Summer 2022 Report Card

Well, that was a long break from blogging, mostly because I hit a major reading slump and had nothing to say to anyone. At the risk of jinxing myself, September is already looking significantly more promising, in that I’ve already finished two books and am well on the way to finishing another two, so hopefully my slump is over.

Anyway, the stats…

20 Books of Summer

From my original reading list (which you can find here) I only managed to finish seven (dreadful) and started a further two which I have set aside for now but fully intend to go back to at some point.

Honourable mentions go to Claire North’s The End of the Day which I really enjoyed, and The Poisoner’s Handbook by Deborah Blum which taught me much about the development of forensics in Prohibition New York. I also enjoyed rediscovering Tess Gerritsen’s Rizzoli & Isles series, picking it up again at Book 7.

I’m also certain that if I haven’t written a review already then it’s not going to happen; starting September with clean slate.

My reading stats

June – 5 books
July – 4 books
August – 2 books (and one of those was an audiobook which was my walking companion and I probably started in early July)

Things, I feel, can only get better 🙂

What I was watching

I watched ten films over the three months, all of which I enjoyed to some degree with a couple of disappointments (Jurassic World: Dominion, which was fine, and The Secrets of Dumbledore which I only watched because I can be a bit of a completist) and two that were sufficiently strange that Mr B gave them a body swerve and I watched alone – Everything Everywhere All At Once (Michelle Yeoh is awesome) and Alex Garland’s folk horror Men which is very much an acquired taste; I found it unsettling rather than frightening and have a suspicion that I didn’t entirely understand what he was trying to achieve.

I loved, loved, loved the Netflix adaptation of The Sandman; the casting was excellent to the extent that I may now have a crush on Boyd Holbrook’s Corinthian which if you know anything about the character is problematic at best.

And Only Murders in the Building continued to deliver in season two; am tempted to indulge in a rewatch just to tide me over until the next one.

So that was my summer. How has your reading been going?

The Autopsy of Jane Doe [2016]

My husband does not like horror movies. I want to be very clear here; he doesn’t mind monster movies (vampires etc.) but he does not like the kind of horror movie that has situations which could conceivably happen to real people. So when he said that he would be going out to dinner with a former colleague leaving me home alone I took the opportunity to watch The Autopsy of Jane Doe which has been on my radar for ages.

They said don’t watch this alone. But I did, even as it was getting dark (clocks in the UK had not sprung forward as yet). I am brave that way as only someone with Thai food and a large glass of wine can be.

Like I said, I’m brave, me.

So we start at a home where a number of people have been bloodily murdered, and in the basement the police find the body, apparently unmarked, of a naked young woman who has no connection to the crime scene that can be ascertained. The officer in charge needs a cause of death so that he can deal with the press the following morning, so takes the body to the coroner (played by Brian Cox) and his mortuary technician son (Emile Hirsch) and asks for them to work on identifying how this young woman died.

It is late at night. The mortuary is in the basement, and although the place where autopsies are carried out is well-lit etc., the rest of the basement is a bit creepy, with an unhelpful corner around which things (should there be things) can lurk to catch the unwary. There is also a cat, so that’s one potential jump scare accounted for.

No-one should be carrying out an autopsy under these conditions. No one.

Things do not go at all well.

I really enjoyed this unsettling, well-made and gruesome horror/thriller. Did I work out what was going on? In part, yes, yes I did. Did I at one point shout at the TV because (given the evidence they’d found) the answer was kind of obvious? Might have. Did it have one of those endings that means all of the bad stuff is likely to continue? You’ve guessed it. Does the cat survive? Not saying (Spoiler – no).

I love Brian Cox, he is the first and best Hannibal Lecter and of course Scottish so I may be biased. I once saw him play Titus Andronicus on stage and he was fabulous. The rest of the cast is also very good but I will admit that Mr Cox was the main draw for me. Recommended, may watch again.

Dazzling details: The Autopsy of Jane Doe is rated 15, runs for 1h 26 (which is refreshing) and directed by Andre Ovredal (his movie Trollhunter is also really good – I even reviewed it back in the day)

Scary Sequels. More or Less.

Earlier this year I watched a couple of scary kind-of movies. Or more accurately, kind-of scary, because without a doubt they were movies 🙂

Anyway, I enjoyed them both and thought I would watch their sequels. Alone as per usual.

First up was Unfriended: Dark Web, directed by Stephen Susco, made in 2018 and rated 15 for strong threat, violence and language.

