Search
Awix (3310 KP) rated Robin Hood (2018) in Movies
Nov 26, 2018 (Updated Nov 28, 2018)
Bog-standard looks-like-a-computer-game action movie populated by a mixture of blandly good-looking non-actors and people who should probably know better; would have been forgettable tosh but for the fact that the Robin Hood name has inexplicably been plastered onto something bearing virtually zero resemblance to the legend.
Corrupt establishment has embarked upon a series of foreign wars for its own shady purposes, ordinary people are being screwed to pay for it all, plus their young men are being sent off to die. Good-hearted young chap gets his draft letter in the post and is sent off to Afghanistan, or so it seems, he gets sent home on the grounds of excess heroism only to find that someone has moved Nottingham sixty miles and it is now on the coast and has its own harbour. Needless to say he resolves to become a superhero with a secret identity and sort everything out.
The thing that will kill this movie for anyone who actually cares about the Robin Hood legend is that it seems to have no appreciation of the fact that Things Were Different In The Past, and is fairly up front about it: 'we're not going to bore you with history,' the script announces in so many words right at the start. Well, if you really think history is boring, possibly you shouldn't have tried to make a film with a historical setting, then, but thank-you for making your low opinion of your audience's intelligence obvious from the start.
All the things the legend is actually about, and most of the things you would automatically associate with it (sword-fights, the band of Merry Men, Sherwood Forest, King Richard's ransom) are chucked out in favour of a glib and opportunistic one-size-fits-all form of anti-capitalist and anti-establishment agitprop. You may argue that we've seen the classic version of the story so many times before, and this is about doing something new, but if you get rid of the Robin Hood element of the Robin Hood story, you're left with something pointless and stupid, which is really what we have here. The Disney version with the talking fox is much more entertaining, not to mention historically accurate.
Corrupt establishment has embarked upon a series of foreign wars for its own shady purposes, ordinary people are being screwed to pay for it all, plus their young men are being sent off to die. Good-hearted young chap gets his draft letter in the post and is sent off to Afghanistan, or so it seems, he gets sent home on the grounds of excess heroism only to find that someone has moved Nottingham sixty miles and it is now on the coast and has its own harbour. Needless to say he resolves to become a superhero with a secret identity and sort everything out.
The thing that will kill this movie for anyone who actually cares about the Robin Hood legend is that it seems to have no appreciation of the fact that Things Were Different In The Past, and is fairly up front about it: 'we're not going to bore you with history,' the script announces in so many words right at the start. Well, if you really think history is boring, possibly you shouldn't have tried to make a film with a historical setting, then, but thank-you for making your low opinion of your audience's intelligence obvious from the start.
All the things the legend is actually about, and most of the things you would automatically associate with it (sword-fights, the band of Merry Men, Sherwood Forest, King Richard's ransom) are chucked out in favour of a glib and opportunistic one-size-fits-all form of anti-capitalist and anti-establishment agitprop. You may argue that we've seen the classic version of the story so many times before, and this is about doing something new, but if you get rid of the Robin Hood element of the Robin Hood story, you're left with something pointless and stupid, which is really what we have here. The Disney version with the talking fox is much more entertaining, not to mention historically accurate.
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Six Minutes to Midnight (2021) in Movies
Apr 4, 2021 (Updated Apr 4, 2021)
Historical story (Potential for a great film) (1 more)
Judi Dench
B-grade spy caper antics (1 more)
Some ridiculous plot-points
A "39 Steps-esque" thriller that doesn't match its potential
In "Six Minutes to Midnight", it's the summer of 1939 (so we are in a parallel time-flow here with the events of "The Dig"). A private girl's school - the Augusta Victoria College in Bexhill-on-Sea - is run with loving care by the spinster Miss Rocholl (Judi Dench). But the 'finishing school' is unusual, in that all its teenage students are German. Indeed, they are the offspring of prominent Nazis.
When half-German English teacher Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) applies for a suddenly vacant position, he is taken on to share the teaching duties with Rocholl and Ilse (Carla Juri). But in snooping into the activities going on there, he finds mystery and danger.
Positives:
This is a fascinating premise for a movie that will appeal to an older generation, along the lines of "They don't make them like this anymore". It has elements of the 'good guy on the run' that struck parallels with "The 39 Steps" for me.
It's great that the school is all based on historical fact. Miss Rochol did indeed run the school, as a part of a plan to infiltrate British high-society with pro-Nazi sympathies ahead of an invasion. In real-life, one of the pupils was the god-daughter of Heinrich Himmler and one - Bettina von Ribbentrop - was the daughter of the German foreign minister.
After a comic "Family Guy"-style set of production logos to kick off with (for a full one and a half minutes!!), the pre-title sequence is a superb scene-setter. What exactly is going on here? A frantic scrabbling in a bookcase. A pier-end disappearance. The school badge (a genuine reproduction!) with its Union flag and Nazi Swastika insignia. The girls performing a ballet-like ritual on the beach with batons. (This looks to be a cracker, I thought).
Judi Dench. Superb as always.
Chris Seager does the cinematography, and impressively so. Most of Seager's CV has been TV work, so it must be delightful to be given the breadth of a cinema screen to capture landscapes like this.
I like the clever title: "Six Minutes to Midnight". I assumed it was intended solely to reflect the imminence of war. But it actually has another meaning entirely.
Negatives:
For me, was a highly frustrating film. All of the great credibility and atmosphere it builds up in the first 30 minutes, it then squanders by diving off into sub-Hitchcock spy capers.
Izzard becomes a 'man on the run', and doesn't seem credible at that. (I appreciate the irony of this statement given that this is the man who ran 32 marathons in 31 days for charity!) But Izzard is built for distance and not for speed, and some of the police chase scenes in the movie strain credibility to breaking point. Another actor might have been able to pull this off better.
There's a lack of continuity in the film: was it perhaps cut down from a much longer running time? At one point, Miller is a wanted murderer with his face plastered on the front pages. The next, kindly bus driver Charlie (Jim Broadbent) is unaccountably aiding him and Rochol seems to have assumed his innocence in later scenes.
Various spy caper clichés are mined to extreme - including those old classics 'swerve to avoid bullets'; 'gun shot but different gun'; and 'shot guy seems to live forever'. And there are double-agent 'twists' occurring that are utterly predictable.
A very specific continuity irritation for me was in an 'aircraft landing' scene. Markers are separated by nine paces (I went back and counted them!) yet a view from a plane shows them a 'runway-width' apart. This might have escaped scrutiny were it shown just once. But no... we have ground shot; air shot; ground shot; air shot..... repeatedly!
