Zodiac so I’ll try to make that my November post & then Akira in December.

For September, I’m again going to take it easy on posts due to lack of time for blogging. I have more of my “lazy but fun” actor top tens already written & scheduled for the entire month (yay me!). Oh, and Music Video Friday is ready to go for the entire month as well. No one looks at those posts. Don’t care – I like ’em! 😉 I’ll post reviews of movies I see in the cinema but I mainly want to spend September writing my horror movie reviews for my usual October Month Of Horror.

Upcoming Movies:

I missed out on lots of movies I wanted to go to in August (again, too busy). Not sure what I’ll manage of this month’s cinema releases but I’ll probably see Sausage Party this week. I think Kubo And The Two Strings looks good so we’re very likely to go to that one as a family. Not sure how I feel about Blair Witch – I’ll probably watch that at home if it gets halfway decent reviews since (shock horror!) I liked the original film. Does this ruin my movie blogger cred? I’d rather have a root canal than watch Bridget Jones’s Baby! The Girl With All The Gifts looks like my type of thing so I’ll attempt to make it to that one. Swiss Army Man sounds SO completely WTF that I HAVE to watch it eventually but I’m not sure if it’s worth a trip to the cinema.

Finally, I’m very much looking forward to Tim Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. I read the book (which I reviewed HERE) and said while reading it that Tim Burton should make the film if they decided to adapt it. Such a perfect choice – I can’t wait to see what he does with it even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book overall.

Okay – I always end these with a music clip related to something I posted or watched in the past month. So I’m just going to go ahead & once again post the theme song from The Legend Of Billie Jean: Pat Benatar’s Invincible. Because it’s awesome. Enjoy the glory of 1985! 🙂

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (Book Review)

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

What It’s About: (via Amazon)
Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals… a used hangman’s noose… a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is as widely known to his legions of fans as the notorious excesses of his youth. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest purchase, an item he discovered on the Internet:

I will sell my stepfather’s ghost to the highest bidder…

For a thousand dollars, Jude has become the owner of a dead man’s suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no metaphorical ghost, no benign conversation piece. Suddenly the suit’s previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door… seated in Jude’s restored Mustang… staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one hand…

My Thoughts:

This book got third place in my poll asking which book I should read next (I reviewed Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere HERE & Terry Pratchett’s The Colour Of Magic HERE).

This is now the third Joe Hill book I’ve read and I’d say I’m definitely a fan & will continue to read all of his books. I love the sound of his book The Fireman – that’ll be going on my Christmas list this year (hint hint, hubby?). I’d have to say that both NOS4A2 & Horns are better than Heart-Shaped Box (I reviewed both of those books HERE) but this one was still an enjoyable read and I liked it more than NOS4A2.

The thing that worked for me the most was probably the fact that its main character is an aging metal dude. I love metal & I love metal DUDES! I think, deep down, I want to be one. In my next life, maybe I’ll be the next Ozzy Osbourne or something. There were some fun rock references thrown into the book here & there but it could’ve done with more of these. Judas Coyne is a great name for the character & Hill does well to make him a believeable old metal guy. I mean, he’s kind of a dick at first but that’s what you’d expect. This book didn’t have the same problem as NOS4A2, though, in that I didn’t really like or care about the characters very much in that one. This is a shorter book with a far more simple ghost story but I think that helped to give us more time to get to know Coyne, which is why I enjoyed this book more as I love good character development. The story is obviously important but, if it gives me characters I don’t care about, it then feels like a waste of my time.

As far as being scary, I can’t say that this one creeped me out but it’s rare that a book really does that to me anyway. It started out good but I found it less scary as the book went on. I think there was a bit too much of the ghost plus he was more creepy and mysterious at the beginning when we knew less about him. I don’t have any big complaints about the book but there was one element in the story that I would’ve liked left out. I found the conclusion okay, though, so that was good as I find that a lot of horror stories don’t seem to know how to end.

