Book Review: Consent to Kill: (Mitch Rapp Series Book 8 Chronological Order; Book 6 Publication Order)

 

+++Warning, this contains spoilers from the prior book, but no major spoilers from this book+++

Consent to Kill is set (mostly) six months after the events that occurred in the book Memorial Day in which Mitch helped stop Al-Qaeda terrorists from setting off nuclear bombs in New York and Washington as follow-ups to the 9/11 attacks. This is basically a revenge story in which the father of one of the terrorists that Rapp killed and tortured for information puts a twenty-million dollar bounty on Rapp's head. It is impossible to go into too much detail about what is in the book without giving away major spoilers, but the highlights are that Mitch butts heads (yet again) with another member of President Hayes' cabinet, this time the Director of National Intelligence, Mark Ross, Anna has a much more prominent role in the book than she did in Memorial Day, and the book definitely provides a transition point (at least a potential one) for the overall story and for the character of Mitch Rapp.

Flynn's style remains consistent in this book, including a good blend of action, political backbiting, and intrigue. He keeps the story moving along well, and does keep the readers on the edge of their seats. Without getting too spoilerish, I think it would have been more effective to end the story about 2/3 of the way in, which would basically have ended it at a major spoiler point, and then tell the final 1/3 of the story in a subsequent book, adding in more details. But, like the other novels in the series, the story in the book is self-contained but will definitely influence future novels. 

This is actually the 6th book in the Mitch Rapp series if you read them as they were published. I think the prior book, Memorial Day, is the book in which Flynn really hit his stride working out the various kinks and figuring out what he wanted to do with the story, and this one builds on that book and keeps getting better.  So, if you liked (or loved) the prior books in the series, you will probably like (or love) this one. 

You can tell that Flynn had a pretty big dislike for politics and politicians of both parties, even though he was a conservative. It would have been interesting to see where he would have landed during the 2016 election and the clear divide in the Republican party with the batshit crazy nutcases who lick the balls of the Orange Genital Wart (whom Flynn actually takes a swipe at in this novel), and the "traditional" republicans who finally started to separate themselves from the monster they created and either left the party or are trying to take the party back. From the interviews I heard with Flynn on the radio here in the Twin Cities, I would think he would have landed with the latter group, but he was also pals with people like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (who were and are huge pieces of shit), so it is hard to tell. 

Book Review: Executive Power: (Mitch Rapp Series Book 6 Chronological Order; Book 4 Publication Order)

 

This is a continuation of the spy thriller/political thriller series of novels by the late Vince Flynn set around the character of Mitch Rapp. It is set down the line from the events of the prior novel, Separation of Power, in which Rapp was outed as a CIA asset by President Hayes after the mission in Iraq. Now, Mitch is basically saddled with an office job working for Irene Kennedy at the CIA, but he still manages to get into the thick of things (much to the displeasure of his boss, Irene Kennedy, and his wife, Anna). 

This novel has a couple of different storylines going on. The beginning of the book centers around an operation in the Philippines involving a corrupt general and a family of Americans being held hostage by terrorists. The main storyline in the novel is a plot that involves a Saudi Arabian prince who is working with a Palestinian assassin (who is also working with Ben Friedman, the fictional head of the Mossad, who has been a major character in the prior novels) in a scheme to get the UN to set up a Palestinian state.

In this novel, which is the fourth in the series if you read the books in order of publication, Flynn again blends real life with his fictional world. This was the first novel that was written after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and while Flynn does refer to the attacks, and does a play on names of one of the real 9/11 hijackers in naming one of his fictional terrorists, he does not extensively work the events of 9/11 into the book. Flynn also gives a nod to his Twin Cities roots by naming a character after a local reporter/talk show host. 

Overall, the book is another good action thriller. While I do not think the overall story is as good as the stories in Transfer of Power, The Third Option, and Separation of Power, it has a similar tone to all of those books there were just too many stretches in the book in which Rapp was absent or on the sidelines. That said, it is still worth reading.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: It - Chapter 1

 

This is the updated 2017 live-action adaptation of Stephen King's novel, It, directed by Andy Muschietti. The movie is subtitled Chapter 1, as it is the first of two movies one which will focus on the members of the "Loser's Club" as kids, and the second one which focuses on them as adults (much like what was done in the 1990s miniseries. This, as you would expect, is the movie that tells the story of the heroes as kids. 

The movie stars Jaeden Lieberher as the main protagonist Bill Denbrough, whose brother Georgie is killed by a monster at the beginning of the movie, setting Bill on a quest for revenge, and Bill Skarsgard as It/Pennywise, the ancient evil that terrorizes the town of Derry Maine every 27 years. The rest of the main cast includes Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Nicholas Hamilton. 