Summary thoughts: This was one of the cinema trailers that most appealed to me over a year ago, in those heady days in the sunlit-uplands of life before Covid-19. It's a movie that showed a great deal of promise, since the history is fascinating. And there is probably a really great TV serial in here: showing the 'alternate history' consequences of these high-society German girls penetrating British society and steering the war in a different direction (screenplay idea (C) RJ Mann!) But the potential is squandered with a non-credible spy caper bolted onto the side.
So with "Six Minutes to Midnight", Downton-director Andy Goddard has made a perfectly watchable 'rainy Sunday afternoon' film, that I enjoyed in part for its 'old-school' quirkiness. But it's frustrating that all the promise couldn't be transitioned into a more satisfying movie.
(For the full graphical review, please check out the One Mann's Movies review here https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2021/04/04/six-minutes-to-midnight-a-39-steps-esque-thriller-but-not-quite-pulling-it-off/. Thanks).
When half-German English teacher Thomas Miller (Eddie Izzard) applies for a suddenly vacant position, he is taken on to share the teaching duties with Rocholl and Ilse (Carla Juri). But in snooping into the activities going on there, he finds mystery and danger.
Positives:
This is a fascinating premise for a movie that will appeal to an older generation, along the lines of "They don't make them like this anymore". It has elements of the 'good guy on the run' that struck parallels with "The 39 Steps" for me.
It's great that the school is all based on historical fact. Miss Rochol did indeed run the school, as a part of a plan to infiltrate British high-society with pro-Nazi sympathies ahead of an invasion. In real-life, one of the pupils was the god-daughter of Heinrich Himmler and one - Bettina von Ribbentrop - was the daughter of the German foreign minister.
After a comic "Family Guy"-style set of production logos to kick off with (for a full one and a half minutes!!), the pre-title sequence is a superb scene-setter. What exactly is going on here? A frantic scrabbling in a bookcase. A pier-end disappearance. The school badge (a genuine reproduction!) with its Union flag and Nazi Swastika insignia. The girls performing a ballet-like ritual on the beach with batons. (This looks to be a cracker, I thought).
Judi Dench. Superb as always.
Chris Seager does the cinematography, and impressively so. Most of Seager's CV has been TV work, so it must be delightful to be given the breadth of a cinema screen to capture landscapes like this.
I like the clever title: "Six Minutes to Midnight". I assumed it was intended solely to reflect the imminence of war. But it actually has another meaning entirely.
Negatives:
For me, was a highly frustrating film. All of the great credibility and atmosphere it builds up in the first 30 minutes, it then squanders by diving off into sub-Hitchcock spy capers.
Izzard becomes a 'man on the run', and doesn't seem credible at that. (I appreciate the irony of this statement given that this is the man who ran 32 marathons in 31 days for charity!) But Izzard is built for distance and not for speed, and some of the police chase scenes in the movie strain credibility to breaking point. Another actor might have been able to pull this off better.
There's a lack of continuity in the film: was it perhaps cut down from a much longer running time? At one point, Miller is a wanted murderer with his face plastered on the front pages. The next, kindly bus driver Charlie (Jim Broadbent) is unaccountably aiding him and Rochol seems to have assumed his innocence in later scenes.
Various spy caper clichés are mined to extreme - including those old classics 'swerve to avoid bullets'; 'gun shot but different gun'; and 'shot guy seems to live forever'. And there are double-agent 'twists' occurring that are utterly predictable.
A very specific continuity irritation for me was in an 'aircraft landing' scene. Markers are separated by nine paces (I went back and counted them!) yet a view from a plane shows them a 'runway-width' apart. This might have escaped scrutiny were it shown just once. But no... we have ground shot; air shot; ground shot; air shot..... repeatedly!
Summary thoughts: This was one of the cinema trailers that most appealed to me over a year ago, in those heady days in the sunlit-uplands of life before Covid-19. It's a movie that showed a great deal of promise, since the history is fascinating. And there is probably a really great TV serial in here: showing the 'alternate history' consequences of these high-society German girls penetrating British society and steering the war in a different direction (screenplay idea (C) RJ Mann!) But the potential is squandered with a non-credible spy caper bolted onto the side.
So with "Six Minutes to Midnight", Downton-director Andy Goddard has made a perfectly watchable 'rainy Sunday afternoon' film, that I enjoyed in part for its 'old-school' quirkiness. But it's frustrating that all the promise couldn't be transitioned into a more satisfying movie.
(For the full graphical review, please check out the One Mann's Movies review here https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2021/04/04/six-minutes-to-midnight-a-39-steps-esque-thriller-but-not-quite-pulling-it-off/. Thanks).
Movie Metropolis (309 KP) rated Godzilla (2014) in Movies
Jun 10, 2019
Simply Stunning
The king of the Kaiju, Godzilla, has had a very chequered cinematic history. From the classic original Japanese films to Roland Emmerich’s 1998 disaster, the famous beast hasn’t always been given the respect deserved of such an iconic monster.
Now, 16 years after Emmerich’s critical flop, Monsters director Gareth Edwards resurrects the gargantuan reptile in this year’s reboot, simply titled Godzilla, but is it a return to form?
Yes, is the short answer. From an engaging story to a stellar cast, Edwards recreates the fan favourite with the utmost care and attention, and comes out smelling of roses.
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) stars as Joe Brody, an American nuclear power officer living and working in Japan with his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) and their son Ford,bryan-cranston-fans-will-be-disappointed-with-godzilla just as a nuclear disaster begins. Fast-forward 15 years and a disheveled Joe is trying to find the truth about what happened at the nuclear plant, believing the authorities are trying to hide something from the general public. As his descent into madness continues, a fully grown Ford, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson decides to come to his aid.
What ensues is a great story of father bonding with son as they try to work out exactly what is going on together. Though what they find shocks the globe.
Within the first hour of Godzilla, the titular monster’s appearances are limited to shots of spines poking from the ocean, keeping the audience guessing as to how the creature has been designed by Edwards and his team.
This can become increasingly tiresome as we make do with the film’s primary antagonists MUTO, and as impressive as they are to look at, all we really want to see is Godzilla in all his glory. Though Edwards’ constant teasers are brilliantly varied.
Thankfully after numerous jaw-dropping set pieces ranging from a Japanese nuclear plant to a Hawaiian airport, Godzilla is finally revealed and the result is exceptional.
Gone is the T-Rex on steroids look that Emmerich shoved down our throats in the 1998 monstrosity and in its place is how the beast used to look in the original foreign classics – of course with revolutionary special effects to keep things looking tip-top.