Heart-Shaped Box did take a while to get going & at one point early on I wondered how Hill would fill a whole book with a basic “haunting”. I liked the direction the story later took, though, and I finished the second half of the book very quickly as I was eager to know what would happen. It’s just a shame that the second half of the book, which was more “exciting”, didn’t manage to also maintain the same sort of eeriness we had in the first part of the book.

I do think Hill stands on his own as a very good modern horror author but he will always be compared to his father and I’m sure he knows that & is used to it by now. I have to say that I’ve enjoyed his books so far but none have quite lived up to Stephen King’s books for me. I have yet to find the worlds created by Hill as fully immersive as those in his father’s books but I’d say that of most authors anyway so it’s unfortunate that he’ll always be compared to King. Compared to authors other than King, Hill is a new favorite of mine. One of these days, I’ll really love one of his books. I know it! I look forward to reading The Fireman to see if it’s the one. For now, I’m happy to just casually date his books. No being invited in “for coffee” yet!

My Rating: 3.5/5

Which Book Should I Read Next? (A Poll!)

Last Christmas (2014) I got a lot of books as gifts, which I worked my way through in 2015 (the only one of those that I haven’t read is A Game Of Thrones – I don’t have the energy to start that yet!). I did a Top Ten (okay, 14) of everything I read last year including reviews of each of those books HEREif you’re curious.

I have to say that I really lucked out last year – I absolutely loved several of the books that I read (especially Ready Player One and The Martian plus I read my first George R.R. Martin and Joe Hill books, which have me definitely wanting to read more by those authors). This last Christmas, though, I got no books. However, I got a load of vouchers! So what did I buy? Books! They’re in the above photo, including some I’ve had for years but still not read.

I mainly stick to reading Stephen King most of the time. And, okay, I admit it – I read way too much Dean Koontz. I’ve just always loved horror and the supernatural when it comes to books but for some reason have barely explored the genre I love above all others: sci-fi. I like fantasy as well but have read very little of it (I do adore The Hobbit & The Lord Of The Rings).

I think, with sci-fi, I’m scared of it. I don’t have a science-y mind. Those books are for smart people! The technical gobbledygook in Star Trek: The Next Generation confused me enough as it was (god I loved that show). Maybe it’s why I like sci-fi comedy when it comes to reading (The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is my favorite book ever). So I thought it was time I try some new authors. The first two books I picked up were a Neil Gaiman & a Terry Pratchett. Look at me! Expanding my horizons and shit!

I’m in the middle of reading Stephen King’s The Bazaar Of Bad Dreams at the moment but I thought it might be fun to do a poll asking everyone which book I should read next. It’ll give me an idea of what’s the most popular. I would also love it if people would like to recommend any other authors, especially in the sci-fi and fantasy genres. Or horror & supernatural… The one thing I never really like is “crime” novels, though – the Patricia Cornwell was given to me and I don’t know if I should read it or not. Any fans of hers here?

Enough of my blathering – here’s the poll. You can choose up to three. And feel free to discuss any in the comments – I love a good book chat. 🙂

My Top Ten Books Read In 2015 (and mini-reviews!)

Happy New Year, everyone! Wow – I’ve read a record 14 books in 2015! (That’s a lot for me. Hey, I’m a movie blogger – not a book blogger). 🙂

I’m really bad about getting around to doing book reviews so I’ve only reviewed a few of these (I’ve included links to the full reviews I have done). For the remainder, I figured I’d just do some very short mini-reviews right here right now. And, as my regulars know, my Top Ten lists rarely contain ten things so it seemed stupid to ignore four books when I’ve only read 14.

