Bryan Caron's Blog, page 18

Movie Mayhem – Nocturnal Animals

As the credits started rolling for Nocturnal Animals, a slow burn thriller that puts aggravation to the test, the response among my fellow patrons tended toward, “Well, that was a waste of two hours.” The sentient, I believe, was in regards to how writer/director Tom Ford (based on the novel by Austin Wright) ended his unusual study of pain, regret and the power of grief, which left a very open-ended nuance to an otherwise stellar interpretation. From what I can gather, Those who were quick to judge the ending simply wanted an entertaining time at the movies. There’s nothing wrong with that, but as there are plenty of films out there that can be watched (where viewers receive a clear-cut, and usually happy ending), a film like Nocturnal Animals must be ingested. That is to say, the film’s message isn’t presented on a silver platter with a nice, clean bow; it’s up to the viewer to discover the subtle clues to find their understanding of the material.

Nocturnal Animals — 2016; Directed by Tom Ford; Starring Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon and Aaron Taylor-Johnson

Amy Adams plays Susan Morrow, a lonely art gallery owner suffering from insomnia who doesn’t quite realize she’s stuck in a nothing of existence. Her workaholic husband (Armie Hammer) may be having an affair and her job brings her high society perks that leave her devoid of happiness. It’s not until she receives a draft of her ex-husband’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) new novel, “Nocturnal Animals” (which also doubles as his pet name for her) that this identity crisis comes into focus. As she reads the story, and devours the heartbreak of a man who lost his wife and daughter to a murderous psychopath, we begin to live the successful loneliness that many aspire to, and how she arrived at this point in her life.

The majority of the movie, though, centers on the events of the book itself. Gyllenhaal does double duty as the book’s protagonist, Tony Hastings. On their way to an undisclosed vacation destination, he, along with his wife (Isla Fisher) and daughter (Ellie Bamber), choose to drive through the night upon a lonely highway and are subsequently waylaid by a car full of aggressive hoodlums, led by deviant Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). After Ray and his friends force Tony off the road to “swap insurance” due to a minor “fender bender,” they kidnap his wife and daughter and leave him stranded in the middle of the Texas desert. Tony eventually finds his way to a police station, where he teams with Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon), a Texas Ranger who seems to be on his last leg, to hunt the violent criminals down.

It should come as no surprise that everyone involved is extraordinary, oozing a mix of charisma, devastation, desperation and loneliness, sometimes at the very same time. Even those who show up for just a scene (such as Laura Linney as Susan’s mother, doing her best impersonation of Judith Light from Who’s the Boss if she were a hard-nosed megalomaniac, or Michael Sheen as Susan’s well-to-do brother) bring their A-game to the proceedings without batting an eye. But no movie can rely on talent alone, so it falls on the story to hook us and keep our minds engaged.

There are essentially three parts to the plot — Susan’s current life, the book and the flashbacks to a happier time. Easy enough, but because the plot is so subtle, some viewers might not fully understand where the film is heading if they aren’t fully invested in every simple, little detail. These plots aren’t your normal A-, B- or C-plot; they are all one major plot, each one leaving behind clues as to the overall idea. If you ignore one, or aren’t paying attention (which is quite easy to do, especially with Susan’s mundane plot line), resolutions won’t make as much sense, if any sense at all.

I do confess; the average movie going voice in me — the one that just wants to be entertained without having to think about anything — would much rather Ford had focused entirely on the Hastings family from the book, as these elements were the most engaging and could have provided a much more powerful punch had Ford had more time to flesh out the relationships, the torture of the family, and the hunt for vengeance. But the artistic voice in me — the writer, the filmmaker, the artist — knows that the story in the book is only one piece to the puzzle, and without the other two pieces, we have just another backwoods Deliverance-type thriller. It’s in those quieter, more mundane aspects of the film that we find the nuance to both Tony’s vengeance and his non-stop drive to find justice for being wronged.

I can’t say I still know what Ford is actually trying to say, but I do believe that’s the point. Based on how the film ends, there are several different interpretations the film may garner depending on your personal backstory and viewpoint. I can’t give my interpretation away without possibly ruining the experience for someone else, but to say that my interpretation is correct, or is anywhere close to being accurate, is to say that every word of the Bible should be taken literally. There is just far too much going on below the surface for any one conclusion to be the definitive one. I’m sure Ford has his idea as to what the end actually means, but does that mean he didn’t leave it open to interpretation? That, of course, is up for the viewer to decide.

My Grade: A-

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Next week, new movies include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Collateral Beauty. If you would like to see a review for one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

IndieBook Review – Fragment

Fragment — A novel by Alvin Atwater

There seems to be a lot of debate on social media when it comes to whether someone, especially an author, should write and/or publish a bad review (as in, a 1 or 2 star review). For me, I’ve never been one to coddle anyone. As an author, I know I can’t please everyone, and there are going to be those who hate my work. But for a reader to refrain from providing a bad review simply because they don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, or because they feel they are helping the author somehow, remember: it’s always better to get an honest review (especially if it points out exactly why a reader thought it was bad) than to have zero reviews or get a lot of fake reviews simply to bolster the rating. In my opinion, if an artist publishes a book, releases a piece of music or puts out a new film, they are ready to receive criticism, both good and bad. Nothing is perfect. There isn’t good without evil. There isn’t yin without yang. Heck, not everyone loves The Godfather. With that being said, prepare yourself, because as you may have guessed, my review for Alvin Atwater’s novel, Fragment, isn’t going to be all honey and roses.  

The book isn’t necessarily bad, per se; the ideas Alvin plays with have great potential. The problem comes in the execution of those ideas. The writing feels juvenile at best, and failed to grab me with any sense of wonderment or excitement, which is what I believe he was attempting to elicit.

