Mad Max; Fury Road

This is one of those films where it turned out as expected but was also a surprise too. And come on girls, admit it, the thought of Tom hardy in it just added to the appeal. It did for me! But I was pleasantly surprise that the main character in this film was a woman, she was amazing! For me, her character was the one that stood out, not Mad Max which is cool.

It is set in the same world as the previous three films, a post-nuclear wasteland where fuel and water are the main commodities. While the first three films dealt with fighting over these commodities, this film was different; this time they were fighting over people. Beautiful fertile woman to be exact, that the main bad guy had as wives. Charlize Theron’s character, who has a really cool name, Imperator Furiosa, helps the ladies to escape and head towards the Green land, somewhere she remembers as a child. So this ensues a road chase. Oh and Max is along for the ride. And it does feel like this. For me, Charlize’s character is the main one, with Tom’s a close second. But this isn’t a bad thing. I quite liked it because it was all about the story and characters and it just seemed to fit right.

The main thing I liked about this film was that CGI was kept to a minimal. There was only one part with CGI and that was the storm. The rest was real life action and you could tell. Some of the stunts were amazing! The part where motorbikes were jumping across the tanker to drop grenades was awesome. And of course the War Boys (the baddies minions) were great too. Some of them were attached to long poles which wavered to and fro whilst the vehicles were driving really fast! Well, it seemed fast. And the guy playing riffs on the guitar on the front of the truck could have been really comical and cheesy, but it wasn’t. Even that worked!

So all in all, this was a really good film, good story, good characters, great performances, brilliant stunts and overall a satisfying watch. I’m pleased I bought it on DVD as I will be happy to watch it again.

So say we all.

A book I previously abandoned – The CHILDREN OF HÚRIN by J.R.R. Tolkien

I have picked up and put down this book many many times. Upon hearing the rumour that they were going to make a film based on this story, I wanted to read the book first, as I had previously done with The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings umpteen years ago. The main difference between those books and this one, is that I couldn’t but those books down, whereas with this one I found really difficult to read. The story was originally in the form of a poem before being transcribed into a book by his son, Christopher. I liked the premise of the story; its follows on from the Silmarillion, of the time of Elves and man is just coming into the land. If you want a full synopsis of the story, I suggest you google it as I will only summarise it here.

The big bad evil is Morgoth, a Vala* who escapes from Valinor** and basically wants to destroy/subjugate all of the Elves in the land what is now known as Middle Earth. There is a large battle between him and the Elves (there are many different ‘tribes’ of Elves, all with different names). They are helped by the Edain*** but both sets of people are beaten by Morgoth and suffer heavy losses.

So now we come to the main characters of the story. Húrin and his pregnant wife Morwen have two children; Túrin and Urwen. Húrin was captured by Morgoth and subsequently Túrin was sent to live with the Elves for safety and Morwen gave birth to a daughter Niënor. Still with me? Morgoth puts a curse on the family that evil would befall them their whole lives. And this is the story. It’s not a happy or feel good book with happy endings, I did find it hard going at times. I guess it is the style of writing, and parts of it felt rushed or incomplete. Also, all of the names of the individuals, the different Elves are quite difficult to pronounce. It does have a guide at the beginning of the book but it is too much of a faff to keep referring back all of the time. I think it has taken me a year to read this book, because I kept starting and stopping because I wasn’t enjoying it. But a couple of weeks ago I read quite a bit of it in one sitting, and once you get into it and used to the style of writing, it became a little bit more enjoyable. But the main thing that annoyed me with this book, is the chapter titles. Proper spoilers! You could get a full synopsis of the book just by reading the chapter titles. So my tip for you if you want to read this, try and persevere and read it in one go. Or just read the chapter titles.

However, I will say this. I hope they do make this into a film because it would be awesome! It has a dragon in it! This is one of those few times that the film will probably end up being better than the book. Sorry Mr Tolkien.

 

*God. Valar is plural.
**The land of the gods, where Frodo and Biblo go to at the end of the Lord of The Rings. 
***The first men to come to Middle Earth. Aragorn is Edain.