So here are My Top Ten (14…) Books Read In 2015, counting down to my favorite:

14. The Gospel According To Drew Barrymore by Pippa Wright

I believe this is what they call “chick lit”? Which isn’t very “me” but my hubby picked this up for me based on the title since he knows I’m a fan of Drew Barrymore. I thought that was very sweet & thoughful of him! 🙂 Anyway, I really liked the concept. Through flashbacks, we watch the relationship develop between two (40ish?) best friends. They’re very different from one another but we see how they bonded over Drew Barrymore movies at various points in their lives (such as E.T. & Poison Ivy). Unfortunately, the book just isn’t very good. I didn’t like one of the women and the Drew Barrymore gimmick really did feel like nothing more than a gimmick – the references to her felt awkward & forced. It was a good idea but without that gimmick, you’re left with two characters I really didn’t give a crap about. My Rating: 2/5

13. Florence & Giles by John Harding

I grabbed this from the library as I’d been wanting to read it for a while based on The Times quote on the front cover: “Imagine The Turn Of The Screw reworked by Edgar Allan Poe”. It sounded like it would be all gothic & atmospheric but it was pretty disappointing. A young girl in the late 1800s must protect her younger brother from a sinister & otherworldly new governess after the mysterious death of the previous woman who cared for them. The girl (and narrator if I remember correctly??) isn’t allowed to read but teaches herself & reads loads of books in secret. It’s caused her to develop a strange sort of language of her own and having to read the book with all her odd words took some getting used to (and was slightly annoying). The girl also isn’t that easy to like and the book is extremely slow until finally picking up in the final half. It was a good story but not a very fun read. I actually think it could make for a great film if the right people were involved. My Rating: 2.5/5

12. The Shock Of The Fall by Nathan Filer

My favorite books to read are always horror, sci-fi or fantasy (which will be obvious when we get to the top of my list) but I do try to sometimes read bestsellers or ones that have awards slapped on their covers (like this one) which are probably bullshit half the time anyway. This is an example of a book that was pretty good and plenty of people probably liked it but, like the previous book, it just didn’t really work for me. Oh! I also judge books by their covers and this has a good one. And I was intrigued by the back cover (which I’ve grabbed here from Goodreads): “I’ll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name’s Simon. I think you’re going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he’ll be dead. And he was never the same after that.” See? Sounds interesting. This is a book where you’ll easily find out what it’s about if you read anything whatsoever about it but if you like knowing nothing other than what’s on the back cover, skip over this next part. SPOILER: This book is about mental illness (schizophrenia) and told from the viewpoint of the young adult (Matt) who is suffering from it. It’s a fairly unique book & I’d recommend it if it sounds to you like one you’d like. I have to say it’s actually a better book than my next two choices but, as always, I rank mainly by my level of enjoyment & I found myself not really wanting to pick this one up much so it took me quite a long time to finish. My Rating: 3/5

11. The Maze Runner by James Dashner

I admit to enjoying Young Adult books, especially as the current trend seems to be YA books that are dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic. I love dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic! I don’t normally do it this way around but I saw The Maze Runner movie first and I liked it so decided to read the books. Well, I’ve read the first two so far and will continue in order to see how they end but I’ve certainly read far better YA books. I also get the feeling that the story is going nowhere plus the author has a strange writing style that many people don’t seem to like. I’ve reviewed this & The Scorch Trials in full if you want to click on the links. My Rating: 2.5/5

10. The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

This & The Maze Runner are pretty interchangeable but I suppose I’ve put this higher as reading it was a bit more enjoyable since I didn’t see the movie first so didn’t know what would happen. Meh. Yeah. Again, not the greatest book… I just like the overall concept, which is why I’m continuing with the series. My Rating: 2.5/5

9. The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Not to be all snobby as I certainly don’t read many “worthy” classics or anything but this looked like one of those supermarket books you see old ladies reading on the bus. Well, I suppose it kind of is but, screw it, I AM an old lady on a bus! The basic story is simple: Retired Harold Fry decides to make a pilgrimage by foot across most of England to visit an old work colleague & friend named Queenie, who has written him to say that she is dying. It was a slow read to start but I was fairly hooked as Harold got closer & closer to reaching his destination. As you may expect, Harold goes on a “journey of self-discovery” during his long walk and this was the best thing about the book and was handled quite well. Something becomes obvious pretty early on but it made me want to keep reading to find out exactly what happened & how. My Rating: 3/5