Jonas is a human swordsman that we don’t really get to know very well before he travels to Olympus to participate in a tournament, the winner of whom will acquire Zeus’s power and his control over all the mythological realms. The reason he leaves his quiet home is because he stumbles upon a magical sword that endows him with special powers. Alvin wants us to believe he was chosen for this task (whether by the sword or by fate or by some other magical entity), but he never follows through on this idea. With the sword, which he eventually names Fragment, Jonas is provided the means to compete against the likes of Thor, the Prince of Asgard, as well as the evil Abaddon, who seeks the bearer of the sword in order to break the bounds of his own existence and return to full power and rule the realms. Abaddon has a gaggle of fiendish cohorts, none of whom seem to do all that well against Jonas, even though he is, after all, just a human.

One of the major flaws I found with the story overall is the lack of character development. Alvin starts the book so far in media res, it feels like we’ve skipped a few chapters that would have provided more depth. Jonas is thrust into his hero’s journey before we even get a taste of who he is and how he lives on his own world. The only thing we really know about him is that he doesn’t want to marry his betrothed, Veronica. We’re given a few petty reasons why, but we’re never given an opportunity to know them as individuals or as a couple to effectively convey true emotional impact. The relationship is so rushed and underdeveloped, in fact, that when we reach one of the major twists later in the book, the power it should have is dead on arrival. Not only that, once Jonas arrives in Olympus, we’re introduced to a bevy of familiar characters from Greek, Norse and Christian mythologies without getting to know who they are within the context of Alvin’s vision, which inadvertently leaves behind some very simple stock characters who may be mighty in stature, but are ultimately weak in execution.

Then there’s the writing itself. I’m all for adding a bit of comedy or levity to a piece, or giving characters traits that we wouldn’t expect them to have (or give us something a little unorthodox and unexpected — like Medusa, who doesn’t turn anyone to stone, and doesn’t once mention the curse). However, to do this, one has to be consistent and set this style up in a way that makes sense to the overall world. We know the majority of gods are going to be, in some ways, narcissists, looking out for themselves and doing so in an arrogant, condescending sort of manner. But when the author devolves these character traits into what amounts to a gaggle of ruffians who argue and belittle as if they are part of some high school hierarchy, it diminishes their characters more than it should.

This childish attitude comes across in both the prose and the dialogue, neither of which are very clean. The book feels very much like a second draft — there are more than a few grammatical and spelling errors, which I can normally overlook, so long as the story and the characters are strong enough to overcome them. With Fragment, the mistakes only enhance the weaknesses surrounding it. One example is Abaddon, who’s abruptly introduced in the third chapter. At this point in the story, we’ve hardly been able to get to know Jonas, and so his appearance seems out of place. Then, with every new appearance, his character becomes much more laughable than feared, as the way he speaks and the way he and his minions interact is silly and toothless. He doesn’t feel at all like a character that would frighten the gods inhabiting the book; he’s just another teenager rebelling against his parents.

Where the book showed a glimmer of hope was in the tournament games. The writing improves somewhat in these sequences, and I was hoping for a lot more of this type of energy. When Jonas and his assigned team are sent to compete in a type of football, capture the flag-style game, the writing becomes more genuine, leading to moments that add character and a sense of attention the rest of the book isn’t given. Especially the plot, which labors through over forty chapters only to speed through several encounters between Jonas and Abaddon that would have been a lot more effective had they been spread throughout the book. And with no true beginning or end, Alvin telegraphs (early on) that Fragment is simply one chapter in a larger story that ultimately goes nowhere and fails to entice me to read any further.

My Grade: D+

Alvin is a Florida-born fantasy enthusiast who seeks to nourish your entertainment craving by combining humor, fantasy, suspense and thriller.

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If you are an independent author and would like your book reviewed, let me know in the comments section with a link to where I can purchase the book. If I find it intriguing, and it’s something I think I’d like, I will purchase a copy and add it to my reading list. I will be doing one independent book review per month, so not all requests will be accepted.

Movie Mayhem – Moana

Disney Animation has always been a roller coaster of a company, rising to the peaks of imagination for a few years only to dip into the valleys of banality for a few more, then returning to the top once again before dropping and… you get the idea. Before the most recent uptick in creativity, the last peak era was between 1989 and 1995, when some of the greatest Disney films outside of the original run of films were released (including Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King). Somewhere in the late-90s, though, Disney began to falter once again (yes, there were some decent films, but nothing on the scope of the previously listed behemoths), giving way to a much more creative endeavor known as Pixar, which stole every bit of Disney’s once dominant thunder, even as Disney distributed those very same Pixar films.

Moana — 2016; Directed by Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall and Chris Williams; Voices by Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison and Jemaine Clement

Lucky for us, Disney executives saw the writing on the wall and made one of the biggest, most important decisions they could have made at the time — they bought Pixar Animation outright in 2006 and gave creative control of both animation houses to Pixar founder John Lasseter. Since then, Disney animation studio has risen once again to become a powerhouse Uncle Walt would no doubt be proud of, generating a series of outstanding films, such as Bolt, Wreck-It-Ralph, Frozen, Tangled and their newest addition, Moana, a fun, high-spirited adventure that not only provides us a romantic story, it makes fun of itself with the glee of a company who’s first and only goal is to tell a great story while entertaining both kids and adults.