A teen comes into possession of a new laptop and soon discovers that the previous owner is not only watching him but will also do anything to get it back

A similar set up to its predecessor, I think this is actually the slightly better film, albeit that it lacks the supernatural elements. The horror is very much about the helplessness in watching your friends being targetted because of something you’ve done – in this case, it becomes clear that our teen protagonist may have come by this laptop by seeing it unattended in a coffee shop and just walking off with it. As with the original Unfriended, there are times when I found myself yelling at people not to do things, but it wouldn’t be a horror film if people were sensible, would it?

Then there is Creep 2, which is a proper sequel to a film which I really loved when I watched it a few months ago. This is just as good. Trust me.

A video artist looking for work drives to a remote in the forest to meet a man claiming to be a serial killer. But after agreeing to spend the day with him, she soon realises that she made a deadly mistake.

I don’t want to give to much away about this film except that it is equally as unsettling as the original Creep, with the same lead actor (Mark Duplass who is super), the same director (Patrick Brice) and I would recommend that you watch them in sequence because Creep 2 refers directly back to the first one.

That was a bit of a rambling paragraph but hopefully you’ll get the gist of what I’m trying to say.

So basically, fun films but not, IMHO, all that frightening. Creepy, yes, but not frightening. YMMV.

Catching Up | Scary Movie Round-up

I’ve been dipping into scary movies lately, intending to have an afternoon set aside each week to work my way through my horror film collection. Of course, in these times, I find sticking to intentions of any sort really difficult, so you can work out how well that went.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on what I’ve been watching.

Ghost Stories

Sceptical professor Philip Goodman embarks on a trip to the terrifying after being given a file with details of three unexplained cases of apparitions

Not sure what to make of this. It was pretty creepy and there were some nice jump scares and if it was about being unsettled and confused then it definitely worked. But I’m not sure I understood why all of this stuff was happening even if I understood the WHAT; for example, what did all of Philip’s family stuff have to do with it all? Would having seen the theatrical version made a difference. Performances were all strong though. Vaguely disappointing.

Dazzling details: Directed by Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman, Ghost Stories is 1h 38 long and is rated 15 for strong horror, language

The Cabin in the Woods

This was a re-watch for me, and it still holds up IMHO. If you want to know what I thought about this the first time around you can find my original review here. My love for Bradley Whitford is still strong 😀

Unfriended

A group of online chat room friends find themselves haunted by a mysterious supernatural force using the account of their dead friend

This was very, very silly but really entertaining for a Saturday afternoon watch during quarantine. Not remotely frightening and not even any really good jump scares. Good to see a bunch of entitled youngsters getting their comeuppance if you like that sort of thing I suppose. All very hysterical, in all senses of the word.

Dazzling details: Directed by Levan Gabriadze, Unfriended is 1h 23 long and rated 15 for very strong language, strong violence, threat, sex, suicide themes

Review Catch-Up | Movies

All of these deserved individual posts but I’m superstitious and don’t want 2019 reviews to wander into 2020. It’s a thing.

Doctor Sleep

My thoughts on the Kubrick film of The Shining have been aired here before (in short, it’s a good Kubrick film, but not a great King adaptation) and I read Doctor Sleep when it came out (you can find a review of it here) and I was therefore a bit wary of what I was going to see, given that director was trying to remain faithful to both. I needn’t have worried, this was a really good film with excellent performances (especially Ewan MacGregor). Not really a horror film IMHO but creepy and absorbing and will become a favourite I’m sure.

Directed by Mike Flanagan, 2h 31 minutes long and rated 15 for strong bloody violence, gore, horror, threat and language. All boxes ticked.

Knives Out

As you will know from my book reviews I love a good crime novel and also enjoy crime movies if they are done well. I was excited for Knives Out given the premise and the amazing cast and again was not disappointed. Daniel Craig was in his element, excellent use was made of Chris Evans (and his sweater) and of course Christopher Plummer was wonderful as always – he has been one of my favourite actors for many years and I love seeing him on the big screen. It’s definitely best if you know as little as possible about this film before you see it so I will say no more other than it is thoroughy recommended.