There are several differences between the movie and the book, one of the main differences being that the Children's part of the story is set in the late 1980s as opposed to the 1950s. Also, the book jumps back and forth between the story with the group as kids and as adults, which makes it very hard to follow, so the movie is much more streamlined in the storytelling. And, even by splitting the story into two movies, they could not include every element that was included in the book, so there are parts of the story that the movie takes out. The book has a lot of exposition and backstory that is honestly not needed in the movie, so I do not think anything that is left out of the movie is really missed. And, the movie does change the most controversial part of the book from something that could never be filmed to something that could.

For those who get the 4K set, there are two discs, the UHD disc with just the movie itself, and the regular blu-ray which has the movie and the extra. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is fine, but not great. The movie was shot in 2k, so it is upscaled to 4k, and honestly does not look much different than the video quality of the regular blu-ray. The extras include trailers, about 15 minutes of deleted scenes, and three different behind-the-scenes featurettes, one on Pennywise, one on the cast of kids, and then one in which Stephen King is interviewed about this latest adaptation of the book.

Overall, the movie is very good. It is scarier than I remember the mini-series being, but that makes sense given that this is a movie and the mini-series aired on broadcast television. It is still not overly gory, but it does get a bit gory toward the end. Still, it is more of a psychological thriller than a blood-and-guts horror movie. The acting is very good, which given the cast was made up of young, mostly unknown actors (Finn Wolfhard was probably the most well-known of the child actors), is kind of surprising. Bill Skarsgard is great as Pennywise, who is definitely the main attraction. He can switch from innocent, to creepy, to scary at the drop of a hat. Even if you are not a huge fan of the book, this is still worth watching, as it is one of the few times where I have found a movie to be better and more entertaining than the book. It is definitely a must-watch if you like horror movies.

Book Review: The Third Option (Mitch Rapp Series Book 4 Chronological Order; Book 2 Publication Order)

 

The Third Option is the third book written by Vince Flynn, and the second novel to feature the character Mitch Rapp (if you read the novels in the order they were published). If you read the series in chronological order it is the fourth in the Mitch Rapp series.

This novel is set sometime after the events of Transfer of Power, with Mitch wanting to get out of his clandestine work with the CIA and settle down with Anna, the reporter whose life he saved in the first book. He decides that his current mission, to assassinate a German arms dealer who has been selling weapons to Sadaam Hussein will be his last. The mission goes sideways when the people he is working with turn on him, causing Rapp to try and figure out who tried to take him out. 

Most of the events in the book are set in Washington D.C. Most of the major characters from Transfer of Power return in this book, and there are a few new major characters that are introduced. Some of whom will clearly be integral to later novels. Most of the story is wrapped up by the end of the book, but it is clear from reading the book that the story told in this one will play out over at least one additional book.

It is interesting reading Flynn's work while looking through the lens of history. His first books were written in the late 1990s and this one was published in 2000. In the real world Al-Queda was becoming the major terroristic threat, yet in Flynn's novels, Sadaam Hussein was much more of a threat than he was in reality. I am interested to see whether that changes at some point after the events of September 11, 2001. I am reading the books in chronological order so I have only read American Assassin, Kill Shot, Transfer of Power, and now this book. 

Overall, the book is very entertaining, with a nice blend of action and suspense. It does have a bit more political intrigue and behind-the-scenes backbiting and maneuvering than Transfer of Power Had. Even though Flynn was a pretty staunch conservative, he has no problem having bad guys in either party. If you ever listened to him being interviewed, he often sounded exasperated with politicians in general, regardless of party (at least the interviews that he did on local Twin Cities talk radio), and that sentiment does come through in this book. It is definitely a good read, and a must-read if you are into the spy novel genre.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: The Fall: Complete Collection

 

The Fall was a series that ran for three seasons, from 2013 to 2016, starring Gillian Anderson (best known for her role in The X-Files) and Jamie Dornan (probably best known for the Fifty Shades movies). Dornan plays Paul Spector, a bereavement counselor who is married with two young kids, and who is also a serial killer known as the "Belfast Strangler" (which is not a fact that the show tries to hide). Anderson plays police superintendent Stella Gibson who is brought to Belfast to take over the investigation of a murder that has been unsolved for over a month. She figures out that the murder is the work of a serial killer and leads the investigation to take him down. Each of the seasons is short. The first season has just five episodes, and the second and third seasons have six episodes. Season one focuses on establishing the characters and the investigation into the killings. Season two focuses on finding proof of Spector's guilt and taking him down, and season three focuses on the fallout. 

