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Just Mercy (2019)
Just Mercy (2019)
2019 | Drama
Superb legal drama
A very topical film at the moment, telling the true story of a man ending up on death row after a dubious murder trial with negligible evidence weighed up against copious amounts of evidence of his innocence. As usual, it is the story of the police and DA being under pressure to convict someone of the crime and finding an easy target.
Jordan plays young lawyer Bryan Stevenson who moves to Alabama to fight for justice for death row convicts. Among many cases he meets Jonny D (Foxx), who initially refuses to fight any more despite the paper-thin conviction he received. Persuaded, the pair start their fight against the system, met time and time again with prejudice, injustice and an unfair system that is unwilling to review past cases.
The irony of this unfolding in the town that is so proud to have been where Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, the story of a black man facing an unfair trial accused of crime against a young white female, was not lost on me. This wasn't made much of in the film, I would guess out of respect for the family of the actual murder victim here, and not wanting to suggest a parallel with the false crime in the book.
The film does well to portray the racial injustice, unbalanced legal system and prejudice experienced by the authorities and smalltown America, but not overdo it. This leaves the viewer to mull it on their own, which is especially important to do in the current climate.
An excellent film that gets the balance right between story, faithfulness to the facts and sewing thoughts and parallels with modern day life.
  
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
1936 | Classics, Comedy, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"This is between Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Hmm, I’m going to go with Mr. Deeds. Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur. It’s just an amazing film. It’s very funny. Longfellow Deeds is the main character, Gary Cooper plays him and he’s so appealing. I think it’s the definition of appeal. So Longfellow Deeds is this guy who lives in this tiny town, he’s makes a living writing greeting cards. Just a sweet guy. There’s a distant relative who’s this gigantic millionaire. Has a huge fortune. So this industrialist dies in New York City and they trace [him] down, he’s the only heir to this huge fortune. So they bring him to New York and now he runs this company. [But] this really ace reporter for the local paper wants to get the dirt on him, and [she’s played by] Jean Arthur. So she waits for him to come out and she acts like she’s starving, like she’s a homeless woman during the Depression. So he picks her up and feeds her some food and they start doing things together. And he absolutely falls in love with her. But, so, there’s all this dirt that’s coming out in the newspapers and they don’t know how it’s happening. But the scene…it starts very funny, but, again, it’s that heart, it’s balancing humor and heart that Frank Capra did so well, the scene in which he finds out the woman he’s fallen in love with is actually the one who’s doing all the dirt is one of the most emotional scenes in the film. And it’s so underplayed. So beautifully underplayed. He gets behind this column but you know he’s crying. And he can’t bear anyone to see him. It’s so incredibly moving and touching."

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I got this as a freebie a few months ago as I hunted for books to finish my Paranormal Roman & Urban Fantasy A-Z challenge on Goodreads.

This starts with Avaline doing her job as a lifeguard at the lake when she is attacked with magic by two assailants who know her name. She wakes up a month later to learn she, too, has magic. A dangerous magic. She has two choices and decides to stay at the school to learn how to control her vox magic.

I can't decide whether I liked this or not.

Everything was happening so quickly in it. She meets the guys, she lusts after them, she sleeps with one of them very quickly. She gets to lessons and on her second try ever she manages to make fire. I just expected things to take time...for her to initially struggle considering she didn't even know she had magic until a day or two ago.

I struggled to connect with the characters and wasn't really convinced by their relationships. I didn't feel any real sort of chemistry going on between any of them. Once again, I feel like this bit was rushed. I get lust but... I wasn't a fan of how the author wrote the romance parts.

This story had a lot of promise but we don't really learn much of anything. Ava learns about magic in lessons but we don't get to hear it. To me it feels like a bit of paper that's been scrunched into a ball and then flattened causing creases and ripples that means some details in the story have been glossed over. It could do with expanding a little with more details on certain aspects.

At this point I don't believe I'll be reading more of this series.
  
Antics in the Forbidden Zone by Adam and the Ants / Adam Ant
Antics in the Forbidden Zone by Adam and the Ants / Adam Ant
1990 | Rock
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"Following on nicely from “Just What I Needed”, I went to see my Dad in Florida and he had the 12” of “Stand and Deliver” which had “Beat My Guest” on the B-side. “I was into rap at that time, Run DMC and that kind of stuff, so for a ten-year-old it was ‘What the fuck is this?’ I was blown away. I was floored by the riff and “Beat My Guest” has the ultimate guitar riff, it’s so badass. I was into the make-up as well because I was into KISS too, so I thought that was cool. I was mesmerised by the whole look. “My Dad was always one step ahead of me. I remember being with him in Michigan once, we had this cottage we’d go to with my grandparents and he joined us one year, which was really fun. He was looking in the paper to see who was playing in Detroit - which was two hours away - he found out The Dead Kennedys were playing in some tiny little club and he left to go and see them. “I remember thinking my Dad was the coolest, I was ‘What the hell does that mean? He’s into some weird shit.’ He taught me everything. He spoke to me about music, but he doesn’t play music. I acquired a lot of his records when my parents split up, he gave me that Adam Ant record and I was bawling on the plane. “The next time I went to visit my Dad I’d discovered more Adam and The Ants and I wanted to talk to him about all of these other songs I’d heard, but he was already onto the next thing, which was Devo."

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