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IndieBooks Review – Indiot

Indiot — a Novel by Ana Spoke

Indiot is the follow-up to Ana Spoke’s debut novel, Shizzle, Inc., chronicling the hijinks of Isabella Maxwell, a naive blond who wants nothing more than to change (or help) the world, getting herself into extraordinary circumstances along the way. In Shizzle, Inc., this trouble came upon her mostly by accident, as the world seemed to open opportunities she’d then exploit for her own means, messaging the truth and more often than not, putting her foot in her mouth. In Indiot, the tables turn a bit, as Isabella (or Isa, for short) begins to take hold of the reigns of her own destiny. She still gets into plenty of trouble, but instead of unbelievable circumstances pushing her into various comedic predicaments, her conscious decisions now tend to lead her into trouble — a switch that gives her narrative more reliability than in Shizzle, Inc. It doesn’t feel as if Isa is lying as much about what’s happening, making her adventures more authentic and enjoyable. At the same time, her character seems to grow too much too fast, as if the lessons she learned in Shizzle Inc. have taken root, but have matured faster than an alien baby in a science-fiction movie.

I was pleased to have been a part of shaping Indiot into its final product by offering my feedback to Ana as a beta reader. For those who may not know what that means, a beta reader is someone who reads a rough draft of a novel (usually one that’s been rewritten a few times and is almost ready for final editing) to give feedback in relation to grammatical mistakes, inconsistencies, plot holes or poor character developments that the author themselves have become blind to after having read the story multiple times over. In short, it’s a fresh pair of eyes. I read Indiot for the first time with a very technical eye, looking for those things that may need to be tweaked to create a smoother, more consistent read. With the finished product, I used a much more reader-friendly eye, enjoying the book as a reader rather than nit-picking everything I could nitpick.

Regardless of how I read the book, though, I still have issues, mostly with some of the developments that move Isa through her journey. After receiving an email from an Indian prince seeking money to help get his inheritance (from which Isa will be very well compensated in return), Isa decides to head to India to give the prince the money in person, then use her newfound wealth to help the orphans of the world. But after learning the entire thing was a scam (there’s that naiveté) mid-flight, Isa decides she might as well stay and see a little bit of Delhi. That decision leads to her passport and ID being stolen, sparking her new, very amusing adventures with a bevy of fun, new characters, like the Santa-looking taxi driver Kabir and the friendly-yet-devious Vivian, who becomes the spark plug for Isa to discover her new voice and, in a way, finally learn to grow up.

At first, I wasn’t a fan of that growth as written; it didn’t feel as organic as it should have been. Finding out that the “prince” was a scam so early in the book was one of my initial notes, because I felt that her finding the prince should have remained one of the driving forces that kept Isa in India. To me, what actually drove the narrative didn’t seem to fit with her personality as a character in the same way that motivated her in the first book, making Isa feel like a much different character. But upon second read, I didn’t mind this development (or the events that happen afterward) quite as much. I don’t know if it’s because I already knew what was going to happen, or if it was because some of the notes provided by me and/or Ana’s various other beta readers were applied, but the story as a whole had a much better flow that felt more natural. There are still moments that feel out of place, unnecessary, or wasted — one scene in particular, in which Isa goes “undercover,” has such a great build-up, when the actual event happens… wait? That was it? — however, I was invested in the story more than I was the first time, which is a testament to the author, who not only made the appropriate changes where needed, but stuck to her guns on elements she felt in her heart were true to what she was creating. It’s because of that, I have to admit, that Isa is starting to grow on me as a character.

I will say that, even from the first read, I thought Indiot was overall a better book than Shizzle, Inc. The way Ana writes Isa, giving her such a sweet, lovable voice, draws you in with a compassionate mindset for this flawed, but tenacious character. Though the writing doesn’t always flow perfectly (mostly in the dialogue, which on occasion can seem a bit stunted), the characters are fun, the plot twists are interesting (even when they seem a little cliché) and the lead-up to the next book is well-done and introduced in a nice subtle way that doesn’t overshadow the events of Indiot, but give a nice segue into the next chapter in Isa Maxwell’s disastrously entertaining life.

My Grade: B+

Ana Spoke

Ana Spoke lives in Australia with her fiancee and writes full time, whether that’s continuing the adventures of Isa Maxwell, or using her blog to discuss her experiences with marketing and self publishing.

Check out all of Ana’s social media platforms:

Blog/Website

Twitter

Goodreads

Amazon Author Page

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 – Lights Out

I didn’t know much going into seeing Lights Out; I don’t even remember seeing a trailer for it. But I must have because I had this odd sense I was interested in checking it out. It’s one of those odd little ducks that make an impression, but not really. Was there something about the plot that I found interesting? Was it the cast that sparked my curiosity? Was it simply because it was a horror film, which always tend to draw me in? I’m not sure because upon seeing it, I’m not sure any of those would have been the magic formula to do the trick. Lights Out isn’t a bad film, but it’s nothing special — basically just another simple horror film among many (like one of the previews, Don’t Breathe, which I thought to myself, “Now that should have been called Lights Out“).

