The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Netflix)

I loved this movie.  I have not read the book, but enjoyed the story and characters so much I'm going to get the book.  This was hugely popular with Reading Groups when it came out, and I can see why.

It's a mystery, a historical tale, a romance, and is filled with a love of books and reading that may not have been captured anywhere as well in ages.

It's the story of a young woman writer named Juliet Ashton in 1946.  As London is being rebuilt after the Second World War she is assigned an article by her publisher to write about Reading.

She's not too keen on it until she receives a letter from Dawsey Adams.  He's a pig farmer from the island of Guernsey who has her personal copy of Lamb's Essays of Elia which had her name and address inside it.  He attends a book group called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society which was begun during the Nazi Occupation of Guernsey during the war, and which has continued.  He'd like recommendations for more books by author Charles Lamb, and London bookstores which might carry them.

She loves the story of this book group helping it's members through such terrible times and feels it will be just what she needs for her article on Reading.

Feeling like she knows the Society and it's members from Dawes letter, she hastily packs and sets out for Guernsey, letting Dawes know she's on the way and that she'd like to do an article on his group.

Her reception is so funny.  There's nowhere in town to stay so she ends up in the home of a grim matron.

The Society members are shocked by her presence, and the meeting starts out very awkwardly.  The group meets at Amelia Maugery's house, and Amelia is particularly frosty in her reception.  She immediately tells Juliet she must lead the discussion.  Then coldy advises that the leader stands for her presentation.  By the end of the evening everyone is comfortably seated and is having a lively discussion of the evenings book.

Lily James is luminous as Juliet.   Juliet is a very modern girl, who knows what she wants, and is completely lively and in the moment.   She handles the reception by the members with aplomb.  When she finds there is much more to the story of the Society and it's wartime origins, she stays on the island, researching, and becoming friends with most of the members.  To her surprise, she eventually feels very much like they are family as well as friends.

Penelope Wilton, an alumni from Downton Abbey as is James, is so wonderful here.  She's this seemingly hard, tough woman who has borne too much, seen too much.

Michiel Huisman plays a remarkably sensitive man for his profession, so well read and a fine letter writer to boot.

I love the book discussions.

Love the interwoven mystery of Elizabeth.

Love that the children are included in the readings and discussions.

Most films don't capture the love of reading as this one does.

Loved at the end while the credits ran that you could hear a rather heated discussion of another book.

Read on, Peelers.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom : Where The Dinosaurs Are The Good Guys

Here's a great summer movie, with all the thrills to be expected from Jurassic Park, but a bit more thoughtful than most.  I expected the whole film to be about getting the dinosaurs off the now volcanic island, but it was so much more.

Mustache twirling villains aside, there were questions about whether the dinosaurs should be saved, or allowed be allowed to be made extinct again.   You can easily imagine how such debates would go in today's world, even after the disastrous events in the park a few years ago.  Because we love those dinosaurs, do we not?  Particularly T-Rex.  Always try to save T-Rex if you can.

Great cast, my favorite being Maisie Lockwood played by Isabella Sermon.  Best little girl in a movie, ever.  So smart, quick and brave.   If I were small and watched this movie, I'd want to be her.   I think she'll inspire a lot of girls watching this film.

She's great in all her scenes, but in one near the end she makes the right decision, and changes the world.  Go Maisie go.   Let's hope the next film stars Maisie.

Blade Runner 2049

Blade Runner 2049 is a fitting sequel to the original Blade Runner film.  The world feels much the same, the stakes are similar when it comes to the lives of the Replicants.  The way they're hunted down and "retired" is familiar.  The guilt of the detective hunting them is much the same, though since he is a Replicant himself, you'd think it shouldn't be.

I haven't seen anything else with Ryan Gosling that I recall (though La La Land is in my To-Be-Watched Pile), and there is something of a teddy bear in his looks, particularly his eyes.  As his story unfolds, he maintains a childlike aspect that makes him relatable and you have to root for him.

In another era, you would be certain he would make it out of the film alive, but you never feel that way here.  At a certain point, he feels disposable.

Harrison Ford needed far more screen time.  He stepped comfortably back into the role of Deckard, and from previews, I hoped he and Gosling's character would spend some time as a kick ass team.  I liked his dog, and vote for him being a real dog.

Robin Wright's character was a surprise, and great to watch.  I haven't seen House of Cards because---politics---so I kept thinking, Oh, Buttercup.

Luv, the super efficient Replicant Secretary/Researcher Slayer seemed ripe for a redemption arc, you just know deep inside she would have liked things to be different.

Jared Leto, in the first thing I've seen him in, was creepy.  He seems invariably creepy in interviews.  I saw a quote from him that he isn't the villain of the piece.  Hmmpf.

Gosling's live in Electronic Girlfriend was quite charming and layer upon layer, who is real, who gets to live, she definitely deserved a chance.

Several storylines and plots are set up for sequels, I hope the stories get told.

Deadpool: Talk About Lively!