A book you can read in a day . . . . . . . GRUESOME TALES FROM NORTHUMBRIA by Beryl Holmes

Yes. I know, this is slightly cheating, there are only 61 pages. But long gone are the days where I can spend a whole 16 hours reading a book, however much I would like to. So I’m afraid I’m/you’re stuck with this one.

I got this booklet a while back as a lot of it is set in my favourite county, Northumberland, although a lot of the stories are centred around Newcastle and Gateshead. But back in the 18^th and 19^th century where a lot of these stories are based, it was all Northumberland. Basically, the stories are all about real life murders that took place, which was slightly disappointing. I thought that I was going to read more about the folklore, but hey ho as they say.

The style of writing is fairly basic with a narrative that just states the facts of the day with descriptions of people and their character and written in quite an old fashioned way. Which is kind of quaint I suppose. I would say that this book would only interest those who have a love of reading about murders with a connection to the north-east of England. Which is is the best place in the world in my opinion.

So say we all.

 

Morgan (not Freeman)

Now I’m not sure anyone has heard of this film, I haven’t seen any advertising for it. And I wouldn’t have known about it if someone hadn’t wanted to see it at the cinema. But I thought, why not, I’ll give it a try.

I did a little bit of research prior to it and found at that the director was Luke Scott, the son of the great Ridley Scott, who was also the producer.  Interesting.  I also quickly viewed the trailer, but I didn’t watch it too closely as I didn’t want to ruin the enjoyment of seeing a film that I essentially knew nothing about. There are some recognisable names in there such as Rose Lesley (“you know nothing Jon Snow”), Toby Jones and Michelle Yeoh amongst others.

It is classed as a sci-fi horror. I don’t watch horrors as a rule, as I’m a bit of a wuss really, and the trailers before the film started didn’t help – the new Blair Witch Project (I had my eyes closed all the way through that trailer), a film about Zombies and kid-zombies or something (I had my eyes closed mostly through this trailer too) and Don’t Breathe. This did not fill me with confidence that this film, Morgan, was just going to be a bit of a thriller that I was hoping it to be. I was beginning to wish that I had brought a cushion to hide behind.

But I need not have worried. Yes, there are a few jumpy bits, and a few tense moments, but on the whole I thought that this was a tame 15 category. This had a modest $8 million budget, and is set in just one place which looks it was filmed in Canada or Northern Ireland. But to be fair, the storyline didn’t need more that this location to tell the tale.  The story centres around a ‘girl’ called Morgan who was created and raised by a group of scientists, paid by a corporation to create a superhuman being. Her development and growth is speedy and by the time she is 5 years old, she looks like a teenager. She also acts like one too! After a tantrum, she stabs one of the people who raised her, in the eye, and subsequently resulted with the corporation having to send someone to assess the situation. I will not go any more into the plot, but only to say that this film does raise some interesting questions on creating super human beings. I just know somewhere in the world there are some scientists paid by people/corporations/governments to create such a being, and not for the sake of science either. For a weapon. And I guess this is what’s being hinted at in this film.

There are some scenes which are very atmospheric and filmed with a touch of artistic flare, but it just misses the mark. It just doesn’t quite get there. There are some parts of the film where the tension could have been increased to make me hide behind my hands. But it didn’t. I didn’t even jump at the jumpy bits. And I’m the worlds biggest jumper! And the slogan  ‘DON’T LET IT OUT’ on the advertising posters promised so much, but it just, ever so slightly fails. But overall, I thought it was OK, the acting was good, as you would expect with a cast like that, and I liked the make-up/effects that they gave Morgan. It was simple, but effective.

As a directorial debut, young Scott did an adequate job and he can only improve. On the whole I would give this a 6 out of 10. It was an OK film to watch on a Sunday afternoon when there was nothing else on. Give it a try, but if you miss it, don’t worry about it.

So say we all.

