Colin Parton's Blog, page 3

Where The Crawdads Sing

Where The Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

I love the way this narrative is told. We are delivered small bites of chapters that you can just devour.

There are little jumps in time so you can see what you are heading towards.

Kya’s life is brutal. But in her mind is a beautiful place. She lets us see the world as extraordinary.

The court case is presented brilliantly. The book opens with the finding of Chase’s body and even after the court case you are left wanting to find out who killed him.

Kya’s love of Tate is fantastic – coloured by everything that has happened to her.

There is a combination of emotions and thoughts involved. She loves him for his kind nature and for being a great human contact. 

She cannot trust him, or anyone else, because they all abandon her. Yet she still desires him and everything he represents, which is manifold.

Kya’s internal thoughts are what set this book apart. Very little happens but you inhabit the thoughts of an incredible individual.

The meaning behind the poetry is so good and the reveal at the end is truly special.

If you like the idea of living inside the mind of a unique person for a few hours I would highly recommend this book.

The post Where The Crawdads Sing appeared first on The Writer Muses.

Endeavour

Endeavour - Russell Lewis Season Three

Open’s with the aftermath of the boys’ school investigation. We quickly learn that Thursday has survived but is very unwell and Morse went to jail.

The records have been sealed for fifty years. Morse is released and goes into solitude but a case involving his friends draws him in.

The first episode is a bit odd because it is more about getting Morse back into the fold than following the case itself. The second is an extortion of a local grocery chain.

There is an interesting web of clues and a kidnapping and murder—intriguiging stuff.

But also felt a bit strange as Morse and Thursday aren’t back to their old relationship yet.

The third episode lets a Tiger loose in Oxford. So great because the clues are so obvious but no one will accept them except Morse.

The final episode is representative of the whole season. Total upheaval as there is a robbery for a porn film register.

This is followed closely by a bank robbery. Morse and Thursday have a falling out over strong-handed policing.

Then Morse saves Miss. Thursday and then she runs away – can’t take it anymore after being held as a hostage.

Strange gets his Sargeant’s and Morse goes for his – not seeming to realize that this will mean one of them will have to leave.

Thursday coughs up the bullet that he has had in his lung – not sure if this is a good sign but he thinks bad as the doctors have only given him a few weeks to live.

Throughout the show Thursday is missing Morse but can’t show it and becomes more and more cranky until he lashes out in the last episode. I think the police brutality is a cry for help.

Thursday is missing Morse’s straight-laced nature. Overall enjoyable but the tension between the characters isn’t needed and feels a bit off.

It just feels like it isn’t true to who we know they are.

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Stone Age

Stone Age - Bernd Brunnhofer

This is a typical worker placement game that focuses on probability. Unlike many other worker placement games when you place your worker somewhere an outcome is guaranteed.

Here it is not. This is only true with resource gathering.

All the other locations operate as you would expect. The rounds are very quick.

My version had a cool cup of leather that was stitched together for rolling the dice which gave it an ancient vibe. I’m a sucker for great game pieces like this.

The concept of tools to increase the dice rolls is a great way to show your society focuses on advancement.

This is at the cost of population increase or resource gathering.

The same is true for agriculture. You can spend workers to develop your agricultural advancement which will make food automatically produced in later turns.

The cost here is the same as for tools. There is also an interesting move where you can block the purchase of a point card by spending a worker to stand on it.

This is a fairly original idea and it can make tight games more interesting.

It is great that there is no clear ‘best’ way to play this game. A combination of technology, population, and agriculture all seem to work as well as focusing on a single one of these.

The game is enjoyable but there is not much depth here so it won’t be to everyone’s liking. It’s good for a quick pick-up and play.

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A Time To Kill

A Time To Kill - Joel Schumacher

You think this is a trial thriller. Think again. This has to be one of the most bizarre films set in a courtroom ever made.

Jake, Matthew McConaughey (Sing, The Gentlemen) is a weird lawyer. As we are slowly introduced to him and his situation we learn what he is about.

He is a good guy. He loves his family. Is friendly with his degenerate contemporary. 

He is also very glass-half full. Constantly behind on his bills at the law firm. And he isn’t worried. This paints a picture of a young lawyer who is keen to see justice done.

You would be mistaken. He doesn’t believe in the law. Not as it is. He believes in what he would make it.

He sees his role in changing the law as his mentor, Lucien, Donald Sutherland (Fallen, Kelly’s Heroes), puts it, “win the battles one case at a time” (sic).

Jake gives Ellen, Sandra Bullock (Gravity, The Blind Side), a lecture on how he doesn’t believe in rehabilitation. I do bring a lot of personal bias to this argument. 

I just wanted to flag that I think that if we as a society do not believe that a person can be rehabilitated then the legal system is pointless. It becomes an arm of retribution. Interested in dealing out revenge only.

The U.S. legal system is based on rehabilitation. The place of the death penalty in that system is somewhat contrary to this basis. 

If Jake does not believe in rehabilitation I do not understand why he is a lawyer.

The basis of the system that he is so passionate about is one of rehabilitation yet he doesn’t believe in it. Doesn’t make any sense to me.