Directed by Rian Johnson, 2h 10 minutes long and rated 12A for brief bloody images, moderate sex and suicide references, strong language

The Irishman

I’m ambivalent about gangster films and their tendency to make heroes out of criminals, even if that’s not intentional, but The Irishman was getting great reviews and the Book God was very keen to see it so we settled down to watch it on our re-established Saturday Night is Film Night – something we used to do fairly regularly but lost impetus because of excellent TV options. Anyway, this was 3.5 hours long and my heart sank a tiny bit but as soon as elderly Robert De Niro started talking I became transfixed and happily watched the whole thing. Of course it’s morally dubious and Al Pacino presents a master class in scenery chewing, and the female characters are all woefully underused, but it was beautfully made and I enjoyed it very much.

Directed by Martin Scorsese becuase of course it was, like I said it was 3h 29 minutes long and rated 15 for strong violence and language

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Well. I’m not going to say a huge amount about this here because everyone else is talking about it and I actually want to see it again before I go into any detail (avoiding spoilers as always of course) BUT subject to my disappointment at the lack of Rose Tico and the wasted opportunity that was Finn & Poe not being the couple we know they should have been, and the reminder that Carrie Fisher is no longer with us, I really really enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker. It’s not perfect but it is very satisfying.

Directed by JJ Abrams (self descibed as not good at endings), Episode IX is 2h 22 minutes long and rated 12A for moderate violence, threat

Have you seen any (or all) of the above? What did you think?

October Round-up | Movies

As we were away for a chunk of October we didn’t watch many movies. In fact, I saw the two London Film Festival screenings by myself…..

In the Shadow of the Moon [Streaming – 5 October]

A Philadelphia police officer struggles with a lifelong obsession to track down a mysterious serial killer whose crimes defy explanation.

I enjoy a good time-travel-paradox-what-just-happened movie like the next man and this was that thing. It is a strong portrayal of the toll an obsession can take on a person and the impact it has on the people around them. It wasn’t earth-shattering but had a good cast, a story that wasn’t too WTF and was nicely done. A good choice for staying in on a Saturday night. Though let’s face it, at my age I always stay in on a Saturday night 😀

Dazzling details: directed by Jim Mickle, ITSOTM is 1h 55 long and rated 15 for strong language, gory images and drug misuse

The Lighthouse [LFF screening – 6 October]

The hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.

So basically Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are on this remote island at the end of the nineteenth century carrying out their duties as lighthouse keepers. The weather is dreadful, there are whispers of the supernatural (mermaids!) and as time passes the two men veer between comradeship and hatred with a single destination – madness. It isn’t clear whether what they are experiencing is real or not but that doesn’t really matter, because the film is extraordinary – beautifully shot in black & white, it is ominous, claustrophobic and full of dread. It is also surprisingly very funny in places; I did laugh out loud, mostly at the language used which is colourful, to say the least. The two lead performances are astonishing, and I had never really noticed before how unmodern Pattinson can look.

I was thrilled at the screening to hear both the director Robert Eggers and Willem Dafoe (in the flesh!) talk about their intentions and experiences. It’s not going to be for everyone, but I loved it. It reminded me a little of The Servant and will stay with me for some time.

Dazzling details: directed as I said by Mr Eggers, The Lighthouse is 1h 49 long and rated 15 for strong sex, nudity, violence, gore and disturbing images.

Marriage Story [LFF screening – 7 October]

Noah Baumbach’s incisive and compassionate look at a marriage breaking up and a family staying together.

Straight from the poster and telling you nothing about what turned out to be my favourite of the three films covered in this post.

Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are married; he’s a well-regarded indie theatre director in NY and she is an actress who has been given a TV series in LA. Unable to resolve the tensions between them they head for divorce and the film follows them through the horrible experience.

What I really liked about this film (as someone who has been divorced) is how realistic it was (setting aside the business that is show background) and in particular how both lead characters are just people, not goodies or baddies.

There are some fabulous supporting performances but the success of the film rests on the shoulders of the two leads who are just fabulous. It’s absorbing and emotionally complex and my love for Adam Driver remains intact.

Dazzling details: Mr Baumbach’s masterpiece is 2h 16 long and rated 15 for strong language

Two last things:

how can three such different films get rated the same – and what do you have to do to get rated 18 these days?
I’ve just noticed that the posters are basically dudes looking moody

Midsommar

A couple travels to Sweden to visit a rural hometown’s fabled midsummer festival. What begins as an idyllic retreat quickly devolves into an increasingly violent and bizarre competition at the hands of a pagan cult.

But everyone’s so nice…..

So we have Dani, a young woman (played by the excellent Florence Pugh) whose wobbly relationship with her boyfriend Christian continues only because of an appalling tragedy which leaves her completely alone. She tags along on the trip Christian has planned with his mates to their friend Pelle’s home village in Sweden for the reasons mention in the blurb.