8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

I’ve just finished this book and I can see why some people have told me that they really loved it. I wanted to like it a little more than I did. I’ll say that Zusak did a great job developing some rich characters that I very much cared about. Liesel, a young girl in WWII Germany, is the central character and I liked her strong will. Even better, though, were the characters Liesel loved most (her foster parents and best friend plus two other important characters I won’t mention to avoid any spoilers). Unfortunately, despite some great characters, I felt something that I can’t quite put my finger on was “missing” from this book. I think the problem was that it was narrated by Death (as in, The Grim Reaper). It’s a better “gimmick” than the Drew Barrymore thing above and I didn’t mind it at first but, in the end, I think it actually got in the way of what was a good enough story without any gimmicks. Also, the ending felt rather abrupt & rushed after this long journey that we’ve just gone on with all these characters (it’s a pretty thick book). It was a good book & I’m interested in seeing the movie now but I wish it was higher on this list. My Rating: 3.5/5

7. Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin

This is the second (of two!) graphic novels that I’ve read (the other being Watchmen). Wait – is this a graphic novel? It’s more of a collection of several comics… I think?? Is there a difference? This sort of thing is something I have NO knowledge in but I have to say that I did enjoy Tank Girl. She’s a cool character and I really appreciated the (inappropriate) humor (it took me a while to read it all as I had to keep putting it away someplace where my young daughter wouldn’t grab it). I mean, Tank Girl has sex with a kangaroo. Whaaaat? It’s pretty damn bizarre but it’s fun and I was entertained. I suppose I should watch the horrible-looking movie that doesn’t appear to resemble the comic much now? Or… Should I not?? My Rating: 3.5/5

6. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

I read my first two Joe Hill books this year & I have to say that, so far, I may end up almost liking his work as much as his dad’s. This one seems to be a favorite but I enjoyed the other book more and found that I didn’t really care that much about the characters in this. But it’s a good & very original story. You can read my full review at the above link. My Rating: 4/5

5. Revival by Stephen King

Stephen King is and always will be my favorite author so I’m going to put a book of his fairly high on any list. I’ve not yet reviewed this one but I will try to do a full review soon as it’s a King book so I’ll keep this short. For now I’ll say that this isn’t one of his best (it probably ranks somewhere in the lower middle for me if I were to do a list of all the King books I’ve read). I find that I’m quite often a little  disappointed with how King’s books end and this one has the same problem of starting out great but then kind of fizzling out at the end. I’ll say that King once again draws a very detailed picture of small town American life which I can always relate to in his books and what makes me love his work so much. I was very much drawn into this small town where a young boy and tragic preacher reside. I just wish these two main characters had remained as interesting in the second half of the book as they grew older (the book spans many years). Well, I enjoyed it anyway – read it if you love King. I enjoyed it more than his son’s NOS4A2 but will admit that Hill’s book was probably a little better than this one. My Rating: 3.5/5

4. Horns by Joe Hill

I suppose Joe Hill’s NOS4A2 is a slightly better book than Revival and also Horns but I read this one first & actually enjoyed it the most of this father/son trio that I read this year. It’s weird, especially as it gets to the end, and not everyone would like it but it was quite refreshing to read something so totally unique & unpredictable. You can read my full double review of this and NOS4A2 at the above link. My Rating: 4/5

3. Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin

This is the first and only George R.R. Martin book I’ve ever read and I loved it! I got the Game Of Thrones book last Christmas but haven’t yet had the energy to embark on that massive journey so when a woman I work with brought in a bunch of books that she was getting rid of, I was excited to see this standalone Martin book so I could see what his work was like. I can only compare this to the Game Of Thrones TV show but I’d have to say it’s quite different from that. This is sci-fi comedy! I’ve read very few books in this genre but one happens to be my all-time favorite book (The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) so this one was perfect for me and I enjoyed it immensely. I suppose I also owe this one a full-length review at some point… I’ll just say that, although Martin’s books are clearly popular, I had no idea of what a great writer this guy really is and it has me definitely wanting to read more of his stuff. I’ll also admit this: I’m a casual reader & clearly like light & easy entertainment. My vocabulary is limited (as evidenced by my so-called “reviews” 😉 ) and I’ve never had to look up so many words for their definitions while reading a book as I did while reading this. (Not tons, maybe six or seven words). But that’s awesome – I don’t have to do that with my YA books! This guy truly has a great way with words and his characters (especially Tuf) felt so alive. And it was actually funny! After watching Game Of Thrones, full of so much tragic death, I wasn’t sure what to expect of a sci-fi comedy from the same author. Plus the story itself had me hooked. Loved it. Can anyone recommend any of his other work? My Rating: 4.5/5

2. The Martian by Andy Weir

I can’t believe I never had a chance to watch this film considering how much I loved the book! Oh well – I’ll catch it at some point. I did at least review this book in full so I can keep this short. I guess I really do love my sci-fi comedies (although this is more sci-fi than comedy but I loved the central character’s amazing sense of humor). I find very few books to be perfect (I’m almost always disappointed with the endings) but I really can’t fault this one in any way other than it ending too abruptly. But I suppose that’s because I was enjoying it so much. The Martian is easily now an all-time favorite of mine and I highly recommend it. My Rating: 5/5

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I’m so disappointed in myself for not getting around to reviewing this yet even though it’s the very first book I read after receiving it for Christmas last year. Thanks to anyone who has actually read this (really long & rambling) post! I’m sorry to do this to you now at my number one but I’m not going to say much about this one. Yet. It deserves a full-length review from me as it’s my favorite book in a very long time & nothing could be more “ME“! This was written for Eighties-loving geeks like me by an Eighties-loving geek and I absolutely adored it. I had so much fun reading this one. I hope the movie does it justice! My Rating: 5/5

Horns (2013) Review

Horns (2013)

Directed by Alexandre Aja

Based on Horns by Joe Hill

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, Juno Temple, Kelli Garner, James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan, Heather Graham, David Morse, Sabrina Carpenter

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
Horns is an American dark fantasy horror-comedy film directed by Alexandre Aja, loosely based on Joe Hill’s novel of the same name. Daniel Radcliffe stars as a man who is accused of raping and murdering his girlfriend (Juno Temple) and uses his newly discovered paranormal abilities to uncover the real killer.

My Opinion:

Okay, so I watched this movie after reading the book because I of course wanted to see how they’d adapt such a weird story (you can read my review of the book HERE). I know that movies are rarely as good as the books but they did a pretty poor job with this adaptation. It started out pretty good, too, so it was disappointing that it fell apart.

Yes, we have Harry Potter playing Ig, a guy who grows Devil horns. And has sex! NO! Do NOT have sex, Daniel Radcliffe! That’s just really disturbing – you’re a little kid. And Juno Temple… is it just me or is that girl annoying? I suppose she wasn’t too bad in this, though, as she was kind of how I pictured Merrin. She’s famous because her dad (Julien Temple) is famous. Can we just talk about his music documentary/music video work instead? That’s far more interesting than Horns. My husband told me he likes it more when I go off on a tangent, like when I “reviewed” Primer and ended up talking about Weebles. Really?? Surely people find that annoying! Just Google Julien Temple if you don’t know him – besides things like his Sex Pistols documentaries, he directed far more music videos than I realized (videos for Judas Priest, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Depeche Mode, etc etc, and that David Bowie movie Absolute Beginners). Oh, and check out my chat with Hard Ticket To Home Video’s Brian of Billy Idol’s White Wedding video HERE (which wasn’t directed by Temple – I’m just whoring my Music Video Friday posts that only I & two other bloggers like). 😉