Lights Out — Directed by David F. Sandberg; Starring Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Alexander DiPersia, Alicia Vela-Bailey and Maria Bello

Maria Bello stars as Sophie, a mother of two who does not do well when she’s depressed. That’s when Diana (Alicia Vela-Bailey), a really possessive spirit who lives among the shadows, comes out to play. Sophie and Diana are essentially best friends, but Diana is all but shackled in the depths of Hell until Sophie is at her worst. When she does get to come out, she’ll do everything in her power to keep it that way, including offing Sophie’s current husband (a horribly under-used Billy Burke) in the first five minutes of the film. I have to admit, I was disappointed to see Burke find his grave as early as he did, not just because he deserves so much more as an actor, but because the sequence (or the reasoning behind it) leave behind questions that lingered until the third act, when they finally found time to bring everything into perspective. I’m not sure I bought the reasons for Diana’s existence, or the lead-up to her return at the beginning of the film, but at least it follows a set of rules that can be understood easily enough.

The majority of the film, though, centers on Sophie’s daughter, Rebecca (Teresa Palmer), a blonde waif with commitment issues, whose life screams wanna-be rebel (explained mostly through a variety of posters and, gasp, a bong). Her boyfriend (Alexander DiPersia) spends most of his screen time desperately trying to chip away at Rebecca’s wall of solitary — or being jealous over her “relationship” with her half-brother, Martin (Gabriel Bateman). I put relationship in quotes because she really doesn’t have one. Ever since she put a moratorium on spending time with her family, it doesn’t seem she knows him all that well, if she ever did. Yet when her mom ignores the call to pick Martin up at school after getting in trouble for continuing to fall asleep in class, she’s there for him, no questions asked. Is it because she knows how her mother can be? Is it because she does hang out with Martin from time-to-time? With how they interact, it seems like both answers are part the reason, but if it is, it doesn’t match the characterization director David F. Sandberg already tried to setup. (Her eventual backstory does explain her odd protective aura, but is it too little, too late?)

The discrepant motivations also infect Diana. On one hand, as stated before, Diana is hellbent on making sure Sophie remains depressed, and at the same time, protecting her children to build a weird happy family of sorts. But when Rebecca takes Martin to her apartment, Diana goes after her. Is it to protect Martin? Is it to make Sophie happy (or keep her from getting angry at her)? It’s unclear because there are other moments where she seems to be just as afraid of Martin tearing her away from Sophie as she is everyone else. Once again, most of this is explained in the latter-half of the exposition-heavy second act, but it still feels somewhat convoluted, as if writer Eric Heisserer was following the “How to Make a Horror Movie” template step-for-step with no deviation what-so-ever.

Based on Sandberg’s short film of the same name, Lights Out moves quickly through a scant 81 minute run-time. No unnecessary fluff gets in the way of getting to the climax, which I do believe could have used a few more minutes — or a few more surprises. There’s one key realization that isn’t given the full support it needed (in fact, I would have much rather seen this idea utilized to its full extent, rather than it being introduced ten minutes prior to the film ending) and the final moment that ends everything makes sense, but doesn’t have as much impact as it should have based on the lack of build-up (and inconsistent character reactions) to that moment.

The most powerful aspect of the movie by far is in the way Sandberg utilizes and conveys Diana, who is deathly afraid of light. Whenever a light is turned on, she disappears, an effect that adds a tremendous amount of tension in a number of scenes. Much like Freddie in A Nightmare On Elm Street, the fear comes in knowing the source of the evil’s power is almost inevitable (sleep for Freddie, darkness for Diana). One scene in particular, as the sign of a tattoo parlor outside Rebecca’s apartment intermittently flashes on and off, was outright mesmerizing. To watch Diana come in and out with the light at the same time Rebecca tries to avoid her presence, is tense and scary and one of the only truly authentic frights in the whole movie. The rest either treads familiar ground, bypassing the exploration of some strong ideas in favor of a more rote horror formula. It’s because of this that Lights Out was interesting, but ultimately forgettable.

My Grade: B

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Movie Mayhem – Ghostbusters (2016)

I wasn’t intending to see the new iteration of Ghostbusters. And it wasn’t because it was an all-female cast, or because it didn’t look funny (trailers can be deceiving), or because the special effects looked like crap, as a lot of annoying little trolls slammed the trailers with. It’s because I’m getting rather tired — as I’m sure a lot of people are — of Hollywood dipping back into a well no one asked them to dip their money-grubbing hands into. The majority of movies are made for a certain generation, so when you see all of these retreads and reboots and sequels and prequels… what does that really say about our current generation of movies? I’ve argued this point before, but with remakes of The Magnificent Seven and Ben-Hur on the way later this year, it’s starting to get rather pathetic.

The thing is, I started to hear some not so terrible things about Ghostbusters, so I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, to see if, unlike most other remakes, this one could actually live up to its predecessors — sort of a test to see if the trend of poorly remade classics could turn around for the better. I must confess — this new iteration of Ghostbusters isn’t necessarily a bad film; it’s simply a pile of missed opportunity.

Ghostbusters — 2016; Directed by Paul Feig; Starring Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones and Chris Hemsworth

From what I’ve gathered about the hullabaloo surrounding Ghostbusters, most people aren’t necessarily upset with Paul Feig or Columbia Pictures for casting an all-female team (or for switching gender roles, as Chris Hemsworth takes over for Annie Potts… more on that later). It seems it’s more about the film being a complete remake as opposed to a sequel. Now sequels are another brand of film making I’m not all too keen on (though I hypocritically go see them all the time, well, just because), but it seems the most recent trend in Hollywood is rebooting franchises with sequels that are ten, fifteen, twenty years in the making. It’s one trend I don’t mind so much, as occasionally it’s fun to revisit characters we loved from so long ago and get to hang out with them again… sort of like a high school reunion of sorts. Had the producers went along with this trend and made this film a true sequel — wherein the events of the original films remained a part of this film’s lore — I believe more people, such as myself, would have accepted the film instead of outright hating it before it was even released.