The CGI, of which there is a huge amount, is breath-taking. Godzilla, the MUTO and all of the set pieces are of the highest quality, with no visible lapses whatsoever, and what Edwards does that so many other directors don’t is to keep the story going instead of letting the CGI take over, it never becomes overly loud and obnoxious.
One scene in particular, involving a group of paratroopers infiltrating a desolate San Francisco as Godzilla and the MUTO do battle is probably one of the most beautifully shot and eerily quiet action sequences in cinematic history with one section involving some perfectly positioned Chinese lanterns being the highlight.
A really enjoyable aspect of the film is spotting the homages to previous Godzilla films as well as other monster classics like Jurassic Park. There are many scattered throughout the film.
Moreover, the acting is generally very good. Cranston is sublime and shows what a brilliant actor he is. The character of Joe is the one you care about the most throughout the film. Taylor-Johnson is good, if a little staid as the generic armed forces stereotype.
Elizabeth Olsen, David Strathairn and Sally Hawkins also star. Unfortunately, a weak link is Ken Watanabe who plays Dr Ishiro Serizawa. His over-the-top and hammy performance begins to grate after an hour of seeing him on screen.
Thankfully though, Godzilla’s inevitable weak points are far outshone by the incredible special effects, interesting story and excellent acting. Bryan Cranston is a real highlight and the beast himself is a wonder to behold.
Gareth Edwards has not only created one of the best monster films ever with some of the most breath-taking shots ever seen on celluloid, he has also whet our appetites for Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World set to be released in June next year – that can only be a good thing.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2014/05/20/godzilla-review/
Now, 16 years after Emmerich’s critical flop, Monsters director Gareth Edwards resurrects the gargantuan reptile in this year’s reboot, simply titled Godzilla, but is it a return to form?
Yes, is the short answer. From an engaging story to a stellar cast, Edwards recreates the fan favourite with the utmost care and attention, and comes out smelling of roses.
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) stars as Joe Brody, an American nuclear power officer living and working in Japan with his wife Sandra (Juliette Binoche) and their son Ford,bryan-cranston-fans-will-be-disappointed-with-godzilla just as a nuclear disaster begins. Fast-forward 15 years and a disheveled Joe is trying to find the truth about what happened at the nuclear plant, believing the authorities are trying to hide something from the general public. As his descent into madness continues, a fully grown Ford, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson decides to come to his aid.
What ensues is a great story of father bonding with son as they try to work out exactly what is going on together. Though what they find shocks the globe.
Within the first hour of Godzilla, the titular monster’s appearances are limited to shots of spines poking from the ocean, keeping the audience guessing as to how the creature has been designed by Edwards and his team.
This can become increasingly tiresome as we make do with the film’s primary antagonists MUTO, and as impressive as they are to look at, all we really want to see is Godzilla in all his glory. Though Edwards’ constant teasers are brilliantly varied.
Thankfully after numerous jaw-dropping set pieces ranging from a Japanese nuclear plant to a Hawaiian airport, Godzilla is finally revealed and the result is exceptional.
Gone is the T-Rex on steroids look that Emmerich shoved down our throats in the 1998 monstrosity and in its place is how the beast used to look in the original foreign classics – of course with revolutionary special effects to keep things looking tip-top.
The CGI, of which there is a huge amount, is breath-taking. Godzilla, the MUTO and all of the set pieces are of the highest quality, with no visible lapses whatsoever, and what Edwards does that so many other directors don’t is to keep the story going instead of letting the CGI take over, it never becomes overly loud and obnoxious.
One scene in particular, involving a group of paratroopers infiltrating a desolate San Francisco as Godzilla and the MUTO do battle is probably one of the most beautifully shot and eerily quiet action sequences in cinematic history with one section involving some perfectly positioned Chinese lanterns being the highlight.
A really enjoyable aspect of the film is spotting the homages to previous Godzilla films as well as other monster classics like Jurassic Park. There are many scattered throughout the film.
Moreover, the acting is generally very good. Cranston is sublime and shows what a brilliant actor he is. The character of Joe is the one you care about the most throughout the film. Taylor-Johnson is good, if a little staid as the generic armed forces stereotype.
Elizabeth Olsen, David Strathairn and Sally Hawkins also star. Unfortunately, a weak link is Ken Watanabe who plays Dr Ishiro Serizawa. His over-the-top and hammy performance begins to grate after an hour of seeing him on screen.
Thankfully though, Godzilla’s inevitable weak points are far outshone by the incredible special effects, interesting story and excellent acting. Bryan Cranston is a real highlight and the beast himself is a wonder to behold.
Gareth Edwards has not only created one of the best monster films ever with some of the most breath-taking shots ever seen on celluloid, he has also whet our appetites for Colin Trevorrow’s Jurassic World set to be released in June next year – that can only be a good thing.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2014/05/20/godzilla-review/
Sean Freese (4 KP) rated The Witch (2015) in Movies
Jun 25, 2020
THE VVITCH
The full title is, The Witch: A New England Folktale. Like Grimm’s fairytales, American folklore has taken revisions over the centuries to become a palatable collection of juvenile life lessons. Anyone who has read the original versions of these stories knows how brutal, horrifying, and far removed they are from our current values. As much as I would not condone reading original classic witch tales to a small child, they do contain much deeper implications and ideas than the simple “Don’t tell lies” that are gleaned from modern revisions. What’s fascinating about The Witch is how familiar the setting and story is, without a single cliché or moment of prediction to speak of. The evil that was feared in 17th Century Puritan America has been so eclipsed by the human horrors of The Salem Witch Trials, that we have forgotten what it was to fear a witch.
We know these characters only by their Christian names. William removes his family from their Colonial settlement due to an incompatibility of faith. The colony of Puritans isn’t Christian enough. With his wife, Katherine, William takes his 4 children into the wilds of the Northeast. Airs of The Crucible envelope the setting. Common pronouns are replaced with “thines” and “thous”. Dialogue is delivered as if quoted from Shakespeare or the Bible itself. In the past, this oral dynamic has always sounded ardently rehearsed. Somehow, it’s natural here. Considering William’s rigorous faith, you might expect him to be an overbearingly shrewd father. He is in fact a loving and good man of his time; often a pushover. Katherine is the more fearsome parent, with a shrill voice and gaunt pointed face. While they do live in hardship, this is a good family. Once Fall deadens the colors and greys the skies, things begin to take a disturbing turn.
Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie play the parents without an exaggeration of the material. Remarkable still are the actors portraying their children. Harvey Scrimshaw plays William’s 10-year-old son, Caleb, as natural as can be imagined. The dramatic beats of a horror movie come with taxing climactic moments and Scrimshaw acts beyond his years. Anya Taylor-Joy plays the eldest daughter Thomasin; a doe-eyed blonde beauty who plays the most relatable character of the flock. The dynamic between Caleb and Thompsin has notes of innocent sexual tension. Their secluded life leaves a great deal of new feelings that can’t be addressed due to their customs. These feelings lead to foreign temptations that are preyed upon by the timeless evil beyond the trees.