This collection is just a repackaging of the individual season releases. As far as I can tell, the discs are exactly the same as what you would get if you purchased the seasons individually (each season has two discs), and all of the extras carry over. The show looks and sounds great in HD. Of course, there is no CGI or a lot of special effects, but the location shots look great, especially if you have a large screen tv. The extras are fairly sparse, but for each season you get some trailers, and a making-of featurette focused on that season, and the second and third seasons have some deleted scenes. Not a ton of bonus features, but what is included is good.

The series is very good. It is not overly gory like, for example, Dexter. It focuses more on the psychological aspect, especially the cat-and-mouse game between Spector and Gibson. The writing and acting are both great, and the series gets in and out of the story for each season well. So, if you are a fan of crime dramas, this is a very good one to check out.

DVD/TV Series Review: American Gothic: Season 1

 

American Gothic is a TV series that aired on CBS during the summer of 2016. The series starred Virginia Madsen, Antony Starr (from the series Banshee), Justin Chatwin (from Shameless), Juliet Rylance, Megan Ketch, and Elliot Knight. The basic plot is that a body is found in a tunnel collapse in Boston, and the victim shows signs of being killed by a serial killer called "The Silver Bells Killer" (SBK) whose killing streak mysteriously ended fifteen years prior. The concrete for the tunnel was poured by Hawthorne Concrete, run by the affluent Hawthorne family, led by Madeline Hawthorne (Madsen) and Mitch Hawthorne (played by Jamey Sheridan). After the discovery, suspicion surrounds the family whose eldest daughter Allison (played by Rylance) is running for the mayor of Boston, and whose youngest member Tessa (played by Ketch) is married to a police officer who ends up in the middle of the investigation. Starr plays the family's estranged son Garrett, and Chatwin plays Cam, a cartoonist and recovering drug addict who has traded his dysfunctional family for a dysfunctional marriage. The series is a murder mystery that plays out over the course of 13 episodes, with a bunch of misdirection and twists thrown in. Some of the twists are fairly predictable, and others are more of a surprise.

For those who get the DVD set, the extras include deleted and extended scenes, a first look featurette, a portion of the Comic-Com panel, and a gag reel. Not an extensive amount of extras, but more than you get with a lot of DVD sets these days.

The show is kind of hit-and-miss. Some of the twists that get thrown into the story definitely work better than others. The big reveal at the end is a bit dumb, but overall, the acting is very good throughout, especially from Madsen and Starr. It does have some violence and a little bit of sexual content, but nothing over-the-top given that it aired on CBS. Even though it is called season one, the show was canceled after the first season. And honestly, it should have always been pitched as a mini-series/limited event series because I do not think that a second season would have worked for the show. So, if you like crime dramas, I think this is a good one to check out and does not require a lot of time investment. 

4k-UHD/Movie Review: mother!

 

mother! is a very eclectic (to put it mildly) movie that was written and directed by Darren Aronofsky (who also directed films like Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream, and The Fountain), and stars Jennifer Lawrence as mother, who is the wife of and muse for a famous poet named Him (played by Javier Bardem) who has writer's block. It is hard to review the plot of the movie, first, because it is all over the place, and second because it is hard to do so without giving too much away. The best way to describe it is that it is a psychological thriller that is an allegory for biblical destruction with characters that clearly represent Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, etc. If you are not a fan of Aronofsky's movies, especially the more offbeat ones that have almost supernatural elements to them, then you will absolutely not like this movie. The movie kind of takes the craziest kind of stuff from Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream and combines that with the supernatural elements of The Fountain. 

The A/V quality of the UHD disc is outstanding. The movie looks and sounds great in the format, and the visuals really tie into the general weirdness of the movie. The UHD disc just has the movie itself, and then all of the other extras are on a second, regular, blu-ray disc. The extras include a 30-minute making-of featurette and a 7-minute featurette on the visual effects. There are also a handful of trailers that play as the disc loads.