(Here’s just one possible scenario of many: in the film, all of the original cast (sans Rick Moranis, and of course the late, great Harold Ramis) make cameo appearances that would have been so much more fun had they been their original characters. As I’ve said from the jump, one of the new team should have been related to one of the old team, thus building on that connection. The writers almost nailed it when they cast Ernie Hudson as the uncle of Patty (Leslie Jones’s character). Had this been a sequel, that connection would have made perfect sense and would have helped ignite this reboot in a completely different, nostalgia-friendly direction. It would have given more reason for Patty to want to join the team, or at the very least, given her character a lot more weight among the rest of the cast — not to mention making some of the events that happen a lot more fun.)

As it stands, the film feels like it’s missing something. It feels very scrambled, attempting to stay true to the original while paving the way for its own brand of humor. But let’s face it — this era of comedy is strikingly different than when Ghostbusters was first introduced. The original cast was very sardonic and full of irony. The girls they hired to fill the cast for the reboot (not to mention their director) are all known for their penchant toward juvenile and/or “heightened” comedy. In other words, they aren’t really capable of being subtle. The majority of everything these ladies do always seems to be exaggerated and over-the-top. Some people like that style of comedy, and that’s great, but sometimes, less is definitely more and the boys of old really knew how to control that to keep the events that happen grounded.

Kristen Wiig plays Erin Gilbert, a professor at Columbia who’s gearing up to receive tenure when a man shows up with a book she’s been trying to distance herself from since she wrote it. It seems her old friend and co-author, Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) recently released the book online without her permission. When Erin goes to have Abby remove the book, she gets roped into going along with her (and Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon), Abby’s lab partner) on a ghost hunt in an old, supposedly haunted mansion. Everything snowballs from there, and like in the original, the girls are all fired from their respective jobs and decide to start up the ghost busting business. I will say, I did like the nod to the original when the girls visit what I can only assume is the original firehouse, only to give it up because of the exorbitant rent.

Casting a film can be extremely hard, especially when trying to match the cast of a franchise so beloved by many. One wrong choice and you lose a certain part of your audience. I tend to like Wiig and McKinnon can be really funny when she’s got good material to work from, so I liked their characters the best. And Leslie Jones is fine, but boring as the requisite black ghostbuster. It’s Melissa McCarthy that stands out as being the most miscast. She essentially plays the Ray Stantz character, i.e. the excitable paranormal geek. But unlike with Dan Aykroyd, there’s something about her that doesn’t lend itself well to spouting out technological or paranormal mumbo-jumbo. It all just felt consistently off whenever she opened her mouth to speak. The one major highlight of the film (sorry to say, ladies… or should I say, happy to say for those ladies reading this review) is Chris Hemsworth, who steals every scene with the lunacy of his typical beach-blonde female bimbo persona.

The real misstep, though, comes in the form of the script, which feels confusing, to say the least. The plot, which involves a lonely guy trying to start the apocalypse with devices that ignite supernatural fault lines in hopes of opening a vortex to the other side, is fine and works well enough. It’s everything else that can’t be reconciled, as Feig and writing partner Katie Dippold can’t seem to keep the character’s motives straight from one scene to the next. For example, Patty starts the film out as a subway attendant who discovers one of the ghosts that manifest around the devices. She eventually meets the ladies and horns her way onto the team. That’s all well-and good until two scenes later when she complains about being dragged into this mess of fighting ghosts, as if the others pulled her into it against her will. Another example includes Erin reiterating late in the film how bad she is with the equipment when, up until that point, there’s been no real indication that she’s had much of a problem with any of it.

Nothing in the script, including the steps it takes for the girls to become ghostbusters, or the inane attempt at creating a new breed of Marshmallow Man, feel organic, and the events that happen directly after the climax are confusing and never explained. Though the special effects are fine and there’s one very nice action sequence near the end, the film just never finds its voice. Which is a little disheartening when just a few little tweaks and an acknowledgement to the original would have provided so much more ectoplasm for this tired retread.

My Grade: B-

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Next week, new movies include Ice Age: Collision Course, Star Trek Beyond and Lights Out. 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 – The Secret Life of Pets

Since their inception in 2010, Illumination Entertainment has proven to be a force to be reckoned with. They may have gone a little too minion happy, proving there can be too much of a good thing, but minions aside, they have proven themselves to be a strong contender in the field of computer animation, alongside Blue Sky (Ice Age series), and Dreamworks Animation (Shrek series). With The Secret Life of Pets, Illumination’s newest entry that doesn’t include minions (no, wait… I take that back; there is a somewhat humorous short prior to the movie that does include our favorite yellow pills… sorry folks, you just can’t get away from ’em!), the studio tries to take what it’s learned thus far in their young life and apply some Pixar magic, a combination that helps them raise the bar, but still fail to capture the pure sweetness and storytelling capacity of that aforementioned computer-animation titan.

