Search

Search only in certain items:

Murder by Perfection
Murder by Perfection
Lauren Carr | 2018 | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Lauren Carr has done it again. If you have read one of her books, you know that you have been hooked from that first one you read. You will want more. If you have not read Lauren Carr books you are truly missing out on some really good murders and murder mystery. She write so well that you will not be able to stop with one chapter.

Murder by Perfection is no different. We see that Jessica Faraday and Murphy Thornton are doing in there lives. Things looks like they are still enjoying there bliss but it starting to warn off as they both have busy schedules. Can they fix it? Will they be able to find time for themselves?

Things really start to get interesting once Murphy runs into an old buddy of his from his time at the academy. His buddy starts talking to him about making it work to keep his marriage work. Though his buddy and Captain want to talk to Murphy alone about something important?

By the time, Murphy get to the park, there a crime and he a witness to his navy buddy crime. We go for a ride with murder galore. Murphy goes missing? Who want him gone and took him. Jessica get a ransom and also bring in the Thornton family like, JJ Thornton, Joshua Thornton, NCIS Team and a few others. We even see Tristan Faraday involved.


Lauren Carr brings in drugs, kidnapping and so much more. I loved just about everything. You are keep guessing until the end. How is it all connected? What does Natalie Shepherd's life got to do with Murphy?
  
This book is subtitled "Twenty Crucial Puzzle Solved". I'm not sure I quite agree with that - it's more a case of throwing some light on areas of the novels that may puzzle a modern reader but would have been plain to a contemporary audience.

For example, there is a chapter on the games played in the novels. No one (that I know!) plays at Speculation any more, but we can grasp both the fundamentals of the game ("I am never to see my cards and Mr Crawford does all the rest" as Lady Bertram puts it!) and read into it some further illumination of the participating characters. And of course understand why Sir Thomas thought that it might not amuse him to have wife wife as a partner in Whist!

There are sections on characters who have no reported speech (it had not occurred before that we never hear Captain Benwick speak, but it is quite true!), clears away the myth that there are no scenes where women are not present and wraps up with an important consideration of Jane Austen's place in the development of the novel. I think that as she is so very readable, and perhaps also because she is a woman writer, people in general are too apt to dismiss her importance, but her innovations in style are immeasurable. I don't think it is going too far to say that without Austen the novel would not have developed in the way it has. If you read Henry James, Flaubert, Kafka and a long et cetera, you best give your thanks to Jane Austen!
  
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
2011 | Action, Adventure
Our introduction to Captain America withing the MCU gets a bad wrap.
I see it labeled fairly regularly as weak entry into the ever expanding saga and I just don't think that's the case.

It's got a solid narrative for a start as we watch Steve Rogers go from frail Regular Joe to bonafide hero who truly believes in fighting for the good of humanity over the course of two hours.
The WWII setting provides a touch of historical reality, collided with the fantasy of the Tesseract, our first glimpse of the now infamous Infinity Stones, and in this narrative, providing Red Skull with cosmically charged weapons the gain the edge in the war with Allied Forces.

The First Avenger has a fantastic cast. Chris Evans is pretty much perfect in the titular role and has played the character solidly for the last 10 years.
Hugo Weaving as Red Skull is an undeniable highlight. He plays the villain with evil glee, and looks so comic book accurate that it hurts. It's a real shame that he has never returned to the role.
The supporting cast is strong as well. Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Tommy Lee Jones, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper, and Stanley Tucci are all great, and relish in a tight screenplay.

I do think that the film feels over long at times, although the story being told is undeniably important in the run up to The Avengers.
The effects are mostly decent and still hold up, with an exception here and there, primarily before Steve Rogers goes all buff, but these are small gripes with an otherwise solid origin film.
  
The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
The Legend of Tarzan (2016)
2016 | Action
It’s a story we’re pretty much all familiar with – Tarzan, a man who was raised in the jungle by apes that took him in as a baby after his parents died.
In “The Legend of Tarzan,” it is the 1880’s and royal corruption brews beneath the surface. Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard), now an adult, is living as John Clayton III, Lord Greystoke with his wife Jane (Margot Robbie).

His civilized life is interrupted when he is sent back to the Congo as a trade emissary. Unfortunately, he is at the center of the wicked plans of Captain Léon Rom (Christoph Waltz). Rom has made a deal to trade Tarzan in exchange for diamonds to a tribal chief who plans to butcher and eat him. Waltz does a great job playing a sleazy political criminal with beady eyes and a greasy mustache.


Samuel L. Jackson is also fun to watch as George Washington Williams, who accompanies Tarzan to the Congo when he follows up on his own suspicions.
While the film is quite enjoyable, and very pretty to look at (special thanks to Skarsgard). Tarzan isn’t as animalistic as you would expect, Jane lacks authentic emotion, and at times the CGI is a bit low quality.


“The Legend of Tarzan” is one of those short, sweet, and fun summer movies and is definitely worth watching. With political undertones of greed, slavery, and human destruction, it also has deeper value.


This is one that everyone can watch. It’s not too violent, it’s not to edgy, and it’s not too long. I give “The Legend of Tarzan” 3.5 out of 5 stars.