Category: lazy girls forgot to select a category

So, I’ve taken up an old hobby of mine. There’s nothing more satisfying than finding a book you’re looking for to complete a collection while looking in charity shops. Firstly there’s the thrill of finding that needle in a haystack. Then there’s the knowledge that it’s going to a good home, at the fraction of the cost while helping other people in need.

In the past it was Faye Kellerman’s Decker saga which currently runs to 24 novels, of which I own 17. That was back in 2006 when I had an excess of time and a need for distraction.

Today my focus is on something a little bit more niche. World Book Night is a UK based charity with the aim of getting books out to those who don’t normally read. As they changed the way they roll it out this year, I fear it wasn’t as successful as they had hoped.

My aim is to own every single book, with its special WBN cover. It could be done easily; they’re being sold on Ebay for £35 and whole boxes of individual titles for as little as £10. But where’s the fun in that?!

So, I’ve written out my lists and highlighted the ones I already own. I’ve even made a list of charity shops so that I can pop in whenever I have time on my way home.

Let the fun begin.

Key: Own, Read, Own and read

2016
If I Was Your Girl – Meredith Russo 
Frozen Charlotte – Alex Bell
I Was Here – Gayle Forman
The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily – Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
A Monster Calls – Patrick Ness 
Lying About Last Summer – Sue Wallman
The One We Fell in Love With – Paige Toon
Finding Audrey – Sophie Kinsella 

2017
Moxie
Orbiting Jupiter
The Start of Me and You
The One Memory of Flora Banks
Girlhood
History is All you Left Me
After The Fire
Letters to the Lost.

I never really felt at home in the place I have currently lived for 3 years. I had a crazy housemate who always had me on edge and ready to leave at any given time. My books where always kept in school and students ‘borrowed’ them. I moved schools in September and I hadn’t quite gotten around to moving my books (not having a classroom helps with that actually).

Three things have happened recently in my life that have meant those books have come out of hiding and now take pride of place in my room. One of which was my crazy housemate vacating the property. The second was a toxic relationship (mutual blame) making me forget who I am, what I love and most importantly; that I need to take care of myself rather than others. The final being the same person has tainted my love of films; whether that was through ignorance or malicious intentions I will never know nor do I care. It’s something I’ll recover from but right now it’s too raw. It’s just meant that books are more soothing to my soul *pause for eye roll* at the moment.

Anyway… I have a quirk. I like collecting things. I like completing collections and having them match. Something I’ll touch upon in another post sometime. Those ‘borrowed’ books have left holes in my collections so I have decided to part take in an old hobby of mine; charity shop hunting.

It’s rather fun. I just hope I can start working efficiently enough that I can make time to collect, display and read them all.

The Good
Gal Gadot makes a fine Diana Prince and I will never turn down watching Chris Pine and David Thewlis grace the silver screen. Chris Pine’s Steve Rogers Trevor is charming, the right side of flawed hero and has enough balls to know when a woman is best for the job.

 

Seeing Robin Wright join Carrie Fisher in her cinematic evolution to General is a delightful high point and, once again, reminds me that there is always something better to wish for than being a princess. While her screen time is fleeting, Wright makes a positive impact for exposition, character development and world setting.

The humor, for about 20 minutes, is a nice touch. Yes, it does rely heavily on the gender tropes, but it was a short respite from the heavy slog.

I was delighted at the true cultural representation of soldiers fighting for Britain in the war. Gone is the all white troops, replaced with a much more realistic melting pot. My heart melted when I spied what appeared to be a Sikh regiment on the King’s Cross platform. (Side note, Finally a US funded film that does not divert all the action to America and taking all the credit for the success of the war)

The Bad
I’m bored of the origin story narrative. Two movies in one; Iron Man, Batman and others all do the same. Build the backstory; one that’s rich with its own possibilities, to rip it from us in the second act. Wonder Woman falls into the same trap. I love seeing Diana as a child in a world of Amazons, frustrated at the boundaries set by her mother. However, you know it’s a plot device and it’s all lip service making the film feel bloated and almost episodic. While I equally dislike films that feel like a setup to wishful sequels, I would have liked to have seen this as two distinct movies; wouldn’t harm to have more Robin Wright either.