The Secret Life of Pets — 2016; Directed by Yarrow Cheney & Chris Renaud; Starring the voices of Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Albert Brooks, Lake Bell and Dana Carvey

Max (voiced by Louis C.K.) is a sweet little dog with a lovely owner, Katie (Ellie Kemper). They get along real well and love each other as pet and pet owner do. Every day when she leaves for work, Max stays put by the door until she returns. It’s a routine he’s become accustomed to, so when Katie comes home one day with a new, very large roommate, Duke (Eric Stonestreet), things don’t go over so well. Duke is a little pushy and overbearing, and seems to do everything he can to anger and bully Max. On the surface, it’s a pretty cliche alpha-dog scenario, but it still works for the dynamics the film is trying to set up, at least until they reveal how Duke got to be there in the first place, which creates a discrepancy in his behavior that’s never truly ironed out. His backstory doesn’t lend itself to him being the type of dog he’s made out to be at the beginning, which makes the building of his and Max’s relationship a bit lackluster.

What about the plot, you ask? From what I can recall, the trailers never truly captured any real plot, focusing more on the routine nature of the pets and their shenanigans at home when their owners are off at work. That was no doubt the appeal of the film and what the studio figured would get kids into the seats. And it’s no real wonder why they left out the simple plot, as it borrows (as in, follows almost perfectly) from the much better Toy Story.

Let’s give this a whirl. A new addition to an established relationship causes a rift between the new and the old, an antagonistic relationship that causes the two main characters to get lost in the city, having to find their way back home before their owner misses them. There are differences in how the events play out between the films, but where Pets falters is in how they never build any sort of authentic chemistry between any of the characters to give you something to root as they find a way to work together and bond during their adventure.

Another thing Pets doesn’t seem to get right is in the way they handle the believability aspects of what happens. Yes, this is a cartoon. That doesn’t mean your suspension of disbelief can be toyed with as extensively as it happens here. The team behind Toy Story never lost sight of the toys being toys; there were limitations to what they could and couldn’t do, keeping it very grounded in a real world nature. With Pets, when the animals are confined to the apartment, the animators do a very nice job of making them feel real. But once outside, they become caricatures of themselves, devolving into a limitless set of impossibilities (making a key out of a carrot that actually works in a real-world lock?) that turn them into just another cartoon. When Buzz has to drive a car in Toy Story 2, there’s a learning curve that shows how all of the cogs work and how it may seem possible, no matter how unusually insane. In Pets, when the animals drive a car, it feels like a Bugs Bunny cartoon gone wrong.

Where Pets takes an interesting turn is a prime example of the difference between the trailers and the actual film. It turns out, there are a rabble of disgruntled former pets who now live in the sewers plotting to take over the world, all run by a wild-eyed, sadistic bunny named Snowball (Kevin Hart). But even this fun little excursion doesn’t do much to help the script, which just feels a bit like a round robin writing session, wherein one writer would write a few pages, then a second writer would add onto it, and then a third and so on until they had 90 pages. Toy Story comparisons aside, the overall story is good, it’s just not great, failing to deliver much emotional punch, not to mention a strong dose of fall-off-your-chair laughs.

For all of its faults, though, Pets still comes away as a fun little getaway, mostly because of Gidget (Jenny Slate), the cute little dog who has a major not-so-secret crush on Max. She becomes the heart of the movie and stands out above the majority of the cast (right up there with Hart, whose crazy personality fits right in and makes Snowball fun — I wanted to see much more of his antics than I did Max and Duke). It all comes down to what the filmmakers wanted this film to be, and because there are two clearly different sides to this coin, I’m not sure they accomplished it. In trying to give the animals realistic behaviors at the same time they clearly wanted to keep them tied to their cartoon roots, the filmmakers couldn’t make either side work the way they wanted. Pets is cute and whimsical; that’s what it has going for it. But if Illumination Entertainment wants to achieve greatness beyond their minions, they’re going to have to start innovating on their own and allowing their cute little puppies to become strong, healthy pure-breeds.

My Grade: B+

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Next week, new movies include Ghostbusters and The Infiltrator. 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 – The BFG

Growing up, The BFG was one of my favorite books. It’s been a very long time since last I read Roald Dahl’s inventive story, but I do remember the feeling of joy I got every time I read it. Dahl’s style was so creative and light, the wonder that he produced poured through the pen and onto the page. You didn’t have to catch dreams to be ignited by the wonders of Dahl’s imagination. So you can imagine how excited I was to learn The BFG was finally being made into a live-action feature film (after all, Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has already been made into two films!) and that Steven Spielberg was going to be behind the reins of capturing that magic and delivering it to the masses. It’s with a heavy heart, then, that when I walked out of the theater, their was no delight in the lack of wonder Spielberg and his team had produced.

The BFG — 2016; Directed by Steven Spielberg; Starring Mark Rylance and Ruby Barnhill

It can’t be denied that Spielberg will always be one of the most acclaimed directors (and producers) of all time. Throughout the eighties and nineties, Spielberg could do no wrong, crafting masterpiece after masterpiece in a way that proved how magical cinema can be for both kids and adults alike. With E.T., Indiana Jones, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park and Hook, to name just a few, there was an aura about Spielberg’s films that can’t be articulated in words. Whether it was a fantasy meant for kids or a deep, intellectual drama, his movies pulled at you with an iron grip and squeezed until your soul was ignited with awestruck admiration. But whatever fairy dust he once had to ignite that genuine power in his movies has sadly waned over the last few years. Though he can still craft an intelligent, heartfelt and genuinely authentic masterpiece, there have been a few that haven’t been able to ignite the imagination like his earlier works, and The BFG is just another item in that oeuvre of waning enchantment.