Moana (voiced by newcomer Auli’i Cravalho) is the kind, beautiful young daughter of a Polynesian island tribe’s Chief Tui (Temuera Morrison). It is her duty to one day take over for her father as chief, but her mind is set more on exploring what’s beyond the reef, which Chief Tui has restricted anyone from doing — ever since he lost his friend to the dangers of the sea. Not only that, but there’s a local legend of a curse swarming the oceans, one started when the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the heart of what essentially amounts to Mother Earth. And, because of Maui’s actions, a dangerous evil lurks, slowly devouring the world of its resources. When this curse reaches the shore of Moana’s island, infecting the coconuts and wiping out all the fish, the ocean bestows the heart to Moana, who defies her father’s wishes to seek out Muai and return the heart to its rightful place.

A lot of the promotion for Moana revolved around Maui, and it makes sense — with Johnson providing the voice work, Maui brings strength to the film in the form of emotional levity. He’s a charismatic narcissist who’s quick with a joke while hiding a deeply rooted fear of being left alone and forgotten. In contrast, Cravalho approaches her voice work with a sweet, nurturing lightness, able to convey passion and courage in even the simplest of ways.

Together, Cravalho and Johnson blend into a terrific team. The young wide-eyed idealist holds her own against the larger-than-life demigod by bearing just as much, if not more, strength than Maui could ever muster. His courage may lie in his wit, his brute force and his magical spear, but hers is held inside an unbreakable tenacity for doing what’s right for those she cares deeply toward. When the journey across the ocean steers into heavier emotional waters, and the sense of hopelessness fills the air, my heart broke for both characters, as the writers have provided each one with genuine, universal ideas — that moment when you believe all is lost and know that just one more act of courage will get you over the finish line, but to muster up the strength to push through becomes one of the hardest moments you’ll ever face. It’s a testament to how well both actors are able to draw you in to the point you no longer feel you’re watching an animated film.

I could go into detail about the animation, but like any Pixar or Disney animated film, it’s basically a given that the entire thing will look gorgeous and at times too lifelike for its own good. What I will focus on for a second are some of the unorthodox choices the writers made, such as giving the water a bit of sentience. Though the idea and reactions generated by the ocean spitting Moana back onto the raft whenever Maui tosses her overboard are fun, I’m not certain the writers defined the rules or justified its life-like qualities enough to warrant its abilities as a character. Then there’s the animal sidekick — a crazy-eyed, rail-thin rooster that doesn’t know the difference between bird seed and a rock. It’s an odd choice to have this unlucky creature join Moana on her trip because there’s also a baby pig back home that would normally have been the likely choice to travel along on the adventure. But then you see how the animators utilize the rooster and the choice becomes more understandable. It still felt odd, though, and the whole time I kept wondering what the pig was up to.

The music is also somewhat lifeless. Unlike The Lion King, Frozen or Beauty and the Beast, and several other Disney classics that would take too long to list, the songs in Moana don’t hold the same power as its predecessors. The music continues the tradition of  utilizing a blend of fun and saccharine songs to help tell its story and develop character, but I didn’t feel any of the songs was all that memorable. There’s no breakout hit like Let It Go or Circle of Life, one that everyone will know because it’s catchy, powerful theme gives heart and essence to everything at that moment — one you can feel in the marrow of your bones. The flagship song, “How Far I’ll Go,” comes close with its inspirational strength (and I’m sure it’ll grow on me the more I listen to it), but it’s not a ballad that knocks your socks off the way an instant classic might. And without a crop of stunning breakout songs to balance out the power of the characters themselves, the film feels more lackluster than it should. That aside, Disney Animation and John Lasseter have continued their current reign of box office dominance, leading the way for a bright and colorful future of anticipation.

My Grade: A-

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Next week, new movies include Jackie and Siren. If you would like to see a review for one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Book-Related Swag Giveaway

Enter now at bryancaron.com

Promotions, advertising and marketing can be a real pain, especially for those who aren’t social media savvy, or have no money to advertise. I’ve tried different things in the past to promote my work, once asking readers to translate the title of a novel using only the moves of a chess game (tying it into the events of the book) to setting up an online scavenger hunt (again, because it related to the plot of the book). Both failed dramatically. But that’s not going to stop me from trying new things to get the word out about my books and encourage reading, reviewing and sharing.

 

With that said, this holiday season, in order to encourage reviews for all of my novels (and even for my short stories, which can be found on this site under the “Stories” tab), I am running a Swag-Bag Giveaway through Rafflecopter. The main entries are focused around reviewing my novels, but there are multiple ways to enter, including following me on Twitter, sharing the giveaway and posting pics of entrants with one of my books. I’m also giving away one entry per person for free, just for visiting my site and checking out the giveaway.

What do you get if you win? The Grand Prize is a Swag Bag of goodies related to my books or to books (reading and writing) in general, worth about $75. All items included are secret right now, but may be revealed slowly throughout the month. One additional winner will receive a $25 gift card to Barnes and Noble.

Like all giveaway’s of this nature, restrictions do apply. The contest is for U.S. and Canada residents only, and family members are ineligible to win. There is no purchase necessary to play and win, and a purchase or a review of any of my books does not guarantee a winning entry. The odds of winning depends on the number of participants and the number of entries per participant.

The giveaway lasts until December 31, 2016. Winners will be announced on January 2, 2017, and have one week to claim their prize. Should they fail to do so, a new winner will be picked until someone claims one or both prizes. Should no one claim their prizes by March 31, 2017, all prizes are forfeit.

Where do I enter? Simple: Head on over to bryancaron.com.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments below. Succeed or fail, I’m very eager to see how this exciting giveaway plays out!

