Month: September 2018

Movie Reviews 3.5/5: Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies

Julie Gilbert comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Movie Reviews , ,
General promo pic for the movie. Nope, I don’t own it.

3.5/5 Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies –  you guessed it, spoilers are possible.

Summary:

Neither masterful, nor terrible. This is a quirky, shallow, comic, horror movie. The original Pride and Prejudice isn’t my favorite book, but it was probably one of the best books they made me read in high school.

Additional Comments:

  • Getting ready for ball intriguing; nice weapons.
  • Featherstone’s demise … ha. That’s pretty much going to be a thing.
  • The fights always went to slow motion… kind of a cheap trick.
  • Darcy babbles about Lizzy after the fight. Jane takes down a zombie on the way to tea with the Bingleys.
  • Lizzy catches the flies that would tell if her sister was bitten or not. Ha.

Other Observations:

– Wickham is still a jerk.

– Turning down Collins was still epic.

– Wickham’s zombie friendly philosophy is odd.

– Lady Catherine as a great zombie hunter. Also, same actress as Cersi Lannister… that’s awesome.

– Darcy’s confession of love is beautifully awkward. I don’t remember it being quite so awkward in the original tale. Their conversation is more interesting as a fist fight though.

– The woven tale of Wickham is nicely done.

– Rekindled love over a zombie graveyard. Cliche but fitting.

Random:

  • Logistically, the sound goes crazy high whenever there’s any kind of special effects or fighting. While I’m sure that’s awesome in a movie theater, it’s really jarring at home. One needed to keep the volume pretty high to understand the dialogue.
  • It’d probably be pretty slow and boring without the random acts of violence that crop up against zombies here.

Conclusion:

Worth watching, but the audiobook is way better.

Associate links to follow…

(If you click through and buy something, there’s the chance I’ll earn like $0.04 … not kidding, that’s basically it.)

Amazon Prime

 

Audible – If you’d like some free codes, please email me at [email protected] with requests for any of my works.

Try Awakening.


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Movie Reviews 4/5: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Julie Gilbert Action Adventure, Fantasy, Movie Reviews , , , , ,

 

Summary:

The entire movie is pretty much an excuse to re-explore the Harry Potter world in movie form.

Additional Comments:

– The mole/ platypus thing likes shiny stuff. Nice. He’s kind of cute.

– Case switch super predictable.

– American magic community sounds out of sorts. Interesting to get that glimpse of the difference. Americans would be ornery.

– Choice to keep the guy as a witness doesn’t make much sense. I get why they needed him for the sake of having an excuse to explain everything, but the plot threads to include him are super thin.

– I like the lady’s sister, Queenie Goldstein. She definitely needs to get out more. Cooking with magic is awesome. She looks like Keira Knightly.

– Leaflet crew is creepy, not sure if that’s on purpose or not.

– Colin Firth’s character is creepy. He’s probably supposed to be.

– I love Frank.

– Newt – I annoy people. Ha. Eddie Redmayne isn’t my favorite actor, but this might be my favorite movie of his.

– The rhino thing mating imitation is amusing.

– The names are a tad hard to follow. Creepy kid is Credence. Tina is the disgraced aura.

Conclusion:

Not going to become one of my favorite movies ever, but it was worth seeing once. I will certainly go to see the sequel in theaters when it releases.

Associate links to follow…

(If you click through and buy something, there’s the chance I’ll earn like $0.04 … not kidding, that’s basically it.)

Amazon Prime

 

Audible – If you’d like some free codes, please email me at [email protected] with requests for any of my works.

Try Spirit’s Bane.


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4.5/5 Crazy Rich Asians *will attempt to keep spoilers out

Julie Gilbert comedy, drama, Movie Reviews , , ,


Surprisingly good drama/comedy.

Summary:

Rachel Chu is dating Nick Young. He gets invited to be best man for a good friend who’s wedding is in Singapore. It’s not until they’re on the plane that Rachel gets vibes that Nick’s family might have more money than he lets on. And it’s not until she gets to her friend’s mansion that while there that she gets a clue just how crazy rich Nick’s family is. That kind of wealth comes with a heck of a lot of strings attached.