As focused on in the story of Peter Pan, it’s a phenomenon that happens when you “grow up.” With world experience under their belts, adults just don’t have the same wild-eyed wonder that kids have, but Spielberg was a master of being able to tap into that dormant part of ourselves and flip it on, if only for two breathtaking hours. There was no better opportunity for Spielberg to find his way back to Neverland than with The BFG. But somewhere along the way, it seems he’s forgotten how to do that, how to help us all become kids again. It doesn’t have anything to do with the direction, the acting, the special effects, the cinematography or the score, all of which are still as brilliant and aggressively magical as any of his other films (which makes sense, since his award-winning crew is intact, ready to deliver). What’s missing is Spielberg’s own sense of magical wonder — the heart that beats within the giant, normally on display for the world to see.

The big friendly giant of the title (Mark Rylance, coming off an Oscar win for another mesmerizing Spielberg film), is warm and gentle, an outcast of his race for being so small in comparison to his brutish clan of human-eating brutes. All he wants is to capture dreams and deliver them to children, to help them smile the night away and give them peace and happiness. When Sophie (Ruby Barnhill), a young orphan with insomnia, catches the BFG roaming the streets of her city, the giant takes her back to giant country, a mystical land hidden somewhere in the clouds. Like any pairing like this, the two don’t get along at first, but as they learn to know one another, they earn each other’s respect, blossoming into a friendship that will last for a lifetime.

The beauty of that synopsis, though, is lost in the actual film. I can’t put my finger on exactly what it might be, but something interferes in the bond between Sophie and the BFG that isn’t cultivated enough to give us any sort of real, worthwhile connection. Like the snozzcumber the BFG is forced to eat every day in lieu of humans, their friendship feels bland and unappealing, a forced relationship that isn’t nurtured the way it should be. And it’s not because of the actor’s portrayals of the characters, either. Spielberg has always had a knack for finding kids that warm your heart and deliver just the right amount of snark, playfulness and delight, and Rylance gives a brilliant performance, delivering a perfect balance of fear, depression and hopeful joy that the BFG requires. But the script does nothing to help enrich the love between the two characters, leaving them to wallow around in a mindless haze of missed opportunity.

As I mentioned before, though, visually, the film is as stunning as ever. The creativity that went into the production design, cinematography and creation of the actual giants is perfectly captured, right down to how much Rylance actually looks like the BFG from the book before having any visual effects poured over him. And of course, the magic wouldn’t be complete without John Williams’s joyously child-like and magnificent score (something sorely missing from Spielberg’s last film, Bridge of Spies – the first Spielberg-helmed film since Jaws Williams hasn’t scored) that tries its best to pull that wonder and lightness out of each frame. There are even some wildly fun moments, which include the BFG hiding in plain site from the citizens of the city, the hilarious breakfast with the Queen, and the sequences that involve catching and mixing dreams. But the ingredients aren’t enough to pull us into the realm of a new world in the same way E.T. or Raiders of the Lost Ark did way back when. Spielberg will always be remembered for his cinematic genius, but The BFG, I’m afraid to say, will only be remembered as a dream that could have been brewed into something much more delightful.

My Grade: B

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Next week, new movies include The Secret Life of Pets and Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. 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 – Central Intelligence

Dwayne Johnson, the hulking beast of a former WWE wrestler affectionately known as The Rock, has made a new name for himself in the film world over the last decade as a hulking beast in action-packed fare such as the Fast and Furious franchise, Pain and Gain, San Andreas and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. If you were to have said he would have such a illustrious career in acting after his first starring role in the failed The Scorpion King, I would have said you’re nuts. But with his willingness to explode with charisma in much quieter fare (such as Be Cool and Gridiron Gang) and co-starring roles in tent-pole films like Get Smart and The The Other Guys, Johnson found a solid, respectable footing in cinema history. Some may pigeonhole Johnson as an action star, but he’s also shown his flair for comedy in many of the roles mentioned above, and though his attempts at straight comedy/kid flicks have proved to be his Kryptonite, whenever he combines comedy with one of his strengths, he usually finds a way to outshine his comedic partners. No more so is this true than in Central Intelligence, where Johnson steals every scene away from Kevin Hart to surprise as one of this year’s most hilarious performances.

Central Intelligence — 2016; Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber; Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Amy Ryan, Danielle Nicolet, Jason Bateman and Aaron Paul

And I don’t mean the “laughing at him” sort of way. Johnson genuinely finds the perfect balance between funny and absurd, diving right into every scenario with the utmost confidence, no matter how odd or crazy it may be for him or the audience. Once an overweight high school student who was constantly bullied and ridiculed for not only his heftiness, but his flamboyant, uncomfortably feminine nature (lover of rainbows, unicorns, dancing and lip-syncing to his favorite songs in the locker room shower), Bob Stone (Johnson) is now a muscle-bound CIA agent who may have gone rogue and may not quite be all there.

Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart) was a huge deal in high school, participating not only in sports, but a whole shebang’s worth of activities. On top of it all, he’s compassionate enough to keep from laughing (and doing what he can to help) Bob during a very embarrassing moment at a high school assembly that at the same time awarded Calvin with several accolades for his high school accomplishments. Hart has almost become a one-note caricature of himself, basically playing the same character he has in many of his other films — the jittery fish-out-of-water scaredy-cat who thinks he’s cool until he’s placed under extreme pressure. But Johnson is able to ground and restrain him in a way that his other cop-buddy partners have failed to do. Their camaraderie and chemistry is spot-on, and together, the duo make everything click in the subtlest of ways.