It seems a little too obvious to say that I wasn’t a fan of the villain. Aside from rug pulling, big bad switcheroo in the final act I just didn’t quite feel like I had a true villain to hate. Could be because of it’s setting; who could live up to the real villain of WWII. My biggest issue is that there’s a female bad, but there’s nothing there. It seems a little too much like they’re fighting a metaphor so the resolve feels a little anti-climatic.

The Ugly
Firstly, the CGI is appalling. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is celebrating its 20th Anniversary this year and even on a low budget, two decades ago, the highschooler and her Scoobies made the fight sequences look much better. The long shots don’t work; when Wonder Woman jumps, when she faces off with sergeant Tom, Dick or Harry and when there is an unnecessary pan and scan of the Amazon training. It’s all too amateurish, cartoonish and frustrating. Bring the audience up close and personal and you remove the need for cringe-worthy graphics.

Finally, it is the fact that this film is one of our first female centric superhero movies that has caused my greatest irk with Wonder Woman. I already have my role models; Ripley, Leia, Hermione, Buttercup and, hell, even Eleven is a better representation of a strong female character in a male dominated world. I am all down for feminism (yup, I used the dirty word) however, I like when it doesn’t try so hard.

Issue one: Diana is not like me or you, she’s a bloody demi-god. How can I see her as someone to bring about equality when she is still something ‘other’. Diana is all well and good to point out the unfairness in a society at war, but she’s essentially a Mary Sue with her inexplicably gained knowledge of every language under the sun and living in a world where her sex is dominant. Secondly, she is an Amazon. Amazons have historically been represented as something almost anti-feminist; their man loathing is highlighted when the island is under siege. Even Pine’s Steve is almost expired without conversing with him. Which leads me smoothly to…

Issue two: Is personal. My idea of feminism is not positive discrimination. It is not putting men down and putting women on top. For me, it’s about equality. Which is why I’m incredibly offended about the treatment of Ewan Bremmer’s Sharpshooter Charlie. He joins the cause despite his alcoholism, brought about by PTSD. It could have been an amazing story arc for the Scotsman.
Diana, upon arriving at the front, refuses to listen to everyone’s advice and proceeds reclaim territory from the Axis powers. Steve et al follow suit and they find themselves fighting within the confines of a village square. There’s a shooter in the bell tower and Charlie has him in his sight. But his PTSD seems to get the best of him and it’s about to be a character driven moment. Except, its not. Woman Woman apparently hasn’t had her fill of enemy kills and in another atrocious CGI moment, Hulk-jumps the bell tower, emasculating Charlie in the process. I would have been fine with it, had Charlie had an opportunity in the final act to overcome his PTSD, but he doesn’t. He’s brought down simply for the cinematography.

I think I’ve very close to being done with the comic book universes. They need to hand me a Buffy or Xena on a plate pretty sharpish because try-hards are not washing with me.

 

The Good
Tony Stark. RDJ is as good as ever and scenes are vastly improved with him on the screen. Whether he is oozing with snarky comebacks, mentoring our newly introduced Peter Parker or showing his regret for events of the past RDJ is able to command everyone’s attention and remind us why the Marvel universe exploded in the first place.

Peter Parker. Once again, Disney powerhouse are proving they can get the casting right and bring beloved characters into the universe without the origin story. I’m not a fan of the web slinger, but I like Tom Holland in the role. He played of Stark and the other Avengers brilliantly and certainly took center stage in the best fight of the film.

The fights and chase sequences were rather good and the globe trotting read like a super charged Bond movie. It worked, on the most part and the car chase was certainly entertaining.