The way the story is told is so basic on the surface but is much more complex when you dig a little deeper. The basic plot is: a black girl gets raped by two racist rednecks.

The girl’s father takes the law into his own hands and kills them both because he doesn’t believe the legal system will deal with them appropriately.

We then see the trial of the father. Underneath this story are racial tensions. Pressure from racial groups over the case.

Both the Ku Klux Klan and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People make an appearance. 

The impact and attempt at the influence that both these groups have are also complex. Both are out for themselves and simply want to use the case to their advantage.

Carl Lee, Samuel L. Jackson (Django Unchained, The Avengers), plays the NAACP and his pastor as their proxy to get money for his family. An inside man in the KKK tips off the Klan’s targets and saves their lives.

I guess the point here and throughout the rest of the complexity of the characters is that nothing is as simple as it seems.

Jake green light’s the murder when Carl Lee comes to him right before he does it. Jake tries to convince himself that he didn’t think Carl Lee would do it.

Only at the end when Jake gives his final brilliant speech to the jury do we realise that he is just as racist as the rest of them. He wins the case because of it.

Carl Lee knows it from the start which is why he chooses Jake as his lawyer AND why I think that he sets Jake up to be in on the crime.

Kevin Spacey (Moon, The Usual Suspects) plays sleazy D.A. with aplomb. He breaks the rules and doesn’t care.

He tears Jake’s case to pieces and relishes the humiliation. It was odd to see Keifer Sutherland playing alongside his dad here. It is a small part, but I found it a bit odd.

I was perplexed by Jake’s wife’s behavior throughout. She runs away to her mother’s when the threats to them become intense – fine.

But the reason that she gives for coming back is that she finally could imagine Jake reacting the way Carl Lee did if their daughter was the one who was raped. We can empathize with Carl Lee.

The audience’s ability to empathize with Carl Lee is what makes this story viable in the first place. 

If we didn’t we would want him to lose and the whole court case would be a boring and frustrating wait for the gas chamber. Placing Jake’s wife at odds with this makes her look like an idiot – a bizarre decision.

Carl Lee’s speech at the end that leads to Jake’s speech is just brilliant. Spectacular stuff. Great writing great performances.

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The Blue Planet

The Blue Planet - David Attenborough

Another great series from Attenborough. Each episode looks at a different “type” of sea.

We get to spend significant time with each of the creatures that are chosen in these different biomes.

There is some truly magnificent footage at the microscopic level of tiny creatures.

The standouts for me were: the killer whales; the puffins (of which there were many); and the walruses.

The killer whales featured a few times but the most iconic was the taking of the seal cubs from the beach. They then played with it in the deep before it died.

The easy option here would have been to personify the whale and criticize its cruel behavior.

But whales aren’t people and Attenborough’s comments are on point. “What the purpose of this bizarre behavior is can only be guessed at.” (sic.)

It was so important to remind us that we cannot treat the animals around us as if they have our moral codes.

I enjoyed the puffins in the ‘Shores’ episode. They were just so interesting to watch.

They were also so very varied in their coloration and decorative growth.

The walruses were spectacular as we got to see and understand their skin change to red from the dark browns and blacks they had been. 

This is because of the way they control their body temperature when in the icy water. When they are in the colony they don’t need to regulate and they turn red.

Some of the vision throughout was a bit grainy but it is older now.

Tidal Seas was my favourite episode. We see sharks and stingrays moving in and out of the shallows to hunt with the tide. 

Seeing them all laying out of the shallows while the tide was out was amazing.

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The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

Overall this is a boring story. There are very few beats to the plot. When nothing is happening with the characters nothing is happening at all.

I did enjoy the construction of the novel. The story is broken up into separate parts for the different characters. 

This works especially well for Cora’s mum Mabel. 

She has been immortalised and hated by the other characters in the story and it is only when we see her part towards the end that we learn the truth.

The rest of the story is broken into a few locales. The Randall farm and the escape. North Carolina and a new life. The attic and Valentine’s farm. There is minimal action and Cora isn’t interesting herself.

It isn’t exactly that though. Cora is interesting. We only get to see her real emotions a few times.

The railroad itself is disappointing. It’s an actual railroad – it left me thinking: Was that real? Amazing if so. But I’m sure it wasn’t – so what was the point? Very strange.

The story is punctuated at every turn by brutality. I am so dead to this treatment of African Americans in popular culture.

I have a seething hatred of the US because of the systemic racism that so many generations have done nothing about.

How much more racial inequality do I need to witness?

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Planet Earth II

Planet Earth II - David Attenborough

Technology has come a long way since Planet Earth. We can get closer and see more rare species than we could before.

This is just a re-visit to the biomes of the first series. We see a whole new array of animals and conflicts now. Even though we return to much of the same areas as before.

The standouts were the blind Amazonian dolphins and the Himilayan snow leopards.

If it wasn’t for the brilliant narration of Attenborough you could almost just watch the spectacular visuals by themselves.

The camera work is wonderful and takes into the animal’s world. There was a new biome this time that we didn’t see in the first series and that’s Cities.