Now grown and working at an accounting firm, Calvin is roped into joining forces with Bob to take down a supposed terrorist plot. The reversal of fortunes for these two “old friends” is a fun play on stereotypes (popular jock becomes a depressed desk jockey; fat kid becomes eye-candy for the ladies) that are essentially used to make fun of them while at the same time delivering a surprisingly sentimental and timely message about bullying.

The subplot that dives into this social commentary does a very good job of pointing out the scars that can form from the act of bullying. Utilizing the rule of three, writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber and additonal screenwriters Ike Barinholtz and David Stassen pinpoint three moments in Bob’s life that take us through the arc. But it’s Johnson and his rival (played as an adult by the awesome Jason Bateman) that have to sell the arc to make it work — and they hit it out of the park. The balance of hiding the emotional scars and the humor that comes with Bateman’s slightly over-the-top (but perfectly rendered) performance conveys the issues with grace and subtlety. It’s an unexpected moment in a movie chock full of surprises, and hopefully it helps give kids and adults alike who are being bullied the confidence to be themselves no matter what and never let anyone (or anything) tear them down.

There are some bits and pieces of the film that are a bit on the side of eye-rolls (jokes, mostly that don’t land or get a little repetitive), though Melissa McCarthy does make an interesting cameo that shows she can, in fact, give a reserved performance. Her main shtick (playing the high-energy, boisterousness fat chick) can at times become very annoying, so it’s always nice to see that she can be just as funny without having to go to that extreme. It’s clear Central Intelligence raises the bar, hitting all the right notes, mostly because Johnson takes his personality to a whole other level, holding his own against comedy stalwarts while staying true to his natural persona, blowing away his competition in the action arena (and pairing quite nicely with Aaron Paul as his one-time partner), shocking and surprising the viewer and proving he’s more than just muscle — he’s a talented, generous and crazy-good performer.

My Grade: A

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Next week, new movies include Independence Day: Resurgence, Free State of Jones and The Shallows. 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.

IndieBooks Review – 30 Days Stream of Consciousness: A Haunting

30 Days Stream of Consciousness: A Haunting — A novel by L.E. Moebius

Stream of consciousness is a writing technique wherein you write what you’re thinking at one specific time without going back to change or edit anything. It’s mostly used as a tool to get a writer back into the groove of writing whenever they’re trapped in an existential quandary or have a bout of writer’s block. Unless a character in a book is having a stream of consciousness moment, generally an exercise like this isn’t usually published for mass consumption. But L.E. Moebius has taken this tool and used it to her advantage. From what I know, every day for thirty days, Moebius wrote one chapter without pause, without double checking aspects from other chapters or going back to fuss over anything she wrote. Whatever came to her mind in however much time it took is what the chapter became. In her second attempt at this format, 30 Days Stream of Consciousness: A Haunting, Moebius intelligently crafts a fast, creative, but somewhat generic story of a haunted house and its unwitting occupant.

It all starts with the house and its history: a few decades ago, an old man known as Davis died in his basement. Five unhappy occupants later and our nameless narrator’s friend, Mark, purchases the house in order to flip it, then dares the narrator to stay there rent free until his main construction crews had a chance to start work on the home (you know, in order to keep the vandals out). As always, strange things start to occur and the men Mark has assigned to begin renovations feel a presence that they want no part of. The narrator’s only true companion is Artemis, a cat that breaks into the house and sticks around. It’s through this relationship — as the narrator tells Artemis about what happens each day — that we receive most of our information. It’s an intriguing narrative structure and works well enough, with one minor hitch: the identity of our narrator’s gender.

I know what you’re thinking — what does the narrator’s gender have to do with anything? I’ll say this — the specific gender didn’t bother me.  The way it’s written did. There’s no real indication as to whether the narrator is male or female when the book begins (though certain clues may steer you toward one over the other), so until we know for sure, it’s hard to fully connect to the character. I believe this ambiguity also lends itself to the possibility of different readings or interpretations. Taking the author’s own gender into account, in conjunction with the light, feminine tone, I slid into the book under the assumption the narrator was female. When it becomes known halfway through that it is a male, it feels too late, as I’ve already established a character in my mind. This sudden shift (or change) in my interpretation of the character got in the way of truly immersing myself in the story, which doesn’t go much beyond a basic haunted house structure.

Don’t get me wrong, the structure works — it’s the building block for any haunted house story. And the way that Moebius writes gives everything a much more intriguing nature. The introduction of A Haunting describes what stream of consciousness is, in a sense warning the reader about how this style may affect the structure, ideas, characterization and the like throughout the book.

“The conventions of grammar and appropriateness of language is usually ignored when using this literary device.”

Regardless of this knowledge, I still felt the smallest amount of editing would have gone a long way. Not in structure, voice, grammar, appropriateness, characterization or even punctuation, but in the misspelling of words that stop the flow of the book, which overall is extremely fast and smooth. Each chapter runs no longer than a couple of pages, giving us quick snippets of each day the narrator stays in the house, making the read breezy and light.

The problem is, the narrative structure lends itself to repetition and predictability. I won’t give anything away here, but there’s one subplot that’s set up to be something of a mystery, but if you’ve seen or read plenty of supernatural stories, it becomes pretty obvious how this particular aspect is going to turn out. And then it doesn’t? Or does it?

