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The More you Ignore me
Jo Brand | 2022
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
31 of 230
Book
The more you ignore me
By Jo Brand
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Celebrity obsession, coming of age and cow shit - an hilarious, poignant and darkly comic novel by the Queen of Comedy.

Alice is a young girl growing up in a dysfunctional family in Herefordshire in the 1980s. Her mother is suffering a mental illness - she is on medication, is put away in an institution, but constantly escapes - while her father, Keith, very sweetly, tries to keep everything together. His in-laws, the Wildgooses, are a bunch of reckless, lawless country bumpkins and can offer very little help or sensible advice, preferring instead to remain in the pub or to use a shotgun to solve life's little problems. The only thing that gives meaning and hope to Alice as she makes her way through childhood, school and teenage trauma is her obsession with the singer Morrissey of The Smiths. She is desperate to see The Smiths at a live gig, but somehow her family always manages to derail her plans. Gradually her mother begins to share her fascination with the rock god and his presence in their lives goes someway to healing her and repairing her relationship with her long-suffering daughter.

This was really good! It was funny and darkly so. It follows the life of a young girl dealing with the effects her mothers mental illness has on her and her father. It’s has a dark underlay that as someone who struggles mentally I can relate too. So much better than I was expecting.
  
Snitch (2013)
Snitch (2013)
2013 | Action, Drama, Mystery
5
6.8 (4 Ratings)
Movie Rating
I’m a huge fan of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. His wrestling persona is
extremely entertaining and he’s a pretty decent actor. He did good with this movie but it wasn’t enough.

The premise of the movie is based on ‘true events’ (whatever that
means), it’s more about a law that’s real in our country right now, I’ll get in to that later.

There are a lot of characters so stick with me. The Rock plays John
Matthews, he owns his own construction business. He has an ex-wife, Sylvie Collins played by Melina Kanakaredes, and a current wife, Analisa played by Nadine Velazquez.

Johnand Analisa
have a daughter Isabella and he has a son with Sylvie, Jason Collins played by Rafi Gavron. The other major players are Barry Pepper who plays undercover DEA agent Cooper; Susan Sarandon who plays Joanne Keeghan a US Attorney; Jon Bernthal
who plays Daniel James an ex-con trying to get his life back together; Michael Kenneth Williams who plays Malik, a drug dealer; and Benjamin Bratt who plays Cartel leader Juan Carlos. Out of all of these, I liked Daniel, Agent Cooper, John Matthews, Malik and
Joanne Keeghan, in that order.

The law the movie is based on is about mandatory minimums. If you are
holding and it’s enough to distribute then you go to jail. The length of your jail time is based on how
much you are holding when you’re caught. In this case, Jason, who is 18 and still in high
school, is set up by his ‘best friend’. This friend sends him a huge bag of ecstasy against Jason’s wishes.

When the package arrives Jason gets caught because it’s a
sting. His jail time based on the amount of ecstasy is ten years in a prison that holds murderers, rapist and violent criminals.

The movie starts excruciatingly slow, the real action doesn’t start until
almost halfway through, or at least it felt like it. It’s good once you get there but I wasn’t really into
the people in it/living it. I kept thinking of the actors as themselves not the characters
they were playing, even the ones I liked. There were too many close ups and‘in action’ scenes that involved someone with a camera running or walking next to the actor.

I getthat it was to try and build apprehension and anxiety but it was more annoying and kept pulling me out of the story so I couldn’t connect emotionally with the characters.

I didn’t believe the union between John and Analisa or that there had been one with Sylvie, there was no familiarity and I didn’t believe the love or tension between them.

John was a business man who’s never seen action so he’s kind of a wuss, but it’s the Rock, a huge tall muscle-y intense looking guy. Whenever he flinched I kept waiting for him to kick ass but he never does.

Then in another scene he’s magically badass, shooting
a shotgun one handed out of the window of a semi-truck he’s driving.

The movie was more about showing people this heinous law then entertainingus. I don’t like that, it’s not why I go to movies. The only saving grace would have been if it had been really entertaining but it was only mildly entertaining at best.

I’d say rent it if you like the Rock or if you’re curious, it wouldn’t be too much of a waste of your time but
definitely don’t waste your money in a theatre.