Little Women
Directed By: Greta Gerwig
I was really excited to check out this latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s book about the March sisters. It’s a beloved story and I think if you know and love the story you’ll enjoy the movie (I did.)
The movie is coming with a lot of hype (All Gerwig needs to do is be associated with a movie and it’s over-hyped) and some awards controversy already.
The Girl on the Train
Author: Paula Hawkins
Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Hyped-to-the-Skies
Grade: B
So I wasn’t going to jump on the hype train for this one but it does fulfill a square for the reading challenge I’m doing. (More than one female protagonist is what I’m using it for.) Judging from the number of reviews on places like Amazon and Goodreads I might the the last person in the world to have read this book.
Rachel has what she believes is relevant information to a disappearance/ possible murder involving a couple she spies on while taking the train into the city every day. Unfortunately for her and the police she has all kinds of other problems. A tendency to drink, to overreact, to cause trouble and as the missing woman, Meghan, lived only a couple of doors down from Rachel’s ex-husband and his new wife and child she isn’t considered the most trustworthy source in the neighborhood.
I thought… that this didn’t really live up to the hype but it certainly didn’t crash and burn. All the characters were generally dreadful but they were so in what I felt was a believable way. You felt bad for Rachel and you wanted to shake her and you may know people like her who cannot let the past go. Meghan was the hardest to like. She’s hiding secrets upon secrets. I liked Anna apparently more than most (she’s an unrepentant mistress/happy new wife) but I admit that could be because Rebecca Ferguson is going to play her in the movie.
My biggest problem though is it’s not to hard to figure out what was going on and who the baddie was and once you do you can kind of see the end coming. I admit there was a couple of minutes reading the end where I thought it might go one way but there were no surprises.
So for the characterization of the three female characters I really liked this book. They were messy, unlikeable, and all too human. For the mystery part it was pretty much what you think it’s going to be.
Recommend: Sure. It’s a quick painless read and I’ll definitely check out the movie when it opens.
Age of Apocalypse #2
Author: Scott Lobdell, John Francis Moore…
Genre: Graphic/ Going to be a Movie
Grade: C
I decided to read Age of Apocalypse for the Great Imaginations (details here) challenge. It fulfills the movie square for me and I’m big into the X-Men movies and wanted to get an idea of where the next one was going since I had heard so much about the character of Apocalypse specifically.
In this storyline Charles Xavier is dead and Magneto has kept his promise to him and taken over his beloved X-Men leading them in a post-apocalyptic world in which Apocalypse and his cronies are killing human and mutant alike. Not just killing them but torturing them and experimenting on them to boot!
One big thing: a lot of the reviews will tell you start with two because the first book is all background and filler and if you are familiar with the characters you don’t need it. I’m not really sure that I agree with that because there are a lot of bloody X-Men, many of them only get name dropped in the movies. So yeah, I was a little confused. My own fault.
But also this is an alternative universe so I had to get a handle on who the bad guys are now and who Magento’s team is and Magneto and his wife. (His wife!)
Also I feel like I shouldn’t admit this but I pretty much despise the pairing of Logan and Jean in any world and yep, they even annoyed me in this one. I like him with anybody else besides Jean. I like him with Scott better!
Biggest problem was that everything was so chaotic I didn’t really get to understand Apocalypse and he felt kind of… jokey. Without getting into too many spoilers there were other things going on and other mutants that I actually thought were far more frightening and could be better villains. Even the art was just too much. Maybe the story gets streamlined as it goes on but it looks like there’s going to be big changes in the movie anyway and I’m likely not going to keep reading this one.
Recommend: Not really. I am taking into account that I was just dipping my toes in but neither the story or the art really did anything for me at all. Still looking forward to the movie though!
It’s movie Friday!
Which today is going to be nicknamed migraine Friday but that’s a whole other story. I thought about how to put these together but then honestly there’s not that much to say about two of them so I went from my personal least favorite to my favorite of the three (or at least the one I would recommend.)
If I Stay: Mia has the perfect life. No really, she’s an extremely talented musician auditioning for Julliard. Her family is unbelievably cool and her boyfriend is a sweet, loving and utterly loyal. He’s also an upcoming rock star. But just when you realize that you can’t stand Mia a car accident leaves her comatose and wipes out her family. For most of this movie Mia is a ghost trying to decide if she’s going to stay or go.
Why’d I watch: I liked the book.
Problem: Chloe Grace Moretz is hit or miss for me. (I’d recommend Laggies for a movie where I liked her.) Plus it really is the most boring love story ever and no chemistry whatsoever between the leads.
Honestly: I cried. It’s sad okay? But I probably wouldn’t recommend. Too many problems with it and the movie totally relies on the old emotional manipulation thing. And if you are watching it you may want to be careful because there is the death of a child and parents to upset people.
The Maze Runner: A group of teenage boys are trapped in this maze like structure that they have to find a way out of even though it’s guarded by these scary mechanical spider like creatures. Everything runs like clockwork until Thomas arrives and followed after him the very first girl. She comes with the promise that she’ll be the last.
Why’d I watch: I liked the book.
Problem: Honestly? The movie is well-acted and it’s a fascinating idea but I was bored. The token female character in the story did nothing.
Bigger problem: Like the book this is the beginning of a series. Only while I’ve always found that first movies usually do have some kind of closure and give some answers this one was all cliffhanger. You literally go from the maze into the beginning of the next movie (I presume) with nothing. Like I said I was bored and wasn’t even interested enough to care about the next movie.
Recommend: If you’re a fan of the series then you’re already around my biggest problem with the ending. Other than that I’d recommend waiting to see if the whole series gets made.
Dracula Untold: Prince Vlad (the Impaler) sells his soul to seek the help of a dark creature and keep his people (and his wife and son) from falling into ruin and the hands of the Turks.
Why’d I watch: My friend said and I quote, “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” Plus Luke Evans is hot.
I found it unintentionally funny how badly it goes for the poor guy. I mean all he was trying to do was save people you almost have to laugh and I definitely would have demanded a refund or a do over from the dark one.
Biggest Problem: I’m nitpicking but this is one of those movies where the super strong super powerful being for some reason decides he’s going to fight the bad guy on the bad guys terms and indeed at a loss instead of just taking two steps and snapping him like a twig.
Recommend: Yes, this one I would. It’s not great but Luke Evans, Dominic Cooper and an over the top Charles Dance helped sell it for me. Also I’m mostly a chicken when it comes to horror but with the exception of a big hairy spider there was nothing in this that bothered me.
Have a wonderful weekend!