The movie is good overall, but very strange. It is definitely not going to appeal to everyone, even people who generally like psychological thrillers. Lawrence and Bardem are very good in roles that are pretty different from what either of them has done (especially Lawrence). It also has a strong supporting cast including Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Domhnall and Brian Gleeson, and Kristen Wiig. I would not say it is family-friendly because it can be a bit gory and does have some nudity and swearing. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: The Boy Next Door

 

The Boy Next Door is a psychological thriller from 2015 starring Jennifer Lopez as Claire Peterson, a high school teacher separated from her husband after she catches him cheating. At the same time, the nephew of her next-door neighbor, Noah, played by Ryan Guzman, moves in to help his wheelchair-bound uncle. Of course, the two end up flirting and eventually having sex (before the school year starts), and then things go bad, as Claire regrets their night together and tries to break it off. Noah becomes jealous and starts to make Claire's life miserable, which is much easier as he is still in high school even though he is 19 years old (which the movie makes clear), and now goes to the same school Claire teaches at and at which her own teenage son, Kevin, played by Ian Nicholson, attends. The movie definitely has a similar vibe to movies like Fatal Attraction and Unfaithful, but it is not exactly an erotic thriller as there was only one sex scene, and even then nothing much was shown (aside from a butt shot from Lopez). 

For those who get the blu-ray, the A/V quality is very good, with some great cinematographic visuals and a good lossless audio track. There are only a handful of extras which include a commentary track on the movie by the director Rob Cohen, a short (under 10 minutes) making-of featurette, and a few deleted scenes that total around 10 minutes.

The movie is okay, but not great. It is a smaller-budget movie and definitely does not have an original plot. You can pretty much guess how it is going to play out from the beginning, even though all of the actors did a good job in their roles. The movie does have a good supporting cast including Kristen Chenowith, Hill Harper, and John Corbett. I think it is best described as the kind of movie that you can have on in the background and not miss much of anything if you divert your attention from time-to-time. 

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Atomic Blonde

 

Atomic Blonde is a spy thriller starring Charlize Theron and James McAvoy. The movie is set in Berlin, in 1989 on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall, when every spy in the city is at risk of being when an MI6 agent is killed by a KGB agent and a list of every agent operating in the city is stolen. Theron plays Lorraine Broughton, a high-ranking MI6 field agent, and McAvoy plays MI6's Berlin station chief. The plot of the movie is about agents from various spy agencies, including MI6, the CIA, KGB, and the French intelligence service trying to track down the list, but that is mainly filler between the fight scenes. The movie is based on a graphic novel and the violence is definitely very over-the-top as it tends to be in many of the film adaptations of graphic novels.  There is also some sexual content, including a sex scene between Theron and Sofia Boutella. 

For those who get the 4k set, as usual, you get a UHD disc and a regular blu-ray disc. The A/V quality of the 4k disc is very good, although neither is what real A/V wonks would call reference quality. The only extra on the UHD disc is a commentary track on the movie by the director and the editor. The rest of the bonus content is on the regular blu-ray, and those include deleted and extended scenes totaling about seven minutes, a handful of making-of featurettes that total about twenty-two minutes with the shortest being about four minutes and the longest being just under eight minutes. Then there is a short storyboard sequence for a couple of the action scenes.

The movie is a good action spy thriller. Theron has proven she has the chops for action movies multiple times over the course of her career, but the fact that she can pull off an action lead in her 40s and do as well as she did in her early 30s is impressive. The movie is definitely not appropriate for young kids as it has a lot of violence, swearing, and sexual content. But otherwise, if you are in the mood for a good action movie that you do not have to pay constant attention to in order to follow what is going on, this is a good one.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Personal Shopper

 

Personal Shopper is a smaller-budget independent film from 2016 starring Kristen Stewart, whose best movies seem to be the smaller movies that she does between the large Hollywood blockbusters. In this one, she stars as Maureen, an American living in Paris who works as a personal shopper for a French supermodel. Maureen is also a medium who is waiting for a message from the afterlife from her deceased twin brother. She also has the same genetic heart condition that killed her brother and gets sicker over the course of the movie. The movie is in part a supernatural psychological thriller and in part a crime story. The two storylines interweave with each other throughout the course of the movie and work better at different points than others. And, the movie features one of the few topless scenes that Stewart has done in her career. 

The A/V quality of the blu-ray is very good. The movie is not laden with special effects, but the location shots around Europe look very good, especially if you are watching on a large screen. The extras include the movie trailer, an almost 20-minute interview with the director, Oliver Assayas, and a 46-minute question and answer session from the Cannes Film Festival. 

Overall, the movie is good, but not great. Stewart definitely plays a different type of character than she has played in her more well-known roles in big-budget movies. Given that she seems to play more understated characters better than she does more charismatic characters, this role definitely suits her. I would not classify it as a must-watch, but if you are a fan of Stewart or indie movies in general, it is a good one to check out. 

DVD/TV Series Review: Hunted

 

Hunted is a 2012 series starring Australian Actress Melissa George, who is probably best known (at least in the US) for her role in the series Alias from 2003-2004. The series is short, with just eight episodes on two discs. 