The Living and the Dead

Episode 1

Has anyone been watching this BBC TV drama? Anyone?! If you’re not, then you’re missing a treat! I have to say that it’s one of the best TV shows that BBC has done. It’s classed as a drama but it has spooky supernatural elements to it, and a brilliant twist, which I won’t spoil! Although there will be some spoilers but not the main one . . . . that should keep you guessing!

It is set in the Victorian period, in 1894 to be exact, just as the big Industrial Revolution is happening, where living and working in the countryside is at a slow pace and the harvest is brought in by hand and any new-fangled machinery is viewed with suspicion and trepidation.

The main characters include Nathan Appleby and his wife Charlotte, who have moved to the estate after the death of his mother. Nathan himself is a pioneering psychologist and his wife Charlotte is not the kind of Victorian woman that people may think, she a photographer and embraces new technology with a passion. Together they plan to modernise the farming techniques on their estate, despite all of the supernatural rumours and occurrences.

Yes. Supernatural occurrences. The first episode deals with the Vicars teenage daughter who appears to be having a mental breakdown. Or is she? What Nathan discovers, which us as viewers already suspect, is that she is possessed by the ghost of an evil local man. And the only way to free him/her is to baptise him/her.

Now I haven’t quite watched all of the episodes as yet, but as the episodes go on, the creep factor and suspense go up! This programme is so well made and it’s not frightened to tell the story at a pace that you could imagine living and working in the countryside was like pre-industrial revolution. Slow. The story slowly builds as we get to know all of the characters, from the folk that work the land, to the people who live in the town, up to the Appleby’s, who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves and work alongside their tenants.

The casting is good, it has high production values and a decent script. It looks exactly how I would imagine the working Victorian countryside would look. Although, Nathan Appleby does get quite annoying at times. Is it his pursuit of the truth or his demise into madness? Bit of both I think. Also, whenever Charlotte calls for Gwen, the housekeeper/servant, she always appears within 3 seconds. Like she’s always there, hovering in the background. Is this TV land or does she literally hang around? Who knows, hopefully we will find out. Or probably not.

Either way, these are just really little niggles, this is a really good series and well worth the watch. Give it a try.

So say we all.

A book published this year . . . . HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD, by J.K. Rowling

Now. How to write a spoiler free review of a book that’s strictly not a book.

No doubt, everyone and their mother has heard about the new Harry Potter book that is not strictly a book. If you haven’t heard about the book, then you may have heard about the play. Mainly, how nearly impossible it is to get a ticket. You have a better chance of getting a ticket for Glastonbury! People were in endless online queues, number 482,874 in line or something. That’s ridiculous. But then again, I was only jealous because at the time they went on sale, it was a week before pay day, and there was no way I could afford to buy any, let alone skive off work constantly refreshing multiple pages in the hope of getting down to number 1 in the queue. So I had to be content with the book that’s not a book.

Now let’s get this straight, just in case people thought that this was the next Harry Potter story and it would be full of action, dramatisation, in depth characterisation and an all-round bloody good read. Well, you’re going to be a tad disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, it a good story and I like the plot and the characters that are in it. But it is a script. There are no real descriptive narratives or background information to pad out the story. Or detailed contents describing what they are eating, where they are going and why they are doing what they are doing. No real detail in their surroundings or circumstances that make the previous books so enchanting. This is a script. The script of a play. Even though it is published as a book, it is not a book. I had finished reading it in 3 hours.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the story, but it wasn’t the same. I think the play will be brilliant. There are certain aspects described in this book which will work so well on stage. If you are like me and couldn’t get tickets, or that you really really can’t wait for the play if you are lucky enough to have tickets, then by all means, get the book. But don’t expect too much. And if you can, hold out for the play.  Enjoy the story, and ignore the read.

So say we all.

P.S. If by any chance someone has a spare ticket for the play, please think of me!

2016 Reading Challenge

I was shown this by a friend on a social media platform, and I thought it was a great idea! I’ve really got back into reading lately so I wouldn’t mind doing this challenge. I’m wasn’t sure if I want to do it in running order as on the list, or just pick one at random, or even pick up a book and see if it fits with one of the categories. I guess it will be a case of just going with it and seeing what happens.