It’s beautiful and sunny and everyone in the village is welcoming. It’s clear that many of the returning younger folk have brought friends with them, and as time goes on we realise that this is no accident; these guests are here for A Purpose. The community is maintaining itself through the sacrifice of its older members and those outsiders brought along to take part in something that I think is supposed to have been vaguely explained to them but for which they are just not prepared.

I mean, who would be?

It’s not a frightening film, and anyone who has dabbled in this sort of story before will have no trouble in working out what the endgame is, though it’s how we get there that provides the interest. It’s very disturbing and I experienced a strong feeling of dread while watching it in the cinema – on my own as no-one wanted to come with me. I am very brave 😀

It has to be said that Florence Pugh is amazing. I really didn’t know her until I watched the BBC adaptation of John le Carre’s Little Drummer Girl where she played the lead, but I will be looking out for more of her work. I understand she is brilliant in Lady Macbeth which is now in my streaming queue.

I left the screening with lots of questions but they were of the “I want to know more” rather than the “WTF was that?” variety.

Such an unsettling film with obvious references The Wicker Man (an old favourite of mine; to be clear, the 1973 version not the Nicolas Cage monstrosity) but very much its own thing. I loved it. Well worth watching if you don’t mind the gore. And the creepiness of smiley folk with flower crowns.

Dazzling details: Midsommar is directed by Ari Aster (see my thoughts on Hereditary here), is 2h 27 long and rated (unsurprisingly) 18 for strong, gory images.

The Mega Movie Round Up

I have decided that rather than ignore some of the things I’ve read or seen this year, I would do a couple of major catch-ups to get me back on track. Hence this movie round-up – ten films desribed in a slightly greater number of paragraphs. Let us begin!

Ocean’s Eight

An all-women gang of eight (duh) comes together to carry out an almost impossible robbery at the prestigious Met Gala in New York. Hijinks ensue. I loved this, not just because I follow all of the shenanigans around the real met Gala, or because the women involved include some of my favourite actresses, but because of the clothes and the jewellery and the lack of snarkiness between the gang members and the general all-round awesomeness. It’s not high art but it’s a lot of fun!

Hell or High Water

A divorced father and his ex-con older brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family’s ranch in West Texas.

Which translates into a very enjoyable modern western heist movie. All three main leads were excellent, and I always like an inconclusive ending. Hollywood Chris #3 does a great job in the lead role. I am happy to explain my Hollywood Chris ranking system on another occasion or in the comments if required.

The Meg

There was absolutely no way I was going to miss out on watching this film, in which The Stath is in exile following an encounter with Something in the Deep that no-one believes in until someone needs rescuing and our boy is the Only Man for the Job, whereupon said Something reappears.

Cue acts of derring-do, an unfeasibly enormous prehistoric sea creature and trademark grumpy Londoner faces as our hero punches the shark. Not a euphemism.

I LOVED THIS!

Vita & Virginia

I saw this biopic about the romance between Virginia Woolf (one of my literary heroines, please note) and Vita Sackfield West at the BFI Flare festival among a group of folks entirely pre-disposed to admiring the work. Elsewhere some have described it as dull but I really liked it and am of the view that the stateliness perfectly captures the whole buttoned-up but Bohemian vibe of the Bloomsbury Group, about which I have read far too much since first picking up Mrs Dalloway at Uni in (gulp) 1979.

Three Identical Strangers

This is an awful and tragic story about three young men who spent their whole childhoods not realising that they were not only adopted but part of a set of triplets who had been split up as part of what seems to have been a terribly misguided social experiment. I really felt for them as they talk about finding out what had happened to them and the impact it has had. A very strong and worthwhile documentary, definitely worth watching.

Mandy

So I was at home by myself one day as the Book God was out gallivanting with his friends, and being at a loose end I decided (as you do) that what I needed was some psychedelic horror. Hence Mandy, in which Nicolas Cage goes spectacularly off the rails after personal tragedy meted out at the hands of a cult leader (the UK’s very own Linus Roache) and his deformed biker-gang sidekicks. You will believe that a man can overact. There is blood, there is gore, there is extreme trippiness and the best chainsaw fight ever. Bonkers.

Skyscraper

It should be noted that one of my favourite films of all time is The Towering Inferno, one of the greatest disaster movies ever made and seen by me countless times. “Built to code” has become a catch-phrase chez Bride, and I eye any astonishingly high building based action movies with some suspicion.