Movie Mayhem – The Edge of Seventeen

Hailee Steinfeld came out of nowhere back in 2010 to deliver an extraordinarily layered performance in her first major film, True Grit. Since then, she’s managed to carve out an interesting career in a variety of films that run the genre gamut from science fiction to comedy in both indie and major studio offerings. She’s more than capable of bringing heightened power to any role while at the same time staying hidden in the background. Not classically beautiful, yet far from ordinary plain-Jane, Steinfeld sits somewehre in between, conveying a commanding beauty while digging deep into the trenches, unafraid to get dirty within the cracks of her vulnerability. She commands this attitude perfectly in the coming-of-age drama The Edge of Seventeen, the study of how an invisible high school student can only find their place when they stop looking to be like everyone else and start looking at what makes them unique.

The Edge of Seventeen — 2016; Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig; Starring Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Kyra Sedgwick, Blake Jenner, Hayden Szeto and Haley Lu Richardson.

Nadine (Steinfeld) is a loner. A child so insecure, she tries way too hard to live up to the standards of those that fill her with jealousy. Bullied at school and consistently fighting the friction between her and her mother (Kyra Sedgwick), Nadine finds solace in two very important freinds: her father (Eric Keenleyside) and her best (and only) friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson). So after losing her father to a heart attack, it’s no surprise that when she catches Krista hooking up with her hot-shot, popular brother (Blake Jenner), the betrayal crumbles Nadine’s entire world. The only person she has left to turn to is Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson), a teacher she’s probably able to connect with because he’s a lonely, frustrated, cynic, pushing back with just the right sense of friendship and grievance. She also befriends Erwin (Hayden Szeto), a sweet kid who obviously has a crush on Nadine, but to whom she’s oblivious since her eyes are fixated on one of the “cooler” kids.

The script, written by Kelly Fremon Craig (who also directed), is genuine and heartfelt. Most of what Nadine goes through in her day-to-day routine is universal. Unlike a lot of Mean Girls-style high school comedies, Craig doesn’t try to force all of the “clicks” down your throat. It’s a normal world, where yes, there may be both idealized people and those who just don’t fit the popular mold, but the school isn’t ever displayed as being sectioned off into layers of obvious groups. Everyone has a certain amount of layers where no one person is just one thing, allowing Nadine to be unique enough to separate herself from the crowd, and at the same time mold her into some invisible nothing. In other words, no one notices her, and yet she’s exactly like the majority of everyone else wandering the halls, half of whom are probably going through similar types of turmoil. You just don’t notice because you just don’t care.

The highlight of the film has to be the interaction and chemistry between Steinfeld and Harrelson. Every time they’re together, the movie perks up a little, leaving me wanting to see much more of that bond. When the film opens and Nadine announces to Mr. Bruner that she thought an adult should know she was ready to kill herself, the mere act of revealing such a personal revelation to someone (even if it is simply an exaggeration brought on by an embarrassing mistake) shows a connection that goes far beyond what the movie actually develops. It was clear we were going to get to see the events that led up to that moment, but there isn’t quite enough interaction between these two to warrant how freely Nadine reveals the contents of that particular scene. Nevertheless, the two actors pull off their camaraderie with flair, even if one side is so over-the-top and the other is so quiet and subdued – the dichotomy works like magic.

No matter how connected I felt to the film, though, there were a couple of things about it that bothered me, mostly because I felt they both worked well for the overall theme, yet failed to live up to expectations. Firstly, Craig has chosen to create a world that is so all-encompassing that it’s extremely hard to pinpoint a time frame. We know it’s 2016 by the sheer fact that they state several times that Nadine’s father died in 2011 and a calendar at the school says 2016, but the fashion feels as if it stepped directly out of an eighties John Hughes film. For the first thirty minutes, I don’t even think I saw a cell phone, which for a high school movie set in 2016, is hard to believe. So trying to connect with a world that isn’t quite sure of what era it wants to be a part of was a little frustrating. On the other hand, that’s exactly how it should feel. This confusion adds to Nadine’s character and what she herself is going through — a lost soul traversing time while doing everything she can to remain frozen in one specific period.

The other thing that didn’t quite grab me was the climax of the film, which feels far too rushed, especially when Craig is trying to convince me that one conversation with her brother would change Nadine’s complete outlook on life. At the same time, there was enough there to believe it was possible, and the acting by both Steinfeld and Jenner kept it from becoming too melodramatic, adding in just the right amount of honesty. It goes hand-in-hand with the film’s message and to who Hailee Steinfeld is as both an actress and a person. She’s a normal young woman who uses her God-given ability to prove that you don’t have to be the most popular creature to walk the earth; all you need is to be honest about who you are, and the world will find your beauty.

My Grade: A-

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Next week, new movies include Allied, Bad Santa 2, Moana and Rules Don’t Apply. If you would like to see a review for one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Movie Mayhem – Almost Christmas & Arrival

Two films came out this weekend that couldn’t be more different. Almost Christmas is a run-of-the-mill Christmas dramedy and Arrival is a quiet, thought-provoking science-fiction drama. One follows all the rules, staying true to the cliche elements of the genre; one breaks the rules by presenting its subject matter in a smart, realistic fashion. One has a black cast with a token white guy; the other has a white cast with a token black guy. That last one was a joke, of course, but the point I’m trying to get across is that it’s perfectly acceptable to travel the ledge on either side of the spectrum, so long as the final product is entertaining and taps into the emotions the filmmakers were attempting to embrace. Familiar and comfortable can be just as engaging as introspective and unique.

