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Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar #2)
Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar #2)
Harlan Coben | 1996 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Thriller
8
7.3 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
In this book, the focus is on Myron Bolitar's tennis clients. Myron is at the US Open watching his client, Duane Richwood play. When shots ring out in the stadium, the result is deadly. Valerie Simpson, a teen tennis player looking to get back in the game, has been murdered. She had come to Myron a few days before to become a potential client. Why was Valerie murdered? Myron feels an obligation to find out, since she had come to him and called him many times. Is she connected to Duane? Myron and Win have a lot of digging to do to get to the bottom of this mystery.

Book 2 in the Myron Bolitar series. Myron is a jack of all trades, but his main trade is as a sports agent. He gives his clients a personal touch, big agencies aren't able to deliver. Plus, he's a lawyer and that helps out as well, especially when his clients seem to need legal services.

I really liked this book. I could connect with it on a personal level, being a former tennis player myself. Not that I was anywhere near being able to play in the US Open, but it was a fun sport.

This book takes you back to look at Valerie's life when she was a tennis star at a very young age. Bring in more murders from her past, political scandals, inappropriate coaches, disappearing suspects, and you have an interesting book. I can't wait to read the rest of the series.
  
The French Dispatch (2021)
The French Dispatch (2021)
2021 | Comedy, Drama
Weak Stories Can't Support the STUNNING Visuals
Filmmaker Wes Anderson is an acquired taste. He is one of the most visually stunning filmmakers working today, but his films are often time difficult to grasp and can get lost in their own weirdness.

Such is the case with his latest effort THE FRENCH DISPATCH. It is a visually STUNNING film that you can turn the sound off and just drink in the images depicted on screen with your eyes - but the story these pictures tell was, unfortunately, not all that compelling.

Starring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright and a whole bundle of known stars, THE FRENCH DISPATCH tells the story of a Sunday Newspaper insert called THE FRENCH DISPATCH (think PARADE MAGAZINE). The quirk of the FRENCH DISPATCH is that this insert in the Liberty, Kansas paper in the 1930’s(or so) focuses solely on the goings-on of the French town of Enui. Stories told in the flavor of the New Yorker.

So…this setup is just, really, an excuse to tell 3 different short stories and tie them together with an overarching theme - getting the French Dispatch ready to publish. A good enough excuse for a movie - provided that the 3 stories being told are interesting enough - which they are not (and therein lies the issue with this film).

Bill Murray is a congenial enough host of this party as the Editor of The French Dispatch. His character is the “through line” of this film and if you are going to anchor an anthology film with a character/actor, then Bill Murray is a pretty good anchor.

The first story, telling of a life-imprisoned person (Benicio Del Toro) who finds a muse (Lea Seydoux) and becomes a world famous artist, thanks to the efforts of his patron (Adrian Brody) is the best of the bunch. This story is written/narrated by a character played by Tilda Swinton and it is her performance that is the highlight of the film for me. Because of this narration - and because this is the best written/most interesting and best acted of the 3 stories (by Del Toro, Seydoux and Brody), I was excited as to where this film was going to go from here.

Unfortunately, that direction was down.

The 3rd story - narrated by a character played by Jeffrey Wright about a Police Commissioner’s son who is kidnapped is absurb - and almost succeeds when Anderson decides to animate the car chase - but ultimately isn’t quite as good as the first piece.

And then there is the middle part that stars Timothee Chalamet as a student that starts a rebellion. This part is written/narrated by a character played by Frances McDormand and while these 2 are “game” for what is given to them, the story is not compelling and, to be honest, a bit boring. This middle story (the longest of the 3 tales) is where the movie loses it’s footing.

And that’s too bad for Anderson - as is his custom - fills every frame with interesting pictures/visuals that are a marvel to look at and fills almost every minor role with some sort of major star looking to work with him. Almost the best part of this film was to spot the star in a cameo role. Willem DaFoe, Saoirse Ronan, Liev Schrieber, the “Fonz” himself, Henry Winkler, Cristoph Walz and Anderson “regulars” Jason Schwartman, Edward Norton and Owen Wilson (amongst others) all show up - briefly - to lend their talents to this absurdity.

Well worth checking out for the visuals, just don’t look for much in the way of plot or drama.

Letter Grade: B (did I mention that the visuals are STUNNING?)