Right! Horns. I think the movie captured the love story between Ig & Merrin pretty well, which was good as that’s what I liked the most about the book. But it did a terrible job with all the other characters. As always, I won’t spoil the story but the two other biggest characters are probably Ig’s brother Terry & Ig’s friend Lee (who couldn’t look more different from how he’s described in the book). Their stories were changed quite a bit and they got no character development at all in the movie. I hated the changes as they didn’t really seem like the type that were necessary to save on time or whatever (I let some changes slide as I know it’s hard to squeeze a long book into a short movie). For those seeing the movie only, I think you’ve totally missed out on most of the characters’ motivations for doing the things they did.

And Heather Graham couldn’t have felt more out of place! They changed & made her role far bigger than it was in the book and I’m afraid to say that she came across as quite desperate in this & her acting was just embarrassing. It makes me sad to say that – I kind of like Heather Graham. I’m assuming she was told to act in that way, though, as Wikipedia oddly describes Horns as a horror comedy, which I don’t think is at all accurate. There are a couple small dark comedy moments but don’t watch it expecting a dark comedy – it’s a supernatural murder mystery horror. It’s a very unique & original story so I suppose that’s just Hollywood trying to give it a simple classification.

Despite my complaints, I did like this movie okay. I’m going to be picky as I liked the book but, trying to look at it as someone who hasn’t read the book would, I think it’s a decent enough film. It does try a little too hard to be “cool” but I think that’s pretty common for movies aimed at twentysomethings. Yes, like Joe Hill’s books are very much aimed at a younger generation than those older fans of his dad’s (Stephen King) work, this movie very obviously knows its specific target audience. Which is fine – I’m sure a lot of now-adults who grew up with Harry Potter love this movie. I think Daniel Radcliffe will have been chosen for this very reason & he’s much better than I was expecting – I ended up having no issues with him playing Ig (I read on IMDB that Shia LaBeouf was originally going to play Ig. Yuck – can you imagine?! That would’ve been a huge mistake!). Also, the movie’s soundtrack is pretty good. It was out of place half the time & far too obvious sometimes (such as using Personal Jesus) but I’m not going to complain at a soundtrack including David Bowie even though the song Heroes worked much better in The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (plus David Bowie is currently the “artist you must include in your soundtrack to make your movie seem cool“).

Summary:

Horns is a decent enough horror movie if you’re looking for a different sort of story that you’ve not seen in a thousand other films (that’s usually my biggest complaint with horror movies such as Mama). Don’t get the wrong idea when I say it’s aimed at twentysomethings who grew up with Harry Potter – it’s a dark film & very much a “horror”. I was surprised when looking up the director’s other work (The Hills Have Eyes remake, Mirrors, Piranha 3D(!), and the ultra-violent Switchblade Romance which has been on my list to watch for the blog every October but I still haven’t because I’m a wuss). Well, Horns is less extreme than any of those. I far preferred the book, of course, but at least they got the central love story right in the movie even if they made a mess of everything else. I’d actually recommend only watching the movie with this one if you’re not much of a book person – you’ll enjoy the movie more that way. If you are a book person, definitely read the book first.

My Rating: 6.5/10

Here’s a Julien Temple video! This song is stuck in my head now. Judas Priest – Breaking The Law:

NOS4A2 & Horns by Joe Hill (Book Reviews)

I finally read my first two Joe Hill books this year. His father, Stephen King, has been my favorite author for years and I can be a little stuck in my ways so I wasn’t overly excited at checking his stuff out as I already had a favorite horror author & didn’t need another one. I figured there was no way he could top his dad’s stuff anyway.

