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First Reformed (2018)
First Reformed (2018)
2018 | Drama, Thriller
8
5.5 (6 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Emotionless emotion takes its toll
Father Toller is a troubled man. Every day his convictions are being tested in the world all around him. His marriage failed due to the death of a child. A couple comes to him for help only to have that end in tragedy. The 250th anniversary of his home base church is coming up bringing with it all sorts of planning and the forced inclusion of one of the sponsors; a large company who is a leading contributor of pollution to the Earth. Then, his health deteriorates and he won't let others in to help or console him.

How can he stand by and let these things happen? He sits in on group therapy sessions at the church and is confronted by those who don't believe or are conflicted by what they see happening around them as well.

He is approached by a grieving woman and is torn by his own emotional reactions to her and her needs.

First Reformed is a character study of this troubled, religious man and his actions and reactions to his crumbling encounters with the world. He wants to say more, but feels he can't while staying true to his convictions.

Ethan Hawke has a great resume and is performance here is breathtaking and should've received at least an Oscar nomination. It seems he is often overlooked and has given great performances for years in films like Training Day, Dead Poets Society and Alive. His role here is complex and I would imagine difficult to portray someone who has to lead a muffled existence.

I am still digesting the ending of the film, so I am not sure how I feel about that yet.

Ask me again in a couple days. Unique for sure.

  
Bride of Chucky (1998)
Bride of Chucky (1998)
1998 | Action, Horror
5
6.5 (15 Ratings)
Movie Rating
One of those 'guilty pleasures' you here so much about
Bride of Chucky is a prime example of what Horror films were like in the aftermath of Scream.
Ditching the straight up horror path of the first couple of movies for a silly, self aware, and often humorous movie.

Quite simply, Bride of Chucky is trashy nonsense. It knows it too, and just about walks into 'so bad , it's good' territory.
Chucky has been promoted from villain to main character, and for the most part, it's pretty enjoyable. Brad Dourif works wonders with a cheesy script, dragging Chucky into a post Scream horror landscape, and creating more of an antihero that gained propularity pretty quickly.
Props to Jennifer Tilly as well for going along with the silliness with enthusiasm.

The main issue with Bride of Chucky is the protagonists were supposed to be rooting for. Nick Stabile and a young Katherine Heigl play a young couple taken hostage by Chucky, and I think they are definitely in the running for the most brain dead characters I've ever seen in a horror.
Most importantly, there is not a single atom within my being that gives the slightest shit about them, or their completely uninteresting eloping side story.
It very nearly stops the movie dead in it's tracks, but thankfully, any scenes that involve Chucky and Tiffany (which is often) is entertaining enough to make the film watchable.
The story is nonsense though, make no mistake.

The animatronic work on Chucky and Tiffany is genuinely impressive, and an obvious step up from the first trilogy. Chucky's design is also genuinely horrific.

Overall, Bride of Chucky is an un-scary, silly and cheesy experience, but it has some fun moments and is one of those horror films that I will probably watch until the end every time I see it on TV 😂
  
Instant Family (2019)
Instant Family (2019)
2019 | Comedy, Drama
Surprise Treat
A couple looking to foster a teenager end up taking on an entire family of three. Instant Family will give you laughs, tears, and, most importantly, insight.

Acting: 10

Beginning: 4
The movie doesn’t exactly come out of the gates swinging. You’re meeting the couple for the first time and you see what their life is like pre-kids. I understand it’s necessary, but definitely not the most fun way to get started.

Characters: 10

Cinematography/Visuals: 9
I love how director Sean Anders decided to shoot the film. It’s not your average feel-good family movie. There is a real sense of struggle here, real pain, and Anders captures this in great pockets along with the more comedic moments of being a parent. Sometimes the fun and the pain are intermixed and it makes for some beautiful scenes.

Conflict: 10
All three kids within the family pose different challenges that the parents find themselves having to adjust to, besides the challenges of just being new parents. The parental-work-life balance is real and you’re exposed to all of that throughout the duration of the movie.

Entertainment Value: 8

Memorability: 8

Pace: 5

Plot: 6
The story itself is pretty straightforward and basic. Twenty minutes in and you pretty much know how it’s going to play out. Still, that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable of a movie.

Resolution: 10
The ending…man, that ending. I’ve only watched this movie once because that damn touching conclusion. Such a great payoff.

Overall: 80
I typically don’t gravitate towards movies with Lifetime plots, but Instant Family is a winner. It heartwarming, endearing, and real from start to finish. Surprise treat of 2018.
  