The greatest achievement of this film is how faithful it is to its setting and story, while keeping enough behind the veil to become engrossing. The tale feels as old as any, drawing from universal fears and motivations. How it draws you in, keeping you tied to the victims and their perspective while keeping the evil at arm’s length, shows a discipline of craft that greatly compliments the material. Much like vampires, witches have been trivialized and diluted by film into something superficially attractive and entertainingly evil. As with Noseferatu, seeing a witch living a damnable existence of ugliness is much more appropriate. If they’re ever beautiful, they won’t be for long.
The full title is, The Witch: A New England Folktale. Like Grimm’s fairytales, American folklore has taken revisions over the centuries to become a palatable collection of juvenile life lessons. Anyone who has read the original versions of these stories knows how brutal, horrifying, and far removed they are from our current values. As much as I would not condone reading original classic witch tales to a small child, they do contain much deeper implications and ideas than the simple “Don’t tell lies” that are gleaned from modern revisions. What’s fascinating about The Witch is how familiar the setting and story is, without a single cliché or moment of prediction to speak of. The evil that was feared in 17th Century Puritan America has been so eclipsed by the human horrors of The Salem Witch Trials, that we have forgotten what it was to fear a witch.
We know these characters only by their Christian names. William removes his family from their Colonial settlement due to an incompatibility of faith. The colony of Puritans isn’t Christian enough. With his wife, Katherine, William takes his 4 children into the wilds of the Northeast. Airs of The Crucible envelope the setting. Common pronouns are replaced with “thines” and “thous”. Dialogue is delivered as if quoted from Shakespeare or the Bible itself. In the past, this oral dynamic has always sounded ardently rehearsed. Somehow, it’s natural here. Considering William’s rigorous faith, you might expect him to be an overbearingly shrewd father. He is in fact a loving and good man of his time; often a pushover. Katherine is the more fearsome parent, with a shrill voice and gaunt pointed face. While they do live in hardship, this is a good family. Once Fall deadens the colors and greys the skies, things begin to take a disturbing turn.
Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie play the parents without an exaggeration of the material. Remarkable still are the actors portraying their children. Harvey Scrimshaw plays William’s 10-year-old son, Caleb, as natural as can be imagined. The dramatic beats of a horror movie come with taxing climactic moments and Scrimshaw acts beyond his years. Anya Taylor-Joy plays the eldest daughter Thomasin; a doe-eyed blonde beauty who plays the most relatable character of the flock. The dynamic between Caleb and Thompsin has notes of innocent sexual tension. Their secluded life leaves a great deal of new feelings that can’t be addressed due to their customs. These feelings lead to foreign temptations that are preyed upon by the timeless evil beyond the trees.
The greatest achievement of this film is how faithful it is to its setting and story, while keeping enough behind the veil to become engrossing. The tale feels as old as any, drawing from universal fears and motivations. How it draws you in, keeping you tied to the victims and their perspective while keeping the evil at arm’s length, shows a discipline of craft that greatly compliments the material. Much like vampires, witches have been trivialized and diluted by film into something superficially attractive and entertainingly evil. As with Noseferatu, seeing a witch living a damnable existence of ugliness is much more appropriate. If they’re ever beautiful, they won’t be for long.
The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes
10.0
Rate It
Book
The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle are the complete adventures of the...
Phil Leader (619 KP) rated A Clockwork Orange in Books
Nov 11, 2019
Grab a moloko or hot chai and peet it with your rot while you viddy my malenky review with your glazzies, real horrorshow.
Welcome to the world of Alex, a 15 year old boy living in some unspecified country in an unspecified future time. What Alex enjoys is classical music and ultraviolence. Every night he and his gang terrorise the streets looking for any kind of criminal activity, the more violent the better. They steal, burgle, assault and rape, all for fun.
When Alex is caught he is put in prison and then rehabilitated using an experimental procedure. But what effect will this have on Alex? And will it produce the desired results of preventing the youth turning every night into a time of danger for all.
The first thing any reader notices about the book is that, told from Alex's point of view, he uses street slang throughout. This makes it clear that the young have their own culture and are quite separate from the adults in terms of outlook and thinking. It also makes the reading quite immersive, like learning a foreign language particularly as only a very few of the words are ever explained and must be learned from context. This makes for a steep learning curve at the start of the book but it is worth the effort. The use of slang terms for the violent acts also helps to soften them a little - clearly what Alex does is horrendous but as it is described using these terms it is perhaps not so graphic as it would be otherwise.
Like critics of the film, it would be unfair to focus purely on the violence. The book is divided neatly into three parts. In the first we follow Alex as he perpetrates a number of terrible crimes. The second part describes his experiences in prison and is rehabilitation. The third what happens when he returns to society.
Burgess is clearly trying to make a number of points about individuality and state control of its citizens, and a fairly heavy handed job he makes of it too. But this is a slight volume - the paperback I read ran to a mere 140 pages - so there is little time for subtlety.
I would say the first two sections of the book were the best. The third section suffers a little from being rushed - it would have been better to have more insight into the world of the 'new' Alex - and also of the story being driven by coincidence after coincidence. This really did make the book seem like a sort of dream sequence where previous characters appeared and suddenly took on new meanings. In fact what it reminded me most of was the interrogation sequence in Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. This did detract from the story for me but not enough to do much damage to the tale. The ending is particularly strong and positive, in a book full of desperation it strikes the perfect counternote.
For anyone interested in the social side of 'science fiction' this is definitely worth reading. A morality tale for the future.
Rated: Frequent and extreme violence
Welcome to the world of Alex, a 15 year old boy living in some unspecified country in an unspecified future time. What Alex enjoys is classical music and ultraviolence. Every night he and his gang terrorise the streets looking for any kind of criminal activity, the more violent the better. They steal, burgle, assault and rape, all for fun.
When Alex is caught he is put in prison and then rehabilitated using an experimental procedure. But what effect will this have on Alex? And will it produce the desired results of preventing the youth turning every night into a time of danger for all.
The first thing any reader notices about the book is that, told from Alex's point of view, he uses street slang throughout. This makes it clear that the young have their own culture and are quite separate from the adults in terms of outlook and thinking. It also makes the reading quite immersive, like learning a foreign language particularly as only a very few of the words are ever explained and must be learned from context. This makes for a steep learning curve at the start of the book but it is worth the effort. The use of slang terms for the violent acts also helps to soften them a little - clearly what Alex does is horrendous but as it is described using these terms it is perhaps not so graphic as it would be otherwise.
