I Consume Things From Some Lands Down Under

Somehow I fell into the world of Kiwi and Aussie crime. I think it started with lockdown and my internet not being the best while I worked from home. So I got DVD's from the library and fell into The Brokenwood Mysteries. It scratched a similar itch to Midsommer Murders and allowed me to work while having the show on to the side mostly listening to it and turning to watch only periodically. I love the way those mystery shows work like that for me. Anyway, Brokenwood is a fantastic little mystery show that has a fun cast of characters, intriguing mysteries and a beautiful setting. 

After this jaunt to New Zealand I searched for more of the like, and landed in Australia and the shows Troppo and Deadloch. While they both are fantastic mysteries, they hit different. Troppo is much more serious and dramatic with characters that aren't easy to love but you end up there anyway. Deadloch is a more comedic opposite partners trying to figure out the crime and how to work together, not to say it's not serious and violent at times, it is, but overall it has a bit of a sense of humor to it.

Then I went to books and found The Echo of Others and The Long Game by Simon Rowell. The first was a very good cold case style mystery that will make you thing about becoming a vegetarian. The second is the first in a series that just doesn't quite hit as well. It's good enough but probably not enough for me to continue the series.

Then I went to Red Dirt Road by S.R. White. This is much more of an isolated in the Outback mystery that really stops to freak you out and build tension with a very small group of suspects. It's in the middle of a series, but I didn't know that at the time and it stands alone very well and I will be reading further in the series for sure.

I then fell into Benjamin Stevenson's Ernest Cunningham Series. This is such an amazing group of books, starting with Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone. While the other 2 that are currently out are not as good, they are still fantastic reads of their own. The third is coming out in a couple weeks and I already have preordered it!

I still have a few more, Mystery Road started a a movie about a Aboriginal copper who fights back against corruption and racism in his town. It's a little slow moving and stylist
ically not what Hollywood would make, but the story is great and the characters you really feel for. The second movie Goldstone isn't as good but it was still enough for me to continue with the TV show shortly.

My bookclub had someone interested in cults and so they had us read Daughter of Gloriavale. This true memoir of a woman's life in the New Zealand religious cult of Gloriavale is a rough read. While the cult isn't as horrible as some you have heard of, there was certainly many abuses of the members, especially women/children, and racism that comes to play as well. It's a sad tale with the happy ending of freedom from the cult by Lilia Tarawa. 

Finally, the wife and I are listening to Michele Prak's The Rush. This is a tension building natural disaster book where the question of what's worse the natural disaster or men? and even though I am one, and I try not to use strong language on here very much, this book makes me want to just say FUCK MEN, they just SUCK!!!!!

I'm sure this is not the end of my expeditions to the other side of the world, and I'll probably be talking about more of them soon!

Kelly Macdonald and how Princess Merida walked to Gosford Park, solved a Puzzle went back to Dept. Q then looked in a Black Mirror and became a Radley

 

For many years now I've been a fan of Kelly Macdonald. She's been pretty amazing in everything I've seen her in. I recently watched Dept Q and it started me on the path to watch several of her productions. This is a brief review of several of these.

Dept. Q: This is a Scottish police procedural with some crossing of lines and some serious implications. It's tough not to root for the damaged main character as, even though he's an ass and he breaks the law as an entitled copper, he's also pretty good at solving crimes and getting to the root of things. This is a found family group of misfits that come together to be truly greater than their parts. Kelly plays a headshrinker in this one, and although she's not in it very much, she does make a lasting impression. Although everyone does a great job, Leah Byrne as DC Rose Dickson is the true standout for me. She's kinda like Tilly in Star Trek Discovery, and it's not just because of the hair.

7/10 because I'm tired of police not following the rules and getting away with it

Brave: How can you mention Ms. Macdonald and not acknowledge her amazing voicework as Merida. She's just the best in this role and her emotion and strength really come through with just her voice. A everlasting tale about family, expectations, and familial love.

9/10 Almost freaking perfect!

