2017 saw a movie that never really got much attention, even though it should have. You Were Never Really Here is about a traumatized veteran, who is not afraid of violence. His job is to track down missing girls. When a job spins out of control, Joe's nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what may be his death or his awakening.
 
Joe, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a man who does what he needs to, providing he is paid. He has a job to do, and it is to track down missing girls who were taken in the name of sex trafficking. Most of the time he may not be successful in getting the girl, but he does exact vengeance when it is asked of him.
 
Joe, throughout the movie, does have some obvious issues. He takes care of his aged mother, and he remembers childhood trauma that causes him to risk his own life almost every night. There isn’t much given about his past, but the audience does see that there is one incident when he is working with either the military or after, that has caused him to take on the role of a paid savior.
 
This movie is a slow burn. It begins in a hotel room and ends in a diner. There are scenes which seem to be placed just to confuse the audience as to what is really going on, but overall it is a movie in something of the same vein as Leon: The Professional. Joe is sent to find and rescue Nina, the daughter of an elected official. Her father finds out who has taken his daughter and is understandably upset when he finds it is the man he is working on a campaign for. The man has been so taken with Nina that when she is rescued, she is immediately retrieved, setting off events that cause death to those Joe loves, and causing him to do what he has learned to do best, kill.
 
This movie was slow and weird, but there were several scenes that were interesting. One scene is Joe laying next to a man he has been fighting with. They are both laying on the floor, one dying and one exhausted from the fight. A song comes on and they both sing softly to it, holding hands as the man dies. There are several other intense scenes which makes one question the sanity of Joe, or what his plans are. He is searching for something, and in the end, like Leon had Matilda, Joe has Nine to save him from himself.
 
You Were Never Really Here is not a bad movie, but I don’t think everyone will enjoy it. It is a thought provoking movie, and for me, it made me wonder once again, about man’s inhumanity to man.

I just finished watching FIFTY SHADES FREED and I've decided not to review it, because it wasn't any better than the other movies. The plot was iffy, it was all about sex (duh), and the "thriller" aspect was so, so, so very dumb. I mean *and here is where I insert spoilers* this entire thing was about revenge because the wrong kid got adopted and another kid got adopted. I mean, does this happen? Do kids look up their foster siblings when they grow up? Do they get jealous of ones who are adopted into wealthier families? I don't know, I didn't think the reason behind the suspense was realistic. Plus, again there was no chemistry between the two main characters.

So instead of reviewing the movie I decided to talk about what I am doing.

I am going to be at the Hanover Book Festival in Mechanicsville, VA. I will be selling books and bookmarks! So come and join. The festival is this Saturday, the 27th, from 10am-2pm!

And next Saturday, May 4th, I will be selling at a comic festival held at the Howell Library: 806 Lyons Boulevard
Fredericksburg VA 22406.

This event is from 1-4pm, and I will have my books and bookmarks there as well!

Some and see me. I love talking to horror and pop culture fans! Plus, we can talk about the awesome new things I have in development!

When I bought Anna and the Apocalypse I didn't realize it was the novelization of a movie, I actually thought it was the other way around, and the movie was based on the book. I can honestly say I wouldn't have bought it if I knew.
 
Anna lives in the small Scottish town of Little Haven. She is a high school senior who is ready to get on with her life, and get out of Scotland. Her best friend, John, is of course in love with her, and has yet to tell her. She has many friends, and is the bane of the school's vice principal, Mr. Arthur Savage. Anna has dreams and aspirations. Anna is also a very single minded, and boring character. In fact, most of the characters are a little dull and flat. They begin to become stereotypes of what someone thinks teens are like. And one of the issues I have with this novel is that the premises or plot is that if makes Anna sound much more developed, a seventeen year old (I assume) girl who is dealing with the death of her mother (she died when Anna was twelve, why is it such a huge deal in this novel when it doesn't add anything to the story), and trying to survive high school.
 