Like critics of the film, it would be unfair to focus purely on the violence. The book is divided neatly into three parts. In the first we follow Alex as he perpetrates a number of terrible crimes. The second part describes his experiences in prison and is rehabilitation. The third what happens when he returns to society.
Burgess is clearly trying to make a number of points about individuality and state control of its citizens, and a fairly heavy handed job he makes of it too. But this is a slight volume - the paperback I read ran to a mere 140 pages - so there is little time for subtlety.
I would say the first two sections of the book were the best. The third section suffers a little from being rushed - it would have been better to have more insight into the world of the 'new' Alex - and also of the story being driven by coincidence after coincidence. This really did make the book seem like a sort of dream sequence where previous characters appeared and suddenly took on new meanings. In fact what it reminded me most of was the interrogation sequence in Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. This did detract from the story for me but not enough to do much damage to the tale. The ending is particularly strong and positive, in a book full of desperation it strikes the perfect counternote.
For anyone interested in the social side of 'science fiction' this is definitely worth reading. A morality tale for the future.
Rated: Frequent and extreme violence
5 Minute Movie Guy (379 KP) rated Blinded by the Light (2019) in Movies
Sep 16, 2019
Based on a true story, Blinded by the Light follows the life of Javed, a down-on-his-luck Pakistani teenager living in Great Britain in the 1980s, who is in a social stranglehold by his strict father. He just wants to live a life like any other kid his age, and hang out with his friends, and go to parties, and maybe even meet a girl, but his overbearing dad has other expectations and plans for him. Being that they’re minorities in a foreign country in a time of racism, Javed’s father wants him to keep his head down and put his family first and foremost. That means living the life his father chooses for him, and not being able to live the life he desires. Feeling trapped by his circumstances, Javed’s bleak outlook becomes changed completely after he makes a new friend at school who introduces him to the music of the All-American legend, Bruce Springsteen.
One stormy night, fueled by his frustrations with his family, Javed turns to the cassette tapes he borrowed from his friend, and listens to “The Boss” for the very first time. It’s an instantly cathartic and unforgettably life-changing experience. The words speak to him in a way that no song ever has before. The lyrics speak of his ambitions and know his struggles and pain. It’s as if suddenly through the songs of Springsteen, Javed has found his voice and a guiding light. He’s instantly transformed by it, and is given a purpose and a passion to pursue it. For him, the music is the spark to light the fire to his ambitions; to leave his small town, to escape poverty, to resist his father’s oppression, to live on his own accord, to become a writer, and to feed his hungry heart.
As a writer and a lover of Springsteen myself, I connected with Blinded by the Light on a profoundly personal level. Springsteen’s music has spoken to me in a similar fashion as it does to Javed in the film. While I’m not the super fan that he is, I like to think we all have comparable experiences with certain musical artists who resonate with us deep in our souls. Bruce’s music in particular speaks to the common man, and it rallies against the injustices of the world in the pursuit of the American dream. I can’t think of a single musician that I personally find to be more motivational than him. It is my hope that people will watch this movie, particularly those who are unfamiliar with the music of Bruce Springsteen, and they’ll have a reaction to it much like Javed in this movie.
It goes without saying that the soundtrack in Blinded by the Light is fantastic. It has a nice mix of classic hits as well as some lesser known Springsteen songs, including some live versions, and they’re all put to good use here. Out of all of the recent movies inspired by real-life musicians, including Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, and Yesterday, Blinded by the Light is by far my personal favorite. There are no poor cover songs nor bad lip synching to be found here. What you get is 100% The Boss. In a few parts, the movie even breaks out into full-on dancing musical numbers. While they’re a little cheesy and even feel a bit out of place, I found that they remained true to the music and were simply too much fun not to enjoy.
Director Gurinder Chadha does a fine job crafting Javed’s story and all of its complexities while also paying homage to The Boss. The movie explores our innate desire for freedom and finding ourselves, while also exposing the sacrifices we often must make in life for those we love. The film additionally explores social issues of the era, including political turmoil, fascist movements, and racism, which Javed faces first-hand as a Pakistani in England, and which unfortunately still feel uncomfortably relevant today. Javed is played by Viveik Kalra in his motion-picture debut, and he is immensely likable and relatable in his performance. The cast as a whole is pretty good, with the standouts being Hayley Atwell as Javed’s teacher, Ms. Clay, who encourages him to continue with his writing, as well as Kulvinder Ghir, who plays Javed’s controlling father. I also liked Aaron Phagura as Roops, Javed’s loyal Bruce-Springsteen-cassette-tape-sharing friend. We all could use more friends like him!
Overall, Blinded by the Light is a loving tribute to the music of Bruce Springsteen, but more than anything, it’s an emotional, identifiable, and uplifting tale about reaching for your dreams. The struggles that Javed faces resonate brilliantly with the messages of the music, and his story is an inspiring one worth hearing. Springsteen fans in particular definitely won’t want to miss this movie, but I think regardless of your interest or familiarity with Springsteen and his music, you’re likely to find something to enjoy here. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll even walk out of the theater as a fan.
One stormy night, fueled by his frustrations with his family, Javed turns to the cassette tapes he borrowed from his friend, and listens to “The Boss” for the very first time. It’s an instantly cathartic and unforgettably life-changing experience. The words speak to him in a way that no song ever has before. The lyrics speak of his ambitions and know his struggles and pain. It’s as if suddenly through the songs of Springsteen, Javed has found his voice and a guiding light. He’s instantly transformed by it, and is given a purpose and a passion to pursue it. For him, the music is the spark to light the fire to his ambitions; to leave his small town, to escape poverty, to resist his father’s oppression, to live on his own accord, to become a writer, and to feed his hungry heart.
As a writer and a lover of Springsteen myself, I connected with Blinded by the Light on a profoundly personal level. Springsteen’s music has spoken to me in a similar fashion as it does to Javed in the film. While I’m not the super fan that he is, I like to think we all have comparable experiences with certain musical artists who resonate with us deep in our souls. Bruce’s music in particular speaks to the common man, and it rallies against the injustices of the world in the pursuit of the American dream. I can’t think of a single musician that I personally find to be more motivational than him. It is my hope that people will watch this movie, particularly those who are unfamiliar with the music of Bruce Springsteen, and they’ll have a reaction to it much like Javed in this movie.