Additional Comments:

– Funniest character award(s): It’s a tie between Rachel’s friend, Piglet?? (not sure about real name) and Nick’s cousin Oliver. I was told by a friend that I (and another friend) kind of channel Rachel’s friend. My response: Thanks, I think (followed by about a billion question marks).
– If you enjoy the kind of outrageous wealth present in something like the Choices game Royal Romance series, then you’ll enjoy this movie. Saying that the parties are extravagant affairs is a big, fat understatement. The bachelor party starts out on a giant boat in international waters. A ship painted specifically for the party. They had to take 3 helicopters to get there. The bachelorette party takes place on a private island. Basically, makes a fine case for old money real estate ventures.
– Without going into gory details, Rachel’s introduction to Nick’s family seems okay on the surface but she’s definitely not of their world and various parties make that abundantly clear.
– Rachel’s left to make a really tough decision. So is Nick for that matter.

– high points: Nice mix of drama and hilarity. Well-acted all around. Sets were drop-dead gorgeous.

Conclusion:

Well worth watching. More fun with friends. Might even be worth seeing a few times.

Conclusion:

Episode 7 has quite the parlay. Short season. Dany’s entrance is stylish . Truce? Intriguing. End awesome. Finally!!!! Cersi is well, herself. Jaime at least has honor. The whole winter is here thing finally makes sense.

Associate links to follow…

(If you click through and buy something, there’s the chance I’ll earn like $0.04 … not kidding, that’s basically it.)

Amazon Prime

 

Audible – If you’d like some free codes, please email me at [email protected] with requests for any of my works.

Try The Golden City Captives. Narrated by Reuben Corbett.


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3.5/5 BlackkKlansman By Turns Humorous, Powerful, then Disappointing

Julie Gilbert comedy, drama, historical, Movie Reviews , , , ,
General movie poster. I don’t own the image.

*Spoilers ahead

Summary:

Seemingly on a whim, Ron Stallworth, a black cop in Colorado Springs, answers an ad for the KKK. Surprisingly, he gets through and the conversation goes well enough that they want to meet. He ends up having many conversations with the KKK and running a long investigation into them and their activities. He’s helped by Flip Zimmerman (played by Adam Driver), a white cop who agrees to do the face-to-face meetings with the KKK for obvious reasons.

Additional Comments:

– It’s based on a true story. Sometimes, I wonder how loosely things are based on true stories, but this one seems like they wouldn’t deviate too far.

– Music choices were pretty good.

– There’s a good bit of humor.

– Content warnings: very, very strong language.

– Beginning = odd:  The very beginning they opened with a bizarre clip from an old movie that portrayed black union soldiers terrorizing southern plantation types. You pretty much forget that as they worked very hard to suck you into the 1960’s era US.

– Middle = powerful: At one point, they bounced back and forth between a klan meeting and a meeting of the Black Student Union. That was probably their most powerful and awesome sections. This movie has/had great potential for starting needed conversations.

– Ending = disappointing: They had several great spots to end it on a powerful note, but then they went straight to overkill mode. We have a political agenda and we’re going to shove it down your throat now. It ended with several clips from 2017. I think one was a KKK march and one was the Charlottesville tragedy of people getting run over by the crazy dude taking out counter protestors. You know what their agenda is, but it’s just jarring and not in a good way.

(It’s like painting a beautiful picture then spraying it with animal blood to make a point. We get it, but you still just ruined a perfectly good picture for no good reason.)

Conclusion:

It was well acted and worth watching once, but the overkill in strong language and political preaching took away some of the enjoyment.

Associate links to follow…

(If you click through and buy something, there’s the chance I’ll earn like $0.04 … not kidding, that’s basically it.)

Amazon Prime

 

Audible – If you’d like some free codes, please email me at [email protected] with requests for any of my works.

Try The Golden City Captives. Narrated by Reuben Corbett.


OR