The humour. Some amazing lines coming from all who showed up to fight. Highlights come from Bucky and Falcon’s instant hatred of each other and, as always, Stark doesn’t fail to miss a beat.

The Bad
Too many heroes question the title of the movie for me.

I’m still not certain it was worthy of Rogers’ handle and a little confused as to why it wasn’t an Avengers outing. The thing is, good ol’ Cap doesn’t show the most character development, have the most screen time or even get a true resolution at the end to be the protagonist.

In terms of cast, there was just too many in play for anyone to really hold their own. The Introduction of Martin Freeman’s Everett Ross feels like it should have been a little more poignant than it was and even Paul Rudd struggled to steal the show like I was expecting.

The Ugly
Why must all female characters be surrounded by romance in the Marvel universe? I’m happy they’ve continued on with the Black Widow/Hulk rather than moving her onto someone else, but poor Wanda! Seriously, she had enough development going on in the film; she didn’t need to explore her romantic feelings too.

It’s simply too long. At 2 hours 27 minutes, it’s the longest MCU film and boy, you feel every minute of it. The lulls are punctuated with high octane fight sequences, but it’s simply not enough to keep you engaged for the rest.

Winter Soldier was my favourite MCU movie going in. I was Team Cap. Alas, no longer. Worse still, I’m questioning the longevity of the universe as a whole.

Cast- 7
Cinematography- 5
Plot- 4
Pace- 6
Music- 4
Enjoyability- 6

 

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Okay. I’m so not okay with this film. I saw the trailer and I was excited. I’ve been following Miles Teller’s body of work since 21 & Over, he so had me on board with this.
Now, my standards were low going into this film, what with it being out for over 2 weeks at this point there was no way to avoid the onslaught of reviews that have been plaguing this production. It would seem this is this year’s Godzilla.

The Good
It ends.

The bad
The film is too slow. I was checking my watch (note watch, not phone. Even with this steaming turd I wasn’t going to be a hypocrite) and it was near on an hour before anyone has powers. We’d had a thorough back story for both Reed (Teller) and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) that has no baring on the plot.
Due to this slow burn of a plot, we don’t have a villain until the last 30 minutes and it’s wrapped up so quickly I almost wonder why they had one at all. You’ll know who it is as soon as he’s introduced. I never thought I’d say this, but the Fantastic predecessor handled the origin story much better.
The final scene; It’s cocky and it’s tacky. It assumes there will be a sequel. It’s the one thing I hate about movies; spending so much time setting up the next one, they forget that they have a current audience to win over.

The Ugly
Kate Mara as Sue Storm and her god awful hair. Reading up on it, it was due to a wig and reshoots. Okay, so she’d not the first to fall fowl of a hair faux pas. However, when Robin Tunney making the Craft in 1997 can do it without anyone detecting the hair on her head is not her own, why do we have such a problem in 2015? It might seem like the Jurassic World shoe-gate all over again, but this annoyed me even more. It messed with continuity; sometimes she had three different hair colours/styles in the one scene. Not cool and it is these little blips lose your audience and make them think you don’t care, or worse hints that you think they’re stupid.
Miles Teller’s Reed. This character is meant to be the leader. He’s meant to be strong; the leader. The whole film is meant to be about the four working as a team. He runs away and we are to believe he’s gone for a year without being caught. I’ll admit, it does give us a nice little view of what is possible with his power, but it doesn’t achieve anything aside from dislike my protagonist. When he does return, Reed is too quickly accepted as the leader. The breach of trust isn’t an issue apparently.

It will be interesting to see if the currently 2017 slated sequel does indeed raise its ugly head.