It must suck being compared to your famous parents all the time but it’s impossible to ignore the fact that Stephen King is his father, especially when he’s gone into the exact same field as his dad with these two books. Well, neither of these books topped his dad’s work for me but they were still really good. Okay, I’ll admit that they top some of his dad’s not-so-good books but they’re not as good as King’s very best. Those here who have read & recommended these two books to me may be surprised at which one I liked more, though, and I’ll try to explain why. Let’s talk about them! 🙂

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (aka U.K. title NOS4R2)

What It’s About: (from the back cover)
Young Victoria McQueen has a gift for finding things. All she has to do is ride her bike through the Shorter Way Bridge and she’ll come out wherever she needs to be… it’s an ability she keeps secret because no one would understand it. Until she discovers she’s not the only one with a special gift.

Charlie Manx takes children for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with its NOS4R2 vanity plate, driving them away from their families, their homes, even their own humanity. When they reach their destination they’ve changed, utterly. They’ve become Charlie’s children: as unstoppable and insane as Manx himself.

Only one kid ever escaped Charlie Manx: Vic McQueen. But the end of that nightmare was just the beginning of their life-and-death battle of wills… a battle that explodes a quarter century later. Because now Manx has taken Vic’s son. And Vic McQueen is going to get him back. Or die trying.

My Thoughts:

**I first want to say it’s weird that this book is called NOS4R2 in the U.K. but I’ll use A2 for the review. I just wanted to share this story: I got this book from my husband & my daughter was curious about it. Obviously, it’s a nasty horror book not for kids so he told her it was about “C-3PO & R2-D2 on a quest to find a nose for R2, everyone’s favorite little droid“. Too cute.** 🙂

This book is definitely the better of these two, which I’m sure most everyone would agree with. I never read any book reviews online other than from a few bloggers I follow but I’m pretty sure I remember them saying this one was better… Although it contains one of the two topics I normally avoid in books & movies, children being harmed (rape being the other thing, which is in Horns), I did enjoy the book and found it to be an interesting & original story. I mean, it’s supernatural – I can handle “horror” and murder & all that stuff in the supernatural realm but I’m not the type you’ll ever find reading a “true crime” type of story. I don’t know – I can’t explain it. Maybe I’m weird. Or I suppose I can only handle evil when it’s not something that could happen in real life. But I do love the supernatural and this book has plenty of that. My favorite bits involved the main character, Vic McQueen, riding her bike through a covered bridge that only she can see in order to find things that people have lost.

The bridge and Vic as a child are in the first half of the book, which I found to be much stronger than the second half. I suppose it depends on what you prefer but I thought Hill did a better job setting things up in the first half of the book. Vic was a sympathetic child with a difficult life and it reminded me of the way in which Stephen King develops such rich characters and an overall setting that’s so real that it feels like you’re going to set down his book & then open your front door to find you’re in Castle Rock. I could so easily picture Vic’s “Shorter Way Bridge” and thought this book was on its way to being pretty damn fantastic at first. Unfortunately, as I often find with a lot of King’s work as well, it loses its way a bit halfway through as the action picks up and we see much more of the character of Charlie Manx. Like I say, though, it depends on what you want from a book and I’m sure many people prefer the second half – I just found myself losing interest in Manx’s story and found the book a little longer than was necessary.

I know I keep bringing up Stephen King in this review but that’s because NOS4A2 feels so much like a King book. Indeed, if you love King like I do, this is the Joe Hill book I’d recommend to you of these two. I think my main complaint is that it’s too similar to his dad’s work. We already have a Stephen King and he’s great so I don’t really want another one of him. I think that’s a big part of the reason why, although NOS4A2 is more well-written and has, I suppose, the more “accessible” storyline (as far as strange & supernatural stories go), I enjoyed Horns more. Horns is utterly bizarre and I can see why it would maybe be the less popular of these two but I felt like I was reading a book by a whole new author I’d never read before. I liked that!