7 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)
  
Equity (2016)
Equity (2016)
2016 | Drama
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Today’s movie for your consideration is from the same selection of films you’d find ‘The Boiler Room’ with only this one is far more ‘reality based’. A financial thriller depicting the cutthroat and take-no-prisoners world of investment banking and Wall Street. ‘Equity’ is directed by Meera Menon and written by Sarah Megan Thomas, Alysia Renier, and Amy Fox. The film centers on investment banker, Naomi Bishop who is attempting to put together one of the biggest deals in her life and Wall Street history after her first ‘failure’, while combating rivals in and outside her own company, across gender lines, and a federal investigation focusing on someone she knows intimately … Or so she thinks.

 

‘Equity’ appeared in competition at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and stars Anna Gunn, Sarah Megan Thomas, Alysia Renier, James Purefoy, Sophie Von Haselburg, Margret Colin, Lee Tergesen, and Craig Bierko.

 

Investment banker Naomi Bishop (Anna Gunn) was one of the most successful investment bankers on Wall Street. She was unstoppable. Until she lost her first deal. Well into her career, she is striving to keep her reputation intact as a ‘rain maker’. The one in her company that secures the deal every time and brings record profits for her company in the process. In jeopardy of missing out on a promotion, she pours all her effort into her latest deal and in the process passes over her assistant Erin Manning (Sarah Megan Thomas) for a promotion. An eager young woman with a new husband and a baby on the way, Erin also strives to break through the ‘gender lines’ that still exist and make her on mark on Wall Street. At the same time Samantha (Alysia Reiner), an investigator who has recently made the jump from investigating federal drug cases to white collar crime, is looking into the activities of investment banker Micheal Connor (James Purefoy). Who may or may not be with the same firm as Naomi Bishop and also Naomi’s significant other . Bishop soon discovers the tangled web centering on this latest deal and soon realizes that not only might she have been betrayed, but it might have been from more than one of the people she ‘almost trusts’.

 

I found this film to be very much an example of the chaos in the world of finance as well as the personal lives that people in this field may or may not have and the dangers posed when you become friends or close to others in said field. A great deal, no pun intended, hinges on this world. The ‘average person’s’ future can be decided here and they have absolutely no control over it and all the while you have these folks bickering amongst themselves and scrambling for every dollar. Sometimes breaking the law in the process and sometimes with no regard as to whether it affects those closest to them. It is indeed chaos in a purer form with no ‘happy ending’ and no ‘bad ending’. It’s a multi-billion dollar game of musical chairs with chairs and people being removed.

 

The film is ‘realistic’. As far as what we, outside that world, see it as. It’s all a numbers game with the potential for great profit or great lose to them. Your friends and those you trust will turn on you like that. They care about the money and the next big deal. People just fall by the waist side. It’s a rather refreshing take on ‘greed and ambition’. I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.
  
    Kubo: A Samurai Quest ™

    Kubo: A Samurai Quest ™

    Games, Entertainment and Stickers

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

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    If you must blink, DO IT NOW! Travel deeper into the stunning world of Kubo and the Two Strings as...

Little Monsters (2019)
Little Monsters (2019)
2019 | Comedy, Horror
Shes so cute tho...
387. Little Monsters. Nope it's not a remake of the Fred Savage 80s flick. Instead this is the 'Life Is Beautiful' for the zombie genre. And it was pretty sweet! We meet Dave, a down on his luck musician, broke up with the girl, band broke up, has to live with his sister and her young son. (Dave reminded me of a Andy Dwyer type, Park n Rec fans? Anyone, anyone?) To pull his weight around his sisters house, he takes his nephew, Felix, to school, and there he meets and is instantly infatuated with Felix's teacher Miss Caroline, with reason, she's played by Lupita Nyong'o!! One thing leads to another and Dave finds himself as a chaperone for the next field trip to the local zoo, which just happens to be next to a military research facility, which so happens to be suffering from a zombie outbreak at the time. As you may have guessed these zombies find their way to the zoo, and yep hell breaks loose. However, the kiddos are completely oblivious to this thanks to Miss Caroline convincing them its all just a game! It was a very well done comedy zombie flick. Rounding out the cast is Josh Gad playing a kids tv show host, he is great! Worth the watch!! Filmbufftim on FB