Almost Christmas — 2016; Directed by David E. Talbert; Starring Danny Glover, Kimberly Elise, Omar Epps, Mo’Nique, J.B. Smoove and Gabrielle Union; Arrival — 2016; Directed by Denis Villeneuve; Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker

In a nutshell, Christmas is about a family coming together for Christmas a year after the family matriarch passes away. Walter (Danny Glover) is still mourning the loss of his beloved wife and has begun considering the sale of his long-time residence, believing it will help ease his grief. At the same time, he tries desperately to honor her memory by cooking her signature sweet potato pie, which he consistently fails to do because there’s no recipe written down. Making up the rest of the family are Walter’s four kids: Cheryl (Kimberly Elise), a doctor married to an ex-professional basketball player (J.B. Smoove); Christian (Romany Malco), a workaholic father of two running a campaign for mayor; Rachel (Gabrielle Union), an out-of-work law student who doesn’t know when to set her ego aside and ask for help; and Evan (Jessie T. Usher), a star football player prepping to play in his first Bowl game after recovering from an undisclosed injury.

From those descriptions alone, if you don’t already feel the story lines are pretty formulaic, here’s a quick rundown of the subplots — sisters that don’t get along, a star athlete addicted to pain killers, a neglectful father, a cheating husband, the threat of a homeless shelter closing, and the return of a high school crush (Omar Epps). There are also some confusing setups and plot devices that don’t quite fit, the most egregious being the mayoral campaign. The film goes out of its way to clarify this is Christmas 2016, which means that, unless there’s a specific need for a special election, all of the major elections would have been completed, yet Christian is campaigning as if it was the end of October, with no explanation for why. And that lack of rationalization infiltrates almost all of the subplots — not much is ever justified.

But no matter how riddled with cliche’s the film may be, it settles nicely into a Christmas spirit vibe, helping the film rise above all of its flaws. The actors are all very engaging and able to create characters that connect with you in the most basic way. They aren’t very deep, but they’re fun to be around: energetic, sweet and honest in their charisma. Whenever a story line is wrapped up, no matter how predictable, they pull all the right strings and never go against the characters that were initially set-up. It’s because of this cast that the film wasn’t relegated to Lifetime or Hallmark, and even though it doesn’t try to be anything new, it does do what any Christmas movie about the re-connection of family is meant to do: lift one’s spirits.

Arrival, on the other hand, feels as realistic as any movie about aliens arriving on Earth could be. There’s no massive explosions, no exciting eye-candy of action or war between humans and aliens seeking the destruction and salvation of the earth. Arrival is the thinking man’s sci-fi alien drama, one that seeks to play with your head while reveling in the possibility of what might actually happen if alien spaceships suddenly appeared hovering in random places around the globe.

Amy Adams is once again terrific as Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist at an unspecified university who’s called upon by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to try and decipher the alien’s language. Joining her on a trip to Montana (where the aliens have chosen to park one of their ships) is Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), a theoretical physicist who’s brought on board to decipher whatever Louise discovers. Heading up into the ship every eighteen hours to speak with the aliens and find common ground, Louise and Ian learn how to communicate through basic words and images. At the same time, a dozen other countries are doing the same thing with their own hovering crafts, each one learning something different about their new arrivals.

What I felt was most realistic about the film was in its depiction of how we as a people, as a nation and as a world would react to the events that transpire. As newscasters remain on the air to repeat the same things over and over without knowing any real facts, governments prepare for the worst. As scientists attempt to learn from the visitors and find out why they’ve arrived, politics keeps them from reaching further, scared that the only thing they want is to destroy the human race. Each government has their own ideas and agendas, and as new information is revealed, the more each country separates itself from the rest of the world until we’re all divided with the same intent: to stop annihilation.

Much like Christmas, every actor does a terrific job in engaging the audience. There isn’t one dull moment in a series of dull moments (it’s super exciting to watch a linguist communicate with an alien species, is it not?), due mostly to the writing, the acting and the direction of Denis Villeneuve, who’s able to orchestrate a steady pace, even as the majority of the two-hour film rests on the spewing of psychobabble and scientific theories. He immerses us in this world with intrigue and an interesting twist that may not have the biggest impact on the film itself, but adds depth to the underlying meaning of the film and it’s study of how we need to act should we ever want to save the world from not only foreign entities, but ourselves as well.

My grade: Christmas: B+; Arrival: A

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Next week, new movies include Fantastic Beats and Where To Find Them, Bleed For This and The Edge of Seventeen. If you would like to see a review for one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Movie Mayhem — Hacksaw Ridge

I’m not afraid to say it — I’ve been a fan of Mel Gibson since Lethal Weapon. I’m not going to say everything he’s starred in has been solid gold, but up until now, there hasn’t been one film that he’s directed that I haven’t thought was an extraordinary piece of cinematic artwork, and that includes his mostly underrated feature directorial debut, The Man Without A Face, a small, poignant study in a relationship between a man and his student that bravely explores how that type of relationship can be taken out of context, but one that helps each person heal in different ways. Gibson’s newest directorial effort, Hacksaw Ridge, adds to his unique repertoire, proving once again that no matter how you may feel about the man personally, there’s no denying his intellect when it comes to capturing the heart of a story and conveying it in the most genuine way possible, holding true to the convictions of who he is as a man and what he believes as a Christian.

Hacksaw Ridge — 2016; Directed by Mel Gibson; Starring Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Hugo Weaving, Teresa Palmer and Rachel Griffiths

That conviction becomes the heart of the true story that Hacksaw is based on — a raw interpretation of a man who holds true to his beliefs no matter how much pain and grief they may cause him and those he cares for. As a young man living in a small town, Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) hated the idea of someone else fighting for his freedoms and beliefs, especially when he was quite able to do so himself. At the same time, because of his Christian upbringing, a confrontation with his drunk, abusive father (a fantastic Hugo Weaving) and a youthful skirmish with his brother that ends in near tragedy (both incidents of which are mostly glossed over), Doss doesn’t believe in using any form of weapon. So it’s a contradiction of sorts when he enlists in the army during World War II, even though he does so with the idea of becoming a medic as a conscientious observer.