The end is a bit ambiguous and feels a bit rushed or cut off, as if we’re somehow missing a chapter somewhere. I still understand what happened, but is it enough of a punch to the senses to capture the spirit of the book, or is it simply a feckless way to end the book simply because the thirty days were up? Maybe a little of both, but I applaud Moebius for her attempt at producing a logical, coherent story while staying true to her conviction of doing it all as stream of consciousness, letting the world see where her mind goes.

My Grade: B

L.E. Moebius

L.E. Moebius lives in Idaho, where she supplements her writing income by teaching high school and college. Having earned a Bachelor’s in English Teaching and a Master’s in Educational Leadership, Moebius is currently pursing her doctorate in education. She’s written a handful of books, under both her pseudonym and her given name, Lucinda Moebius, and is a strong advocate of helping independent writers gain visibility and find their audience. She administers a Facebook page, Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors (as well as its sister page, Science Fiction and Fantasy (and other genres) Authors Group Promo Group), where members of the group can play King of the Hill, and runs mynextfavoriteauthor.blogspot.com, where authors of the group (as well as King of the Hill participants) can be interviewed and highlighted.

Check out all of L.E. Moebius’s social media platforms:

• Website

• Facebook

• Google+

• Author Page

• Goodreads

• Twitter

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 – The Conjuring 2

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return as real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring 2, a respectable follow-up to 2013s The Conjuring. What helps both films rise above most other paranormal-based films lie in these two characters, who act as the ground for the incidents they investigate.

The Conjuring 2 — 2016; Directed by James Wan; Starring Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Madison Wolfe and Frances O’Connor

The Warren’s, unlike a lot of fictional paranormal investigators, aren’t your typical excitable ghost hunters. For starters, They’re rooted in reality and aren’t necessarily believers to the core — they understand there’s more out there than what science itself can prove, but aren’t willing to play the role people expect of them just to appease a family who believes they are being haunted. It isn’t about money for them; it’s about helping people who truly need it, and that means digging up hard evidence, playing skeptic in the meantime. This idea creates enough tension beyond what we want to believe and what’s shown as “fact” (or truth) revolving around the mysterious hauntings and demon possessions that these types of characters sometimes exploit for their own personal gain, or that the director (or writer, for that matter) use to try and raise the dramatic stakes. It makes it even more interesting knowing that Ed and Lorraine Warren aren’t even the main characters of their own stories, even though the films make it seem they are.

This time around, Ed and Lorraine are tasked by the church with finding out if there’s any truth to the claim that a daughter (Madison Wolfe) in North London is being haunted, attacked and occasionally possessed by a spirit. For us, the viewer, there is plenty of evidence to convince the family (including a couple of brothers (Benjamin Haigh and Patrick McAuley) and an older sister (Lauren Esposito)) that the spooks are real, and the way in which director James Wan directs his vision is unique for the genre. Though the scares themselves and the way the tension is built isn’t anything ground breaking — the ghouls in question begin by toying with the family, only to grow more powerful as the movie progresses to start causing real havoc — Wan is smart enough to speed that process up double-time to get us to a point where the incidents aren’t just moving a chair, but throwing couches against windows to keep people out of the house as the entity makes their final play toward their ultimate task.

The most interesting aspect of it all comes down to Wan’s ability to keep the tension tight while making sure he doesn’t lose the idea that the entire thing just may be a sham after all. The incident in question happened right after the highly-chronicled Amityville haunting (itself a major piece of cinematic history), so it’s highly possible that the family is making the whole thing up, possibly to move to a nicer neighborhood after a very heated break-up. At the very least, they may believe something is happening even if it isn’t. Wan brings in a secondary paranormal debunker (Franka Potente), but doesn’t give her all that much to do but witness an act of destruction that was supposedly done by the demon, but is actually performed by the daughter in question. It’s an important moment in the film, though, because now there’s a big chance that Wan just may be ready to pull the rug out from under us as we wait for the demon to finally be revealed.

It helps that the actors do a very convincing job to keep everything authentic and in the moment. As the subject of the entities wrath, the movie hinges on Wolfe’s performance. If she fails, so does the movie. Luckily, she pulls it off without a hitch, appearing very innocent, likeable and relateble, but can become as creepy as hell on the turn of a dime. I also liked that the mother (Frances O’Connor) was smart enough to get the kids out of the house after witnessing a dresser fly across the girls’s bedroom. But that’s just another example of how this film differentiates itself from other haunted house stories (which includes it’s predecessor, the movie I affectionately dub “The Clap Movie” based on the original trailer for that film).

It’s easy to go either way on believing whether the haunting this family experienced is real, especially when certain things that happen are questionable enough for the Warren’s themselves to disprove them as coincidence or a manifestation of the psyche. When Wolfe’s character gets trapped in a room locked from the outside, you have to wonder: did the events happen exactly as they were portrayed in the film? I’ve never read the case files, I’ve never met the Warren’s and whose to say Hollywood didn’t add some juice to the point to give it some extra flavor. But does it really matter? In the long run, no it doesn’t. So long as the filmmakers entertain us with a compelling story, good acting and a strong finish, I’m all in. And The Conjuring 2 accomplishes just that.

My Grade: A

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My review of Central Intelligence will be up in the next few days. If you would like to see a review of any other films, please respond in the comments below.