Having said that, Skyscaroper was great fun. The Rock is engaging, Neve Campbell as his wife gets more to do than just hanging about waiting to get rescued and the effects were cool. It could have done with more cowardly Richard Chamberlain types plunging to their deaths in true 1974 style, but that’s just a personal preference 😀

Hellboy

Oh dear. I really wanted to like this. I knew it was going to be a very different take than the beloved Guillermo del Toro movies but I thought David Harbour was really good casting, and the ubiquitous Ian McShane is always worth watching but this was disappointing. It was trying far too hard and though I’m not normally one to complain about noise, it was just too loud. Felt a bit let down, to be honest.

The Transporter

Many many moons ago I was challenged to watch a number of movies before I turned 50. One of these was The Transport and it reflects my commitment to this challenge that I only got around to watching this now that I am 57. It was enjoyably silly with a very young Stath in the early stages of perfecting his pissed off at the inconvenience expression alongside his admittedly impressive fighting skills.

Sorcerer

William Friedkin’s remake of The Wages of Fear is a very interesting and very 1970s film and proves once again that I’m right to consider Roy Scheider a great actor, sadly missed. It’s long but engrossing and worth checking out.

Hereditary

After the family matriarch passes away, a grieving family is haunted by tragic and disturbing occurrences, and begin to unravel dark secrets.

Hereditary has been on my radar for some time as part of a long list of horror films that I have had on my wishlist. I decided to watch it at home before taking myself off to the cinema to see Midsommar by the same director, Ari Aster, mainly to get a sense of what I was getting myself into.

Oh my.

So we have Annie, an artist whose abusive mother after struggling with Alzheimer’s, and because Annie did not get on with her mother at all she is finding it difficult to grieve and is a mixture of angry and fragile. This has an unhealthy impact on her family; husband Steve is a decent man trying to hold everything together, and the teenagers Charlie and Peter. All sorts of little odd things happen, then An Event takes place which changes the dynamic of the film and we move into finding out all of the dark secrets in the family, and some outside malign influences.

Then it all goes batshit crazy.

The first thing to say about this is I didn’t find it frightening. I did, however, find it disturbing and really unsettling, making me feel uneasy and frightened on behalf of several of the characters, especially Peter.

There are several gross-out moments which I found effective with a certain amount of “how is that even possible” floating around the back of my mind.

Several reviewers have references the influence of Rosemary’s Baby (a film which freaked me out when I saw it as a teenager and which I still find difficult to watch) and I think that’s a very valid comparison. I liked the feeling of dread, that sense that something is about to happen and you know it’s going to be awful but it can’t be stopped.

The last 20 minutes or so is deeply strange and veers a little close to silliness but gets away with it, entirely due to the performances of the main cast. Toni Collette as Annie is amazing; I hated and felt sorry for her all at once.

Would watch again.

Dazzling details: Hereditary was directed by Ari Aster, is 2h 7m long and rated 15 for strong threat, gory images, language and drug use.

The Dead Don’t Die

The peaceful town of Centerville finds itself battling a zombie horde as the dead start rising from their graves.

I am a latecomer to the world of Jim Jarmusch. My friend Silvery Dude strongly recommended Night on Earth as something I would enjoy, and I did, and then two of my favourite actors, Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton, were cast in Only Lovers Left Alive which I absolutely adored. So when I found out that Jarmusch was making a zombie movie and that I could get to a preview screening then I jumped at the chance to see it.

I’ll get onto my thoughts in a moment, but the response to this movie has been very interesting to me, veering from “appalling (bafflingly so)” via “the idea of the movie is better than the movie itself” to “awkwardly charming” and “very enjoyable and self-referential”

One comment I do agree with is that if you aren’t already an admirer of Jarmusch then this isn’t the film that’s going to change that.

As for me, I thought The Dead Don’t Die was great fun. It works because the humour is so deadpan and the situation so silly and the fourth wall is broken in such an enjoyable way that it makes even the really odd bits near the end acceptable. The ensemble cast is really good, with the standouts for me being two of my current crushes, Adam Driver (who gets most of the best bits) and Tilda Swinton, whose accent was excellent as far as my Scottish ears were concerned.

It really isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea but I loved it and will happily watch it again.

Dazzling details: The Dead Don’t Die was directed by Jim Jarmusch, is 1h 44m long and rated 15 for gory images, strong violence, language. I saw it at a packed preview screening in NFT1