It goes without saying that the soundtrack in Blinded by the Light is fantastic. It has a nice mix of classic hits as well as some lesser known Springsteen songs, including some live versions, and they’re all put to good use here. Out of all of the recent movies inspired by real-life musicians, including Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, and Yesterday, Blinded by the Light is by far my personal favorite. There are no poor cover songs nor bad lip synching to be found here. What you get is 100% The Boss. In a few parts, the movie even breaks out into full-on dancing musical numbers. While they’re a little cheesy and even feel a bit out of place, I found that they remained true to the music and were simply too much fun not to enjoy.
Director Gurinder Chadha does a fine job crafting Javed’s story and all of its complexities while also paying homage to The Boss. The movie explores our innate desire for freedom and finding ourselves, while also exposing the sacrifices we often must make in life for those we love. The film additionally explores social issues of the era, including political turmoil, fascist movements, and racism, which Javed faces first-hand as a Pakistani in England, and which unfortunately still feel uncomfortably relevant today. Javed is played by Viveik Kalra in his motion-picture debut, and he is immensely likable and relatable in his performance. The cast as a whole is pretty good, with the standouts being Hayley Atwell as Javed’s teacher, Ms. Clay, who encourages him to continue with his writing, as well as Kulvinder Ghir, who plays Javed’s controlling father. I also liked Aaron Phagura as Roops, Javed’s loyal Bruce-Springsteen-cassette-tape-sharing friend. We all could use more friends like him!
Overall, Blinded by the Light is a loving tribute to the music of Bruce Springsteen, but more than anything, it’s an emotional, identifiable, and uplifting tale about reaching for your dreams. The struggles that Javed faces resonate brilliantly with the messages of the music, and his story is an inspiring one worth hearing. Springsteen fans in particular definitely won’t want to miss this movie, but I think regardless of your interest or familiarity with Springsteen and his music, you’re likely to find something to enjoy here. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll even walk out of the theater as a fan.
Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated #Alive (2020) in Movies
Oct 30, 2020
The Acting (1 more)
The Special Effects and CGI
Not much (1 more)
Possibly some continuity errors
A Gripping Tale of Surivival
Contains spoilers, click to show
This movie was really good. I like how it seemed really relatable especially because of his isolation and what a lot of people are dealing with right now during the pandemic. I thought it was pretty well done. I did kind of notice that although it was pretty mature in nature it seemed more of a "pg-13"-ish movie instead of a rated- R one. I mean it had plenty of violence and blood. There were even some really good effects for the zombies and some gruesome scenes. For being such a self contained movie plot wise it was pretty good and the action scenes were pretty realistic. I have more to say in the spoiler section but for now I'm giving this movie a 8/10. I would give it my must see seal of approval but I felt that it being a foreign film not everyone would like it as much as I did.
Spoiler Section Review:
This movie was really good. I was surprised with how much I liked it. As I said earlier it seemed really relatable because of the isolation so many people have dealt with during the pandemic. Also the main character Oh Joon-woo was very likeable and I was rooting for him from the beginning. His situation is bleak as things go from bad to worse pretty fast. First he can't get a hold of his parents, then he runs out of food, the internet goes out, the water is cut and then the power goes out. Oh and that scene with the lady cop getting killed was just horrible. I mean for me personally getting eaten alive is one of my worst fears, and when she hesitates to shoot herself and then gets dragged away was just terrible. At 10 days he starts running out of food, at 15 days he hasn't eaten in like 4 or 5 days already. He gets a message from his parents where it sounds like they are attacked and killed. And then he decides to kill himself by hanging himself and that's when he finds out he's not alone. A neighbor from the apartment complex Yoo-bin gets him to save himself by contacting him with a laser pointer letting him know he's not alone. They begin getting to know each other and helping each other by sending supplies back and forth after he gets a drone to send a rope over. Yoo-bin is a pretty cool character and definitely kicks ass. The way she exits her apartment when they make a run for the 8th floor and just rappels down in one go was beast. There were a couple things that bothered me but not that much. Like one, I thought the power was lost for good when the city was bombed and the power went out but both Oh Joon-woo and Yoo-bin kept using his phone and her tablet to communicate from afar. Also he used his drone even though it was out of charge earlier. I did see that it was a different drone from the one earlier but still made me think. Also the girl officer whose death was so tragic. It looked like she dropped her ammo and was only able to load like maybe 2 bullets into it. Yoo-bin recovers the gun and uses it to kill the man on the 8th floor who lures them into a trap and his wife. And then later Oh Joon-woo uses it on the roof and shoots at least 2 more times if not 3. Anyways not a big deal. Like I said earlier this was a really good movie and I give it a 8/10.
Spoiler Section Review:
This movie was really good. I was surprised with how much I liked it. As I said earlier it seemed really relatable because of the isolation so many people have dealt with during the pandemic. Also the main character Oh Joon-woo was very likeable and I was rooting for him from the beginning. His situation is bleak as things go from bad to worse pretty fast. First he can't get a hold of his parents, then he runs out of food, the internet goes out, the water is cut and then the power goes out. Oh and that scene with the lady cop getting killed was just horrible. I mean for me personally getting eaten alive is one of my worst fears, and when she hesitates to shoot herself and then gets dragged away was just terrible. At 10 days he starts running out of food, at 15 days he hasn't eaten in like 4 or 5 days already. He gets a message from his parents where it sounds like they are attacked and killed. And then he decides to kill himself by hanging himself and that's when he finds out he's not alone. A neighbor from the apartment complex Yoo-bin gets him to save himself by contacting him with a laser pointer letting him know he's not alone. They begin getting to know each other and helping each other by sending supplies back and forth after he gets a drone to send a rope over. Yoo-bin is a pretty cool character and definitely kicks ass. The way she exits her apartment when they make a run for the 8th floor and just rappels down in one go was beast. There were a couple things that bothered me but not that much. Like one, I thought the power was lost for good when the city was bombed and the power went out but both Oh Joon-woo and Yoo-bin kept using his phone and her tablet to communicate from afar. Also he used his drone even though it was out of charge earlier. I did see that it was a different drone from the one earlier but still made me think. Also the girl officer whose death was so tragic. It looked like she dropped her ammo and was only able to load like maybe 2 bullets into it. Yoo-bin recovers the gun and uses it to kill the man on the 8th floor who lures them into a trap and his wife. And then later Oh Joon-woo uses it on the roof and shoots at least 2 more times if not 3. Anyways not a big deal. Like I said earlier this was a really good movie and I give it a 8/10.