In the series, George plays Samantha (Sam) Hunter, who is a spy for a private espionage firm named Byzantium. While on a mission in Tangiers she is attacked and shot. Believing that she was set up by someone in Byzantium, she goes off the radar for a year she returns to the agency determined to figure out who set her up. She is also tasked with a new mission to go undercover as the nanny/tutor of the son of a former high-level criminal who is bidding on a Dam in Pakistan. 

For those who get the DVD set, it is just a MOD set with the episodes only. There are no extras or bonus material. The show has a good mix of action and suspense, with some twists and turns along the way. Because it got canceled pretty early into its run, not everything gets wrapped up in a nice bow by the end. Although, it does not end on a major cliffhanger either. There is brief nudity in the first episode, but after that, there is not a ton of sexual content (especially for a series that ran on Cinemax). George does a good job as the series lead and the show has a good supporting cast including Adam Raymer and Stephen Dillane. 

The series is good but was really never given a chance to find its footing. So the fact that it ends with a lot of open and unresolved questions may prevent some people from really enjoying it. There were rumors in the years after the show was canceled about a season two or a movie to at the very least bring back the character of Sam, but those never came to fruition. So just be aware, if you watch this, that the series just kind of ends without much of a payoff. 

DVD/TV Series Review: Bones: Season 2

 

+++Warning, this contains minor spoilers from season 1, but no major season two giveaways +++

The second season of Bones mostly follows the story/case-of-the-week procedural format that season one did with Booth (David Boreanaz) and Brennan (Emily Deschanel) solving some murder but also introduces a new storyline that would span multiple seasons and expanded on a couple of season one storylines. The show would also introduce a new character, Dr. Camille Saroyan, played by Tamara Taylor, who takes over as the new head of the forensic division with the departure of Jonathan Adams and his character, Dr. Goodman.

From the first season, the character of serial killer Howard Epps returns for two more episodes in season two to terrorize the team and the storyline of Brennan's parents is furthered with Ryan O'Neal joining as the recurring Max Brennan, Temperance's fugitive father. This season also establishes a new serial killer known as Gravedigger in an episode in which the team has to find two kids who have been buried alive. The season also explores the various character relationships and still develops the main characters. Thankfully, they dropped Brennan's habit from the first season of saying she does not understand some cultural reference (seemingly) every ten seconds. She still does it (or remarks that she understands a particular reference) but not nearly as much. We also get a bit more of the backgrounds of the ancillary characters, which includes a great cameo by Billy Gibbon of the band ZZ Top playing Angela's father, and the great British actor Stephen Fry playing Booth's psychiatrist.

For those who get the DVD set, there are a decent amount of extras spread across the six discs. Those include deleted scenes, a gag reel, a couple of making-of featurettes, and commentary tracks on two episodes. So, if you are one who likes watching the bonus content, what is included is good. And, thankfully, they did away with the double-sided DVDs of season 1.

To me, the show really finds its footing in the second season. While most of the characters continue as they were presented in season one, I think the tweaks to the character of Brennan, making her a little less robotic than she was in the first season worked out well. She is still quirky, but she is given more range as a character than just the ultra-logical character she was in the first season, and Emily Deschanel does a great job playing her. Boreanaz also does a great job showing the acting range he was rarely able to show playing Angel. The supporting cast members are all great, with T.J. Thyne and Michaela Conlin stealing nearly every scene they are in, as does Stephen Fry when he makes his appearances as Gordon Wyatt. Tamara Taylor also brings a bit more balance to the team of "squints" with Camille being a more normal, nonquirky character. Thyne and Eric Millegan also have really good chemistry and even though their characters are total opposites, you can buy that they are actually buddies and would totally pull some of the stunts that the characters do in the show. So, if you liked season one you will probably like season two. If you were on the fence about the show after the first season, I would advise giving season two a chance as the rough edges from season one have been smoothed out this season.

 

DVD/Movie Review: The Hot Spot

 

The Hot Spot is a 1990 crime-drama combined with an erotic thriller directed by Dennis Hopper and starring Don Johnson, a young Virginia Madsen, and a very young Jennifer Connelly. Johnson plays Harry Maddox, a drifter who takes a job as a car salesman in a small town in Texas. When he learns that everyone who works at the town bank is a volunteer firefighter, he sets a fire to get everyone out of the bank so he can rob it. He is then blackmailed by the wife of the car dealership's owner (Madsen) with whom he is having an affair, despite falling for the secretary at the dealership, Gloria (Connelly) who is herself being blackmailed by a character played by William Sadler.