We got to see some very interesting dynamics and behaviors on display. The Leopards hunting boar in a large Indian city and the Hyenas in a city in Ethiopia were something else. 

It was terrifying to see these wild predators up close to people.

I love this show and Attenborough is brilliant!

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Mythical Beasts

Mythical Beasts - John Cherry

This interesting book is a cross between a bestiary and something else altogether. While it is divided into creatures like a normal bestiary the chapters on each creature are very long. 

They focus on the historical origins of the creatures. These discussions are illustrated by fantastic images of paintings or artifacts that demonstrate the point Cherry is making.

So not only do we get to see Cherry’s tracking of the creatures through time, but we also get to see how their depiction changes. The changes and differences on display are both over time and cross-cultural.

I liked this book so much because of the wealth of detail in the origins and stories around these creatures.

I had originally purchased this to aid the development of a TV series I was writing on and the detail and historical accuracy was key for that purpose.

In parts, it does get a bit academic and rambly. If you are keen to see what people thought about Griffins; Dragons; Unicorns; Sphinxes; Centaurs and other half-humans throughout history this is fantastic.

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Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Here Comes Mr. Jordan - Alexander Hall

Joe’s soul is taken too early and this is heaven’s attempt to set things right. The angel sent to collect his soul is on his first mission and plucks him from his plane too early.

There is a debate that follows and it turns out that Joe wasn’t supposed to be taken for many years. A senior angel, Mr. Jordan, is placed on the case.

They return to earth and the investigation about where his body has gone ensues. It’s all very funny because Joe spends the entire film forgetting that he can’t affect the world and people cannot hear him when he is in spirit form.

His body has already been cremated once they find out where it is. The new offer is for anybody they can find.

Joe doesn’t love this because he still wants to be a world champion boxer. The other issue is that they have to put him into the body exactly when he dies.

Joe doesn’t love the idea because he wants a particular body – he wants to be in tip-top shape to become the next boxing world champion. While they are searching for that Mr. Jordan convinces Joe to become Mr. Farnsworth, who his wife and secretary have just murdered.

The way the transfer works is that Joe has to go into the body right as it dies. We still see and hear Joe. The rest of the world sees and hears the old Mr. Farnsworth. Hilarity ensues.

Joe saves the girl by buying back a lot of stock which makes his board of directors super mad. Joe doesn’t care. He sees ads for the title fight he was supposed to be having and decides to get in shape.

He gets his old manager back and convinces him of the truth. Another great scene. So they make plans to set up for the title fight.

Unfortunately, Mr. Fansworth gets murdered again and Joe has to move on to another body. And the other body is the old world champion – Murdoch – who gets shot while he is in the ring.

Joe wins the fight and gets his dream. Now everything that is set earlier on becomes important. Joe is now going to become Murdoch and lose Joe. This is the demoneaux so not part of the story per se.

The loss of self through becoming Murdoch isn’t a terrible plot point because the story is finished when that happens. It’s an exciting way to end the film because Joe doesn’t become the world champion – Murdoch does but Joe is Murdoch.

He has told the lady he saved as Farnsworth that she may know him as a different person when they meet by the way his eyes look. So he bumps into her right after the fight before he has lost himself completely and she sees the thing in his eyes. Great idea and well played with. They set up the rules of how this could all work and go to town on it—really great film making.

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The Talk of The Town

The Talk Of The Town - George Stevens

This unsuspectingly simple plot turns out to be very interesting. This is primarily due to the zippy and funny dialogue.

The whole opening of the story is told through quick flashes of scenes and newspaper articles. A factory burns down and a man called Leopold is blamed for it. 

There is a casualty due to the fire and they are after the death penalty. So Leopold escapes jail – yet his trial hasn’t even begun yet.

During his flight he comes across a house, Nora Shelley’s. She takes pity on him and hides him in the attic.

Then another man arrives, a professor of law, who has rented the house for the summer. This quickly becomes a comedy – though modern audiences may not recognize it as such.

Leopold snores loudly and Nora has to take the blame for it to keep him hidden. Many similar things happen. She gets herself hired as a cook and secretary for the professor so she can stay at the house and keep Leopold hidden.

We quickly learn that the Professor is going to be appointed to the Supreme Court. This raises the stakes for all involved as he cannot be seen as a criminal.

Leopold pretends to be the gardener and he and the professor have many discussions about the case. The professor is on the side of the law until Nora gets him out to a baseball game.

At the game the professor meets the judge of the case – not a coincidence – Nora knew he would be there. The judge tells the professor of Leopold’s guild and the professor is shocked.

Many events tip off the locals to Leopold being at Nora’s house and this leads to the Professor having to lie to protect all three of them when he finds out Leopold’s true identity.

The professor gets involved with the case at this point and is convinced of Leopold’s innocence and refuses to see justice miscarried. He finds out that the man who supposedly died in the fire is alive.

He also learns that this man was in league with the owner of the factory to get the insurance money and this all comes and Leopold is freed.

These hilarious events are well-constructed and believable. The dialogue is great. I highly recommend it for an easy-to-follow film with some great performances.

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