New Boots and Panties by Ian Dury / Ian Dury & The Blockheads
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Unfortunately I never saw them, but Kilburn & The High Roads [Ian Dury’s first band] used to play near where we were hanging around as kids. I was a couple of years younger than the rest of the band, who went to see them at the Tally-Ho. They were a huge phenomenon round our way. And they made a great album called Handsome, but a lot of the stuff Ian Dury was working towards on that album really came to fruition on New Boots And Panties. It was slightly infused by the whole punk thing, it had that wild energy, but it still had that vaudevillian faded grandeur of the music hall. Again, it’s about comedy and terror: “arseholes, bastards, fucking cunts and pricks” is a pretty fun thing to hear when you’re a teenager, coming out of the speakers! He was pretty acerbic in person. I remember I was with Clive Langer once, our producer, and he said “Ian, I love your work” and Ian said “So fucking what?” That was about the strength of it, with Ian. We got to know him better near the end. He played one of our Madstock gigs, and we recorded a track with him just before he died, called ‘Drip-Fed Fred’, which is rather good. I think he always saw us as slightly usurping him, which is kind of true. He could be very acidic. When he was working in our studio, I remember the police were called a couple of times. But an amazing artist and fantastic lyricist, and of course you listen to some of those songs now, ‘Clever Trevor’, ‘Billericay Dickie’, ‘Plaistow Patricia’ and all that, and they haven’t dated at all."

Source
  
Journey to Italy (1954)
Journey to Italy (1954)
1954 | Drama, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Blew my mind. I didn’t see it until I was middle-aged, after decades of thriving on the ongoing French New Wave. I thought of the New Wave as beginning in these subversive young Parisian cineastes’ love for American genre films. My jaw was dropped the whole length of Journey to see the sensibility and techniques of the New Wave appearing first in this Italian flick (though English-language, starring George Sanders and Ingrid Bergman). Later I read that Truffaut called it the “first modern movie,” and I believe he’s right. I haven’t researched, so don’t know if this is a commonplace, but, on a side note, it’s interesting to consider the parallels between Journey and Godard’s Contempt. They’re both about a couple whose marriage is failing, who are foreigners on a visit to Italy, where their stiff estrangement reaches a head amid the vital, pagan-slash-Catholic ancient culture of the area around Naples. Noble, erotically charged, millennia-old statuary reverently track-circled to swelling music. Local color, and travelogue landmarks of aesthetic and mythologically poetic power, integrated naturally into the story (almost Hitchcockian in a way, except with an emotional and intellectual justification). The most groundbreaking thing about it, though, is the way it’s not exactly a story, but rather a situation, depicted in fragments and episodes—the emotional situation of a couple, displaced within a continuously intruding, alien or disorienting environment, and one that keeps us conscious of death and history. A lot is pointedly artificial about it—to me the dialogue all feels like exposition, and is delivered that way, as presentation of the situation, rather than anything natural—or at least frankly cinema, but at the same time it feels like life in a way that movies hadn’t before."

Source
  
Murder in the Bayou Boneyard
Murder in the Bayou Boneyard
Ellen Byron | 2020 | Mystery
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Graveside Murder
In an effort to increase bookings at her family’s Louisiana bed and breakfast during October, Maggie Crozat has come up with the “Pelican’s Spooky Past” promotion. Five of the area B & B’s are teaming up and offering historical crafts, food, and other promotions to tie in to the season. Someone else has gotten into the act since guests keep siting a rougarou, a local legendary monster. One of the events during the month is a play being staged at a nearby dilapidated graveyard. The first couple of weekends, the play goes well, but then at one performance someone in a rougarou costume stumbles onto the stage and dies. As cross jurisdictional strife heats up, Maggie and her family find themselves caught in the middle as prime suspects. Can Maggie clear their names?

Reading this series always makes me want to visit Louisiana in person, and this book is no exception. I also appreciate how we learn something about local customs, legends, and food while we read. The plot is strong with plenty of twists and action to keep us engaged and guessing. I do have a couple of niggles with the climax, but they are minor overall. The characters are as wonderful as ever. I love seeing the regulars again and watching them and their relationships grow. Meanwhile, the suspects are just as strong as the series regulars. Those looking for some Cajun flavor in their life will enjoy the five recipes we get at the end of the book. Fans of the series will enjoy the latest book, and if you are new to the series, this will make you go back and read the books you’ve missed.
  
Sign of Foul Play
Sign of Foul Play
Penny Warner | 1998 | Mystery
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
All Signs Point to a Winner
Two earthquakes in the middle of the night made it hard for Connor Westphal to sleep. However, she is going about her Monday morning when she gets a message from her friend Dan telling her there is a news story at the construction site he is working at. When Connor arrives to get the scoop for her weekly paper, she finds that someone has discovered the dead body of Cullen Delancy. The working theory is that he fell to his death when the earthquake struck, but what was he doing on the site in the middle of the night?

I’ve got to admit, I roll my eyes a bit when I see an earthquake pop up in a story set in California, but I quickly got over that here since it made for an interesting set up to the mystery. There are plenty of twists and surprises to keep us guessing. I did figure a couple of them out early, but I was still plenty surprised when Connor pieced it together at the end. Connor is deaf, which sets her apart from other series leads, and I love seeing how that plays out in the story. She’s a strong main character, and the rest of the cast is wonderful as well. The story edges just a bit toward the outskirts of cozies, but as long as you know that going in, you’ll be fine. The book came out in 1998, and it is really amazing how much technology has changed our lives in the past couple of decades. This is a great second in the series, and I’m looking forward to visiting Connor again soon.