But to start off, I have already chosen a few. And I have now just decided to do the list in running order. Hey, I’m like the wind (or at least I like to think so) and it’s my prerogative. Anyway, I digress, the first one is top of the list, and that is going to be the new JK Rowling book. But is that technically a book? I know that it’s the script of the play that’s just about to open in London, but it is published as a book. I’m going to read it regardless. In any case, there are other books that I’m planning on reading that have been published this year so the first one will not be a problem.

One problem was choosing a book that was published before I was born! Now I could choose The Hobbit, but I have read that countless times, and I’m going to try and read new books for this list, (apart from one of course, now that book choice will be a toughy!) So the book I have chosen for that category is Logans Run. And before you say anything, it was a book before it was a film. I love the film so I’m hoping the book will be better. And it was published in 1967 so it’s all good.

I will of course be writing a review on each book, just in case you didn’t guess that already. So the first on the list is sorted, onto choosing the second . . . . . . ah, the interweb is a wonderful thing, you just need to start that sentence in  the search engine of your choice, and there you go. Countless websites listing the top 10, 20 or 50 books you can read in a day. Sorted. Just need to choose one now.

Now, number 3 however is going to be very very tricky . . . . but let’s just start with the first one and take it from there.

So say we all.

Skin by Ilka Tampke

Have you ever had one of those books where you think ‘yeah, that looks interesting’, buy it and then leave it sitting on your pile of ‘to read’ books and temporarily forget about it? And when you get around to reading it, you absolutely love it, can’t believe that you didn’t read it straight away and find that you had finish it within 3 days. And that you were scared to take it to work to read in your lunchtime, because that 30 minute lunch break would last for about 3 hours. You know the type of book I mean? Well, this was one of those books for me.

I must have seen it advertised or recommended somewhere, and then had a look online to check out prices, which must have been reasonable (or either it was on payday when I was feeling particularly flush) because I bought it straight away. And it’s been sitting on my table for ages, just waiting for me to get around to starting it.

Now I’m not saying that this is the greatest book ever, or that it’s my favourite, but it was a bloody good read! It was well thought out, well written, great characters, and exactly how you would imagine it to be in the Late Iron Age just as the Romans invaded. Now can you see my interest in this book? Archaeology with a bit of fantasy, folk law and a bit of magic. And maybe a bit of love interest. And a coming of age drama. But don’t let that put you off! Just remember, it is a YA book after all.

It concerns a young girl, Ailia who was found abandoned as a baby on the doorstep on a round house and subsequently grew up without a ‘skin’, or totem animal (metaphorical) which meant that she was an outsider, unable to learn the tribal traditions or even marry. Despite this, she finds herself in the middle of events that the Celtic people cannot escape . . . . . . the arrival of the Romans. Now I’m not going to go into details about the plot or character story-lines, I’m just going to say what it was that I liked about this book.

For one thing, it was fun trying to work out where the places were that the author used as settings, places I have been to and indeed, one of them I actually worked on! Also, actual events that took place were also in the book, but it was not a dry re-telling of the battles as such. And it was all seen through the point of view of the indigenous people.  Even though the writer goes into great detail about the settings and characterisation, it doesn’t feel bogged down with exposition. She builds up the world nicely and fills it with living people, complete with human flaws and weaknesses.

I loved loved loved the gritty realism of what life would have been like during this period. The everyday things such as food, water, use of herbs etc. Didn’t go into much detail on how the structures were made, but rather how they were lived in, who lived in them, and what they did in them. Not only that, but on how the society was structured, from who did what through to the rituals they performed. Now some of these rituals or traditions as I like to call them, are not 100% proven. But it is written in a way that makes it totally believable.  The author has gathered some evidence from archaeology, as well as written texts from the Romans, and created this narrative on what life could have perhaps been like during this period. She clearly did her homework. People could argue all day long about the accuracy of the facts etc. That’s what archaeologists do. But in the end, this is just a story, which becomes evident once it gets going when the magical and fantasy elements enter the tale. But it is done in such a way that it seems believable. I was transformed back to the Late Iron Age when I read this, to another world. And is that not the aim of a really good book? It takes you from this world, to a world of imagination that you can see with your minds eye?! I love books that do that to you. And this was definitely one of them.