Puzzle: There's a whole movie about jigsaw puzzles and the competitive world they inspire?!?!? Yup. And it's a tough one for me to decide how I feel about it. There's a borderline sweet love story here, but it also deals with infidelity and I'm not forgiving about that. The actors do a great job, but it's tough to root for people that are cheaters.

3/10 Not a bad movie, but not for me.

Black Mirror - Hated in the Nation: A longer episode of the provocative series, Kelly is the focus here. As a detective that investigates how new technology is leading to/causing deaths. We really need to take care of the bees! I wish we saw more of these types of episodes from the series, but I'll take what we got and enjoy.

8/10 sadly predictive of where it feels like things are headed in many ways.

The Radleys: This is based on a book, of the same name, and is about Vampires who don't drink blood, dealing with their teenagers who do not have the same level of self control. It's an interesting take on vampires and the family dynamic. Has another cheating scene in it which made it less enjoyable for me. If people (vampires) just talked there would probably be less cheating and more happy marriages. Well acted and tense but with some parts that keep me from completely enjoying it.

4/10 darn it. I just can't enjoy a movie where cheating plays a big role.

Gosford Park: I originally saw this Robert Altman directed beauty all by my lonesome in theatres. Man was I glad I did. It's a combination of Upstairs Downstairs and the traditional English whodunit, with the bumbling copper and the intelligent downstairs help that truly knows what's going on. Altman had a magic touch with figuring out how to make overlapping conversations sound natural and still allow us the audience to focus on particular parts of them to pull out the messages. This movie deserves multiple viewings, like all of Altman's work, and I'm glad I watched it again.

8/10 maybe a little dry for some, but as a lover of many British tv shows and movies it's great!

I Scream 7 times for Burnt Offerings

 

So this weekend was a crazy one. The youngest had a Sadie's dance and her and her friend wanted to go together, they decided to make a whole event out of it and wanted to go see Scream 7 first then go to the dance. As my wife hates slashers in general, and those with teens as victims in particular, it was decided that I would be the chauffer (foreshadowing?) for the pair and watch the movie as well. Nothing like going with two teens dressed to the 9's to a horror movie on opening weekend!

*Spoilers will abound from here on out, so be warned*

Scream 7 plays into nostalgia so much! It opens at the original final house from Scream. It's been turned into a tacky museum/air B&B. The open couple are, of course, slaughtered with some throw back to that original. Then, you have Sidney and Gail in it, and the new focus is Sidney's daughter so it brings it back to teens as a focus. The soundtrack is reminiscent of the original Scream, as are the periodic shots of fall leaves blowing in the wind, and the signs of the main street of the town closing down and people rushing home to seal themselves in. It made me look up the soundtrack for listening to later, and it really felt like Wes was back in town for this one.

There's a new killer around, and this time it's Stu, back from the dead! I dug this as I'm a fan of Matthew Lillard, but the obvious part here is knowing if it's real or a deepfake. Don't you hate that it's such a thing. Not only in movies but the real world. Dumb. Anyway, Stu(?) is facetiming Sidney to threaten her and her daughter. Ghostface then proceeds to stalk the kids at the high school theater and it results in a gruesome death of McKenna Grace, much to the dismay of my kids friend, who loves her so much and legitimately cried at her death. Sidney then takes her daughter home to her husband, Joel McHale, the Sherriff of the town. Of course Ghostface knew this would happen and was in the attack, avoiding the police search and waiting for them to leave before attacking the family. Sidney puts on her survivor and Mom superpowers and between her, and her husband they are able to beat up, while getting hurt of course, Ghostface, making him run into the street where he is struck by Gail's speeding news van, killing him.