He's not a hero, that's for sure. His attitude stinks, and though he saves people and secretly has a heart of gold, he's too busy quipping his way through this movie to bother with good vs bad distinctions.

I knew nothing about the character going in, and feared this would be The Punisher with humorous naughty bits.

Luckily, though heads fly, swords slash, and slow-mo guns do their damage, there isn't any lingering on gore.  It's all played for laughs.   

Deadpool is sassy, irreverent, and the best wise cracking (not hero) in ages.  Highly recommended.

Mockingjay Part 1

 

I really loved the book Mockingjay and think they did an excellent job so far of bringing the story to the screen.  They captured the ruination of Katniss very well. Always the reluctant heroine, the toll of all the lives lost and the thought that people could look to her for inspiration just takes her down.

Around her, the rebellion grows.  Her own people and those from District 13 are adept at using her to good effect to make sure the rebellion doesn’t die.  It’s fascinating to watch, because manipulation of that sort always seems wrong, but you know that it is effective and even necessary.

 

Donald Sutherland’s President Snow continues to be chilling in the smoothest manner possible.  His daughter slides a Mockingjay from her hair as he gives his speech about intolerance towards anyone bearing the symbol.   The white roses he drops around the surface of bombed District 13 to rattle Katniss.

One of my favorite scenes is the one where Katniss is asked to sing.  The tune is haunting, her voice raw but beautiful.  Then the scene switches to a group approaching the capital and they’re singing the song.  Very powerful, I thought.

The cat….I would rescue it too, but what trouble he brings, eh?  He looked quite ratty here, I must say.

Poor Peeta, he was very convincing at the end, tossing himself around in pure madness.

I must re-read the book.

 

D.O.A. at the Movies: Interstellar

The Earth is running out of food for its people.  The world has become a huge dustbowl with monstrous storms making life nearly impossible, and certainly miserable. Crops are down to corn alone.  All other food crops have succumbed to a blight.

Matthew McConauhey’s  Cooper is a former pilot who now farms with his young son and daughter, aided by father in law Donald, the grumpiest John Lithgow I’ve ever seen.

On top of everyday problems, daughter Murphy feels as if there is a poltergeist or some other phenomenon in her room trying to send a message.   Her father helps her decode a message, which gives the coordinates to a hidden NASA base. 

At the base, Michael Caine’s Professor  Brand and his daughter Amelia-- Anne Hathaway are working with a huge crew to pilot through a wormhole (which mysteriously appeared near Saturn 48 years ago).  Other missions called the Lazarus Missions went through in the past.  The new mission hopes to find a place to colonize beyond the wormhole, saving the last bits of humanity in two ways:

Embryos which will be activated at the new planet.

The scientific base they’re working in is a space station which can lift off and save a number of people.

 

 

At the heart of the rest of the film is finding a real home beyond the wormhole for colonization, and doing so within the lifetimes of family left behind.

Time on the other side of the wormhole is different.  This is made worse by a Black Hole called Gargantua.

Three viable seeming signals are received by the team, and they have to decide which is the best bet for finding life.  There is a possibility that all or any of the signals is old and that the teams are already dead.

I found the discussions between the crew members trying to decide what the best chances would be to be fascinating.  They hadn’t the fuel to simply look at them all.  The nearest of the choices had such close proximity to the Black Hole that time would be very warped there-- 7 years passing for every hour spent on the planet.

As a film of traveling into the unknown reaches of space, without hopes of rescue, with limited resources and time being an enemy in every way, it was superb.

The closeness of Cooper to his family and his determination to do what would save them no matter the cost to himself, was really a great emotional core. 

The element of aliens who could put a wormhole out near Saturn, and who likely existed in five dimensions, and the plot developments leading from those things…dicey thinking.

All in all, a fine film, lots to think about, including the many moral choices made by everyone involved.

D.O.A. at the Movies: Maze Runner

Maze Runner

I watched all the clips of The Maze Runner movie, and follow the Maze Runner Trilogy and the author James Dashner on Facebook.  I had a few concerns going into the film:

I didn’t like that Teresa and Thomas couldn’t speak telepathically, though in retrospect I can see where that complicates things in a two hour movie.

 

From the clips, I didn’t think I’d like the actor playing Thomas, he seemed kind of gravelly voiced and flat.  In fact, Dylan O’Brien as Thomas completely nailed Thomas and his confusion as he entered the Glade and it’s world, and he had the honesty and vulnerability of Thomas in the book, so I was really pleased.

I really liked the portrayals of Alby, Newt, Minho, Chuck and Gally.

I didn’t care for the Teresa character, but having read the entire book series, I think I just don’t like her as a character so I was swayed by that.

I would like to have seen more time spent on the really well organized society the boys created.  More time could have been spent in the Maze itself.

The way out of the Maze and the final battle there was way cooler in the book, and I think they should have stuck with that.

Since they were varying from the book in so many places, they could have altered Chuck’s fate, right?  Sometimes the film version can have a happier ending than the book.

Filming is already set for the sequel : The Scorch Trials to come out in late 2015.  That was a great adventure, and I can’t wait to see how they bring it to the screen.