So if you like a bit of archaeology, a bit of fantasy and a bit of magic, with a sort of coming of age quest drama destiny thing, an easy read with a couple of plot twists, and portrayals of characters that highlight human flaws as well as having the capacity to be brave and do the right thing when required? Then why not give this debut novel a try. I’ll be keeping my digital eye out for the next one.

So say we all.

Review – You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day

Now I don’t usually read autobiographies, but I thought that I would give this one a try because I really like the actress. Well, more to do with the fact that I love her character in one of my favourite TV shows, Supernatural. I love Supernatural. And I know what you’re going to ask . . . . Dean. Always Dean.

For this, I got the audio-book, as it is read by Felicia herself. I’m so pleased I did, because she is just like her character Charlie in the TV show! I don’t just mean the voice, but the mannerisms, she’s tech savvy and unashamedly a geek.  She knows what she likes, and despite her lack of self-confidence at times, achieves what she sets out to do. And she is quite a multi-talented person!

I found her to be very inspiring. In a world where teenage girls aspire to be the next Chloe Kardashian and that kind of ilk, they would do better if they followed Felicia instead. Even if they are not a geek. Maybe it’s because I relate more to her than I would any of the Kardashians or other women who basically are famous for their looks and posting pictures on the web with not a lot of clothes on! There’s a lot more to being a person, whether your female or male that how your hair is, following the latest trends etc. I would have a lot more respect for them if they actually did something with their minds. But then again, they have lots of money and I don’t! I guess it’s a reflection on current society.

But I’m getting off topic now. This book is basically Felicia’s life story, how she grew up being home schooled, getting the very first computer and her long standing love affair and affinity with the interweb and how he became a writer and producer.

She is a maths genius, a musical supremo, but most of all, a proud geek. Something which I could completely relate to. After I read this I looked up her website, which lead to her Goodreads page (she is an avid read) which led to her book club. Which I hastily joined without reading the blurb, bought the book that was being currently read and was . . . . . somewhat surprised. It’s set after a zombie apocalypse, not my thing but I’ll give it a go, called Flesh. Oooo I thought, I can do a book review on this, Flesh, it’s about flesh-eating-zombies, bit gruesome, but OK. First couple of chapters OK, bit of sexual tension with the two lead characters, and then,  . . . . . it got a bit racy. And I mean racy. How the hell am I going to do a book review on that! And then I read the blurb about the book club . . . . . . so be warned!

If you want a fun read that’s a bit different from the norm, or even try out an audio book, then you can’t go wrong with this. Felicia Days autobiography, not Flesh. A Winchestertastic 4 stars out of 5.

 

 

 

Spoiler alert! She doesn’t talk about Supernatural at all! Slightly disappointed there were no Dean stories, like how firm his muscles were . . . hem hem . . . .*blush*

 

 

Update June 2016

Wow. It’s been a year since I posted on this site. Seems that my life had got in the way a bit. I remembered that I really enjoyed writing this blog as it got my creative juices flowing and encouraged me to explore my geekness!

I recently bought the audio book ‘You’re never weird on the internet (almost)’ by Felicia Day. I only got it yesterday and I’m already half way through it. It’s amazing. Even though I was never into gaming that much, I can appreciate and relate to people who embrace their geekiness. Something, whether good or bad, that I have lost over this past year. Time to put things right (nothing like a relationship break up to put your life into perspective!)

I am reading a couple of good books at the moment and there are some good films and TV shows that I am watching which I can talk about. It’s good to set some goals and arbitrary deadlines in ones life. So watch this space.

So say we all.