This was not anyone known and it leads to the search of the mental hospital where the man was recently at. There we meet, a very much older looking than I remember, Ethan Embry as a Orderly who tells Sidney and Gail that Stu was the friend and neighbor of this guy. Of course, Ethan is the killer, saw that coming a mile away. But Gail and Sidney don't figure that out until the reveal. Randy's twins, who came with Gail, then join with Tatum (Sidney's daughter, not another comeback to life from the original) and the rest of her friends, breaking curfew and hanging out at a bar that one of their families owns. This leads to Sherriff Jeff Winger getting killed at home without anyone knowing and the kids all getting attacked at the bar. Sidney gives Gail her interview finally, which makes Tatum leave the bar with her boyfriend, to go find her mom. She sees her boyfriend's computer and the mock-ups he has as himself as Stu doing deepfakes. He says he's just trying to see if it was possible but Tatum knocks him out with the laptop and gets out of the car, only to be chased by Ghostface. The teens at the bar are all slaughtered by Ghostface, but Randy's twins somehow were only hurt and knocked out?

Tatum runs through downtown, Sidney finds out that her daughter is at the bar and instead of finding her lost car keys, taking what 5-10 minutes, runs down the street for 20-30 minutes? Tatum is stalked, her boyfriend shows up and she apologies right before he's killed by Ghostface. Yup, all of Tatum's friends are dead. Didn't see that coming. Tatum runs to Sidney's coffee house and Sidney gets the notification so she gets on the camera's and guides Tatum into the office where there's a gun. Tatum barricades herself in the office, and eventually shoots Ghostface through the wall with Sidney's guidance. But she makes the fatal mistake, she doesn't listen to Sidney and doesn't shoot him in the head. Ghostface gets up, Tatum runs, right into another Ghostface (there were 3!?!?! shocked...). 

Sidney gets a call leading her back home so she can rescue Tatum. We then se a video montage of several current day actors playing "aged" killers from the past of the series (no Emma Roberts though!!!! the most disappointing part of the film!). It was a fun little tribute to fans of the series. 

The killer tell Sidney her daughter is tied to a chair outside, let's go back to the roots here! Sidney goes outside to see two Ghostface threatening her daughter. She drops her gun but we see another in her belt, of course. Ghostface then reveals himself to be the orderly, to no one's surprise but Sidney. The second Ghostface shows up drags the unkillable host of The Soup out in front of his wife and daughter and the most surprising part of the whole movie happens, he's actually still alive! Stabbed all to hell but alive!
 

The resulting reveal is that Anna Camp, Sidney's neighbor, is the other Ghostface and the architect of it all. For "Reasons." Didn't make a whole lot of sense, and honestly one of the worst Scream villain combos of them all. Of course, Frank from Animal Control, has enough strength and his luck pocket knife and is able to get Tatum free. She then is able to get away enough that Sidney shoots Ethan Embry in the head so it's just Anna Camp left. Aca-scuse me? The ensuing battle between Anna and Sidney finally ends with Tatum also there and Sidney and Tatum shooting Anna in the head so much her face was literally gone.

If it wasn't for the Stu angle the villains would be laughably bad. The motivations were illogical and convoluted. The kills were a bit over the top for me, but that seems to be the way slasher are going.

Overall this was a top 3-4 of the franchise for me. Good enough to watch, but not enough to say you should go out of your way for it.

6.5/10

My friends Marshal and Rish reviewed Burnt Offerings for The Outfield Excursions, part of the Journey Into Podcast. As a Patron I get early access to it, and while I'm a fan of all their episodes, and can recommend all of them, pay special attention once this one drops to everyone! Or become a Patron like me and listen to it now!

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I'm not going to say much about this 1976 gem, but I had never heard of it before they brought it up. This is now one of my top 5 scariest horror films I've seen. It is a true masterclass in tension, insanity, losing oneself, horror, and the scariest of all, the Chauffer!!!

Oliver Reed puts Jack Nicolson to shame in showing how a father can be corrupted and become a danger to his family. The pool scene alone is terrifying and had to be awful for the poor child actor to have been a part of! Betty Davis her hammy best, and while she doesn't have a ton to do, she does it all so well. Karen Black walks that line between Shelley Duvall, Norman Bates, and Mommy Dearest perfectly. 

