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The Wife Upstairs
The Wife Upstairs
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
A page-turning re-look at a classic

Jane is a dog-walker in the glamorous Thornfield Estates subdivision. Until she meets Eddie Rochester. Widowed, Eddie is Thornfield's most talked about resident. His wife, Bertha "Bea" Rochester--founder of the Southern Manor line of furniture and accessories--died in a boating accident with her best friend, though Bea's body was never found. As Jane gets to know Eddie, she can't help but fall for him: he's rich, handsome, and protective. He can offer her a life of security and love that she's never had. But she's also fascinated by the tale of Bea, who built herself up from nothing through her company. Can she ever compare to Bea--and win Eddie's heart? And what really happened the night Bea and Blanche died?

"...and later, I'd look back at that moment and wonder if I somehow knew what was going to happen. If everything in my life had been leading me to that one spot, to that one house. To him."

I read this book solely because it's billed as a loose retelling of Jane Eyre, which is one of my absolute favorite books. Loose is definitely the right word for it, but this also a gloriously fun read with some exciting twists and turns.

The Wife Upstairs is a page-turner that kept me frantically reading. Yes, parts of it are somewhat predictable, but Eddie is a fascinating rogue and Jane a mysterious lead. Who is telling the truth, what happened in the past, and what on earth is going on now--you'll find yourself swirled up in all these questions as you flip the pages.

Overall, this a foreboding and enjoyable thriller, with plenty to entertain its readers. 3.5 stars.

I received a copy of this novel from St. Martin's Press and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review.
  
The Mother and the Whore (1973)
The Mother and the Whore (1973)
1973 | Drama, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"It’s a movie from 1973, directed by Jean Eustache, and it’s a three hours and thirty minutes movie based on his personal life. He tried to do a documentary about his relationship with his girlfriend and his lover and how they tried to have a threesome, and he was noting everything that was going on while it was going on and he was noting the dialogue, he was taking notes. And then he decided he wanted to do a documentary of his emotional, personal life just after it happened, and it’s the best depiction on screen of dysfunctional passion that I’ve ever seen, because it’s so true, everything that he said. He put all his closest friends and ex-lovers in the movie. His wife was next to the camera where they were shooting with Bernadette Lafont playing his wife, and they shot the movie is in his girlfriend’s house. But the whole movie concept is so good, because the end the movie is really emotional. It’s all about three people who cannot manage to love each other, and drama, drama, drama. It’s so close to watching his experience in life, that how could he manage to do this? He was obsessed with shooting the scenes of him and his lover in the real location where he had his relations with his lover. But it was great doing a documentary about his life with actors playing his part and his girlfriend and his lover’s part, but also his ex-lovers who were playing the part. The whole concept of the movie is such a puzzle. And he was someone who was very tormented since he was young, and he ended up committing suicide some years later. But, that movie actually is very hard to find, because for rights reasons it’s kind of in the closet, but you can find it on the net sometimes. I watched one year ago, I watched it three times in a row. I’m obsessed with that movie. When people say to go to an island, which movie would you bring, I guess I would bring 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Mother and The Whore, and Un Chien Andalou. That’s an absolute masterpiece that should be rediscovered, like transferred to 4K or Blu-ray. It’s one of the biggest movies that I know that is not being released as it should nowadays."

Source
  
Central Intelligence (2016)
Central Intelligence (2016)
2016 | Action, Comedy
5
6.9 (22 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Great poster. So-so film.
“Saving the World Takes a Little Hart and a Big Johnson”. I doubt I have ever passed a film poster before and dissolved into paroxysms of mirth, so this film at least wins one award with me.
The story is pretty inconsequential, and used as a framework to build set pieces around. Kevin Hart (“Ride Along”) plays Calvin Joyner – the life and soul of his high school and the guy voted ‘Most likely to succeed’. He’s also a nice guy, sensitively covering the modesty of overweight loser Robbie Wheirdicht (a good Dwayne Johnson lookalike actually played by internet wedding-dance sensation Sione Kelepi) after he’s been ridiculed by bullies in front of the whole school.

But sometimes life doesn’t go to plan and twenty year’s later Calvin may have married his high school sweetheart Maggie (Danielle Nicolet) but has ended up in a low-level forensic accountancy job and not where he wants to be.

Robbie on the other hand has transformed his life and physique to become Bob Stone (Dwayne Johnson), a man with a ‘certain set of skills’ and, as it turns out, a rogue CIA operative. Bob is on the trail of financial codes to help identify the location of the traitorous ‘Black Badger’ who killed his long-term partner Stanton (Aaron Paul). But the Black Badger could be anyone, and the CIA lead (Amy Ryan) suspects it might actually be Stone. With the stakes rising the inept Joyner needs to make a decision on who to trust and who to fear.

The comedy lead Kevin Hart previously impressed with “Get Hard” and raises a few laughs in this one, notably with his attempt at his signature flip twenty years later than he should have attempted it! Johnson’s character is written to be just plain weird and with Johnson’s limited acting range (think Arnie in “Jingle All The Way”) it’s a performance that is on the outlandish side of bizarre. Together the duo make for a likeable pair but this is a very lightweight comedy and is generally a smile-along rather than a laugh-along. It is also uneven in tone, occasionally straying into highly un-comedic territory: a throat-ripping out scene anyone?

The director is Rawson Marshall Thurber who previously directed the better comedy “Dodgeball” and the far worse “We’re the Millers”. So that should set your expectations.

A fairly ho-hum comedy which might entertain you on a long plane flight but is not worth forking out much cash to rent.