Category: 4 Star

Stuck in 1945

Two consecutive weekends I’ve returned to the Pacific, specifically 1945.

The Great Raid (2005)Last weekend, I watched The Great Raid, which I’d somehow missed when it was released twelve years ago in 2005.  This movie retells the story of The Raid at Cabanatuan, a rescue of Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians from a Japanese camp near Cabanatuan City, in the Philippines. On January 30, 1945, during World War II, United States Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts, and Filipino guerrillas liberated more than 500 from the POW camp.

This movie was a segue for me from The Railway Ran , which I watched two years ago and that I mentioned in my recent post on ‘Dropping the Bomb.’

My Rating:  3.5 to 4 stars

Joseph Fiennes turn in an excellent performance as the tragic Major Gibons, but the real surprise for me was seeing Connie Nielsen as Margaret Utinsky.  I spent half the movie distracted because I could not place her face in my memory.  I gave up and checked IMDB and had that epiphany feeling when I realized she performed as Lucilla in the twisted Roman triangle with Commodus and Maximus five years earlier in Gladiator.

USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016)I followed The Great Raid yesterday with a viewing of U.S.S. Indianapolis: Men of Courage.  This film more closely related to my post about ‘Dropping the Bomb’ since “In 1945, the Portland-class heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis, commanded by Captain Charles McVay (Nicolas Cage), delivers parts of the atomic bomb that would later be used to level Hiroshima during the ending of World War II. While patrolling in the Philippine Sea, on July 30 in 1945, the ship is torpedoed and sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) submarine I-58, taking 300 crewmen with it to the bottom of the Philippine Sea, while the rest climb out of the ship and are left stranded at sea for five days without food, water and left in shark-infested waters.” (Wikipedia).

My Rating:  3.5 stars

I survived Cage’s stilted acting, with the help of the supporting cast, who performed admirably and believably.  Matt Lantner, whose grandfather, Kenley Lanter, was one of only 317 men to have survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.  Matt portrayed Chief Petty Officer Brian “Bama” Smithwick with his usual All American boy-next-door Midwestern heart.  And did I mention he’s also the voice of Anakin in Star Wars: The Clone Wars?

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)I ended the weekend with the much anticipated and highly acclaimed Hacksaw Ridge, which I’d been hesitant to watch for fear of a too real portrayal of warfare (remember the opening to Saving Private Ryan?).

Hacksaw Ridge is a film “about the World War II experiences of Desmond Doss, an American pacificist combat medic who was a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, refusing to carry or use a firearm or weapons of any kind. Doss became the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for service above and beyond the call of duty during the Battle of Okinawa.” (Wikipedia)

My Rating:  4-4.5 stars

Outstanding story, directing and acting.  Truth is so much stranger than fiction and infinitely more inspiring.  “Just one more, Lord” are words to live and die by.  I highly recommend this movie and I’m sorry I waited so long to watch it.

Series Review: Human Target (2010 – Season 1) Four Stars

Human Target

Season One Aired: 2010

Watched via Netflix DVD: Fall 2016

Synopsis (from Wikipedia): The series follows the life of San Francisco-based Christopher Chance (Mark Valley), a unique private contractor, bodyguard and security expert hired to protect his clients. Rather than taking on the target’s identity himself (as in the comic book version), he protects his clients by completely integrating himself into their lives, to become a “human target”. Chance is accompanied by his business partner, Winston (Chi McBride), and hired gun, Guerrero (Jackie Earle Haley). Continue reading “Series Review: Human Target (2010 – Season 1) Four Stars”

Movie Review: Shaolin (2011) ~ 4 Stars

shaolin-posterartShaolin

Released: 2011

Watched: late September 2016 via Netflix streaming

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Directed by: Benny Chan

Starring: Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse with an appearance by Jackie Chan

Short Synopsis (via IMDb.com):  After ambushing and killing his rival, losing everything in the process, dispirited warlord Hou Jie turns to a Shaolin monastery seeking salvation.

My Thoughts

My husband caught part of this movie on our Dish Network DVR, but was unable to find another airing of it to re-record the whole movie.  Neither was it available On Demond from Dish Network.  I did find it, however, available via Netflix streaming.  We streamed it on a lazy Sunday evening.  We’d spent much of the day being lazy thanks to a gentle fall rain which ended in a spectacular sunset:

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I didn’t realize until after finishing the movie that this was a remake of Jet Li’s classic Shaolin Temple (1982), which I have not seen (or don’t remember watching) but will remedy that lack in the near future.

While I enjoyed the story and the martial arts in Shaolin, what struck me most was the performance by Andy Lau.  I’ve now added at least four more of his recent and highest rated films to my Netflix queue.  Many of the supporting actors turned in good performances as well.

Many of the themes resonate with my Christian upbringing and lead me to further research and reading into Buddhism.  I need to foster tolerance and understanding, embrace our similarities and understand our differences.  Knowledge is power and tempered with love and compassion, can make the world a better place.