Hadley (567 KP) rated Pet Sematary in Books
Jul 31, 2019
Realistic horror scenes (1 more)
Great writing
Overuse of some words (1 more)
Some contradictions
Louis Creed, the main character of Stephen King's 'Pet Sematary,' wants a good life for his family. He's starting his first term as a newly appointed doctor for the University of Maine. Louis' family moved from Chicago to Maine for this very job, which consists of his young daughter, Ellie, his wife, Rachel, his infant son, Gage, and Ellie's black cat, Church (which is short for Winston Churchill). This cat quickly becomes the topic of conversation when the Creeds' new neighbor, Jud Crandall, warns them about the road in front of their house: " 'I'd get him fixed, ' Crandall said, crushing his smoke between his thumb and forefinger. 'A fixed cat don't tend to wander as much. But if it's all the time crossing back and forth, its luck will run out, and it'll end up there with the Ryder kids' coon and little Timmy Dessler's cocker spaniel and Missus Bradleigh's parakeet. Not that the parakeet got run over in the road, you understand. It just went feet up one day.' "
When Louis becomes curious about a trail behind his new home that leads into the woods, Jud gladly introduces the Creed family to the infamous 'Pet Sematary.' A place where children, for years, have buried their pets when they die. This place, and the death of Church, form the starting basis of King's amazing novel.
Louis' life suddenly changes after the death of a University student named Victor Pascow, and gets even worse when Louis starts to have dreams about him. One night, even the ghost of Pascow shows up at Louis' house: " He stood there with his head bashed in behind the left temple. The blood had dried on his face in maroon stripes like Indian warpaint. His collarbone jutted whitely. He was grinning. 'Come on, Doctor,' Pascow said. 'We got places to go.' " Louis ends up following Pascow to the pet sematary where he tells him: " 'I come as a friend,' Pascow said--- but was friend actually the word Pascow had used? Louis thought not. It was as if Pascow had spoken in a foreign language which Louis could understand through some dream magic... and friend was as close as to whatever word Pascow had actually used that Louis's struggling mind could come. ' Your destruction and the destruction of all you love is very near, Doctor.' He was close enough for Louis to be able to smell death on him. "
Later on, Louis feels Pascow's premonition might be coming true when he finds that Church has been killed by a passing vehicle. Jud, who happened to find Church, tells him to follow him so that they can bury the cat, but Jud doesn't stop at the pet sematary as expected, instead he goes past a deadfall barrier and continues on to a place he calls the Micmac Burial Ground, a burial ground that was made by the Micmac Indians. Through this entire scene, Louis experiences paranormal-type things, including the maniacal laughter of a disembodied voice. Jud warns Louis to not pay any attention to anything he experiences here: " 'You might see St. Elmo's fire- - - what the sailors call foo-lights. It makes funny shapes, but it's nothing. If you should see some of those shapes and they bother you, just look the other way. You may hear sounds like voices, but they are the loons down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. It's funny.' "
Now, the real story begins when Church returns to the house after his burial, where Louis finds dried blood on the cat's face and small pieces of plastic from the garbage bag his body had been in. Breathing and eating, the cat has certainly come back to life, but Louis notices that Church isn't the same as he was before; while Louis is in a hot bath, Church takes a seat on the toilet, where we witness him swaying back and forth, from this point on, Louis starts to regret following Jud to the Micmac burial ground.
Ellie, Louis' daughter, begins to suspect that something is different about Church, but she shrugs it off and doesn't necessarily question it:
" 'Daddy?' Ellie said in a low, subdued voice.
'What, Ellie? '
'Church smells funny.'
'Does he?' Louis asked, his voice carefully neutral.
'Yes!' Ellie said, distressed. 'Yes, he does! He never smelled funny before! He smells like... he smells like ka-ka!'
'Well, maybe he rolled in something bad, honey,' Louis said. 'Whatever that bad smell is, he'll lost it.'
'I certainly hope so,' Ellie said in a comical dowager's voice. She walked off. " King spends a majority of 'Pet Sematary' addressing everyone's fear of death; he discusses parents' fear of explaining death to their children for the first time, and even makes readers face the real nightmare of losing a child.
And the realism that King writes about is what makes him the great writer that he is today. King writes about the death of a child, but also makes Louis into a very real character that any parent could relate to. While many books touch on this subject, none can touch on grief like King does: " It was well for Louis- - - well for all three of the remaining family members--- that Steve had shown up as promptly as he had, because Louis was at least temporarily unable to make any kind of decision, even one so minor as giving his wife a shot to mute her deep grief. Louis hadn't even noticed that Rachel had apparently meant to go to the morning viewing in her housecoat, which she had misbuttoned. Her hair was uncombed, unwashed, tangled. Her eyes, blank brown orbits, bulged from sockets so sunken that they had almost become the eyes of a living skull. Her flesh was doughy. It hung from her face. She sat at the breakfast table that morning, munching unbuttered toast and talking in disjointed phrases that made no sense at all. At one point she had said abruptly, 'About that Winnebago you want to buy, Lou---' Louis had last spoken about buying a Winnebago in 1981. "
Yet, this isn't a book about grief, but a horror book about grief, which King masterfully put together. He molds the darkness of losing a child with the horror of making zombies, but King makes the story seem so realistic that any parent would go to the lengths that Louis did - - -and Jud, for that matter - - - even with the dire consequences at stake: " You're slanting all the evidence in favor of the conclusion you want to produce, his [Louis] mind protested. At least tell yourself the goddamned truth about the change in Church. Even if you want to disqualify the animals--- the mice and the birds--- what about the way he is? Muddled... that's the best word of all, that sums it up. The day we were out with the kite. You remember how Gage was that day? How vibrant and alive he was, reacting to everything? Wouldn't it be better to remember him that way? Do you want to resurrect a zombie from a grade-B horror picture? Or even something so prosaic as a retarded little boy? A boy who eats with his fingers and stares blankly at images on the TV screen and who will never learn to write his own name? What did Jud say about his dog? 'It was like washing a piece of meat.' Is that what you want? A piece of breathing meat? And even if you're able to be satisfied with that, how do you explain the return of your son from the dead to your wife? To your daughter? To Steve Masterton? To the world? What happens the first time Missy Dandridge pulls into the driveway and sees Gage riding his trike in the yard? Can't you hear her screams, Louis? Can't you see her harrowing her face with her fingernails? What do you say to the reporters? What do you say when a film crew from 'Real People' turns up on your doorstep, wanting to shoot film of your resurrected son? "
Pet Sematary is an emotional thrill ride, with Louis as a very relatable character, and the writing makes this a must-read book for all readers. With one of my favorite descriptive parts taking place in the 'Little God Swamp' that exists just outside of the Micmac Burial Ground when King describes the legendary Wendigo:
" The mist stained to a dull slate- gray for a moment, but this diffuse, ill-defined watermark was better than sixty feet high. It was no shade, no insubstantial ghost; he could feel the displaced air of its passage, could hear the mammoth thud of its feet coming down, the suck of mud as it moved on. For a moment he believed he saw twin yellow- orange sparks high above him. Sparks like eyes. "
The novel is so well-written that it reads easily, and King's descriptions put the reader right inside of the book.