The back of the book touts that it is a "horror comedy about a teenager who faces down the zombie apocalypse with a little help from her friends," but there weren't a lot of zombies in this until about page 85, and there was very little, if any, comedy. There were attempts, but most of the jokes were bad puns and terrible, terrible jokes. None of the characters were very interesting, except maybe Steph, but there wasn't enough backstory for her to be fully developed. For example, the reader knows that she was sent to the school and is from Canada. She has a girlfriend, and her parents are going to vacation in Mexico. She keeps saying she was sent away because she was "difficult" but it isn't really what is explained what she means by that, and she is very protective of the fact that she has a girlfriend, but she doesn't expand on that either (for example, did she have a bad experience while out with her girlfriend, or do her parents no accept that she is a lesbian).
 
When the zombie apocalypse does finally happen, there is a development that is explained either. In fact, a lot of things in this book seem to be glossed over. Like how is Anna's father, Tony, unable to protect himself against Savage? Why is Savage such a jerk and why is he so strong? Savage has zero background, and so the reader doesn't have any idea why he seems to hate people so much, especially the teens he works with. This book is all over the place.
 
While it could have been fun and interesting, there was nothing but sad attempts at humor and a noticeable lack of good zombie scenes. I do not recommend this novelization, and I cannot recommend this book. It is flat and there is not enough interesting about the characters to keep one interested. It is a fast read, and if I had the time I could have read it in one sitting, but it takes too long to get to the zombies, and the characters don't make me care enough to care if they live or die.

The Wall has an interesting concept behind it, but it lacks in development.
 
The Wall by John Lanchester is about a young man named Joseph Kavanaugh who is set out to work on... the Wall. Most people have few options for this dystopian future, and since Kavanaugh wears glasses he feels that his options are limited. The world is a dim and very cold place, and the wall seems to be protecting an island surrounded by water due to climate change. While on the wall the job of the "defenders" is to keep "the others" from getting over the wall. If some of the others do make it over then the defenders are sent out to live as the others were.
 
There are a lot of interesting and thought -provoking ideas in this novel, however it lacks a little in character development and actual story development. What the reader is given is that the wall is not a place anyone wants to be, and that the world is a very cold place. The reader doesn't get to know much about the characters themselves, even the main character Kavanaugh. The reader gets insight a little into his family life, he doesn't get along with his parents because they feel guilt over what has happened and the life they have created for their children and grandchildren. He doesn't like going home and is seeking another way so he doesn't have to, yet that is basically all we know about him. Even as the main character, when circumstances are dire for him and his love interest, we don't see him step out and do anything or think anything that might make him someone in our eyes.
 
Most of the characters are treated this way, even the Captain, who was once an other and is now a defender on the wall. It would have been interesting to get a little backstory into him and how he went from being an other to being a Captain on the wall. Yet, once again, where there could have been added information we get almost a two dimensional character who adds nothing to the story but one moment of lies and betrayal. There could have been much more added to the characters, for in one instance a character dies, and I can't remember where we saw the character, what they looked like, or what they had added to the story.
 
The idea is very much like what you you think of when you thought of the movie Waterworld. A lifetime spent on water looking for suitable land to live on, and upset when you find land, but it isn't suitable to live on or attach oneself to. There have been many tales of climate change creating a different face to the land structures of the world, and while it is intriguing it just wasn't built as as a strong story. There is nothing in this story that makes it stand out from others, as it is almost an amalgamation of several different dystopian novels. There are the "Breeders" who pop out children for a comfortable live. There is the "Help" who are others who have made it over the wall but are still looked at as nonhuman. There are the "defenders" those who do a job because someone has to. And then there is reference to people who disagree with the way all of this is run, and yet we don't get to see but one of them throughout the entire book.
 
While this isn't a bad book, and it is a fast read, it wasn't as fully developed as it could have been, and like the bottom of an ice cream cone, it left me wanting more.

Fifty Shades Darker..... more like fifty shades of why the hell was this movie made and why am I wasting my time with it?