Thoughts on the Eye in the Sky

I watched Eye in the Sky several weeks ago and made sure my dad also watched it.  We (my ad and I) had to wait to discuss the movie with my uncle, a retired Air Force Colonel, until had a chance to watch the movie.  If you have not watched this movie, I highly recommend it.

My questions to him included the micromanagement of the civilian government(s) during the operation; the incredible moral dilemma placed upon the drone pilot; the portrayal of the American government as being the ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ sort; and of course the excellent closing remarks made by the now deceased Alan Rickman to his civilian government overseer.

“Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.”

Movie Review: Eye in the Sky, directed by Gavin Hood Four Stars “Never tell a soldier that he does not know the cost of war.” Alan Rickman’s last movie investigates waging war in the twenty-first century. The movie centers on the complexity and mortal dilemmas surrounding using drones as remote killing weapons. Helen Mirren stars, […]

via Movie Review: Eye in the Sky, directed by Gavin Hood (Four Stars) — As a Matter of Fancy

Reading the 1941 Retro Hugo Best Novel Nominees – Kallocain by Karin Boye

I finished Kallocain early this morning.  Finished is too final a word.  I doubt this book will ever fully leave me.  I should give this book four or five stars, but it’s hard to ‘lie’ to myself (as the narrator so aptly does until nearly the end) that I liked or loved this book.  It’s dystopian ficion – not an overly likeable or loveable subgenre of science fiction. Even so, decades later, we as a society still devour and crave stories that allow us to peer through a mirror darkly at what might grow if we nurture security at the expense of liberty.

Often compared to Huxley’s Brave New World (published eight yours before Kallocain) and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (published eight yours after), and having read both of those famous classics, I put forth that Boye’s Kallocain is more insidious, more disturbing than either.  Leo Kall invents a drug which facilitates the policing of thoughts, the ‘holy grail’ of any totalitarian police state.  The tragedy is Kall’s complete almost innocent faith in his Worldstate while his closest fellow-soldiers (wife, supervisor, test subjects and high ranking officials) exhibit humanity (laudible traits and those less laudible ones that bear fruit in totalitarian regins) and individuality.  Kall wishes to eradicate these treasonous thoughts in others and so aids less scrupulous officials in legislating and condemning them.  Once he achieves a modicum of his own power and acts upon his fears, Kall beings to regret, doubt takes root, innocence toward the benevolence of the Worldstate crumbles and his conscience awakes.

Continue reading “Reading the 1941 Retro Hugo Best Novel Nominees – Kallocain by Karin Boye”

Best Novel Nominees Reading Update

Yesterday I finished the fourth Best Novel (2016 Hugo Awards) nominee out of five.  Butcher’s Aeronaut’s Windlass surprised me.  I’ve previously read selections from his Dresden Files and from the Codex Alera series, but this novel, the first in his new Cinder Spires steampunk series, really impressed me.  I simultaneously listened to the audiobook and read the ebook (more the latter towards the end because I read much faster than the audiobook progresses, although I don’t do voice characterizations nearly as well as voice actors do).  I gave it a solid four stars out of five, but when compared to the other nominees, I’m afraid it will fall mid-pack behind Lemke’s Ancillary Mercy and Jemisin’s The Fifth Season.  And I’m having trouble classifying this as fantasy or science fiction, although it does fit well within the subgenre of steampunk.  Both scientific and fantastical elements abound.

That leaves me just one more novel to read to complete the Best Novel nominees for 2016 – Stephenson’s Seveneves.  But before I bury myself in hard SF, I turned my eyes to the Retro Hugo Awards (for 1941) and started reading Slan by A.E. van Vogt.

I found a copy of this book via my local library’s access the regional library system in Northeast Kansas.  Nearby Atchison kept an edition published as part of the Garland Library of Science Fiction (1975) described as a “collection of 45 works of science fiction selected by Lester del Rey.”  I started the book early afternoon on Sunday the 3rd and would have finished it by ten o’clock if I hadn’t kept nodding off – not because I wasn’t interested, but just because I was up past more normal bed time.  I picked the novel back up this morning with less than fifty pages to go to the end.

Slan kept my interest despite dated technology and the lack of technological development aside from the usual 1940s fascination with atomic power.  The only interesting tech bit was anti-gravity, which was more of a plot device than an actual technological achievement.  Colonization of Mars assumes water and a breathable atmosphere, both of which seem laughable to us today.  The psi powers of the slan are pivotal to the plot, but not in the way you would imagine.  I found Slan to be an enjoyable, fast read with a bit of adventure (typical for the time period and the rampant serialization in SF magazines).  I gave Slan a solid three stars out of five.

Next up for the Retro Hugo Best Novel nominees will be T.H. White’s The Ill-Made Knight, which I found in audiobook format via Hoopla.  I’ve previously read Doc Smith’s Gray Lensman, so there’s no need to re-read that one.  The other nominees are on request via InterLibrary Loan and I hope will arrive soon to give me time to complete them before voting closes at the end of July.