With a few inconsistencies here and there, and overuse of some words, Pet Sematary is a very enjoyable book for lovers of the horror genre. I highly recommend this book!
When Louis becomes curious about a trail behind his new home that leads into the woods, Jud gladly introduces the Creed family to the infamous 'Pet Sematary.' A place where children, for years, have buried their pets when they die. This place, and the death of Church, form the starting basis of King's amazing novel.
Louis' life suddenly changes after the death of a University student named Victor Pascow, and gets even worse when Louis starts to have dreams about him. One night, even the ghost of Pascow shows up at Louis' house: " He stood there with his head bashed in behind the left temple. The blood had dried on his face in maroon stripes like Indian warpaint. His collarbone jutted whitely. He was grinning. 'Come on, Doctor,' Pascow said. 'We got places to go.' " Louis ends up following Pascow to the pet sematary where he tells him: " 'I come as a friend,' Pascow said--- but was friend actually the word Pascow had used? Louis thought not. It was as if Pascow had spoken in a foreign language which Louis could understand through some dream magic... and friend was as close as to whatever word Pascow had actually used that Louis's struggling mind could come. ' Your destruction and the destruction of all you love is very near, Doctor.' He was close enough for Louis to be able to smell death on him. "
Later on, Louis feels Pascow's premonition might be coming true when he finds that Church has been killed by a passing vehicle. Jud, who happened to find Church, tells him to follow him so that they can bury the cat, but Jud doesn't stop at the pet sematary as expected, instead he goes past a deadfall barrier and continues on to a place he calls the Micmac Burial Ground, a burial ground that was made by the Micmac Indians. Through this entire scene, Louis experiences paranormal-type things, including the maniacal laughter of a disembodied voice. Jud warns Louis to not pay any attention to anything he experiences here: " 'You might see St. Elmo's fire- - - what the sailors call foo-lights. It makes funny shapes, but it's nothing. If you should see some of those shapes and they bother you, just look the other way. You may hear sounds like voices, but they are the loons down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. It's funny.' "
Now, the real story begins when Church returns to the house after his burial, where Louis finds dried blood on the cat's face and small pieces of plastic from the garbage bag his body had been in. Breathing and eating, the cat has certainly come back to life, but Louis notices that Church isn't the same as he was before; while Louis is in a hot bath, Church takes a seat on the toilet, where we witness him swaying back and forth, from this point on, Louis starts to regret following Jud to the Micmac burial ground.
Ellie, Louis' daughter, begins to suspect that something is different about Church, but she shrugs it off and doesn't necessarily question it:
" 'Daddy?' Ellie said in a low, subdued voice.
'What, Ellie? '
'Church smells funny.'
'Does he?' Louis asked, his voice carefully neutral.
'Yes!' Ellie said, distressed. 'Yes, he does! He never smelled funny before! He smells like... he smells like ka-ka!'
'Well, maybe he rolled in something bad, honey,' Louis said. 'Whatever that bad smell is, he'll lost it.'
'I certainly hope so,' Ellie said in a comical dowager's voice. She walked off. " King spends a majority of 'Pet Sematary' addressing everyone's fear of death; he discusses parents' fear of explaining death to their children for the first time, and even makes readers face the real nightmare of losing a child.
And the realism that King writes about is what makes him the great writer that he is today. King writes about the death of a child, but also makes Louis into a very real character that any parent could relate to. While many books touch on this subject, none can touch on grief like King does: " It was well for Louis- - - well for all three of the remaining family members--- that Steve had shown up as promptly as he had, because Louis was at least temporarily unable to make any kind of decision, even one so minor as giving his wife a shot to mute her deep grief. Louis hadn't even noticed that Rachel had apparently meant to go to the morning viewing in her housecoat, which she had misbuttoned. Her hair was uncombed, unwashed, tangled. Her eyes, blank brown orbits, bulged from sockets so sunken that they had almost become the eyes of a living skull. Her flesh was doughy. It hung from her face. She sat at the breakfast table that morning, munching unbuttered toast and talking in disjointed phrases that made no sense at all. At one point she had said abruptly, 'About that Winnebago you want to buy, Lou---' Louis had last spoken about buying a Winnebago in 1981. "
Yet, this isn't a book about grief, but a horror book about grief, which King masterfully put together. He molds the darkness of losing a child with the horror of making zombies, but King makes the story seem so realistic that any parent would go to the lengths that Louis did - - -and Jud, for that matter - - - even with the dire consequences at stake: " You're slanting all the evidence in favor of the conclusion you want to produce, his [Louis] mind protested. At least tell yourself the goddamned truth about the change in Church. Even if you want to disqualify the animals--- the mice and the birds--- what about the way he is? Muddled... that's the best word of all, that sums it up. The day we were out with the kite. You remember how Gage was that day? How vibrant and alive he was, reacting to everything? Wouldn't it be better to remember him that way? Do you want to resurrect a zombie from a grade-B horror picture? Or even something so prosaic as a retarded little boy? A boy who eats with his fingers and stares blankly at images on the TV screen and who will never learn to write his own name? What did Jud say about his dog? 'It was like washing a piece of meat.' Is that what you want? A piece of breathing meat? And even if you're able to be satisfied with that, how do you explain the return of your son from the dead to your wife? To your daughter? To Steve Masterton? To the world? What happens the first time Missy Dandridge pulls into the driveway and sees Gage riding his trike in the yard? Can't you hear her screams, Louis? Can't you see her harrowing her face with her fingernails? What do you say to the reporters? What do you say when a film crew from 'Real People' turns up on your doorstep, wanting to shoot film of your resurrected son? "
Pet Sematary is an emotional thrill ride, with Louis as a very relatable character, and the writing makes this a must-read book for all readers. With one of my favorite descriptive parts taking place in the 'Little God Swamp' that exists just outside of the Micmac Burial Ground when King describes the legendary Wendigo:
" The mist stained to a dull slate- gray for a moment, but this diffuse, ill-defined watermark was better than sixty feet high. It was no shade, no insubstantial ghost; he could feel the displaced air of its passage, could hear the mammoth thud of its feet coming down, the suck of mud as it moved on. For a moment he believed he saw twin yellow- orange sparks high above him. Sparks like eyes. "
The novel is so well-written that it reads easily, and King's descriptions put the reader right inside of the book.
With a few inconsistencies here and there, and overuse of some words, Pet Sematary is a very enjoyable book for lovers of the horror genre. I highly recommend this book!