Anna has decided, in this part two to the fifty shades series, that she is willing to give Christian another chance, but only if he follows her rules. While she is still willing to be spanked, and is intrigued by some of his toys, she is upset by the way his past keeps finding her, and threatening her future with Christian. 

This movie basically had zero plot, and the ending was so abrupt that I literally shouted, "Are you serious, that's how we're going to end this one?" Anna goes through the same motions she went through in the first movie, several deer in the headlights moments when she has no idea how to take care of herself, then she tries to take a stand just to fall back into her deer in the headlights ways. She is faced with the woman who taught Christian everything he knows, and she goes so far as to throw a drink in her face (oh the horror), and she is confronted by a former "slave" who threatens her life and wonders why Anna is so special, and Anna just runs away when Christian tells her he can handle it, then the whole situation isn't spoken about again. 

I don't know if it is the story or the acting by Ms. Johnson, but this was not good. The character of Anna was not very likeable or interesting, and a lot of the time I found myself wanting to slap her myself. I am thinking the writing of this was not well done, as none of it remotely fit together. There was a lot of hey let's do this, then no let's do this, then maybe we should stop, and I just want to be my own person. Also, it wasn't believable that Anna's boss gets fired and she moves from his assistant to his job - yeah sorry, spoiler alert.

Also, there is zero chemistry between the characters, and the sex scenes are washed out and boring. I was not at all interested, or turned on, which if we're going to watch a movie like this, I expect to be turned on at least a little bit.

So, do I recommend this movie, absolutely not. Am I going to watch the last one, most likely yes because apparently I am a masochist. Should you watch these movies, no, in fact run away, no, in fact, why don't you just watch porn. Even the worst porn is more interesting than this crap.

The Girl With All the Gifts does share some similarities with the novel, but it isn’t really a lot like the novel. There are a lot of places in the movie that the divergence is clear, and it starts in the beginning, which I think might also be understandable. The book has a lot of information in it, and they cut some of it, probably due to the length of the movie. If they had kept it all it would have been longer than it hour and fifty-one minutes.
 
This movie is about a girl, Melanie, a scientist, and a teacher, who are trying to survive a dystopian/apocalyptic future full of zombies, which are called hungries in both the movie and the novel of the same name. In one instance everything changes, and Melanie finds herself defending her teacher in a way she didn’t know she could, and the teacher, scientist, a couple of soldiers, and Melanie find that they need to find a way to safety, to the Beacon of hope. However, a landscape full of hungries stands in their way, and they don’t know if they will survive, if they will be eaten, or if they will become a monster themselves. Of course, one question a lot of movies like this pose is who is the real monster?
 
Throughout the movie, Melanie, played by Sennia Nanua, portrays an innocent, playful, inquisitive child, well. She does not know what she is, although she does know that she is different. While she does still seem to be the same character in the movie as she is in the book, I feel that the movie made her a tad more intelligent and inquisitive than she was in the book. She still loves her teacher, Helen Justineau, and she does what she can to help her, but she isn’t as curious about the other children, nor is she as frightened as she was in the novel towards Doctor Caroline Caldwell.
 
Speaking of the other children, the movie makes a hasty introduction, but it isn’t really as thorough of the book, so it feels as if some of the information that made the story interesting is left out. The interactions between the children and the instructors and soldiers, isn’t as built as it could have been. In the novel, the reader knows how Melanie feels about Helen because there are several interactions, however in the movie there is only one scene in the schoolroom, and one outside, before everything goes to hell. The viewer of the movie doesn’t get as much background on the rest of the children, so there is no reason for the viewer to have as much sympathy for them as there was built in the novel.
 
Throughout it was obvious that several things had been changed due to the time restrictions of the film. The only monsters they had to face were the hungries, whereas in the book there are not only the hungries, but also humans with nothing to live for but their own selfish survival. The ending is a little different, but it isn’t a bad movie. Part of it, like a lot of movies, are a little slow, but overall, not bad. I will say, this is another case of I prefer the novel over the film, but that isn’t always true. I felt there was more depth to the novel that was lost in the film’s translation.