Movie Mayhem – Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

I’m not exactly sure why  I chose to see Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Andy Samberg can be funny when he has the right supporting cast backing him up (see Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where he shines mostly because of playful banter with his all-star co-conspirators). I may not always like his brand of humor, which tends to bounce between offensively funny to annoyingly sick, but he knows who he is as a comic, and I admire and respect his ability to push the limits just past the boundaries of acceptance, and then continue to do so when the backlash is small or non-existent.

Going into Popstar, I wasn’t sure which side I was going to get. Was it going to be closer to Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where he relies heavily on his diverse cast to bounce a much more subtle performance off of, or was it going to be more frantic and in your face, where no one else around him seems to matter and where he puts too much stock into sophomoric bathroom humor and dick jokes that have already gotten old and stale? My prognosis: it’s a little bit of both, and because of that, doesn’t seem to find the right voice to carry the entire movie to the finish line.

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping — Directed by Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer; Starring Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer and Tim Meadows

Samberg plays Conner, a dumb kid who found lady luck throwing him and his two best friends, Owen and Lawrence (fellow Long Island Boys Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, respectively, who also pull triple duty as writers and directors), into the limelight before ever developing any sort of sustainable talent. The trio, known as The Style Boyz, rise quickly to super stardom, but because of his exuberant charisma and personality, Conner becomes the main focus of the media. This upsets Lawrence in more ways than one and breaks the band apart, leading Conner to go solo and continue to rise with his first solo album. But this is the world of rap music, and as a lot of singers know, the music industry can be a fickle bitch, a lesson Conner learns when the sophomore slump rears its ugly head. His second solo album tanks and his reputation becomes smeared in controversy. But until he returns to his roots and understands the reason for his fall from grace, the deeper and deeper he’ll fall, no matter how much he tries to pull himself out.

All of this “drama” plays against the backdrop of a mockumentary, wherein Conner’s life is being filmed for the whole world to see at the same time they make fun of the music industry as a whole. There’s a terrific moment at an awards show when Conner runs into his old opening act (Chris Redd), who also has a documentary film crew following him, all of whom happen upon a documentary crew following Snoop Dogg. They all get entangled upon one another, making light of (or fun of) the absurdity of all of these reality shows and how it seems wherever you turn, there’s another one waiting for their time in the limelight. It’s in moments like these where the film shines brightest. Where it falters is in banking all of its success on Samberg by giving the supporting cast hardly anything to do but fawn over Conner.

And though this conceit is basically the point — and in a way works for what it is — when you have the likes of Joan Cusack in your film (as Conner’s mother, no less), you don’t waste her extraordinary talents with hardly two minutes of screen time. That’s as bad as putting baby in a corner; you just don’t do it. The same thing happens with some of Samberg’s other big name pals. Tim Meadows gets the most opportunity to shine and for the most part, he doesn’t waste what he’s given, but Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Chelsea Peretti and Will Arnett are ushered in with very little meat and are told to make me laugh. THe most egregious example are Peretti and Arnett, who are stuck as part of a riff on TMZ, an idea that at first is a very funny parody of the tabloid television show, but quickly loses its muster the more they go back to it, eventually becoming just a sad display of not really knowing what to do or where to go with the jokes.

But therein lies the problem with the majority of the film — Taccone and Schaffer (along with writing partner Samberg) don’t seem to understand what the movie is truly trying to be. At times a super silly cartoon, at others soberly comedic, the tone never sings on key. This is partially due to the sporadic editing, which feels highly disjointed, especially in the first half of the film, where they continually go back and forth between Conner’s rise to success and his fall from grace. Had they handled these transitions (as well as the continuous cutaways to some major superstar cameos by the likes of Usher, Carrie Underwood, Mariah Carey, Pharrell Williams and Simon Cowell, to name oh but a few), the film may have found a much better footing and had been able to drive the narrative a little cleaner.

Then of course there’s the music, which also waffles unevenly between creatively brilliant and crazily weird. But I liked it for that very reason, because that’s exactly how it’s meant to be. To help promote the movie, Samberg debuted one song on the season finale of Saturday Night Live, and another teaming with Adam Levine on The Voice. Both songs pushed the boundaries of what’s acceptable without much caring about their (possible) offensive nature. A couple of the songs don’t land the way Taccone and Schaffer were probably expecting, but that’s to be expected. Nothing is ever perfect, and though I never quite laughed out load at any aspect of the film, there was plenty of delighted amusement covering the sentimental aspects of what is essentially a fun, if not misguided parody of the music industry and how true friendships are hard to find when you’re a major superstar.

My Grade: B

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Next week, new movies include Warcraft, The Conjuring 2 and Now You See Me 2. 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.

The Spirit Of… Now Available

In history, truth is often lost to the ravishes of time. The biases of each new generation distort facts to best suit their personal agendas. No more evident is this than in the most well-known book of all time: the Bible. But in an attempt to locate the lost city of Atlantis, Matthew Stevens and his team of archaeologists uncover the truth behind the Genesis of the Word. Are you ready to find out what the world doesn’t want you to know?

The Spirit Of… is an exciting adventure that dares to question what we know with a journey through self-discovery, love and friendship. Available in trade paperback, Kindle, Nook and iBooks, The Spirit Of… will leave you breathless.

Read the prologue (or a larger sample) and join the adventure of a lifetime.

Amen Dello Keli.

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If you have a book that’s just been released, one that’s on the verge of being released, or a current WIP, I’d love to hear about it! List the title (if it has one), a logline, a brief summary, the first sentence of the book and a link to where we can read or purchase it.