NOS4A2 is a good book, though, so don’t let my somewhat negative-sounding review keep you from reading it if you think you’d like it. I just happened to read a King book (Revival) as well as this & Horns all within a few months of each other so I’m going to be comparing them all in my mind. I’ll be honest, though, and admit that this was better than Revival was overall, although I preferred a storyline that didn’t involve a child “murderer” (of sorts…). I can see why this is the Joe Hill book I’ve seen recommended the most.

My Rating: 4/5

Horns by Joe Hill

What It’s About: (from the back cover)
Once, Ig lived the life of the blessed: born into privilege, he had security and wealth and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more – he had the love of Merrin Williams, a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

Then beautiful, vivacious Merrin was gone – raped and murdered, under inexplicable circumstances – and Ig was the only suspect. He was never tried for the crime, but in the court of public opinion, he was and always would be guilty.

But now Ig can hear people’s deepest, darkest secrets and means to use this ability to find whoever killed Merrin.

It’s time for a little revenge. It’s time the devil had his due.

My Thoughts:

I won’t talk about Stephen King in this review. Promise! Because this book doesn’t feel like a Stephen King book. Horns is, well, pretty damn bonkers. It’s a bit all over the place as well & seems to lack focus. Plus it gets pretty seriously “What the fuuuuuuck?” at the end.

Geez, I’m making it sound so good! Well, it’s not one that everyone will like but I enjoyed it quite a bit despite its obvious flaws. And there’s no being evil to children in this one! There’s a rape, however. I think Hill handles that bit alright (it’s not gratuitous from what I remember) but he makes the character of murdered Merrin far too “perfect” and the “ideal girlfriend”, which didn’t feel real. I didn’t exactly find any of the characters very well developed in this one beyond Ig and maybe his brother somewhat. I think I just really liked the story and the fact that I’ve never really read another one quite like it. I also have to say that I really liked the love story. That’s pretty typical of me – screw shit like The Notebook & give me a fucked-up love story instead!

I think I’ll keep this one short as I’ll probably be discussing it a little more when I review the movie next week. I can tell you now that the film adaptation started out so good then ended up so bad. What a disappointment! I suppose it was a difficult one to adapt, especially near the end when it gets so weird but they changed too much with certain characters.

As for the book, the characters are a little too one-dimensional but, hey, when you’re dealing with a guy sprouting Satanic horns out of his head, the purely good vs purely evil thing works out okay. I gotta say that Hill & his father must have a pretty low opinion of humanity – when Ig sprouts his horns & starts hearing people’s deepest & darkest thoughts, it seems that everyone is a complete asshole deep down if not a complete psycho. Normally this would annoy me (it’s why I actually hated King’s Under The Dome – those people were awful) but it somehow works in Horns. The main focus anyway is the love story between Ig and Merrin and then Ig’s desire to find her killer. It’s sort of a “revenge” story and I often like those. Especially a revenge love story.

Yeah… I’ve only just now realized why I liked this – it reminded me of The Crow (the movie), which I adore. I want a supernatural devil-man or a dead crow-man to avenge my death! That’s totally romantic. (The Crow is much better, though).

Oh shit – I mentioned Stephen King in this review after I promised I that wouldn’t. Oops.

My Rating: 4/5

(It was also a little too weird having Harry Potter playing Ig)

Hey, everyone – it’s October tomorrow so I’ll be starting my October Horrorfest! I figure I can’t skip out on reviewing any big new non-horror releases for a whole month but, besides a couple of things like The Martian, it’ll be ALL HORROR, baby! And it’ll be truly horrific as I’ve unfortunately ended up watching a load of shit in preparation, which wasn’t my intention.

I’m going to stick with my little routine and have Tuesdays be my own IMDB Top 250 reviews (horror movies only) and Thursdays be Top Ten Lists (all horror-related of course). But I’ll be skipping Music Video Friday as there isn’t much I could do beyond Michael Jackson’s Thriller but, hey, my music video posts get no love anyway. Well, I love ’em! 😉 So, see you all tomorrow for my first Horror Top Ten of the month. 🙂