There are several editions of the movie out there, both on DVD and blu-ray. I have the DVD that is a French import, and the only extra on that version is a trailer for the movie. Some versions have cast interviews and a commentary track, so it will vary. One thing that you get from the import version versus the versions widely available in the US is that the sex scenes are less edited in the import version. They are not explicit, of course, but they tend to be longer and have less edited out. 

Overall, I would say that the movie is good, but not great. It is definitely a bit outdated now, and probably would not be made the same way today as it was then. There is a lot of sex and nudity, and pretty much everyone in the movie chain smokes throughout. So, it is not exactly family-friendly. It also happens to be the first (and only) movie in which Connelly has done a topless scene (and they are spectacular), but Madsen was topless much more in the movie than Connelly. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Rings (2017)

 

Rings is a very loose sequel to, but mostly a reboot of The Ring and The Ring 2, which starred Naomi Watts. This one again involves the video of Samara that causes people who watch it to die in seven days. Of course, this movie is set in the present day, so the video has evolved beyond the VHS copy and is now digital, which presents its own set of complications. The crux of the story is that the hero, Julia, played by Matilda Lutz ends up watching her boyfriends' copy of the video (the only way to keep him from dying in 12 hours) and discovers that the way to break the curse is to find and cremate, Samara's physical remains.

The movie is a decent b-level horror movie that looks like a big-budget movie. I think that one thing the movie really missed was the lack of star power in the lead roles. Even though Johnny Galecki (from The Big Bang Theory) and Vincent D'Onofrio have roles in the movie, they are not leads, and while Naomi Watts is not a megastar, she was more well-known when she helmed the franchise than Lutz is. Secondly, I do not think that the movie was nearly as suspenseful or scary as the original movies. I think that has a lot to do with knowing how the movie was going to progress and just trying to figure out how they were going to pay it off. That said, the movie does have its share of jump-scare moments, and the ending was not the typical horror movie ending. It does have the benefit of being a more psychological horror movie as opposed to a gory one. So, if you do not like movies with a lot of blood, this may appeal to you. 

For those who get the blu-ray, the A/V quality is great. Even though the movie was shot with a digital camera it very much has the look of a movie shot on film. For extras, there are about 20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes, a 12-minute featurette on the film series starting with the original movie and how this one ties into that movie, a feature on bringing back the character of Samara, and a collection of the "scary" moments from the movie. Not a ton of material, but it is there if you like it.

The movie is okay but not much more than that. The plot is similar to those of the first two movies but updated for the digital era. Unfortunately, that is not enough to bring the quality of this movie up to that of the original films. It is ultimately a movie that did not have to be made, but if you are in the mood for a suspense/horror movie, it can be used to kill an hour and a half.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Get Out

 

Get Out is a 2017 suspense-thriller with a little bit of horror movie mixed in that was written and directed by Jordan Peele (in his directorial debut). It stars Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington, a photographer from New York who is in an interracial relationship with Allison William's character, Rose Armitage. Rose convinces Chris to travel to upstate NY to meet her parents, played by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Kenner. While surrounded by many wealthy white people, Chris notices the strange behavior of the handful of black people in town, which becomes more and more bizarre. Chris suspects something strange is going on and enlists the help of his best friend, Rod, played by Lil Rel Howery, to figure out the possible conspiracy.

The A/V quality of the blu-ray is very good. Although there is not a ton of CGI in the movie, what is there looks seamless with the practical sets, and the cinematography looks wonderful. The bonus features include a very good commentary track on the movie by Peele, who offers a lot of insight into the process of making the movie. Then there are 23 minutes of deleted and extended scenes, an alternate ending, a nine-minute making-of featurette, and a four-minute Q&A session with Peele. 

Overall, the movie is very good and very original. It definitely borrows from some horror movie themes, but it is not derivative of anything else that has been made lately. Basically, it is a horror movie in which racism and oppression are the monster. Of course, there will be some nut-jobs out there (basically the MAGATs of the world and their snowflake ilk) that will claim the movie is saying that all white people are bad, which is not at all the case, and some will automatically hate it because of the thought of a white woman dating a black man. The movie is basically a metaphor for the very real history of race relations throughout the course of history, and for the passive-aggressive racism that exists to this day. It is well-written and very well-acted and is definitely worth checking out.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Firestarter

 