Honestly, I'm glad I didn't see this as a kid. It would have given me nightmares, just as much a Something Wicked This Way Comes did. I cannot recommend this movie enough. While Good, Luck Have Fun, Don't Die and Send Help may be fighting for my favorite movie of this year, Burnt Offerings has easily taken the lead as my favorite movie I've been introduced to this year!

Do yourself a favor and watch it!!!

9/10

Gaming in the Shortest Month

I did not dip my toe into gaming much this month. Hoping next month will be different. I picked up Isonzo on sale in anticipation for Gallipoli to see if I want to get that one for my Steam Deck. This just happened so we'll see what happens in March!

After starting Dungeon Crawler Carl I got a bit of an urge for a RPG to play. I'm tired of fantasy ones and didn't want to get lost in Cyberpunk 2077 so I went for Outer Worlds 1, as I got it for a good price. I've just started it but already it's scratching the itch. Not sure that I'll finish the story on it, but there's no pressure here and it was cheap so I'm ok with that.

The game that truly caught me this month is Ball Pit. I don't play it much but once I start it, there's always, just one more round to play. It's perfect for short spurts, but also has addictive gameplay/base building mechanics. I will keep this one going for a while I feel.

February Reads. Yeah I said Feb-Rue-Airy in my head writing that.

 It was nowhere as productive a reading month as January, but it sure was a varied one!

That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You by Elyse Myers: 

If you're familiar with Elyse from her reels/shorts/tiktoks/whatever, you know what you're getting here. It's her fantastic and earnest storytelling combining with a sweet origin love story between Elyse and her husband. There are illustrations, changes in fonts and positions, and it all combines to make fore an enjoyable memoir style read. Honestly I got this from the library and I will probably pick it up at some point.

8/10

Close Your Eyes and Count to Ten by Lisa Unger:

One of two that the wife and I listened to this month. The first 2/3rds were engrossing and compelling to only be finished off with a convoluted and unsatisfying ending. After reading Darcy Coates How Bad Can Things Get and Ruth Ware's One Perfect Couple, I'm thinking I need to give this reality show on an island goes wrong genre will never meet up to my expectations. None of them are bad, but each has it's own flaws. 

5/10

Chlorine by Jade Song:

I am not the target audience for this one, I don't like body horror, there are specific triggers for me that I would avoid as it's a little too close to one of my kiddos (not in the story but in the overall similarities of the main character). I would not have picked to read this book it was part of a book club and I would have DNF'ed it if it wasn't. It wasn't a bad book by any means, it just his too many of my no thank you's for a book in general. 

5.5/10

Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife by Martin Edwards:

A "you can solve the puzzles too" British Christmas mystery book that seems to be a thing lately. I listened to this one so solving the puzzles was neigh improbable. Would have been much easier if I had the physical copy with me. Not an awful story here but a few too many leaps in logic for me. It's the old style British mystery with a focus on the what more than the characters, so it might be difficult for people to connect with characters and thereby be taken in by the book.

6/10

Witness 8 by Steve Cavanagh:

The other book the wife and I listened to together. A decent enough Eddie Flynn story. It's interesting and we enjoy the legal thrillers that aren't so law enforcement focused. The worst part about these Eddie Flynn Books is that there are 2 that you can't get audiobooks for in English (publishing rights dumbness) and that now we've finished them all until the end of March and who knows how long after that one before the next comes out. Fun Lincoln Lawyeresque stories.

7/10

I'm in the middle of Dungeon Crawler Carl and need to finish it before Wednesday but that will be March so you'll have to return next month to see how I feel on that!

Good Luck, Have Fun, Same Rockwell Should Never Die

 We got a special deal on tickets and took the Fam Bam to Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die this past weekend. It was awesome! 

The writer, Matthew Robinson, also wrote Love and Monsters, and the ideal of movies, Dora and the Lost City of Gold, so I'm already biased to love this one. Gore Verbinski is at his Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and A Cure for Wellness best here.

Sam Rockwell is exactly as you expect, the best part of the movie. Its tougher to say that about this film than others, but that's not because he's not as amazing as always, it's because everyone else is phenomenal.