Neither his drill sergeant (Vince Vaughn) nor his commanding officer (Sam Worthington) understand this fertile defiance, so when Doss refuses to go through weapons training, he is court marshaled and told to plead guilty for disobeying orders and get dishonorably discharged. His loving girlfriend (Teresa Palmer) is also conflicted about his decision. She doesn’t want to see him hurt, nor does she want to see him in prison. But she believes in him and trusts that whatever decision he makes will be the right one, no matter how much she wishes he’d set his pride aside and do what was right for her and their future. When he pleads not guilty, a message from Washington allows Doss the right to go into battle without a weapon. And so he receives the chance to serve his country and his God, and do so without killing a soul.

Unlike most war films, Hacksaw Ridge is very much a portrait of a man who doesn’t let the forces of evil break him or his faith. In our current political climate, it’s very hard to find someone who holds such conviction to an idea that no matter which way the political winds go, that they’ll hold true to that idea and not waver under pressure from any one person or group. Having such conviction and integrity is seen almost as a weakness; unless you are willing to go against your values, you’re never going to make it in this world. Doss was a man who didn’t let that form of bullying change who he was, able to rise above the noise and do what he knew was right, based on the word of God. It was in this faith that drove his unflinching courage, and helped build the respect in how Doss utilized his strength, not only in his faith, but on the battlefield as well.

And Gibson doesn’t hold back on that, either. The battle sequences are stunningly surreal, portraying the chaos of war in a much more heightened realism than I’ve ever seen on film. Saving Private Ryan is still the gold standard for battle sequences, but Gibson comes close to surpassing that heart-pounding, occasionally grotesque authenticity. When a man gets shot in the head, or his legs are blown off, or he uses an enemy (or the corpse of a friend) as a shield, there’s no question you’re experiencing every splash of blood, every explosion, every cry for help right next to the soldiers on the battlefield. It’s so chaotic, in fact, that it’s hard to know who’s who during the frantic pace and editing style of these sequences. But that’s what makes it so real. The bedlam of war doesn’t allow you to get your bearings; you simply do what you can in the moment and pray you survive.

Unlike his other films, though, Gibson does falter ever so slightly in a couple of areas. Firstly, I can’t say I cared much for Vince Vaughn as a hard-nosed drill sergeant, who seems to be trying too hard to do his best Patton impersonation rather than allowing his performance to grow organically. That being said, the rest of the cast is spot-on, especially in the Doss family. I didn’t once believe that these actors weren’t related, and the chemistry between everyone on screen brings out the fear, the laughs, the annoyance, the outrage and the love that every man, woman and child needs to bond and work together and find a footing in their beliefs and their convictions enough to do what’s necessary in a time when most of America was angry and wanted justice, but could have used a little more faith, a little more God and a little more respect for their fellow man and their enemies, both outward and inward.

The relationships between Doss and his girlfriend, his family, and his fellow soldiers are also lacking the depth needed to truly expose the deep well of emotion Gibson was shooting for. This may be because he tries to incorporate a few too many soldiers into the mix so that we’re never able to become attached to any one soldier and to care what happens to them on the battlefield. But Gibson makes up for that in what he’s actually able to pull out of everyone on screen. The power and the emotion that the actors convey are all on point, delivering a fantastic resonance behind the battle of Hacksaw Ridge and conveying a harrowing story that drives home a very important message:

Courage isn’t found at the end of a gun; it’s found deep within the honesty of your soul.

My Grade: A

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Next week, new movies include Arrival, Almost Christmas, Shut In and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. If you would like to see a review for one of these, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.

Movie Mayhem – Inferno

I really enjoyed Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code when it first came out in 2003. The writing was solid, with interesting characters, an intriguing plot and an excellent mix of intrigue, exposition and action. When the movie adaptation was announced with Ron Howard and Tom Hanks teaming up once again, I was excited to see what the would do with it. Their vision didn’t disappoint, encapsulating everything that made the book enjoyable in two and a half hours. With the combined success of both the book and the film, a prequel (based on Brown’s original Robert Langdon novel, Angels and Demons) was quickly put into production. Since then, Brown has released two additional sequels in the Robert Langdon series, The Lost Symbol and Inferno, which, for some reason, was picked for adaptation before its predecessor. And because I did find Angels and Demons to be a decent thriller, my expectations were high for the third go around into the world of symbologist Robert Langdon.

Inferno — 2016; Directed by Ron Howard; Starring Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, and Ben Foster

Unfortunately, those expectations were dashed slightly as I watched this rote third installment. Taking a page out of the Hangover playbook, when the film opens, Robert Langdon (Hanks) wakes up in an Italian hospital with no memory of where he is and what happened over the previous 48 hours. He attempts to get answers from his doctor, Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), but all she knows, aside from who he is based upon meeting him at a symposium once as a child, is that he was dropped off by a cab driver. It isn’t long before a police woman comes to question him — or kill him. Quick on her feet, Sienna steals Langdon from the hospital and brings him to her apartment to begin putting the pieces of the amnesia puzzle together, starting with a tube that looks awfully like the neuralizer from Men In Black and an altered image from Dante’s poem, The Inferno.

Also on the hunt for Langdon are the World Health Organization, led by Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen), for whom Langdon has a previous past, a WHO field agent (Omar Sy), who may also have his own agenda, and a clandestine group whose operations are housed on a transport ship. As Langdon and Sienna do all they can to evade capture at every turn, they learn that a friend and colleague has stolen Dante’s mask from a museum, and that he himself may have been injected with a virus that a conspiracy theorist (an underutilized Ben Foster) has created to reduce the world’s population.