 

Movie Review: Risen (2016) 3.5 Stars

Risen

Released: 02/19/2016

Watched BluRay: 06/23/2016

Directed by: Kevin Reynolds
Story by Paul Aiello

My Rating:  3.5 out of 5 stars

Brief Plot Synopsis (via IMdb): In 33 AD, a Roman Tribune in Judea is tasked to find the missing body of an executed Jew rumored to have risen from the dead.

My Thoughts

I normally detest police procedurals (there are way too many of those in a myriad of permutations in prime-time television), but this one intrigued me.  Excellent sets, costumes, locations and above average acting gave me hope that this faith-based film would overcome it’s predecessors shortcomings.  And for the most part, I was not disappointed.  I had minor historical quibbles which I confirmed at IMdb’s Goofs page ( I caught them all without checking the internet).

Continue reading “Movie Review: Risen (2016) 3.5 Stars”

Best Novel Hugo Nominees: Two Down, Two To Go

This week, I finished two (2) of the five (5) nominees for this year’s Best Novel Hugo Award.  I started a third one immediately, which leaves me just one left after that.

I enjoyed reading Uprooted by Naomi Novik until I surpassed the halfway point.  From then on, it became a chore and a struggle to continue listening to what seemed like the never-ending tale of corruption in the forest and the protagonist’s slow discovery of her power and identity.

Only a couple of the characters appealed to me and most of them just frustrated me with their actions.  This can probably be attributed to its intended audience (young adult).

If it had not been nominated, I might have just given up shortly after reaching the point in the story where the focus moves from the hinterlands to the capital, and all the political intrigue that comes with that relocation.

I would give this book 3 or 3.5 stars and it will land in the middle or lower standings in my voting for Best Novel.

On the other hand, I couldn’t put down The Fifth Season by N.K. Jimisin.  Well written, some of it using second person point-of-view.  Compelling characters and a plot that moves fast on multiple timelines and fronts.  Interesting new magic (or science, not sure which yet) and a lot of social commentary (but that’s to be expected from this author).

As an author, I’m very impressed with how Jemisin has honed her craft since I first read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.  In fact, I’m probably going to read her duology as soon as I finish reading the other Best Novel Hugo award nominees.

I gave The Fifth Season 4 to 4.5 stars and it may get top honors when I make my final vote for Best Novel later this month.

As soon as I finished Fifth Season, I started listening to The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher.  That audiobook is close to 24 hours long and I’ve managed to squeeze in over three hours of reading in the last couple of days.  If the heat wave breaks soon, I’ll be able to get a few more hours of listening in when I go back to walking the dogs.

I’m not going to start reading Seveneves yet.  I’m going to give myself a break and work through some of the short fiction selections in the other categories.  Some of those stories can be finished over a lunch hour.

Movie Review: Before We Go (2015) 4 Stars

Before We Go

Release (U.S.) September 2015

Watched (via Netflix streaming) April 2016

Rating: 3.5-4 stars

After a sunset walk along Angel Falls Trail with Terry, Lexy and Porthos, we whipped up some baked hot wings and sat down to find a movie to watch.  First stop Starz On Demand.  We looked at every movie offered and discounting the ones we had already seen, found not a single movie worth watching.  I asked Terry, “We’re paying how much per month for Starz?” Yeah, they got cancelled this morning, despite Dish trying to entice me with a $5/month for 6 months ‘deal.’  I switched to HBO for a special price this morning to see if we’ll get any better movies with the oldest and biggest premium channel in the business.

Next we both checked our Netflix streaming queues.  I also checked movies I’d bought on sale at Google Play and suggested we re-watch the re-make of True Grit.  We held that in reserve until we could find something we hadn’t seen.  Terry found some strange high school comedy/drama from the mid-80s called Lucas that we attempted to watch for 15 minutes but gave up.  I lived through the 80s once.  Once was enough.  I also checked Hoopla (streaming video from local libraries) and my PBS app but came up with nothing promising.  I went back to Netflix and reviewed the drama recommendations.  I don’t normally do dramas because they can be a downer and I really didn’t want to start my weekend off on a sad note.  But the reviews on Netflix for Before We Go were higher than the normal so I decided to take a chance once we ditched Lucas.

I’m glad I did NOT read any of the ‘critics’ reviews of this film as I quite enjoyed it.  Charming and sweet and not bad for the directorial debut of Chris Evans.  A very different view of New York from the eyes of two strangers not on a train.  I liked it because it was different and hopeful.

 

Book Review: American Tumbleweeds by Elva (4 stars)

Excellent book review posted on my uncle’s blog:

Book Review: American Tumbleweeds by Marta Elva Four Stars “Tragedy of condemning children to the consequences of their parents’ deeds.” Compelling and heart breaking. An already-fragile family rips apart in the border-straddling communities of El Paso and Cuidad Juarez, isolating its youngest member at a vulnerable time of her life. Inez’s sad tale of paradise […]

via Book Review: American Tumbleweeds by Marta Elva (Four Stars) — As a Matter of Fancy