Cast- 4
Cinematography- 2
Plot- 4
Pace- 2
Music- 4
Enjoyability- 3

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Absolutely Anything is Bruce Almighty without the charm. It doesn’t know its target audience; too silly for adults, too many ‘fucks’ for it to be a family friendly outing.
Simon Pegg plays Neil; hopeless English teacher given the power to do anything by Python voiced aliens. Pegg can do this role with his eyes closed; the part was made for him. However, as a romantic lead he’d already set the bar high earlier this year in Man Up. Unfortunately the romantic matchmaking doesn’t work as well here.
Some of the cast and plot work really well, particularly Eddie Izzaed and Sanjeev Bhaskar as Pegg’s boss and friend respectively. However, the crazy ex boyfriend of Beckinsale’s Catherine is an irritating sub plot I could have done without.
The late and great Robin Williams takes his swan song here as Neil’s biscuit addict dog, Denis. As always, he is a delight to have on screen. His voice alone is a great and thankful presence on screen.
The tone of the film left me thinking about Hitchiker’s and the comedic element the book and TV show both had that worked so well. With a little more time and effort, this film could have made more comparisons.

Cast- 6
Cinematography- 6
Plot- 5
Pace- 6
Music- 4
Enjoyability- 7

Paper Towns has an Indie, almost hipster, feel to its cinematography. There’s an attempt to achieve the gravitas of the old school coming of age films however it doesn’t quite get there. It’s plot is a little too clean, without consequence or true jeopardy and does not stand up to any scrutiny.
Margo treats her next door neighbour, Q (Nat Wolff),  to a night of reckless abandon before disappearing. Q finds clues that leads to a road trip with his friends. Nat Wolff is brilliant and a sympathetic character. Margo, however is not. She appears underdeveloped and a little too mythic for an audience to believe that this boy would take this journey. In the end, you can’t help but feel cheated, even if Q doesn’t.
It is quite interesting that while the three main characters (Q, Ben and Radar. Margo doesn’t count. She’s the Chasing Amy of the film) are male, yet it still feels like a chick flick. I like the characters, I like there development, but I can’t help but see them as the boys girls want them to be and not true to life. Which is totally ironic as the book, screenplay and film are all in the creative hands of men,
However, I would love to see both Nat Wolff and Austin Abrams (Ben) take on a remake of Weekend at Bernie’s in a few years time. Or, I could simply make this the prequel head cannon to Larry and Richard’s friendship.

Cast- 8
Cinematography- 8
Plot- 6
Pace- 6
Music- 6
Enjoyability- 7

I like to be in a cinema screen early. Especially when I haven’t selected my seat at the box office (which I hate with a passion by the way).

I am very particular where I sit when I go alone- a seat central to the screen with a hope and a prayer that the screen isn’t too busy.

So… I’m currently waiting for a delayed Mr Holmes to start. It’s now holding about 25 people in a 75 seat screen and I have someone who I don’t know sat right next to me.

It would be fine if it was busy, or if they’d just arrived. But these two ladies were the next people in the screen. They had 74 seats to pick from, yet despite a funny little Sheldon Cooper seat selection they plonk themselves right next to me. I was half expecting her to yell at me for being in her spot.

So I’m faced with the dilemma: should I stay or should I find another seat?! As her elbow inches towards mine- I’m considering my escape.

Is it wrong that I just want my personal space while watching a movie?

So we won’t see this film in the Oscar running, but lets face it people are not watching it for the plot. However, I want to argue the criticism that this film is plot-less with beautiful dancing hunks of meat for viewers to drool over.

There’s character development and audience attachment that extends further than the size of the guys abs. There is an attempt to genuinely and sincerely explore loyalty and shelf life within a vain industry. There’s touching moments between all of the leads.

Of course, these are not my favourite parts. I’d be lying if I said otherwise. The film builds to an exciting showcase of talents that will satisfy most who attend on their own accord. Matt Bomer is a personal highlight, showing off his singing talent to wow the crowds.

Cast- 8 (Maconawho?)
Cinematography- 6
Plot-5
Pace-4
Music-6
Enjoyability- 9