Exciting right? Yet Hanks (and Howard, for that matter) sleepwalks his way through the first half of he film, and as clues start to add up and questions get answered, his enthusiasm continues to sink into a bewildered wasteland. I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d say that for Hanks or Howard, who are both multiple Oscar award-winning masters at their respective crafts, but both seem to be somewhat burnt out by the franchise, evident  in the repetitive nature of the style each presents.

Of course there’s going to be plenty of puzzles to solve and characters who aren’t what they seem, that’s the nature of the series. But with Inferno, there wasn’t anything fresh or new to add, and aside from Jones, who ends up being the only one who cared about what was happening, delivering a solid performance that kept me interested in the plot, every new clue, every new location, every new revelation turned out to be extraordinarily bland. It’s not because of the puzzle itself; the ideas presented are as strong as the previous films. However, the complexity of those puzzles and the way Langdon and Sienna are able to interpret them is far weaker and more convoluted than the ones previously explored. For all intents and purposes, they just aren’t as fun to solve alongside our protagonists, and for a film that’s based on this very thing, that’s a problem.

As is the supporting cast, who are also less intriguing than in any of the previous films. Paul Bettany’s Silas from The Da Vinci Code was a very intense, devout Catholic who struggled very much with his own inner demons that pushed him into regret and turmoil as he dug a deeper well into the horrors of his own sanity. There is nothing like that in Inferno, where all of the characters stall in one-note iterations of familiar stock characters — the conspirator, the gunman, the sexy female assassin, the corporate overlord and the straight-arrow operative.

Then there’s the underlying theory of how our population has multiplied so much over the last hundred years, and how if it keeps going the way it is, within fifty years, the world will be overrun by humans and extinction will inevitably occur because our resources will have been depleted. This concept, combined with the idea of Dante’s Inferno, are intriguing concepts in and of themselves, yet that underlying subtext is never explored to the extent that it could have been. It sits as a piece of information that continues to push the plot forward in different ways, but never gets its due for being its own major character in the film.

Neither Hanks nor Howard have a lot of experience in the sequel arena. Before Angels and Demons, Howard had never directed a sequel, and the only franchise Hanks was involved in was Toy Story. This penchant for finding original, fresh stories and characters is a hallmark for both, and based on their work in Inferno, sequel fatigue has definitely set in. It doesn’t feel as if either of them is all that much of a fan of the series anymore, and should probably call it quits, which might be hard knowing an adaptation of The Lost Symbol is in pre-production. But unless the screenplay by newcomer Danny Strong (the last two films having been written by David Koepp) is as genuine and exciting as The Da Vinci Code — allowing both Howard and Hanks to really sink their teeth into a fresh, new story — I wouldn’t blame them if they both moved on to more interesting and original projects.

My Grade: B

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IndieBook Review – Watership

Watership — A Novel by Jenna Whittaker

“Show don’t tell.”

It’s one of the first things fiction authors learn. It essentially means to set every scene with emotion, details and physical action rather than bluntly telling the reader what happened. For example, if a major battle happens, it’s always more satisfying to revel in all of the gory details than to simply say, “Both sides fought an epic war and side A became the victor.” Readers hunger to be part of the action, as if they are standing right alongside each of the characters. They can’t live every moment if they feel like an outside bystander being told the events of a story secondhand. A reader’s investment relies heavily on details, and when their attention wanes, that’s when a book tends to be replaced with another before “The End” is reached.

Author Jenna Whittaker falls into this trap quite often in her novel, Watership. Though I did sluggishly make it to the final page, it was extremely hard to invest any interest in what was happening. The book begins well enough, setting the scene and providing some nice, albeit slightly confusing, descriptions of the landscape and our main character, Desu. However, the writing devolves quickly into a narrative style that kept me at a distance, keeping me from fully investing in what Jenna was clearly fighting to provide. When Desu, as part of a required culling, kidnaps Kira, a young child who lives with her mother in the bowels of the planet, I didn’t feel any raw emotion, mostly because it’s all buried under an understanding of what’s happening that isn’t fully fleshed out for the reader except in small bites of dry exposition. In other words, we’re provided the why — to protect Kira from certain death as the world itself collapses — but that reason is never explored to the deepest depths of possibilities.

What we’re told is that only the most genetically viable humans are selected to board the Watership and cultivate a new planet. Most of these people are from the elite communities, and though a handful of those from the dregs of the lower class have been selected, the majority of them will die. So why is it that Desu breaks the laws of her “people” to rescue Kira? It’s hard to tell, and because of this, everything that happens between them feels cold and distant. We’re supposed to care very deeply for the budding mother-daughter relationship that blossoms between Desu and Kira, however, the characters are hardly ever together, and the big secret (that Desu is hiding Kira from not only her own race, but from the humans who may or may not revolt over having her genetically inferior self on the ship) is uncovered rather early and has absolutely no consequences.

Now, if you’re at all confused about what I’ve discussed thus far, you’re not alone. So much happens in this book, yet nothing really happens, and the distinction between humans and areomancers and carriers and crawlers — it all gets a little jumbled to the point where it’s hard to remember what each looks like, what their functions are and how they fit into the puzzle. There are a lot of strong ideas sewn throughout the book, so much so that it almost feels like this book should have been a trilogy. The third act alone brings in a new threat that wasn’t once talked about in the first two-thirds of the book that itself could have been fleshed out into its very own full-length novel. At the same time, though, there is so much repetition (revealing something in one paragraph only to say that exact thing again in the next), I felt half the book could have been edited out, leaving open the opportunity to really dig deep into the characters and their motivations and develop the story beyond simple surface events.

