As we get ready for all the new 2020 movies I thought I’d wrap up my movie year in a one sentence for each film post 🙂 I had fun looking back and doing this for 2018.
Though to keep it simple I am limiting it to 2019 theatrical releases mostly in the order I saw them.
Doctor Sleep
Directed By: Mike Flanagan
Having not read the book I went into this movie expecting it to lean heavily on Danny Torrance and his return to the Overlook Hotel- the haunted hell hotel where the events of The Shining took place.
I was pleasantly surprised that the highlight of this movie was the war between Rose the Hat and young justice seeking Abra.
Men In Black: International
Directed By: F. Gary Gray
So I was sitting watching Men in Black International the other day thinking to myself… Why isn’t this working?
Two talented likable leads.
Aliens.
It should be good right?
Life
Directed by: Daniel Espinosa
Grade: B+
Life is about a group of scientists on the International Space Station that discover an alien life form. Unfortunately not E.T. I should say first off that I have certainly heard the Alien comparisons, and understand them, but my Alien experience is only the one that had Michael Fassbender in it. (And you bet I’m gonna see Covenant.)
But that’s a whole other movie.
MY 2015 MOVIE ROUND-UP
(Yea, this movie is definitely on it!)
I had a couple picks for bad first like how Batsheba Everdene might have been the stupidest character it’s movie thought was smart, that Pan might have been the biggest what the hell movie (which really shouldn’t have been).
That Age of Ultron was the most disappointing but Pixels had to be the worst movie I saw this year…
And that I honestly think Monica Belluci in Spectre was the biggest waste of a character and actor. (Seriously, if the two actresses had just switched roles!) Second only to Pixels having a Sean Bean cameo and not having the alien video games kill him off.
Rant Over!
Now onto what I thought was great this year:
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.