Firestarter was the other movie made in 1984 starring a young Drew Barrymore (Irreconcilable Differences, being the other one) who was two-years removed from her breakout role in E.T. and just being her third movie as a child star. This movie was adapted from one of Stephen King's novels. While King is known for the Horror genre, I would classify this movie more as a thriller than a horror movie. The basic plot involves a young girl named Charlie (played by Barrymore) whose parents participated in what they thought was a drug trial when they were in college. The drug they were given gave Charlie's mother, Vicky (played by Heather Locklear) the ability to read minds, and her father, Andy (played by David Keith) the ability to control people's actions. And Charlie developed the ability to start fires with her mind. They are pursued by a shadowy government agency called the Department of Scientific Intelligence (or "The Shop"), led by Martin Sheen's character Captain Hollister. The department wants to capture Charlie so that they can study and weaponize her power. The other central character in the movie is John Rainbird, played by George C. Scott, who is a member of The Shop that pretends to befriend Charlie and encourages her to use her powers. 

For those who get the blu-ray, the A/V quality is okay, but it is not an extremely high-quality transfer. Given the age of the movie, I think that the transfer looks good and it is probably better that the look of the movie was not messed with too much. For extras, there is a commentary track on the movie by the director, Mark Lester, a 52-minute making-of documentary that includes new interviews with some of the minor cast members and members of the crew, along with some archival footage. Then there is a 17-minute featurette on the music of the movie, and a stills gallery. It would have been nice if they could have got Barrymore and Sheen to participate in the new interviews or be included on the commentary track (George C. Scott had already passed away by the time the new material was shot), but the material is still good if you like watching the extras.

Overall, the movie is good, but I don't think it is the best movie adaptation of King's work. Barrymore definitely carries the movie, which is something given that she was just 8 or 9 when it was filmed. Certainly, in the action scenes, she just has to stare intensely and cry, but in the scenes that required her to act, she does a really good job and had great chemistry with George C. Scott. They did make a curious choice of having Scott portray a Native American character as opposed to rewriting the part, but that is really just a minor point. So, while it is not as good as movies like The Shining, Christine, or It that were adapted from King's novels, it is still worth watching and holds up well even after almost 40 years.

DVD/Movie Review: The Breed

 

The Breed is 2006 a B-movie starring Michelle Rodriguez (from the Fast and Furious movie franchise), Taryn Manning (from Orange is the New Black), Hill Harper (from shows like Limitless and The Good Doctor), Oliver Husdon (Kate's brother, and Goldie Hawn's less famous child), and Eric Lively. It is a movie that is best described as a knockoff of Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds, but it is nowhere near as good as that. The basic plot is that a group of friends plan to vacation on a deserted island owned by the family of brothers Matt (Lively) and John (Hudson). Of course, the island is not totally deserted as the group encounters a pack of wild dogs that starts attacking them, and in the process discover a larger plot.

For those who get the DVD, the only extras are a making-of-documentary that runs about 25 minutes and some trailers for other movies. The documentary is okay, but nothing special. 

Overall, the movie is good but not great. It does have some jump-scare moments, but I would not quite call it a horror classic, despite the fact that it was produced by Wes Craven, who directed classics in the horror genre like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream. The plot twist is a little silly and needed. It is definitely not as good as The Birds or Jaws (two movies that obviously heavily influenced the plot), but as a low-budget indie horror/thriller, it is worth a look, but is probably not a movie that most people would give a lot of repeat viewings.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Constantine: The Complete Series

 

Constantine was a supernatural thriller series that aired on NBC in the 2014-2015 season. It starred Matt Ryan as John Constantine, a demon hunter, and master of dark arts who exorcises demons from humans and sends the demons to hell. He is joined by Angélica Celaya who plays Mary "Zed" Martin: A psychic who helps Constantine find demons and Charles Halford as Francis "Chas" Chandler: Constantine's oldest friend and sidekick. Harold Perrineau (from the series Lost) also stars as Manny, an Angel assigned to watch over Constantine.

The series is basically a case-of-the-week procedural, with the team having to find and then get rid of a particular demon. There is also a serial arc that is tied to Constantine's past that we get a few hints about, but the series was canceled before it could be fleshed out. Of course, most fans of the show know that the character was brought into the Arrowverse when the character appeared on the series Arrow and then became a regular on Legends of Tomorrow. I think the series would have been a lot better off being on The CW as it could have crossed over with the other Arrowverse shows from the get-go, but it was probably too close to the series Supernatural which was, at that time, The CW's longest running show. But, the series was just too dark to get enough of a fan base on a regular broadcast network and was never going to get the kind of ratings it needed to be renewed.