The confusing aspects don’t stop there. There are several instances when ideas are introduced and then contradicted or forgotten, and the time frame — though from what I can tell is accurate — isn’t well-defined and time jumps aren’t transitioned into smoothly. There’s one moment toward the end of the second act when one of the alien races, the Aspects, agree to sacrifice themselves to help keep the core of the ship running. The death of their leader, Medrin, is described quite well, but then in the next section of the chapter, it seems as if Medrin is still alive. I could be wrong, and this could have something to do with the Aspects’s abilities, but it’s nowhere near clear enough because the characters themselves are wholly underdeveloped.

Desu is probably the most well-developed character in the book, which makes sense, since she is the main protagonist. However, even she doesn’t get the love that’s required to fully invest in her coup against her own race. The rest of the cast is left to wander the book without any development, and that includes Kira, who is involved in the most interesting aspect of the book, one which again is left heavily wanting. It turns out, the Watership has evolved over time to become sentient, and the core becomes attached to Kira. We’re never given a clear reason as to why this is, which is why the impact of what happens is sorely ineffective. And that about sums up the book as a whole. There are a lot of good ideas that aren’t fleshed out enough to make a coherent story or had enough emotional or viable impact to keep me turning the next page.

My Grade: C-

Jenna Whittaker is an Australian author who’s been writing since she was a child, and doesn’t ever intend to stop. She’s self-published 4 novels (one science-fiction, one dystopian and a couple of fantasies) with plenty more to come. Jenna is also an accomplished artist and graphic designer.

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If you are an independent author and would like your book reviewed, let me know in the comments section with a link to where I can purchase the book. If I find it intriguing, and it’s something I think I’d like, I will purchase a copy and add it to my reading list. I will be doing one independent book review per month, so not all requests will be accepted.

Movie Mayhem – Keeping Up With the Joneses

Keeping Up With the Joneses is one of those movies you really, really want to like. It has an enjoyable cast, some promising ideas and a fish-out-of-water premise that when done correctly, is always fun to be a part of. And who doesn’t like Jon Hamm? He may be best known for his turn on the advertising drama, Mad Men, but having shown great comedic chops with his numerous pop-ins on Saturday Night Live, he settles into this story with ease, matching barbs and clever wits with more seasoned comediennes. It seems, though, that this is where the movie sort of rests, meandering through the potential bubble without ever being able to burst through and delight us the way it promises, instead playing it safe and doing just enough to satisfy its target audience without ever truly blowing them away.

Keeping Up With the Joneses — 2016; Directed by Greg Mottola; Starring Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm, Isla Fisher and Gal Gadot

Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher play Jeff and Karen Gaffney, an ordinary suburban couple who are, of course, stuck in a suburban rut. They live their daily lives on a basic routine where nothing ever changes and have very little energy or wherewithal to do much but go to their average, somewhat mundane jobs, return home and hang out watching The Good Wife on DVR. Their sexual passion has been diminished to a quick kiss and a hug by two kids we never see, so much so that when both kids go off to summer camp, the couple still can’t find any passion or romance that might ignite life into their lives.

Enter Tim (Hamm) and Natalie Jones (Gal Gadot), a too-good-to-be-true, too pretty and accomplished couple who move into the house down the street. Karen questions their righteousness right off the bat when the couple buys their new home without ever once seeing it beyond the images they saw on the Internet. The more she gets to know them, the more she starts to believe her own paranoia, going so far as to follow Natalie while she struts around town and break into their home when they’re off on a dinner date. As the lonely head of HR at a top-secret technology firm, Jeff doesn’t put much validity in her conspiracy theories, believing Tim to be a normal guy whose biggest secret is hiding behind a lack of joy for his job as a travel writer. As Jeff and Tim begin to bond, Natalie helps Karen find a way to put a little spark back into their marriage. It’s during this failed attempt to follow through on the advice that the Gaffney’s discover that the Jones’s have bugged their home. Karen was right. The duo are actually spies.

The revelation stirs up a lot of questions. Are they good spies? Are they with the CIA? What are they doing in their neighborhood? But most importantly, is their friendship real, or simply a charade so that the Jones’s can get information out of them in regards to several co-workers who may be playing a part in international espionage? That is the premise for the the majority of the film, and it plays well enough. Everyone does a good job of representing the state-of-mind of their characters and the growth each of them encounter upon bonding with one another. It’s in the script where all of the major issues arise, remaining run-of-the-mill without ever trying to do anything fresh.

The first act of the film is especially bland. There are plenty of attempts at varied types of humor, but whether it’s mildly outdated (The Good Wife reference, for example) or just plain lazy, the humor either falls on deaf ears or is too over-the-top and ingratiating to be amusing. There are also moments of time lapse that seem to come out of nowhere and a few scenes that don’t seem to wrap themselves up, leaving you with a feeling of incompleteness. Further on down the line, the revelation of who the Jones’s are looking for is predictable, and the end game is also never truly explained — at least not coherently or completely — so there’s never any reason to care much for what’s happening outside of bringing the two families together.

But it’s in the strength of those core relationships where the movie finds a chemistry that lifts the film up from being a sour waste of time. The scenes pairing the couples together — bonding and sharing secrets that they normally wouldn’t share with anyone else — gives the film some much needed spice. There’s a moment toward the end of the second act when a frustrated Natalie complains that over ten years, the couple has never had their cover blown, but they somehow couldn’t even last a week in Suburbia before that very thing happened. This idea is explored nicely throughout the film, but the balance is off. There are a couple of good action sequences that lift the movie, a surprising cameo appearance by Patton Oswalt and a tag that’s much more fun than half of what came before it, but there still remains a lot to be desired when it comes to the overall flow of the movie. The cast does its best to give the film a wink and a smile, but there’s just too much generic blandness spilled out across the film to give it the electric energy it needed to succeed.

My Grade: B

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Next week, new movies include Inferno. If you would like to see a review for this, or any other film out next week, please respond in the comments below.