Juno Temple, who I only know from Ted Lasso, and what a job she does in that, is even more amazing in this movie. She has amazing range and you just feel so much from her.

Haley Lu Richardson is in the new PONIES show, but I haven't seen that, I know her from The Bronze and I really liked her in that one. She's even better here. 

Michael Pena is great as always, I don't know that I've seen him in anything and been disappointed.

Zazie Beetz is good, but I really just want to see her in They Will Kill You, so her solid performance was a bit overshadowed by my most anticipated movie of the year.

Asim Chaundhry I remember from a season of Taskmaster and it's cool to see him in this after just being himself.

Okie, Spoiler time. A brief comparison then I get into the deets, as the kids at some point might have said.

This is an entertaining, exciting, sad and funny mix of The Terminator, The Mitchells vs. the Machines, and Everything  Everywhere All at Once.

Trigger Warning: Suicide, School Shootings, violence on kids

This movie brings Sam as the unnamed man from the future to a diner that has a mix of people that will have the skills to stop the singularity and eventual downfall of mankind. He's done this 117 (I think) times before and through the movie we see some flashbacks of that. He selects some new people this time and it's a unique combination this time, so, of course we're going to see the successful combination, right?

There are hijinks and deaths, flashbacks to a few key characters backstories, and fun.

We travel with this group, bonding with most of them, enjoying the trip. 

We see the group triumph, with casualties, over obstacles and get to the final showdown with the AI. I won't spoil this, but it doesn't go as planned. But the very end gives us hope that the next time, or 50, will eventually go our way.

I don't know if this movie needs a sequel, and I'm not sure how excited I would be for one, but I know that I would be amongst the first in line to see it!

9/10 Is this the best movie of the year? We shall see.

An Ideal Host

I was in the mood for a dinner party thriller. Think The Invitation or The Perfect Host. So I went to An Ideal Host, which has been on my Tubi watchlist for a while. It's not what I expected. This was in the horror genre so I figured I picked exactly what I was looking for. The first half I was 100% right.

It takes place in an Australian country house. A couple invites several friends over to see their new house/farm and to surprisingly announce their engagement. The friends are a mix of people that they knew mostly from high school. One estranged friend crashes the party and increases the drama and tension. It's a fun insight to an OCD female lead, Liz, and her pleasant enough, but also red flag inducing less than helpful, fiancé. 

Liz is really the focus of the movie and Nadia Collins is perfect in this role. I actually don't understand how she hasn't had more work. She's annoying at the start and you love her by the end. Think Ripley in Alien. 

The party crasher, Daisy, seems to be self-centered and narcissistic, but as the story moves on there more to her than meets the eye. The other highlight of the film is the spur of the moment plus 1, Jon. He's someone that everyone, hilariously even his date, are learning about as the story progresses.

There's the set up. Stop now for entering spoiler territory.

The movie now turns into The World's End/Evil Dead. And it works!

There's an alien invasion going on. With weird liquidy spider/octopus-like things infesting and taking over their trapped inside human hosts. Great job on the title guys. Their goal is to take over this remote town and see if it will be easy enough so then they can expand to WORLD DOMINATION!

Unfortunately for them, Liz stand in their way. The slow corruption of the guests leads to a dwindling group to fight back against the aliens, but honestly, we don't need them. Liz is a bad @$$ Ash in disguise and takes these guys down. The level of gore was surprising to me as I was expecting a different kind of movie and the first half had no hints that it was going to be that kind of movie. The gore was well done and effective, just shocking in how quickly it went that way and how realistic it was in many ways. 

Poor Jon, who was my favorite personality of the movie until Liz really comes into her own by the end, has the worst and most torturous death. It's sad and a bit gross. Liz is a fighter and does what she needs to do to not only survive, but ultimately become a hero for the world.

If you like slow tension movies with some realistic characters, that will take a From Dusk To Dawn sudden genre shift into something new and different give yourself a treat and watch this one!

9/10 - I'm not saying this is better than Send Help, it's not, but I always boost little independent film ratings because they need the support and exposure as much as they can.