For those who get the blu-ray set, the series looks and sounds great in HD. The one benefit of being on a major network is that it got a huge budget so the special effects looked movie quality. As far as extras go, there are a couple of very short behind-the-scenes featurettes, a trailer for the series, and two Comic-Con features. One is a portion of the Constantine panel (that runs about 11 minutes) and the other is the DC Comics Night at Comic-Con 2014 Presenting Gotham, The Flash, Constantine, and Arrow, which runs just under a half hour.

Overall, the series is good, but was probably doomed from the start. The showrunners made the curious choice to abandon a major character from the pilot who was clearly going to be a series regular and basically swapped her out with the character of Zed. As I said above, it was probably too dark a show to get traction on any of the major networks as it was only going to appeal to comic book fans and they alone cannot generate the kind of ratings needed to keep a series on a major broadcast network. And, given the themes of demons and the occult that occurred in every episode, there was no chance that casual viewers were going to stick with the show. So, if you watch the show, just know that the series has a pretty unsatisfying end and while the character of Constantine lived on in the Arrowverse, the plot lines (and other characters) from the series did not.

Book Review: American Assassin (Mitch Rapp Series Book 1 Chronological Order; Book 11 Publication Order)

 

This book is the origin story of the character of Mitch Rapp, created by Novelist Vince Flynn. For those who are familiar with Flynn's work, he started writing a series of novels, starting with the novel Transfer of Power, which was set around a spy (Rapp) in the prime of his career who took down terrorists much like the character Jack-Bauer did in the series 24. In fact, Flynn consulted on the series 24 in later seasons of the show. As he published more Mitch Rapp stories, fans clamored for an origin story for the character, and American Assassin was created. So, if you read the books in chronological order, this is Book 1. If you read them in release/publication order, this is Book 11.

The basic storyline is that Rapp's girlfriend was killed in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie Scottland. He is subsequently recruited into the CIA by Irene Kennedy, and trained (reluctantly), by an aging CIA Agent Stan Hurley. Rapp's skills are beyond his years and beyond his lack of conventional training. The last third of the book involves a mission to save Hurley from kidnappers and at the end, Rapp decides to go on a revenge mission to find the members of the terror cell behind the bombing of Pan Am 103.

I had never read any of Vince Flynn's novels before (I had heard him interviewed on our local sports talk station many times before his death, and intended to start reading the books, but never got around to it until now), so I decided to go in chronological order to see the development of the character from the start. As is usually the case, the book is much better than the movie (which changes the storyline from the book significantly). It is well-written and the story flows very well. It does jump back and forth in the timeline of events a little, but not so much that it makes following the story hard. In fact, the book is a pretty easy read, even being about 430 pages long, and can be read in a day or two depending on how fast you read and how much time you have to read. The chapters are fairly short so there are a lot of natural stopping points, which is definitely helpful for longer novels. So, if you are a fan of spy novels, this is a very good one to check out.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: 11.22.63

 

11/22/1963 is a miniseries that aired on Hulu and was an adaptation of Stephen King's novel by the same name. The premise is that an English teacher living in Maine (of course) in 2016 named Jake Epping, played by James Franco, learns from a dying friend, named Al Templeton, played by Chris Cooper, of a portal that will take him back in time. Specifically, the portal can take him back to October 21, 1960, and Templeton tells Jake that he has been trying to prevent the assassination of JFK. He tells Jake that the past does not like to be interfered with and will try to prevent him from doing anything to change the past. The bigger the event you try to interfere with the harder the past pushes back. Jake takes up the mantle and goes back to the past to surveil Lee Harvey Oswald and try to stop the assassination.

For those who have read the book, you know that it is very long, and therefore, even in an eight-episode mini-series, it had to be pared down a lot. So, there are definitely changes from the book, some big, some smaller. For example, in the book, the portal takes people back to 1958 and Jake comes back through the portal to 2016 once before going back to 1958 again, and the storyline involving the young Harry Dunning is a lot more extended in the book.

For those who get the blu-ray, the series looks and sounds great. The scenes shot in the 1960s have a very distinctive look to them, both by copying the 1960s style, but the colors of the scenes are different from those set in 2016 which gives the scenes set in the past a distinctive feel. The only extra is a 15-minute making-of documentary titled "When the Future Fights Back".

Overall, the series is good, but as is usually the case with movie or tv adaptations of novels, is not as good as the book. Franco does a good job playing Epping and the supporting cast was very good. It definitely hit all of the high points from the book and stayed pretty faithful to the book, but I do think that it suffered from skipping some of the fine details that made the book so good. Ultimately, I do think it is worth watching, regardless of whether you want to pay $20 for an eight-episode blu-ray set.